Blog Post #14: Marketing and Human Priorities

Hey everyone! As my semester is coming to a close, I want to take the opportunity to thank those of you that have been following my blog. I really appreciate it. I have put a solid amount of work in to this project, and I hope that some of you have been able to come away with some valuable lessons learned. In addition to this post, there will only be one more post (at least in the sense that it will likely be the last post which pertains to the topic of marketing). Throughout this experience, I have realized the very real interest that I have in blogging in general. I find blogging to be a useful outlet that allows me to both gather my thoughts and to deliver meaningful messages and lessons to others. I plan on continuing a blog somehow (which will likely entail creating a new blog with a new purpose).

Thanks to all that have been reading my blog!

I addressed the concept of sustainability in my 11^th blog post (entitled “Sustainability is Not ‘Going Green’”) on April 6^th, and in light of a recent assignment that I have had in my marketing class, I would like to revisit the topic. The assignment I mentioned is a video promotion project focused on topics of environmental sustainability. The goal is to be able to create value for a specific target market with the video. My project, along with my partner Yiwen, focuses on water and sustainability. A problem arises, though, when trying to target a certain group of people when water sustainability problems are so pervasive in the modern world.

Water seems abundant, but there are HUGE problems across the globe when it comes to water.

The problem that I am speaking of relates to issues discussed in my philosophy class, entitled “Philosophy of Science, Technology, and the Environment.” Recently, we discussed the fact that people are more likely to take action when they learn that songbirds are being placed in danger rather than when they are being told that groundwater is becoming more and more polluted. While the groundwater pollution is a larger scale issue, people seem to directly relate to the songbirds suffering to a greater extent. This is interesting, especially since it can certainly be argued that groundwater is more important to human life than songbirds (Midgley, 2004, p. 234). The main reason for many humans who prioritize songbirds over groundwater is that humans personify and relate to songbirds; they attribute human qualities to them.

This is a lesson that should be considered when attempting to target a specific group of people when it comes to promoting the social awareness of environmental sustainability of any kind. Efforts need to hinge on factors that humans will give priority to. This is in a way unfortunate, but many causes can be approached in multiple ways to take advantage of this lesson. For example, maybe instead of showing how flushing prescription drugs down the toilet ends up polluting ground water, show how flushing prescription drugs harms aquatic life. The appeal will be more emotional and will likely see wider success.

A takeaway from what I have just discussed is that manipulating a message in order to match your organization/movement’s values with the values of the consumer is sometimes a necessary move. If done correctly, the integrity and point of the message will not be warped in any way. Instead, think of it like this: the message is being repackaged for easier and smoother consumption. It may not always seem obvious, so when consumers are not buying into your vitally important message about environmental sustainability, think about this post.

References

Midgley, M. (2004). Problems of Living with Otherness. In The myths we live by (p. 234). New York, NY: Routledge.

Blog Post #13: Playoff Hockey in the Hub

NOTE: See updated post below... (4/20/14)

Original Post (previously titled "To Be Continued..."):

I know that I normally post around noon on Sundays, but today is Easter, which means Easter break for us at St. Mike's this weekend (we also got Friday off and we're getting tomorrow off, too). The reason that you're going to have to wait until tonight for my post is because I'm going to be one of 17,565 in attendance at TD Garden (or Gahden) for the BRUINS PLAYOFF GAME at 3PM against the Detroit Red Wings. In case you couldn't tell, I'm a huge fan of the Bruins. I want to try to tie marketing concepts to my experience at the game today in my post. So for now, I'll leave you with a few videos that the Bruins made for the playoffs. Take a look and think about what type of tactics they're using with the videos. Also, here's something else to think about for now: I paid over $100 for my ticket, so what approach are the Bruins taking with their pricing? Happy Easter and GO BRUINS!!!

Video #1: "The Calm"

Video #2: "The Law of the Jungle"

Update:

The Bruins won the game! For those interested, here is a link to the game recap on Bruins.com. I have also posted a video of the highlights below this paragraph. The score was 4-1 and the series with the Red Wings is now tied at one game apiece. It was an absolutely incredible experience as always. I have attended a number of Bruins’ playoff games, including Stanley Cup Game 6 in 2011 and Stanley Cup Games 3 and 6 in 2013, so I am no stranger to the playoff atmosphere. The TD Garden was buzzing with excitement, nerves, and hope. Being the day before the first Boston Marathon since the bombings in 2013, the game felt like it meant a little bit more to the city than it would have otherwise (which is still a lot).

One thing that happens at games that TV viewers do not get to see is the pregame presentation on the jumbotron. The Bruins played a slow montage showing the players getting ready to play and then contrasted it with fast cuts showing Bruins players scoring goals, making hits, and celebrating. The video is certainly targeted directly at Bruins fans at the TD Garden and affects fans by making them excited and getting their blood pumping. As a fan, the pregame presentation is one factor that differentiates watching games on TV and watching games live. It is certainly one of the selling points for the Bruins, and likely other NHL teams.

What I thought about in-depth, though, is that what is really being sold when purchasing a Bruins playoff ticket (and ticket in general) is an experience, not a game. If fans cared solely about the game, they would stay home and watch on TV. Clearly, this is not the case. I spent $120 on a “cheap” ticket. Fans pay prices like that so that they can feel the emotion in the TD Garden firsthand and so that they can tell all of their friends, “I was there” for that historical hockey moment.

I watch the majority of the Bruins’ games on TV, but nothing compares to actually attending a game. The Bruins certainly focus on this idea when promoting games. Marketers try to create a fan (or customer) experience that allows them to relate with other fans and the team by doing things like showing wacky fans on the jumbotron and having a “fan of the game.” The fan of the game wins free food, which is not cheap at TD Garden. Little things like this go a long way with creating a community of fans. This is likely the most important selling point for the Bruins and other professional sports teams: the fact that attending a game means being in the company of thousands of like-minded people who share many of the same thoughts and interests. It is hard not to enjoy feeling like you are part of something that is larger than you. That something in this case is the Bruins organization. That is what going to games as a fan is all about, feeling connected your favorite team.

Blog Post #12: It's Everywhere

Most weeks my topics for this blog are based loosely off of subjects that we have covered in my marketing class during the previous week. However, I am going to take a different approach this week since for the past week we have been working on shooting and editing video for a social awareness project about sustainability. When done with this video, the goal is to talk about how we created value, how we are targeting consumers, etc. with the video. I think that it will be more relevant to discuss this when the video is actually complete and I can post it on the blog and discuss it at length.

What I think would be interesting to do, since I am approaching the end of my marketing class, my spring semester, and my junior year, is to have a brief discussion about what I think marketing is all about and what it means to me. My hope is that this will spur a discussion within and between all of you that are reading this blog, to think about what marketing is to you. If you have kept up with my blog for the past three to four months, I hope that I have been able to equip you with some tools to aid you in thinking about this topic. So without further ado, here is a little about what marketing is to me.

Marketing is all about creating some sort of value for consumers. It is about addressing their needs, wants, and desires. Everything that you buy, from insurance to toothpaste, is purchased in order to address these needs, wants, and desires. So marketing is all about showing consumers not only that they want this iPhone, but also that they need this iPhone. The question is, though: how do you do this? How do you get consumers to buy your product that may or may not be similar to your competitors’?

This Apple iPhone advertisement is about a lot more than the phone itself. What do you see?

The answer to this question is that you do not try to get consumers to buy the product itself. You get them to buy into the values of your company. You get them to buy into what the product represents. If you are successful in this, then customers will not only buy your products, but they will buy into your products. If you are very successful in getting consumers to buy into the values that your products represent, they will continue to buy your products. Think about it, why do you buy the brands that you do? What do you think when you see a Samsung TV versus a Mitsubishi TV? This may not seems like it matters all that much, but it does.

Samsung and Mitsubishi TVs, although they may look very similar, convey very different sets of values

To emphasize this point further, I would like to extend the concept of marketing to a personal level. You may not think about it like this, but every day of your life you are marketing yourself. When you go about your daily life and make your own decisions, they reflect what you value. These decisions say everything about who you are. Other people then notice these decisions, and if they buy into what you represent and what you value, these people become your friends, acquaintances, and employers even. Think about how you market yourself and how your values align with people that you are close friends with versus people that you are not the biggest fan of. This all relates to how you market yourself and how others market themselves.

Whether you realize it or not, marketing impacts our lives every single day. Forms of marketing can be seen almost everywhere we go, and not just in the obvious ways like with advertisements. These are ideas that have been shaped throughout my life but have really taken form throughout my past semester at Saint Michael’s College. It is what I believe to be true, and whether or not your believe them to be true, I hope that they at least make you think about how every decision that you make in your life affects yourself and others.

Blog Post #11: Sustainability is Not "Going Green"

When you hear the word “sustainability,” what does it mean to you? Stop and think about that for a second. You might think about the massive explosion of “go green” movements across the United States and the world. You might think about cleaning up the world, bit by bit. Simply put, we have finally begun to see the impacts of our practices on the world around us and have started to clean up our act. But is “going green” enough?

We're all familiar with movements like this, but are they enough?

You are probably wondering exactly what I mean with that question. Well, it all comes back to the idea of sustainability. When you are sustaining something, that means that you are being consistent, you are keeping up with whatever it is that you are doing. I feel that a lot of what I have seen with regards to the “go green” movement that claims sustainability left and right is that there is an absence of the concept of sustainability in many cases. Sustainability is not about “going green.” It is about going green and staying green.

There are many respectable environmental preservation efforts that are great ideas but are not acted upon in the right way because they do not always go to the source of the problem. Sustainability starts with the doers. Cleaning up and restoring a polluted ecosystem is honorable and a great thing to do, but the problem will not be solved if the polluted ecosystem is simply treated. The problem will be improved upon and hopefully solved if the ecosystem’s well being can be sustained. This means tracking down the source of the pollution and creating a sustainable solution for the source. This is easier said than done, as we have dug ourselves a huge hole, but we need big solutions for big problems.

If you have been wondering how this all ties into marketing concepts, you are about to be enlightened. You may have been able to guess it, but the concept of sustainability also extends to marketing. Sustainability is all about everyone’s future welfare (since we are all in this world together), which is exactly what sustainable marketing is all about. Sustainable marketing is not only about environmental concerns, though, it is also about the concerns of customers. It is about environmentalism and consumerism. I am assuming for the most part that you know a lot more about environmentalism than consumerism, so for the rest of this post I want to explain some consumer-based sustainable marketing practices: consumer-oriented marketing, customer-value marketing, innovative marketing, sense-of-mission marketing, and societal marketing.

Consumer-Oriented Marketing

This type of marketing is focused on seeing everything from the viewpoint of the customer. This allows a company to easier consider both the present and future wants and needs of consumers. Companies need to remember, though, to also consider the present and future wants and needs of the company.

Customer-Value Marketing

Customer-value marketing is all about considering the long-run value of a product or service for the customer. So many promotions are targeted are short-term sales and growth rather than long-term. If investments are made into long-term value-builders rather than short-term ones, companies will begin to see that sustainable practices lead to sustainable growth.

Innovative Marketing

Innovative marketing is about real improvement. Successful, sustainable companies are not the ones that sit around on what they have and pat themselves on the back. If products and services are continuously improved upon in real ways, customers will see the change positively. Again, if these activities are sustained, companies will prosper.

Sense-of-Mission Marketing

This all comes back to mission statements. Successful mission statements are not focused solely on the product or service being offered by a company. A mission statement is all about conveying the values of a company to the consumer. This is what gets consumers to buy-in for the long run. If mission statements are not so specific and product-focused, customers will possibly begin to identify themselves with your company. Before you know it, you have a loyal customer for years. That is what sustainability is all about.

Societal Marketing

The final concept that I want to talk about is societal marketing. This is a consideration of a combination of stakeholder groups’ interests. Societal marketing takes into consideration consumer’s and society’s long-term interests all while keeping the interests of the company in mind. This is all about offering desirable products rather than deficient products, salutary products, or pleasing products.

As you can see, the idea of sustainability greatly extends into the field of marketing. Even in marketing, sustainability is about going green and staying green. Sustainability, though, is not all about the “green” necessarily. Sustainability is about more than just the environment. Sustainability is about creating a better place for us to live in now, but also for those who have yet to come.