This Week in Marketing: October 9, 2010

A busy week--so much news, so little time!

First, a quick update on two stories from recent weeks:

• Guess who has started carrying the iPad? Amazon.com. Is this a tacit admission that the Kindle has lost the e-reader war? Probably not. As I've mentioned before, Amazon's strategy has shifted, with e-books as the main source of profit instead of e-readers. The Kindle application runs on the iPad, and Amazon's e-book store is larger than Apple's at present, so every iPad sale represents a potential Amazon e-book customer. 
  
  
• In last week's column, I mentioned the FTC's suit against POM Wonderful for allegedly claiming false health benefits for its pomegranate juice. Although POM publicly stands by its claims, it has launched a new ad campaign which is long on sensuality (connecting the brand to mythical figures) and short on health-related specifics. You'll find all three new ads on Youtube; here's a link to the Warrior ad.

This week's highlights (with applicable teaching topics and links to discussion below):

• Gapocalypse Now (The Gap's new logo) - Branding, Positioning, Social media
• Smell Like a Monster (the Muppets and social media) - Branding, Social media, Viral marketing, Just for fun (video included)
• Opting Out of Targeted Ads - Privacy, Online advertising
• The Real Millenials - Demographics (video included)
• Marketing on Campus - Promotion, Targeting

Gapocalypse Now

• The article: Gap Asks Facebook Fans for Alternative Designs to Derided New Logo, from Mashable.com.
• The facts: This week, The Gap unveiled a new logo to almost universal disdain. Gap has responded by inviting customers to submit their own ideas.
• Classroom uses: The fact that people cared about the change at all offers an object lesson in the power of brand symbols. In addition, Gap's "crowdsourcing" exercise is a useful example of encouraging customers to co-create brand meaning.
• Going deeper: I'll follow up on this story next week, after Gap has announced more about their plans for soliciting logo ideas. This could lead to a creative exercise for students.

Smell Like a Monster (Video)

• The video: Smell Like a Monster, from Sesame Street (on Youtube).
• The facts: Sesame Street has released a parody of Old Spice's widely-viewed "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" ad.
• Classroom uses: If you have discussed the Old Spice campaign (or if you plan to), this parody, starring Grover, offers an entertaining add-on. In addition, the Muppet Studio Youtube channel has had a great deal of success with viral videos as a way to keep its brand in the public eye.
• Going deeper: Visit Pearson's My Marketing Community website for an expanded discussion of the Muppet Studio's approach to viral marketing (and a link to the not-to-be-missed video of the Muppets performing "Bohemian Rhapsody"). This post should be available by Sunday afternoon, October 10.

Opting Out of Targeted Ads

• The article: Digital Allies Offer Targeting Opt Out, from AdWeek.
• The facts: The Digital Advertising Alliance, online advertising industry consortium, is advocating the use of an "Advertising Option" icon to identify ads being delivered via behavioral targeting (i.e., analyzing past browsing patterns and choosing relevant ads accordingly). A user who clicks the icon receives information about how to block these sorts of ads.
• Classroom uses: Although online privacy has been discussed for quite a while

The Real Millenials (Video)

• The video: Barbara Lippert on the real millenials, from Adweek.
• The facts: This is a short (2 1/2-minute) video discussing findings from a recent MTV study of Millenials.
• Classroom uses: If you are talking about generational cohorts, this is one of the quicker videos I've found that has some interesting things to say about today's high school students.

Marketing on Campus

• The article: Marketers get creative targeting hard-to-reach college students, from USA Today.
• The facts: The article discusses the growing trend of hiring student reps to market brands to their fellow students, as a way to circumvent college students' skepticism of traditional marketing. Specific examples include American Eagle, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Red Bull, and Barnes & Noble.
• Classroom uses: The topic could fit into a discussion of non-traditional promotion techniques. In a discussion of segmentation and targeting, it could be used as an illustration of a way to approach one of segment attractiveness factors--reachability. Some of your students may have experience as reps, or may have seen student reps at work; if so, they will have their own experiences to contribute to the discussion.