Commercials in a World of Netflix

Netflix is a great thing. You can use Netflix to avoid pretty much any adult responsibility you want. Throughout the past year I have gone back and forth between watching basic television with my antenna and watching Netflix. I would get really annoyed when I switched from Netflix to TV because I would become so accustom to watching different movies and tv shows without commercials. Netflix is a service that people pay for, so I understand not having commercials in between shows or movies but what I don't fully understand is why channels that you have to pay for still have commercials. If Netflix can be successful with only subscription payments, do television channels need the income from advertisers and those paying for the channels?

My best guess as to why television channels still advertise, both on actual television plans and on their online services is because they can. For years commercials have been the norm, so why would that change now? Could television without commercials be the next big craze? It seems to me that even television is becoming a thing of the past mostly because I look around at all the college students I interact with every day and they have a Netflix subscription and if a show is on tv that they want to see they find it online somewhere. 

One of my favorite comedians is doing a show on Netflix and it sounds like the show will have a tv type format where a new episode is added every night on certain days. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out becuase right now a huge part of the appeal of Netflix is just binge watching shows. I am intriqued to see what happens in terms of entertainment in the future! Maybe it will be some strange combination of Netflix and cable! 

This Blog Post is Worth A Million Bucks

You know that bottle of wine you brought to your friend's dinner party that set you back $20? You could take your friendship to a whole new level if you let them know how much your dropped on the bottle. The level I am talking about is moving from social norms to financial norms. In the book Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely the difference between social and financial norms are mentioned in Chapter 4. One example that Ariely uses is a daycare that began to charge a fee for parents who were late to pick up their kids. Before the daycare decided to charge parents who came late, people were not always on time but did feel genuinely bad about being late. These parents were following social norms, which put more pressure to take into account other people's time. Once the daycare started charging a fee for parents who were late, parents began to follow financial norms. These financial norms seemed to convince parents that since they were paying to be late, they could be as late to pick up their children as they wanted. The most interesting part was that even after the late fee was taken away, parents continued to follow more financial norms and still showed up late.

One place in marketing where promotion and consumer behavior overlap is warranties on products. Warranties tend to serve as an excuse for consumers to use financial norms instead of social norms. One example from my own life is how I treat products if they have a warranty. Way back in the day, (actually just last year) I bought a fitness tracker for myself. Now this fitness tracker had a warranty that I paid for, I didn't take the best care of it and ended up dropping it in water. I was a little mad at myself, but also wasn't too worried because I had paid for the warranty on it. I was following social norms, I paid for a warranty so had no problem using it.

Now a few months back, I bought a new blender. This blender also had a warranty, but it was included in the price of the blender so I was not paying any extra money for the warranty. I have taken such good care of that blender because I didn't feel entitled to using the warranty since I didn't pay anything out of pocket for it.

One way markers can promote consumers to use social norms instead of financial norms is to include as many "free" features as they can in the pricing of a product. If a consumer feels as though the warranty is a gift as opposed to an added feature they are paying for they are more likely to use social norms.

Risky Business: The App Story

Apps are a great feature on phones, tablets, and computers but it seems like apps are the only new products entering the market. For class we were asked to create a product or service that could not be a stand alone app to solve a problem people 18-24 years old face. While my group was brainstorming we couldn't help but come back to an app. It seemed like the easy way out, just make an app. That got me curious if some businesses or people create apps to solve problems just because it is an easy way out.

For any class where our final group project was to create some type of product or service, one group at least creates an app for something. Apps can be really great and useful, however if they are just the easy way out, are they really solving problems? 

There are so many different apps on the market, and they are a lot less of an investment than creating a physical product. I truly wonder how many apps on the market have taken the place of a product. It is really difficult to not just jump straight from the problem to the solution. I am sure many businesses have thought they went through the long process and finally created an app that solved the world's problems, however they might have just jumped to a solution without thinking fully about it 

Then there are also cases where products are made and they pair with an app. Fitness trackers are a great example of this. With the new fitness trackers and large displays, you do not absolutely need to have the app to have a fitness tracker. The app is an added feature that helps maximize the product. I firmly believe that apps can help make a product even better, but stand alone apps may not always solve the problem you are aiming to solve. 

Next time you look at an app on your phone, think critically and ask yourself "is there a product that could be even more useful than this app?" 

My Retail Job is Still Marketing Experience

Having a job working retail can some days feel as though it is just another job to pay my way through college. Turns out, it might actually be more marketing experience than I thought. At my current retail job, I have the flexibility to create fun and interesting sales displays to hopefully sell more product. The first time I was given this task I just completed the task and made the sales display look as nice as I could without putting in much thought. Turns out that product really does sell better when it is presented a little nicer.

Creating nice looking displays isn't always enough to convince customers to buy products though. A lot of thought needs to be put into creating displays. Simple things such as whis next to which can make a huge difference in what customers will buy. If you are trying to sell a certain purse you need to think about where the purse is positioned in the sales display and if it clashes with other items in the display. Also, the purse should be the most prominent feature of the sales display if that is what you are aiming to sell. If you are trying to sell a certain shirt or outfit, the rules change a little. With each different display, it takes critical thinking to decide how to put it together.
ich color

I have been working in retail a few years now, for a few different stores and I would have never thought about how much effort it takes to create a sales display. Next time you are in a store, look around at how different displays make you want certain items. Once you start to notice these small details you might even be a more rational consumer.

Do Facebook Ads Even Really Work?

In college so far, I have experienced many a group project that focused on social media. As social media has taken the world by storm, many businesses realize the value in having a social media presence. Group project after group project my team has picked a local business, done some research into their marketing efforts and suggested some sort of presence on social media. For many local Bozeman businesses, social media is not a huge part of their marketing efforts. This lead me to the question, what makes a Facebook or Instagram Ad effective?

I recently came across an article by the American Marketing Association (AMA) about a company who set out to figure out which Facebook advertising myths were just that, myths. The article starts out by introducing what many believe to be the best practices of Facebook ads, these included things like using pictures of people, only having pictures relevant to your brand, and having text overlay on pictures. The findings of the study showed that irrelevant pictures are more likely to be effective in getting people to click on the links than relevant pictures. Brand statements and calls to action on pictures tend to perform the worst.

If you want to read the full article click here


This ad for Tampax is a good example of what people generally think of as a good ad for Facebook. It has words plastered on to the picture and the brand name in the corner, as well as being a picture of people, and showing that this brand can be used in an active setting. Now even though this has all the benchmarks of being a great Facebook ad, I spent less than 3 seconds looking at it because my brain flagged it as an advertisement right off of the bat.

Some of the ads that get my attention and hold it the longest are the ads that I mistake for friends posts. On Instagram one time, I came across an ad and ended up staring at it for at least 20 seconds because I thought a friend had posted the picture of a large group of people and I was trying to figure out which one was my friend. I eventually felt pretty stupid for thinking it was something my friend had posted, but the advertisement really got my attention and I actually ended up buying the product within the week.

This Coca-Cola ad is a lot like my example from Instagram, I stopped and checked it out for a second because I thought it was one of my really cool friends who always posts really rad pictures. This ad is a picture of person, however there are no overwhelming words plastered onto the photo, and the only relevant piece is that the girl is holding a bottle of Coke.

It is pretty clear to see from both the research, and also just a quick lap through Facebook or Instagram that a one size fits all method for advertising on social media is not always the best method.

Ugh, Politics

I normally like to keep my nose out of politics, especially in a public forum like this however one name has stood out to me since day one of announcing their presidential campaign. That name is Donald Trump. When Donald Trump first announced his candidacy everyone I talked to took it as a joke. As the race for both parties nominations began to heat up, the American people began seeing more and more about Trump. It seemed like overnight Trump began to look like a very real possibility for securing the nomination of the Republican party.

As the race continues to heat up I can't help but wonder, how has Trump gone from complete joke to a "serious" candidate? I took to the Internet to find out and found an article from USA today with several different explanations for Trump's popularity. 

• Candor- So apparently people love it when public figures, especially when that person is a public figure. Trump doesn't care how he comes across and it seems people have taken a liking to that. 
• Leadership- Trump has been a business man for years and that comes across to a lot of people as leadership ability. Although running businesses does not automatically equate to leadership skills, many people believe the two are directly related. 
• The Outsider- It is a huge plus for many people that Trump is not a lifelong politician. 
• The Celebrity- Going along with being the outsider, people who might not be involved in politics know his name from his tv show. 

Even after reading articles explaining why people are jumping on the Trump wagon, I still don't get it. This is a great lesson to me that when you look at someone and think they are being irrational, they might be thinking the same thing about you. Being able to cross that divide and create a commonality is what makes marketing effective. 

The Magical World of Weddings

Crazy cool garter sold on Etsy

If you love something, you should incorporate it into your wedding right? Well, one of the newest trends hitting the wedding scene is fantasy weddings. With the rise of internet sites such as Tumblr other social media websites, it is apparent that fandoms are everywhere. Everyone has their favorite show or movies that they wish they could actually live out. With this new trend, people are getting to live out their love of these shows. movies, and books on their wedding days. One quick trip to Pinterest (just kidding, there is no such thing as a quick trip to Pinterest) shows you hundreds of ideas on how to make your big day perfect. The wedding industry is already a huge industry with people pouring tens of thousands of dollars into their big day. But, is there a niche market within the wedding industry from these fantasy weddings?

If we break down basic wedding statistics, they look something like this.

• 2.3 million couples wed every year (6,200 a day) 
• $72 billion per year is what is spent on weddings 
• The average cost of a wedding is $20,000 

(If you want to look at these stats and more click here: Wedding Stats)

Even if only five percent of all weddings was a fantasy themed wedding, that would result in roughly $3.6 billion being spent on these fantasy weddings. This seems like it could certainly be a niche market to me. Now with all sorts of online sales, Pinterest, and Etsy I am sure that finding decorations and all things fantasy for your big day might be easy. However since sites like Etsy are still small businesses, usually one person creating amazing things in their garage, they might not be able to create enough of what you are looking for to supply your wedding. It seems as though someone could generate a lot of revenue from creating these fun and fantastical weddings for couples. All one would have to do is take a quick trip through the world wide web to find any ideas that those sharing their big day would absolutely love!

So whether you are crazy about Doctor Who

Check out this awesome Doctor Who themed wedding! 

Or you absolutely love Harry Potter 

Lots of Harry Potter ideas here! 

You can probably find someone just as crazy about your fandom as you are, and the possibilities for wedding decorations are endless. Don't be scared to go big on your big day, plenty of people are just as in love with your favorite fantasy as you! 

P.S. You can read the original article here 

It's a Match: Marketing Research on Tinder

I recently read an article on the website Advertising Age about Gilette turning to Tinder for marketing research. I know marketing research is going on all around, but I am still always surprised when I see a study like this. According to the research, out of all the right swipes, groomed guys got 74% of those swipes. This is a great example of marketing research being taken straight into the "real world" as opposed to just asking girls if they preferred well-groomed men. The study also got me curious as to if there were surveys out in the world of marketing research that had different results, and if it existed, why the results might be different.

After researching other articles I came across some research with results in line with the Tinder study, but also going into more detail on the subject. With the study of Tinder, the researchers simply observed how people interacted on Tinder, so really the only two metrics were studied; what percentage of right swipes involved men with well kept facial hair, and how many matches were with well-groomed men. In the other study I found, pictures of men were manipulated to range from clean shaven to unkempt facial hair with 3 different levels in between. The women were then asked to rate each of the faces on roughly 5 different elements. So instead of just watching if the women are overall interested in the men, like with the Tinder study, the women rate each man on a scale from one to five. Turns out the men with slight stubble (but still groomed) were more likely to thought of as masculine and attractive. These faces with stubble were also perceived to be a better option for short and long term relationships.

Both of these studies seem to line up in their findings. It seems that women really do prefer a little well groomed facial hair. So, if you are a guy who uses Tinder I would recommend a picture showing off your well-groomed face!

How Independent Are We Really?

Recently upon reading the book Nudges by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein I began to really wonder how many of my decisions I have truly made. In the book, the idea is brought up that people who lay out decisions for people, called choice architects, play a large role in how successful the "correct" choice is in being picked. These choice architects shape the choices, they nudge people in the direction of the right choice. Some large examples in the book were things such as medicare plans or 401Ks. It is easy to see how our large choices in life are affected by these choice architects, but in everyday choices, it is harder to see how choice architects shape our decisions.

In many cases by looking at a simple decision such as what to have for breakfast, it doesn't seem like others are involved in the decision. However when you break it down and look closely you can see these nudges. Say you chose to eat yogurt for breakfast this morning, it may not seem like anyone influenced you to eat that over a donut however, the chain of nudges started long before you woke up that morning. You wake up and choose to eat yogurt, but that choice was nudged by the fact you had yogurt and not a donut at your house. You have yogurt at your house because when you were shopping at the grocery store you picked up a flyer that was conveniently located at the beginning of the first aisle. You peek through the add and see that yogurt is on sale so you pick up yogurt. You take it home and put it in your fridge and the next morning you see you have yogurt and you eat it. Each of these steps were nudges. The supermarket placed the sale flyer right as you walked in the door, you could have simply passed it by. That was a nudge, just as seeing yogurt is on sale is a nudge.

One of my favorite places to go is a coffee shop in town, as I was sitting doing homework today I noticed a large nudge that I had never noticed before. On the menu, there are about five panels, the way the drinks are set up it seems that the more expensive and "fancier" coffees are in larger text. Also, the new promotional drinks have pictures of the drinks next to them. Since I spend so much time and money at this coffee shop I have gotten into the habit of drinking the same few drinks, and you guessed it they are usually the more expensive ones. The coffee shop nudged me to start out with trying the more expensive "coffee" and now I am much more likely to splurge on these drinks I enjoy.
When you start to look for nudges, they are all around you!

Super Bowl Ads: What a Waste!

In an article by the American Marketing Association, they discussed how effective super bowl ads are. Turns out these ads are not all that effective after all. Much effort is wasted on creating ads to be incredibly funny or heartwarming and not being as persuasive as advertisements may need to be. One example that comes to mind it the puppymonkeybaby ad. I honestly could not recall what brand the advertisement was for even five minutes after I saw the ad. Same goes when I see an advertisement that tugs on my heartstrings, I get so invested in the heartfeltness of the ad that I can never remember what was actually being advertised.

Throughout the year, marketers and advertisers spend incredible amounts of money and countless hours creating ads meant to really persuade consumers to buy their products, services, or ideas. Advertisements are meant to be entertaining but more importantly meant to create a desire for a brand in consumers. During the super bowl, this rule about persuading consumers seems to be thrown out the window. The super bowl is a huge event in the U.S. and Super Bowl 50 averaged 111.9 million viewers this year. With this amount of viewers, it is no wonder the commercial spots are incredibly expensive. Due to the large amount of viewers and high cost of advertisement spaces it is no wonder that marketers are constantly competing to make the funniest or best ads. The goal does a complete 180. Instead of competing for business, marketers are competing for laughs.

Sometimes marketers really do hit the mark with creating entertaining ads that really make a brand stick in your head, however when entertainment is the goal over persuasion, this is hardly ever the case. Here are a few more of my favorite ads!

How much is too much?!

Have you ever really paid attention to how many different products there are at something as simple as a grocery store? The thought might have crossed my mind, however I had never noticed how many options consumers had until I began reading the book The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. In the first chapter he begins talking about how many different products there are in even just one section of the grocery store. The main point in the book is that the more choices that people have, the more harmful it can be.

The dress I spent way too much
time picking out! 

One of the very first thoughts I had while reading this chapter was helping my sister shop for a formal dress for her first high school dance. Her dress shopping experience was so much different than mine, in the fact she had many less options. When I began shopping for my dress for winter formal, the online world was my oyster. I spent countless nights browsing at least a dozen different websites trying to find the absolute best dress out there. Don't get me wrong it was a great dress and I loved it (I still to this day love it), but the amount of stress that came as a result of searching for a dress with hundreds of thousands of dresses to choose from was overwhelming.

My little sister all dressed up for her first high school dance! 

When it came to taking my little sister to buy her first formal dress this fall, it was much less stressful. My family is from a small town in Eastern Montana so when my sister got to come to Bozeman to go dress shopping, she was over the moon with excitement. Now to paint a picture of my little sister, she is about 5 feet tall and weighs maybe like 10 pounds. We were on the hunt for a size zero dress that would be easy to alter because we needed to cut about 6 feet off of the bottom. We went to every bridal shop in town and finally found one with about 6 dress options. She immediately didn't like 3 of them, so she was left with 3 to choose from. After trying the 3 dresses on, she fell in love with this pretty blue dress (It reminded me of Elsa).



While I was searching for my dress, I was stressed out for weeks trying to make the right decision. My little sister laughed and giggled the whole dress buying process. Thinking back on Schwartz's thoughts, maybe having too many choices can be awful.

Online Dating vs. Dating Apps

Online dating has been around for years, however the face of online dating changed with apps like Tinder. Is marketing the cause? Or is it something else? I have seen ads on TV or the internet for sites like Match.com and eharmony, however I have never seen an ad on TV or the internet for Tinder. How do these apps become so popular without any advertising?

It seems as though Tinder has no apparent advertising strategy as an outsider looking in, however the marketing of the product has been incredible. Online dating sites often have long questionnaires to create meaningful matches. With apps like Tinder, the beginning contact is similar to seeing someone across a bar or party and going over to talk to them. Tinder doesn't strive to create lifelong partners, it is a
n app meant to be more about meeting people you might not have run into, not creating lasting relationships.

Tinder is a simple app that really strives to be straightforward. Along with its simplicity it is slightly addictive, almost feeling more like a game than a dating app. The folks at Tinder don't seem to be incredibly concerned with brand loyalty either. Although Tinder doesn't have an extensive advertising campaign with TV commercials or billboards its marketing strategy and laidback vibe seem to be working really well.

Sexism in Marketing

We have all seen those outrageous sexist advertisements from the early to mid-1900s, but is sexism in marketing still alive and well in the world today? Of course it is!

Sexist ads from the 1950’s are so blatantly sexist it almost hurts. Here are a few examples. 

Since it isn’t 1950 anymore and women have made huge strides in the world you would think ads wouldn’t be sexist anymore. But sadly, you would be wrong. Cleaning products are still targeted at women than men, women are still sexual objects, and women are still portrayed as crazy.

These are all pretty obvious examples of sexism in ads, but what happens when marketing gets sneaky about its sexism?

So, there definitely is sexism in the marketing world! So why do women tolerate being over sexualized and paying more for deodorant in pink packaging? It is fairly obvious why haircuts and dry cleaning services cost more for women, they are more difficult and take longer. But why does making packaging pink hike up the price so much? Women are usually more in touch with their feelings, so it seems to be easier to get a woman to choose a pretty package instead of a plain package. One of the largest parts of marketing is to connect with the consumers, if it is easier to connect with a woman and get them to desire a pretty package. Women also tend to be more likely to associate status with the products they use, from their winter coat to the shampoo they use, marketers tend to market to this weakness.

Next time you are at the grocery store to pick up some new shampoo or deodorant check out the prices and see if you can outsmart those sneaky marketers!

If you want to check out a few more articles about the "pink tax" or how men and women's brains differ, check out these links. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201512/why-do-women-s-products-services-cost-more 

http://www.mastersofhealthcare.com/blog/2009/10-big-differences-between-mens-and-womens-brains/

Upon reading the book Predictably Irrational my eyes were opened to how people perceive just about everything in life. One of the biggest points that stood out to me in the book was the power of comparing. It is incredibly easy to convince a consumer to purchase the product you want them to purchase. Simply have a similar, yet not as great comparison for the consumer. The consumer will almost always choose the better of the compared products even if the other unrelated product is much better in value and overall a better product. Consumers want to know they are getting the best, and how can we determine what is best if we have nothing to compare it to? This makes me think, how ethical is it to understand consumers’ irrational behavior and use that to help urge them to buy a product or service? How do marketers use these vulnerabilities to create buzz around their product without violating consumer trust?

To many this may seem like a very fine line marketers are walking, however to me the answer seems simple. Is the product really in the consumer’s best interest? From the video McSubway Study we see that Subway markets their sandwiches as healthy, but if over indulged (eat the whole foot long) these healthy subs can become just as dangerous on your waistline as a BigMac. So, does this mean that the marketers at Subway are ethically wrong for marketing their sandwiches as healthy? Is eating a Subway sandwich over a BigMac in a consumer’s best interest? I truly believe the answer is yes. Just because a consumer does not do their research does not make a company’s marketing strategy wrong.

Want to watch the McSubway video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FgLlfNvNp8   

Consumers can be easily persuaded whether it is buying a new house, picking a girl up at a bar, or thinking wine that costs more tastes better. Marketers have a responsibility to watch out for the best interests of their consumers but consumers have just as much of a responsibility to do their research. Going back to the foot long Subway sandwich vs. the BigMac, people cannot blame Subway because they are obviously eating more food. Claiming Subway is responsible for tricking them into eating more is like eating twice as much frozen yogurt as you would ice cream and then blaming a frozen yogurt company. Eating healthy and making good choices as consumers takes a little more work and research however the payoff is well worth the work it takes. 

Empathy vs. Sympathy

Empathy is a concept that plays a huge part in the marketing process. You need empathy to effectively communicate and build a relationship with a consumer. When this concept of empathy in marketing was first introduced to me the first thing I did was research the concept of empathy. I knew the general idea however, I figured a refresher wouldn't hurt. While looking up empathy, I came across the idea of empathy versus sympathy. I had always thought they were the same thing, and looking simply at the definitions I couldn't see much difference. However looking at the examples, was where I really found the difference between them. To give you a brief summary of the definitions, empathy is more understanding other's feelings where sympathy is more about acknowledging other's hardships and providing comfort or assistance. When looking at these definitions, they don't seem all that different, right? Understanding and acknowledging seem about the same, right? Well, when we take a look at examples we can fully understand how empathy is more useful in marketing and sympathy might be more useful in a caregiving profession such as a doctor or nurse.

For more on empathy vs. sympathy check out this link:

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Empathy_vs_Sympathy

My grandfather is a loving and generous man who within the past ten years has experienced a lot of change in his life. He spent a great majority of his life in Cleveland, Ohio but that changed when he was diagnosed with macular degeneration. With this change in his eyesight, he had to give up driving and ended up moving to my hometown in Eastern Montana so that my dad could be close and take care of him. This big move happened when I was in high school, so not only did I inherit a new car, but I also inherited my own adorable human to chauffeur around. After moving into his new apartment, the family started to notice he was having a very hard time hearing. Within a few weeks of a hearing test, my grandfather got a brand spankin' new pair of hearing aids.

My dad and grandfather at a Malta Mustang football game.
My grandpa loves listening to KMMR's broadcast of the game
with his trendy headphones.

For my grandfather having both his hearing and eyesight at about half effort, he faces a lot of challenges that I would never even think of. In the small town, he now lives in, watching high school sports is the big weeknight entertainment. Watching sports can be hard for my grandfather because of his eyesight. Lucky for him, the local radio station announces local games. My grandfather brings along his pocket radio and headphones to the games and listens to the commentary as he watches them. This is just one example of how my grandfather has adapted to life with eyesight difficulties.

My grandfather had a watch I have seen him wear my whole life, however when he began having symptoms of macular degeneration he couldn't see him watch face anymore. My parents went out and found him a watch that would tell him what time it was when he hit one of the buttons. This watch is an example empathy, my parents understood how frustrating it was for my grandfather to not be able to see his watch face and solved the problem. An example of sympathy is my grandfather's hearing aids. With the hearing aids, the batteries are much too small for my grandfather to change by himself. My dad acknowledges this and helps my grandfather change the batteries. 

If as marketers we really look into understanding the decisions and challenges of the lives of those around us we can make a huge difference in the world around us. I encourage everyone to have empathy for all those around you. Empathy is the difference between my grandfather needing someone to come change his hearing aid batteries and a new design where the hearing aids charge when put into their case at night. Empathy is the difference between my grandfather knowing the time himself, or having to ask someone. Empathy is the difference between a successful marketing campaign and a total flop.