“The Blackfish Effect”: SeaWorld versus “Blackfish” film

SeaWorld is a family entertainment company that operates eleven theme parks throughout the United States of America. It was formerly a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch, with a headquarters in Orlando, Florida. However, following the release of a film about an orca whale, SeaWorld is now desperately fighting for its survival. This post will explain the arguments presented in this film and SeaWorld’s response to them.

SeaWorld began to face marketing issues in 2013 when a low-budget documentary entitled “Blackfish” exposed problematic aspects of SeaWorld’s primary revenue generator, its Orca whale shows. After the release of this film, SeaWorld’s shares have dropped by half and an eighty-four percent drop in profits. This is known as the “Blackfish Effect.” This film resulted in a wide variety of public campaigns by animal activits to end the captivity of Orca whales.

The film “Blackfish”, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, followed the captivity of an Orca whale named Tilikum. Many believe that being held in captivity for twenty years in isolation resulted in the killing of three people- one in 1991, another in 1999, and the last in 2010. Supporters of the film believe that the stress of performances drove Tilikum to exhibit aggresive behavior, such as chewing on the metal gates and the concrete sides of his tank.

Dawn Brancheau and an Orca at SeaWorld

When this film was initially released, many animal activists, and even celebrities, took to social media to call for a boycott of SeaWorld. Activists cite reasons such as SeaWorld breaking the Animal Welfare Act,  separating orca calves from their mothers, running a breeding program that shows little regard for cetacean health, showing little regard for its employees’ health, ignoring veterinary guidelines in the care of their animals, and generally profiting off of keeping animals in captivity when they do not need to be.

1. SeaWorld violating the Animal Welfare Act

SeaWorld was found to be in violation of the Animal Welfare Act by the United States Department of Agriculture after a routine inspection discovered expired veterinary materials in the surgical suite. The USDA also found animal performance facilities in disrepair. SeaWorld had also been found in violation of policies in 2007, 2012, and 2014.

2. SeaWorld’s lack of regard for cetacean health in its Orca breeding program

After the capturing of wild Orca’s became illegal, SeaWorld created a breeding program that many argue fails to consider Orca health. Female whales are forced to breed at an unhealthily young age. SeaWorld also has a program of continuous breeding, which involves constantly breeding female whales with male whales that are closely related to their breeding partners. This can lead to major problems for the survival and rearing of calves.

3. SeaWorld’s lack of regard for worker safety

One of the main topics of the “Blackfish” film is the ongoing legal battle between SeaWorld and OSHA, the federal agency that enforces workplace safety and health standards. SeaWorld is arguing for the continued ability to allow Orca trainers to swim in tanks with the animals, which OSHA argues is dangerous and stressful for both the whales and the workers.

4. SeaWorld profits off keeping orcas and other marine animals in captivity

There has been continuous evidence that demonstrates that being held in captivity is detrimental to the physical and mental health of marine animals. Captivity results in unnatural behaviors in whales, that results in trainers being put in danger. Part of what angers animal activists so much about SeaWorld’s captivity of these animals is the fact that SeaWorld claims to be a research institute. If SeaWorld actually honored this supposed purpose, it would realize that keeping intelligent mammals like dolphins and whales in captivity is absolutely detrimental to their health. Both research and anecdotal evidence have shown that the lives of the parks’ captive animals are marked by pain and suffering that these animals would not have experienced in the wild.

SeaWorld’s response to “Blackfish”

Despite the scientific evidence being on the side of the “Blackfish” filmmakers, SeaWorld has attempted to use aggressive marketing strategies to make up for the dramatic loss of business following the release of this movie. SeaWorld launched a marketing campaign and a series of television advertisements that claim that SeaWorld treats Orcas well, and that its whales “live as long as those in the wild.” Their marketing campaign focuses on providing facts about its animal care efforts and explains its multimillion-dollar investments in orca whale research in an attempt to rebrand the company.

Immediately following the release of “Blackfish”, SeaWorld released an open letter that appeared in major newspapers like New York and USA Today. In this letter, SeaWorld claimed that the information contained in “Blackfish” were inaccurate and that the letter was being written to “set the record straight” (source). This letter argued that the employees of SeaWorld are animal advocates who have “dedicated their lives to the animals in [their] care” (source). They went through some of the film’s main claims previously discussed, denying all of them.

SeaWorld’s Open Letter to the public

However, this was not enough. There was still a lot of protests occurring. Celebrities that were set to appear at Sea World parks refused to perform, and park attendance continued to drop. This was SeaWorld’s wake up call that they had to take further action.

The next step in SeaWorld’s rebranding attempt was to create a web page called “Truth about Blackfish”, which was a continued critical analysis of the “Blackfish” documentary. This campaign was launched on all of SeaWorld’s social media platforms to prove that “Blackfish” was one sided.

In 2015, Jim Atchison, SeaWorld’s CEO, was replaced by Joel Manby, who pushed SeaWorld’s marketers for full reputation management. The first action that he took was to create the “SeaWorld Cares” marketing campaign. This campaign consisted of various television commericals and print advertisements highlighting SeaWorld’s rescue and rehabilitation program, and veterinary care.

“‘SeaWorld Cares’ goal is to turn the parks inside out, so that guests can see al the good work we are doing with animals in terms of rescue, rehabilitation, treatment, to promote a greater appreciation of the whole mission,”-SeaWorld’s Senior Marketing Officer Peter Frey

SeaWorld also launched the “Meet the Animals” campaign to clarify some misconceptions about Orca whales that they believe “Blackfish” created. Another campaign was “Ask SeaWorld”, which was an attempt to allow Twitter users to post questions to SeaWorld’s Orca veterinarians and trainers.  However, this “Ask SeaWorld” campaign backfired when animal activists took over the hashtag. SeaWorld was still able to answer a significant amount of questions though.

Also in 2015, SeaWorld’s CEO presented plans for a fifty foot, ten-million-gallon tank for its Orca whales in San Diego. This plan was entitled the “Blue World Project,” which is supposed to open in 2018. This tank is supposed to include stimulating new environments for the Orca whales.

Artist’s depiction of “Blue World Project” idea

In June 2016, SeaWorld announced that it would begin to phase out the orca shows at its San Diego theme park within the next two years in an attempt to rebrand itself as an animal conservation company rather than an entertainment company. This is in response to the protests that started immediately following the release of “Blackfish.” These shows are supposed to demonstrate how these whales behave in the wild and have a focus on conservation efforts.

SeaWorld’s new CEO, Joel Manby, is still working hard to win back the trust of the public and investors in the company. This case with SeaWorld and “Blackfish” demonstrates the importance of knowing when marketers need to take dramatic action in order to rebrand their company. Because SeaWorld’s more passive attempts to fix the negative backlash of “Blackfish” failed, SeaWorld was forced into a position where they had to take more active actions or risk their business failing. This is a prime example of marketing used as crisis management.

-Merrin Overbeck

Marketing Real Madrid

Real Madrid, based out of Madrid, is arguably the best football club in the world. Real Madrid has won awards such as the “best club of the 20th century FIFA trophy”, about eleven European Cups, one FIFA Club World Cup, three Intercontinental Cups, three European Super Cups, two UEFA Cups, thirty two Ligas, nineteen Copas Del Rey, nine Spanish Super Cups, one League Cup, two Small World Cups, two Latin Cups, eighteen Regional Championships, and five Mancomunados Trophies.

Below are some of the trophies from the most competitive leagues:

“The Best Club of the 20th Century FIFA” trophy

European Cup trophy

FIFA Club World Cup trophy

Real Madrid was founded in 1902 with the name “Madrid Football Club.” Madrid Football Club was renamed Real Madrid when King Alfonso XIII gave them the title “real”, meaning royal, in 1920 along with the royal crown in their logo. Real Madrid plays all of their home games at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in downtown Madrid since 1947. Santiago Bernabeu has a capacity of 85,454 fans.

Real Madrid emblem

Real Madrid was estimated to be worth 3.24 billion Euros in 2015, and in the 2014 to 2015 season, it was the world’s highest-earning football club with an annual revenue of 577 million euros. Real Madrid has about 49.1 million Facebook Likes and about ten million twitter followers

Chart comparing Real Madrid’s worth to other top football clubs

Real Madrid has two main, long standing rivalries, one with Barcelona and the other with Atlético Madrid. Real Madrid’s rivalry with Barcelona is called “El Clásico” and its rivalry with Atlético Madrid is called “El Derbi madrileño.”

All of this background is necessary to understand why Real Madrid markets itself so successfully.

With football clubs, one of the main components of their marketing strategy is their logo. As previously discussed, Real Madrid was not always called Real Madrid. When the football club was first created in 1902, it was the Madrid Football Club. This name is fairly forgettable and does not have the excitement that “Real Madrid” does. Football teams’ logos are often closely linked with their names, and this is the case with Real Madrid. Below is an evolution of the different logos of Real Madrid.

From a marketing perspective, the changing of the logos was a smart marketing move on Real Madrid’s part.

Besides the name and logo, another basic marketing tool is the uniform, also known as the kit. Since Real Madrid was founded in 1902, their uniforms have been white. Some say that the reason why Real Madrid wears all white is out of respect for the Corinthian Football Club that the greatly admired. Wearing all white creates this image of sophistication and class that comes along with the name Real Madrid.

Not only is the color of the jerseys important, but so is the sponsor’s name that goes across the chest of the players. Currently Real Madrid’s sponsor is Fly Emirates. Originally, football clubs were not sponsored by anyone but because of the globalization of the sport, sponsors have become increasingly important. Companies have begun to recognize the vast business potential of the sport. Sponsorship represents an interdependent relationship between a third party company and football clubs. Football clubs need sponsors to generate sufficient income for economic solidity and potential growth. Football clubs also benefit from loyal customers of these brands that help generate more business for the football clubs. Sponsor companies need football clubs to promote their brand on a global scale through merchandise, jerseys, and other types of advertisements.

In the entire football industry, there are over 4.7 billion television viewers, 212 territories of coverage around the world, along with in-stadium, television, print, and online visibility.

In order to fully understand Real Madrid’s marketing strategy is is important to analyze other aspects of Real Madrid. Real Madrid’s target group is typically men in the age group fifteen and above globally. Real Madrid’s vision is to become the best soccer club in the world while also leveraging the Real Madrid brand globally. They seek to do this through establishing financial flexibility, a team of top players, and to improve the Real Madrid brand and content across a wide variety of distribution channels.

Real Madrid generates revenue through three main channels: merchandising, broadcasting, and match day revenues. Merchandising includes selling jerseys, hats, etc. Real Madrid generates revenue through broadcasting by selling the right to broadcast their games to television channels. Match day revenues include mostly ticket sales.

Real Madrid’s revenue sources compared to FC Barcelona’s

Real Madrid wants to continue to generate revenue through creating a story of value to exploit its brand equity globally. Real Madrid seeks to do this through clustering in China, India, and the United States of America. They seek to target different segments of the market through the use of emotions and sentimental attachment, which is a key strategy and component of the game of football. Real Madrid also plans to take advantage of the celebrity status of its players in its advertising plans. 

All of these different components combined makes Real Madrid’s marketing strategy one of the best in the world, clearly reflected by Real Madrid’s global success both as a football club and a business.

-Merrin Overbeck

Angels in Marketing: The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

One of the biggest fashion events in the world is the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Every year, Victoria’s Secret starts planning for this event months in advance…picking out the perfect models, performers, set designs, and much more. The Victoria’s Secret Fashion show serves as a month long…perhaps longer…marketing tool for the company. All of the thought that is put into this fashion show makes it a prime example of a successful 360 degree communication plan. Victoria’s Secret strategically plans the event close to the holiday season every year in order to take advantage of the increase in the target market that the holidays generate. This increase in the target market is due to the fact that more people are acting as consumers during this time. Besides their strategic timing, Victoria’s Secret also takes advantage of the supermodels and their social media presence to target key customers.Taking advantage of their models’ social media presences has proven to be a key strategy for Victoria’s Secret.

Marshall Cohen, the chief industry analyst at the NPD Group, stated:

“It’s an event that happens once a year and one of those that you want to talk about…”This is a highly social, digital event that will reverberate for weeks to come.”

Part of what makes the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show distinct from other traditional fashion shows, where models simply walk down the runway, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is created with the audience’s entertainment in mind. Essential components of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show include the $2 million “fantasy bra”, musical guests like Selena Gomez and The Weeknd, balloons and confetti, and the biggest models in the world. This fashion show distinguishes and elevates Victoria’s Secret above any of its competitors.

The Grammy-Winning artist The Weeknd performing at the 2016 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

One of the factors that distinguishes the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show from any other fashion event in the world is the caliber of models chosen. These models are so iconic that they are simply known as the Victoria’s Secret Angels. Not only are the models only hired to work for Victoria’s Secret if they have certain physical attributes, the models selected to participate in the show have tens of thousands, or even millions, of followers on Instagram and other social media networks.

Some of the Victoria’s Secret models on their phones before the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

Hiring models like these is a very intelligent move on Victoria Secret’s part because the people that follow these models on these social networking accounts are young women, who are entering the age of Victoria Secret’s target market. This means that Victoria’s Secret has an opportunity to draw in new customers from an early age. These young women also draw their style inspiration from these models, so they will most likely buy what they see these women wearing on their social media feeds. Because Victoria’s Secret’s products are reasonably priced, these girls will also be able to buy what they see these women wearing, which will generate revenue for the company.

Another way that Victoria’s Secret takes advantage of the publicity generated by the Fashion Show is through spreading the event out over a long period of time. Fans see all of the preparation and work that goes into creating the show, the models continuously update their social media accounts, and the company does all of this leading up to the holiday season. Victoria’s Secret recognizes the fact that this is when people tend to start their holiday shopping and takes full advantage of this. Victoria’s Secret was called a “major marketing cataylst” (source) by Cowen and Company. The success of the fashion show combined with the successes of the Victoria’s Secret catalog and the Victoria’s Secret Angels generates an annual sales revenue of over $8 billion.

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion show is also extremely successful because of its gender neutral appeal. Last year, 9 million viewers tuned in to watch the show and forty percent of them were male. Why is this? The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is created to entertain, from the sparkling runway to the musical guests, ultimately this fashion show is that…a show. Men obviously tune into the show to see the gorgeous women, while women watch to see the latest Victoria’s Secret fashions. Also, the Fashion Show draws in new and loyal customers. Loyal customers want to see the latest and greatest merchandise, while new customers watch to hear good music and watch the spectacle.

This gender neutral appeal has its origins when Victoria’s Secret was first created in 1977. Victoria’s Secret was originally aimed at making men feel more comfortable buying underwear and lingerie for their wives and girlfriends. While women are obviously Victoria’s Secrets main target market, the company still knows how to attract men into its store. So while men might just be watching the Fashion Show for entertainment, Victoria’s Secret lingerie is probably one of their top ideas for holiday gifts.

Social media was an essential reason for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Through using social media to select which models they are going to feature to using a hashtag (“#VSFashionShow”) to generate even more hype for the event, social media was a major part of the show. Through choosing a hashtag that is short, sweet, and memorable, people are able to easily remember it and look it up. Victoria’s Secret has also taken advantage of social media influencers. Because of the mix of fashion, celebrities, and music, a wide variety of influencers, such as beauty, music, and food influencers could post about the event. For example, “Oh Hello Hair” could post about the models’ hairstyles, while “Spoon University” could post about the best cookies to eat while watching the show. As long as these social media influencers were able to somehow relate their post to the Fashion Show, they would attract attention to their page during the event.

Besides third parties taking advantage of social media during the show, Victoria’s Secret obviously did too. Throughout the Fashion Show, Victoria’s Secret posted a variety of photographs on Instagram, describing how followers coud take advantage of various deals that the company was offering, such as free shipping online. Thousands of people saw these posts, demonstrating that traffic to the Victoria’s Secret website increased because of this social media strategy.

All of these factors discussed throughout this post demonstrate why the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is an extremely successful marketing tool that demonstrates the idea of a 360 degree communication plan. Through using social media, television, the internet, and more, Victoria’s Secret is able to strategically increase traffic to both their physical and online store leading into one of the biggest shopping periods. Through turning advertisements for their products into an entire entertaining spectacle, Victoria’s Secret is able to reach a massive target audience that other similar companies would never be able to reach through their traditional marketing strategies.

-Merrin Overbeck

 

 

Let’s make a movie

While it appears as though the most difficult component of releasing a film is literally making the movie, it can be argued that the true challenge begins when trying to make the movie successful. As of May 27, 2010, over 50,000 movies are made every year. This is so because of the rapid advances in technology that made digital video recording so easy that anyone with a  camera or phone could do it. In addition to this, editing software became readily available to the public. This theoretically means that anyone with a camera and a computer can make a full length movie, right?

In order to understand how amazing this advancement in technology was, it is first important to recognize how the film industry used to work. Film used to be one of the most expensive and time-consuming art forms. Only those with the proper equipment, funds, and knowledge were able to succeed in this industry. This exclusivity led to only Hollywood and its foreign equivalents being able to produce films.

While physically making a movie has became dramatically easier, that does not mean that it is necessarily easy to have a successful film. After physically making the movie, the next step is marketing the movie so that people will spend money to go see it. This is the difficult part.

In today’s competitive film industry, Hollywood film studios have moved towards spending large amounts of money on their advertising campaigns. This means that for major Hollywood blockbusters, film studios will spend nearly half of the total production budget. These studios do this because they believe and hope that ticket sales will make up for this large budget.

Below are some of the movies with the highest marketing budgets:

In order to understand how this much money can be spent on advertising a movie, it is first necessary to understand the process of marketing a movie once it is produced.

The first step is creating and promoting the theatrical trailer. This trailer is most often the first chance to promote the movie to its target audience. These trailers are often released a year before the film is released. Marketers use trailers to demonstrate to their audience a taste of the plot, special effects,and often best scenes. These trailers are created to leave audiences wanting more.

As the movie release approaches, the next key marketing move is gaining favorable press coverage in newspapers, entertainment television shows, and magazines. The main publicity tactic is called a press junket.

“At a press junket, journalists, entertainment reporters, and movie critics are flown out to a special location for a day or weekend of interviews with the stars and creators of the film.” (source)

These environments are highly controlled, often with interviewees being accompanied by a publicist to ensure that the reporters publish only content that will help promote the movie in the best light.

Press Junket with Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson from “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”

In the weeks leading up to the release of the movie, the marketers start a “publicity blitz“, where marketers release so much promotional material that the movie becomes a must attend event. Marketers do this through putting advertisements on the sides of buses, on billboards, running teaser trailers on television, placing full page advertisements in magazines and newspapers, and stars of the movie will appearing on television talk shows.

Advertisement for “Slumdog Millionaire” on the side of a bus in London

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio appearing on Ellen Degeneres’ talk show to promote his film “The Revenant”

 

Besides all these traditional strategies, marketers also use the Internet as a place to further promote their films. They do this through placing entertaining, interactive advertisements on webstes most trafficked by their target audience. They can also release behind-the-scenes clips, bloopers, and other videos on video-sharing sites like YouTube.

Another way that movie marketers promote their films is through using highly visible product tie-ins and corporate partnerships. They do this through placing images from their film on various products, such as packages of Oreos, cereal boxes, and cans of soda pop. A key marketing success is getting promotional materials in McDonald’s Happy Meals because of how much of their target market is reached.

Spongebob Movie promotional toys in a McDonald’s Happy Meal

Another final movie marketing strategy is known as the “publicity stunt”, which is a planned media event when someone, not necessarily anyone directly related to the film, does something silly, dangerous, or spectacular to draw more attention to the opening of the film.

Some examples of the publicity stunt include:

1. During the marketing of the film “Blair Witch Project”, released in 1999. In order to generate publicity for their film, the film makers gave out tapes of their film to college campuses and presented them as real video diary footage. The Independent Film Channel also played clips that were labeled as documentary instead of fictional. This publicity stunt generated a lot of buzz for the film.

2. In order to promote the film “Office Space”, marketers placed a man inside a                       twelve by twelve plexiglass cube in New York Times Square. “Office Space” is a film               about the motony of everyday work life, so the filmmakers had the man file TPS                     reports and answer phone calls.

3. To promote the military sci-fi film “Independence Day”, Fox started its $24 million advertising campaign with airing a dramatic trailer during Super Bowl XXX. This was a fake “breaking news” report that mirrored the 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, which made audiences to believe that Earth was actually being invaded by aliens. The film makers created a thrity minute news broadcast that was “interrupted” by news of an alien invasion and contained footage from the film. This broadcast was so realistic that it led to people calling emergency services because they believed that they were actually in danger.

However, there is no secret formula to have a successful marketing campaign because each film is its own standalone product, each with its own potential market segment. In order to make up for the fact that movemaking is an inherently risky business, marketers spend more money on advertising more expensive films. However, this can be problematic because that makes the film even more expensive through adding on a large marketing budget.

Some specific problems with the way that most big-budget movies are advertised is the fact that these advertising campaigns lack a focus on a specific target audience. With these expensive films, they advertise to as many people as possible, which makes the marketing campaign expensive. One possible solution to this problem is the idea of the “nichebuster”, which is a smaller, less expensive movie that is directed at a specific target audience  (source). An example of this is demonstrated by 20th Century Fox, which launched a department called FoxFaith that will produce and market movies to a Christian, family-oriented audience. This strategy is called “demographic marketing” rather than selling movies according to genres, such as action, romantic comedy, thriller, etc.

A final problem with the way that movies are traditionally marketed is that moviegoers are beginning to catch onto the different ploys that movie marketers use, meaning that many adults recognize the publicity blitz as just a way to hype major studio releases.

In order to overcome these issues, the best way to market movies is to move towards emphasizing online marketing tools. Marketers could take advantage of social networks, viral video sites, and other online communities to sell their movies.

-Merrin Overbeck

 

 

 

Marketing Music

One of the largest industries in the world is the music industry. The music industry is made up of the companies and individuals that earn money through the creation of new songs and selling admittance to live concerts and shows, audio and video recordings, and compositions and sheet music; as well as the organizations and associations that help and represent creators.

The modern music industry was formed in the 1930s and 1950s, when records replaced sheet music as the most important product in the music industry. Since then, in the early 2000s, the music industry was again revolutionized by the widespread digital distribution of music over the Internet.

This is the environment in which a lot of societies top celebrities were born, including artists such as Adele, Drake, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber.

Black_Top_G.tiff HAND OUT PRESS PHOTOGRAPH. PROVIDED BY Kate Head

2016 has been an interesting year for the music industry because many different music streaming services were released, such as Apple Music, YouTube Music, and TIDAL. Despite all of this, 2016 was a strong year for top-tier artists because of smart and strategic marketing plans. This blog post is going to examine all of these different strategies and explain why they were so successful. As a whole, these artists were so successful because they used integrated approaches that took advantage of all of the connection points they have with fans, and using smart publicity strategies to maintain a high level of buzz, not only surrounding album releases, but throughout the whole year.

Adele

Adele released her first album “21” on January 24, 2011 in Europe and February 22, 2011 in North America. This album was extremely successful in that it sold over 30 million copies worldwide. After releasing this album, she disappeared and the music industry stopped talking about her. However, in 2015, Adele came back through the release of her next album “25”. The launch of this album was so well planned that, according to Nielsen Music, it sold 3.38 million copies during its first week. This beat NYSNC’s previous record by over a million copies. The single “Hello” broke the record for the most-watched video on Vevo in 24 hours, with 27.7 million views.

Adele was able to do this through refusing to offer the album via streaming services to maximize revenue. She was also able to increase her relevance and reestablish her place in the market through throwing a free concert in New York two days before the album was released and collected fan’s email addresses through the entry process. Adele also increased her relevance and publicity through taking part in an Adele impersonation contest shortly after the launch.

Drake: Hotline Bling

Drake’s been an integral part of the music industry since 2010 when he released his first full studio album. He’s been awarded 64 different awards throughout his career. In 2015, Drake released his single “Hotline Bling”. When it was originally released, it did not have a huge impact. However, when the music video was released, the song became a lot more successful. The music video was so successful because it was designed for the internet. The “Hotline Bling” video features a variety of choreographed dance moves on brightly colored backgrounds. This allowed the content of the video to be easy to interact with. People were easily able to make this video into gifs and memes that served as a marketing tool to increase the popularity of the video.

Taylor Swift

Following the release of her super popular album “1989” in 2015, which sold over 1.2 million copies during the first week of its release, Taylor Swift continued to market this product indirectly. One of the songs from the album “Bad Blood” was released as a music video featuring Taylor Swifts “squad”, a group of female celebrities. Members of Swift’s squad includes Lena Dunham, Cara Delevingne, and Kendall Jenner. This group of women attended live shows and awards shows, driving the use of the term “squad” throughout society.

This is just one of the ways that Taylor Swift markets herself and her music in an extremely effective way. Taylor Swift takes advantage of the fact that she recognizes that her fans are more than simply the demographic they represent. She uses her social media platforms to better understand her fans and to create personalized experiences for her fans. An example of this was when Taylor created the hashtag “#taylurking” on Twitter. Through interacting with customers, these customers will gain a greater sense of trust and positive associations with the brand.

Taylor Swift has also created a unique experience called “Secret Sessions” for her most dedicated fans and social media influencers where they were invited to an album-listening party hosted by the singer herself. Taylor recognizes that forming a substantial relationship with customers through demonstrating that she cares about them is a way to retain these customer’s business.

Taylor Swift also has partnered up with large companies such as Coca-Cola, Target, and Twitter. For example, in a recent Diet Coke commercial, Taylor Swift is seen with kittens taking a sip of a Diet Coke while a song from her album “1989” plays in the background. Partnerships and advertisements ensure that brands are associated with other powerful brands that are well known and popular.

Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber has been a superstar since 2009 when he released his debut EP album, “My World”. Throughout the following years, he took advantage of the image of a teenage heartthrob to increase his popularity. However, as he got older, he started to run into trouble with the law and started to fall out of favor with his fans. That is the reason why, when Justin released his album “Purpose”, he and his team marketed it as a comeback campaign. It was anchored in collaborations with other artists that helped increase his relevance in the market. Through releasing songs co-performed with other relevant artists, as well as working with other celebrities to market his newest album, Bieber was able to release his album at number one on the charts.

Justin Bieber used a countdown featuring celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest and Shaquille O’Neill to encourage people to continue to discuss and promote the album. He also took advantage of this idea during the day of the album release by releasing music videos for each of the songs throughout the day. Part of the reason why Justin decided to do this was because of the stiff competition that he faced because of the One Direction album that was also released that day. Justin Bieber also joined forces with Ben Stiller, who portrayed Derek Zoolander, to co-promote “Purpose” and “Zealander 2” on Instagram.

As a whole, Justin Bieber’s album release demonstrated that the music industry is selling attention. Tom Silverman, founder of Tommy Boy Records, stated that:

“there’s unlimited ways that we can generate revenue once we understand that what we’re selling is the attention that artists create”

These artists all were so successful because they were aware of the important components for music industry success: timing, image/brand, mentors/advisors/collaborators, and fan connection. All of the artists discussed knew  the importance of timing, maintaining their image and brand, and taking advantage of opportunities to collaborate. I believe that the key component, and the main reason for these artists’ success, is fan connection. Whether the artist is Justin Bieber or Adele, the reason why these artists, that are ultimately companies, are so successful.

-Merrin Overbeck

 

 

 

 

America…no, the world…runs on Dunkin’

Dunkin’ Donuts is an American-based, global doughnut company and coffeehouse chain. This company has grown to become one of the largest coffee and baked goods chains in the world. 

Dunkin’ Donuts logo in the United States of America

This blog post will examine the different marketing strategies of Dunkin’ Donuts products compared across different countries, specifically the United States of America and Spain.

Marketing Mix… in the United States

Product: Dunkin’ Donuts started from humble beginnings in Quincy, Massachusetts, United States of America when Bill Rosenberg opened the first shop. He opened this restaurant with the intent to deliver food items that were distinctive and high quality, with an extra emphasis on freshness. Rosenberg chose the name “Dunkin’ Donuts” because he originally intended to serve customers fresh doughnuts and a hot mug of coffee. This idea eventually evolved into offering other baked goods. Five years later in 1955, Dunkin’ licensed its first franchise. Dunkin’ has gone on to become the world’s leading baked goods and coffee chain, serving more than 3 million customers per day. The company sells 52 varieties of donuts and more than a dozen coffee beverages, along with a variety of bagels, breakfast sandwiches, and other baked goods.

Dunkin’ Donuts’ wide variety of doughnuts that they offer

Some of Dunkin’ Donuts’ beverage options

Although the brand name “Dunkin’ Donuts” implies that the company’s main products are doughnuts, in actuality, doughnuts only make up eight percent of total sales. Twenty-five percent of total sales are the other food items, including the specialized baked products. Duncan’s main profit-earner is its drinks, specifically its unique coffee that is double brewed to “retain its original flavor“.

Price: In order to establish a loyal customer base, Dunkin’ Donuts has focused on establishing reasonable pricing policy for all of its products. In order to attract more customers, Dunkin’ Donuts offers products at a wide variety of prices so that everyone is able to find something that they are able to afford. Another key element of Dunkin’ Donuts’ pricing strategy is that 

“in order to maintain the volume of sales the prices are kept realistic and coupons and discounts on selected items are periodically provided. These keep the customers interested and leads to profits” (Source).

Dunkin’ Donuts has been able to reduce their costs through bulk buying and ensuring that the bidding on contracts is very systematic and done through a thorough process that reduces the product price. Dunkin’ also maintains close contact with the vendors, which helps keep control over the supply chain.

An average menu in the United States of America

Promotion: In order to attract customers, Dunkin’ Donuts includes advertisements in print media, such as popular magazines and newspapers. Through choosing memorable colors, pink and orange, and logo, the coffee cup, Dunkin’ Donuts’ image is clear in the mind of the consumers. Dunkin’ also created catchy slogans that were aired on television. These slogans include:

“Always Dunkin”

“Time to make the Donuts”

“It’s worth the trip, You’re Dunkin”

“America runs on Dunkin”

Dunkin’ Donuts has also acted as sponsors for professional teams, such as the New York Mets. Dunkin’ Donuts has also hosted contests such as “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut”, that keep awareness alive in the promotional market. A lot of Dunkin’s success is due to its fan base that follows their advertisements through mediums such as Twitter and Facebook.

Place: In the United States of America, Dunkin’ Donuts has nearly 7,600 stores. These stores are part of a franchise system of ownership. They are commonly opened in popular locations like gas stations, food courts in and around airports, Supermarkets, malls, and Walmart Stores.

An average Dunkin’ Donuts store in the United States of America

 

 However, Dunkin’ Donuts also has over 3,100 stores in thirty countries outside of the United States. Dunkin’ has been serving customers internationally for over forty years, even though it is based in the United States. One of Dunkin’ Donuts’ main international locations is Spain.

Marketing Mix…in Spain

While the products and prices of Dunkin’ Donuts in Spain are mostly the same as those in the United States of America, an interesting marketing issue arises when examining the “promotion” part of the marketing mix. In Spain, because the term “Donuts” was already trademarked by one of Spain’s largest bakery firms, Panrico, the company was created as a joint venture between Dunkin’ Donuts’ then-parent Allied Domecq and Panrico. This was done so that the brand name “Dunkin’ Donuts” could be used. In 2007, Dunkin’ Donuts bought Panrico’s share and the stores were rebranded to “Dunkin’ Coffee”. In Spain, their slogan is “Juntos es mejor”, which translates to “Together is better”. Regarding “place“, Dunkin’ Coffee stores are located throughout cities all over Spain, located mostly in Barcelona and Madrid. There are sixty locations total throughout Spain.  

Special advertisement for Saint Valentine’s Day at Dunkin’ Coffee

Average advertisement for Dunkin’ Coffee in Spain

Dunkin’ Coffee storefront in Spain

Because the world is moving towards a more global economy, an idea known as globalization, it is becoming increasingly common for companies to expand internationally. This means that companies must start to consider marketing between different languages and cultures. This international marketing can be seen across a wide variety of industries including the food industry, clothes, cars, handbags, and more.

When marketing internationally, it is important to consider language, culture, customer behaviors, and even things such as local patents and copyrights, as can be seen by Dunkin’ Donuts in Spain.

-Merrin Overbeck

 

 

 

Big Names Bring Big Bucks: Celebrities as Marketing Tools

In our society, people  fixate on celebrities. Through watching their weekly reality television shows to following all of their social media accounts, our modern society treats celebrities like Kardashians almost like royalty. In the way that British people follow the lives of the members of the royal family, Americans “keep up with the Kardashians”. Celebrities are well aware of the mass following that they attract and have capitalized on this success. One of such ways that celebrities have taken advantage of their fame is through the use of their image in various products’ advertising campaigns.

Celebrities, such as Beyonce and Jennifer Aniston, have given permission to companies to use their image as a way of promoting their products and brands. Because celebrities are often viewed as role models and people tend to emulate their behaviors and actions, they are a powerful marketing tool. For example, Beyonce is known as a great dancer, so Pepsi took advantage of this image in one of their advertisements. Taylor Swift is one of the most recognizable celebrities currently, so Diet Coke took advantage of her fame to reach a larger market segment than they would have been able to reach on their own.

Even beyond simply endorsing products, celebrities have moved to the next step of actually creating their own products to sell, such as fragrances or clothing lines.

“Fashion is where most celebrities have found their home”-Michael Stone, chairman of brand licensing agency Beanstalk (Source)

Since the 1950s, celebrities have given companies permission to use their names to established brands in order to increase the popularity of the brand and create desirability among key consumer segments. Just this year, celebrities such as Zayn Malik, Eva Longoria, Courtney Love, and Antonio Banderas have all launched fashion labels. Some fashion labels are extremely successful, such as the Jessica Simpson Collection that raised $1 billion in annual revenue, and Jay Z’s line, Rocawear, that raised $700 million.

Celebrity brands tend to be so successful because of the reach into various market segments that celebrities have because of their fame on the stage, screen, and sports.

“Celebrity brands enter the market with instant awareness. They’re usually thousands, if not millions of people, possibly globally, who know who the celebrity is. That’s something really unusual for a new brand. A new brand works really hard to gain awareness”-Trevor Wade, global marketing director at brand consulting agency Landor Associates.(Source)

However, it is important to recognize that not all threads backed by celebrities are spun into gold. Because of the competitive nature of the fashion world, there are many stories of failed celebrity attempts at creating their own brand. It is difficult to find the right celebrity to combine with the right designs, choose the right channels, and market to sell these products.

A reason why celebrities might fail at creating their own clothing line is based on the public perception of the celebrity. When creating a fashion line, celebrities are basically marketing themselves and their clothes to consumers. If the celebrity does not properly market themselves then their clothing line will fail. Some celebrities that have had failed fashion lines include Mandy Moore, LL Cool J, and David Hasselhoff.

In order to prevent failures like these, it is important that the celebrity is aware of different marketing techniques to make sure that they are being as effective as possible. Examples of effective marketing techniques that a celebrity could use when they are just starting their fashion line include basic marketing ideas such as:

• Creating a need for their consumers to buy their products (whether it is a fashion line or Pepsi, products are successful when consumers feel as though they need it, even if they do not.)
• Recognizing that we are in an era of Marketing 3.0, meaning that differentiation between products is not solely based on the product or brand, but also in terms of cultural, social, and spiritual values. This is particularly relevant to celebrities serving as marketing tools because consumers will be enticed to buy the products of celebrities that go beyond being simply an actor, singer, or sports star. People tend to identify more with celebrities that are philanthropic and help the community and marketers should take advantage of that.

• Knowing when to create more Strategic Business Units that will allow the success of the company to grow
  • An example of this can be seen by Jessica Simpson’s company that originally started only with clothing but has expanded to include shoes, hair and beauty products, fragrances, and handbags

Essentially, in order to effectively use a celebrity as a marketing tool, it is important to take into account the “Four P’s” of the marketing mix…product, price, promotion, and place. Through focusing on these different components, celebrities creating their own fashion lines and marketing agencies using celebrities can find success.

-Merrin Overbeck

Do it for the ‘Gram: Instagram as a marketing tool

Companies have been relying on many different ways of advertising for a long time, from simple fliers to commercial slots during the Super Bowl that cost millions of dollars.

Companies pay millions of dollars to have a thirty-second television advertisement during the Super Bowl

Gran Via in Madrid, Spain is one of the shopping capitals of Spain and marketers take advantage of this and place advertisements in every possible area

Advertising and marketing have changed a lot throughout the ages, following the technological and sociological trends…demonstrated by these Coca-Cola advertisements from different time periods:

 

Companies have now decided to move away from the high cost advertisements in favor of cheaper, but just as effective, substitutes.One of these latest marketing tools that companies have started to use is Instagram. Instagram is an:

“online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them either publicly or privately on the app, as well as through a variety of other social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr.”- Wikipedia.org

Instagram is being used as a social media platform to tell the story of a brand or company through attractive visuals, as well as using these visuals to sell products or services.Companies that use Instagram tend to targeting a younger demographic that frequently uses social media. Because companies target a younger demographic through Instagram, they tend to take this into consideration when planning content. Instagram is a way of presenting the company’s ideas in a manner that could be easily understood by younger consumers and a younger target group. When planning product advertisements and marketing, companies that use Instagram take advantage of the platform’s ability to showcase their products in a highly stylized and artistic fashion.

Ben and Jerry’s Instagram Advertisement demonstrating the idea that companies are using Instagram for simple visual advertisements

However, because of this target demographic, Instagram can appear to be a major obstacle for business-to-business services. However, services like these can use Instagram as a way of providing tips, tricks, motivational quotes, and advice to using their service. In order to come up with these kind of ideas, marketers must rewire their brains to think visually through pictures and images.

Companies have started to use Instagram as a way of alerting its costumers to when sales will be

When providing these tips, tricks, and other content, it is important for companies to recognize that they still are a professional organization while also providing trendy, relevant material that people will talk about. Through posting trendy, fun material, a companies customers will be more engaged. By making consumers more engaged, brands can actively interact with their community and form more lasting relationship between the two.

This idea of posting trendy and relevant material corresponds to the marketing idea of “moment marketing”. Moment marketing is the strategy of providing consumers with relevant material during a specific event or scenario in order to inspire their consumers to go out and buy the product. So even though the concept of “moment marketing” is not new, they sue of it has been dramatically improved through the use of social media as marketing tools.

-Merrin Overbeck