Final Reflection

1) Understand that the marketing process starts and ends with customers and consumers.
Throughout this blog I have written about multiple examples of advertising campaigns. These campaigns ranged from things you see every day to advertisements that are so outrageous they cause a controversy. One thing I have learned from examining all types of ads are that the ads are meant to do one thing: sell their product. In order to sell the product, they have to appeal to the consumer. Calvin Klein's highly sexual advertising is there to remind the consumer that Calvin Klein is a brand that is highly relatable to sex. It's all about the consumer, because in the end, they are the ones to decide which products do well and which products don't.

2) Understand the impact of market research and finance in the marketing process.
The most relatable assignment of the semester in terms of market research and finance was the McGraw Hill Practice Marketing simulation. Our team had to create the backpack based on what we thought the consumers wanted (based on market research), and respond to their feedback accordingly. We also had to analyze our sales data in order to formulate a profitable formula for selling our backpacks through our selected channels.

3) Recognize the legal and ethical responsibilities of marketing management.
Some ads that come to mind when talking about ethical responsibilities would be the St. Ides Malt Liquor advertisements that I talked about in Blog Post 1. These ads were highly successful, yet also deemed to be highly unethical because their target market seemed to be underage drinkers. In the end, the ads got shut down because of the ethical dilemmas they presented. Ethics are a gray area in marketing, and don't have the same rules and regulations as some other things, but they still have an affect.

4) Analyze and evaluate basic financial statements and business formulas.
The financial statements were key to having a successful practice marketing strategy, which we learned quickly after we spent way too much money on turn one. Break-even points were important, as they let our team know how much profit we would need to make in order to cover our costs. We could also evaluate our return on sales on different turns and analyze the efficiency of our decisions.

5) Appreciate the integrated role of marketing in business decisions.
Examining marketing decisions was a big part of this class. Almost all of my blog posts were examining marketing decisions, from targeted advertisements to financial decisions. Some of these marketing decisions were make or break for some companies: Red Bull's decision to use viral advertising catapulted them into the mainstream and caused them to be the company that they are today. We had to make a lot of marketing decision for our simulation, some of which were good and some of which were bad.

Viral Marketing Campaigns

In today's internet-driven world, advertising through social media is one of the most cost-effective and efficient methods of meeting a target market. Sites such as Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook making sharing content easier than ever, leading many companies to include a large amount of their promotional campaigns focused on social media. One of the tried-and-true ways of spreading brand awareness using social media is to create a viral marketing campaign. Viral marketing aims to create an advertisement that viewers want to share. In its essence, it is free advertising; an ad can be made with little to no cost, and spread for free by its viewers. Viral marketing campaigns are taking the internet by storm, and there are many examples of firms that have used viral marketing to make their brand what it is today.
If you ask any modern internet user which company they relate with viral marketing, there's a good chance that they will answer Red Bull. Red Bull has been using viral marketing for years, and they are one of the first companies that spread their name around using viral marketing videos, especially on Youtube.

This is one example of Red Bull's promotional strategy. Red Bull has made itself synonymous with extreme sports by sponsoring extreme sporting events and athletes. There was a market niche for extreme sports that were gaining popularity, and Red Bull filled the niche by using lots and lots of promotional campaigns. One of their earliest and most popular "niche sporting" promotions was the sponsorship of the Flugtag (air show), in which competitors make their own homemade flying devices and try to fly as long as they can.

These Red Bull-sponsored events began in 1991 and helped create a cool, adventurous image for the company. Ever since then, Red Bull has been spreading its promotion to all kinds of action sports. They are now the company most associated with extreme sports, and the position the customer associates the product to is one of adventure and daring.

Other companies are going in a different direction than Red Bull. While Red Bull, an energy drink, positioned itself with action sports, Home Depot, a hardware store, positions itself with do-it-yourselfers. 

What better way to make people relate Home Depot with home repairs than to create do-it-yourself videos showing people how to do things? Just as the highly caffeinated adrenaline junkie finds solace in Red Bull, so will the middle aged home owner in the lumber aisle of the Home Depot. The quintessential American Dad loves home improvement almost as much as he loves his kids and family, if not more. One of the best ways to inspire a do-it-yourself dad to attempt to tile his bathroom floor over the weekend is to show him a video that lets him know that he can do it on his own. Home Depot really hit the mark with these viral videos, mainly because they hit their target market right on the head. A lot of people already associate Home Depot with general home repair, and now there are videos that give them credibility and spread their image. 

These were just two examples of companies that used viral marketing to their advantage. Since the early beginnings of the internet, viral videos have been used for promotional purposes. With the way things are going now, they are more valuable than ever to build a customer base or position a brand to appeal to the perfect target market. 

Facebook Targeted Advertising

As of December, 2014, facebook.com had 1.39 billion active users. That means that almost 20% of everybody in the world has a Facebook account. Facebook was released in 2004 and bypassed Myspace in 2008 as the most popular social media site in the world. As a social media site, Facebook makes most of its revenue from advertisements. Every Facebook user will see multiple ads on the sidebar of their main page, along with advertisements within the news feed that users can share and comment on. The majority of revenue comes from the sponsored ads that firms pay for in order for them to appear on the sidebar.

These sponsored ads appeared on the sidebar of my Facebook profile. For those of you who don't have a Facebook account (approximately 29% of all internet users), Facebook is based off of data that you enter into it to. For example, I attend college, and have the name of the college I attend and the years I attend it entered into my Facebook account. Facebook connects me with other users who attend the college at the same time I do. You can choose what data you want entered on your account, to some degree. For example, if you don't want a picture of yourself appearing on your profile, Facebook won't magically have a photo of you displaying as your profile picture. If you are tagged in a photo, however, it will appear on your Facebook feed. You have the option of un-tagging yourself from a photo so the photo won't be linked to your account, but the photo will still be online. Naturally, there are privacy concerns with using Facebook, mainly that fact that whatever you put on there can be seen by a lot of people. 

Facebook has a wealth of information on each of its users, varying from basic things like names and birthdays to more specific interests. Facebook users have the option of "liking" certain pages, and this information is stored and used to target certain ads to individuals. 

For an interesting look into how ads are targeted to users, check out this blog that was written by someone who uses Facebook advertising. In order to target a Facebook ad towards someone, they must be a part of your audience. Audiences are created by separating potential targets by different demographics. Some demographics include the basics like age, gender and location, while others are targeted at users who liked certain Facebook pages. Facebook also tracks behaviors of individuals online, even when they aren't on Facebook. A user's search history and websites visited are stored using Facebook's third party firms. By using these multiple data sources, Facebook ads can be targeted very accurately.