Consumer Behavior

In America, fitness exercises such as Yoga and Pilates are famous and popular; in addition, Billy's Boot Camp, military style exercise, also became popular. Let me talk about the one of the successful campaign in Japanese Marketing using Billy's Boot Camp. Even though there were some exercise video before Billy's Boot Camp came out, most of them are unsuccessful as consumers never believed in its effects. However, as soon as Billy's Boot Camp came out, it recorded 20 million sales. One factor that it could achieve a successful record is that people were getting interested in health issues at that time, so there are a lot of TV program, which discuss health issues. In addition, Billy's Boot Camp does not require to prepare anything, just stand with a few space in front of TV. Moreover, the exercise could produce a result in a short term. Even though the exercise on Billy's Boot Camp is not easy but hard, Japanese people loved to see a successful result through the exercise. More importantly, as it produce a result in a short term, people had a high reliability by word of mouthby. I think that Japanese people do not get a reliability by any ads, but they tend to rely on other people' thoughts; therefore, the Billy's Boot Camp became popular as soon as they came out to exercise world in Japan. In addition, since it was already famous in America, Japanese advertisers use the name of American celebrities as the user of the exercise, and had a high reliability. I think it is effective to use famous people as they have a high influence, for instance, if famous young model use the product, young women would get more interest in the product, and they would use the product if young model recommend it. Therefore, it is necessary to know consumer behaviors. I think that is why many young advertises have been succeed in Advertising because young advertisers know consumer behaviors if their target audience is same age as them.

 

Interruptive Advertising

I strongly think interruptive advertising is very annoying, and I even think the product of interruptive ads give me negative feedback. When I was watching TV, the commercials were annoying because they cut off the show, but I didn't know when the show starts again, so I had to watch them unwillingly. However, as I glow up, I think interruptive advertising has reduced from TV show, I can enjoy watching the commercials. When I was a kid, I never thought about the commercials, but I care how the ads directly comes to mind these days. On the other hand, with high demand of internet,  the most annoying ads is the commercial on YouTube. When I click to watch video, then the commercial comes up, I always click to skip ads because I don't waste time by watching them. To me as Japanese, it is interesting that people watch Super Bowl to watch commercials. I think there are no interruptive advertising because people, watch the ads, chose to watch the ads! I never take time to watch commercials in ordinary days. I think the way to reduce interruptive advertising is way easy: advertisers make entertaining advertising!This is one of the favorite commercial from Coca Cola's. To me, Coke tells us the summer is coming soon, and this commercial make me feel wanna drink a Coke in the beach. This commercial always remind me of good memories in summer.
http://youtu.be/GARaNQXmXUI

The advantage of interrutive advertising is that people will get an interest in the product if the commercial could entertain them. Even though they watch the commercial while watching the show, they might know the product or brand. People have to wait until the show start again while the commercial's playing, so the TV commercial would be effective to let people know the product or brand by interruptive advertising. How ever, the disadvantage of interruptive advertising would be strong negative feedback. If people watch interruptive advertising, they would get annoyed and dislike the commercial, or even product. As advertisers have a target audience, if it does not fit to someone, they would be interrupted by the ads.  

Bring back the type writer

For this workshop, our target is  retired oldies who enjoy traveling and have grandchildren. For those target group, we decided to focus on showing the simplicity and the nostalgia of the typewriter using our advertising campaign. We choose to use commercial and radio.

The commercial     Old man flashbacks his old memory that he was writing his diary such as what he enjoyed with his dad using a type writer. After that, he again started to write about his life, traveling or playing with grandchildren. The commercial also shows that he does not used to use recent devices, but the type writer provides him to enjoy his life by starting to write a diary.

Radio    There will be sound of typing on type writer, and background music would be children playing. For this radio, basically try to use the nostalgic appeal, and bring the target audience back to the past.

Stereotypes Race

1.Is it ever right to racially stereotype for advertising purpose? No. I do think that racial stereotypes should be cut off from the ads, even though some ads still use them. I believe that the ads have strong effect on consumers; therefore, there are so many ads around us. If the ads target specific the consumers, and send to just them, there is no need to think about racism. However, most of the ads are seen by all people, so that advertises should make sure whether their ads offend audience or not even if they make the ads for purpose.

2.Is racism in advertising a thing of the past? I think that people are getting free to have races as mixed cultures are gradually received from the past. However, the racial stereotypes still exist and there are some of racism in advertising.

3.Do advertisers have ethical responsibilities? I believe that people, including advertisers, who send information or ideas to the public should have ethical responsibilities. They never have a responsibility to discriminate against people. I think that how each person feel from the picture or video is different from based on their culture or race, so that advertises always have to keep mind to consider racism. Even if advertises do not intend to discriminate against people, the ads would be regard as racism if someone get hurt by them.

 http://youtu.be/si-lSLv9b4E
This is a commercial of mobile company in Japan. When I looked for the commercials, which is said to include racism, I found this. However, as a Japanese, I did not think this commercial uses racism, like some American say. The monkey, which is the company's mascot, is saying that their mobiles have good great service, like the President's speech, and the President Obama regarded this commercial as racism. However, to Japanese, we never discriminate against him because the monkey is the company's mascot, and this company uses the monkey for their whole commercials. I think that there is a racism like other countries have, but we are less close to racial stereotypes. Thus, like I said earlier, how people feel from the ads are far different from their race or culture; therefore, advertises have to think about not only their concepts but also other people' view.

Nostalgia Marketing

1. What are some of the major advantages and disadvantages of nostalgia marketing? The use of nostalgia as one of the advertising technique would be highly effective as it brings a strong emotional appeal to consumers, and it obviously has a high demand in advertising. I think that the reason why the ads using the nostalgia could be effective is that the nostalgic feelings can mostly bring positive reflections in consumers. People always remember the good memories when we think of the past. For instance, when we see the nostalgic ads, it reminds the image of the past, and we unwillingly image our good memory from the past; therefore, the nostalgic ads could affects consumer's attitude and their image of the product positively. To me, i used to go to camping with family, so whenever i see the commercials that related to camping, it reminds of my old memory, and I have a positive feelings toward the product as a result. However, it is way important how to use the nostalgic ads, or the consumers could get negative feelings toward the product. If the ads using nostalgia pitch the specific product, it should not target one thing. In other words, the nostalgic ads better of let give people having great memories. For instance, the nostalgic ads are commonly used on Christmas. If people see kids are happily waiting for Christmas gifts from Santa on the commercial, most people remember their childhood, and would have a positive feelings toward the commercials and products. The reason why the nostalgic ads are often used in Christmas season is that people can remember their best memories from the past. If the nostalgic ads remind people of the one memory form the past, the consumers might remember bad feelings and never get a product.

 2. Are there some products or brands which this strategy may not be successful? In the successful nostalgia marketing, people remember a good memory and it forces them to like the product; therefore, the successful nostalgia ads must have a positive feelings toward the product. However, if the company of technological devices uses the nostalgic ads, it does not give positive attitude for consumers. For example, if the commercial for smart phone use nostalgia marketing, I would think that my life with lots of technological device is somehow sucks as I have great memories without smart phone in the past. I would think that I have some of troubles, which I did not have in the past, with smartphone now.

Jeep Campaign

For today's workshop, our group did a campaign for Jeep, and our target audience is older people between 50 to 70 years old. In order to target older people, we chose to use the Jeep Patriot because it has a high reliability and safety which is what older people care when they buy a car. For the commercial, we mentioned the idea of family. The commercial starts with old couple are riding the Jeep Patriot on the freeway along the coast. They are retired and spending a time to travel places. When they see on the back, grand children are sleeping. It shows that the car does not make sounds, and also states that how safety the car is. In order to explain the safety and no sounds, they can drive on the beach. At the end, young couple are driving with their kids. It imagines that couple's grand children are still using the car when they get older. It shows that how the jeep Patriot have strong durability. What we focused on the commercial is to let old people think that their choice is not only for them but also for their generation. Thus, they can enjoy spending time to travel and later give it to their family.

A Day of the Life

She is Michael, 26 years old. She got married with Mike four years ago, and had a baby. Her child, Ann, is three years old, and loves to enjoy with mom every day. Micheal always wakes up at 7, and prepare a breakfast for her family. She cooks scramble egg and bacon, and bakes bread. She wakes her husband and child at 7:40, and enjoy breakfast with her family. After her husband leaves to his work, she cleans breakfast. She starts to clean the house, and does laundry. In the lunch time, she invites her friend with kids, and enjoy lunch time. While their children are playing outside, they spend chatting for two hours. Michael loves to taking to her friends to relieve stress. At 4 when her fiends get home, she starts to prepare for a dinner with her kid. When her husband gets home, they have dinner. After they enjoy dinner, they sit on the sofa and watch TV. Before her kid fall a sleep, she read the book for her kid every day. After her kid gets a sleep, she goes to her bed and talk what she did to her husband and turn off the light.

WWF

One of my favorite found for government is the World Wide Fund For Nature. They are working on preserve the destruction of environmental by supporting conservation and environmental projects in over 100 countries. I think the reason why they could be one of the biggest group of environmental campaign is the ads. The logo of panda is really famous, people may see it even if they don't know what WWF is. The logo became popular, and t-shirts or caps can be found in shops.

 In addition, the ads are great to get people's attention and reach their minds to inform environmental issues. I think that it is necessary to get people's attention in order to consider environmental issues because sadly many people don't know what problems our planet is facing. The ads of WWF can be great pictures to show serious issues. I will share some of my favorite ads below.

Stereotypes in TV show

Stereotypes are found in so many fields, even in popular tv shows. One of the popular television show these days is Glee, and I enjoy watching the shows because they have a great music. A lot of people love the shows, but they include some stereotypes. There are some completely different characters in the Glee, and they can be subject to stereotypes. First of all, I do not why many shows describe blond girls or cheerleaders as bitchy. A blonde girl cheerleader, in Glee, is shows to be a smart character, but is actually evil. Moreover, one of another blonde girl is described as dumb. Many shows  use this stereotypes, though. Next, African American girl is described as lazy and food obsessed. On the show, one of other character says, "Overweight, African-American diva,"to African American girl. In addition, Glee uses Asian stereotypes, "Asian F". When Chinese American character, Chang gets A- on his chemistry test, her father force him to quit Glee. His father puts him on pressure to get straight, and says A- is horrible grade. This is a typical Asian stereotypes. I am Asian, but I don't care about those types of stereotypes because it is just an image. However, the use of stereotypes in popular show like Glee, would cause not to stop having stereotypes in the U.S. and might hurt someone..

Brands

The last lecture of the history of advertising was interesting to me. Leaning the history of advertising means as same as learning history of technology because latest advertising is strongly influenced by the technology such as YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. I realized I even do not watch TV, but I see so many advertisements  through YouTube, and I learned how technology and advertising are strongly connected.

In the field of advertising, brands are significant. Some people may think brands and logos are same, but they are different. I  am sometimes confused the difference between brands and logos if the logo became more popular than brands. According to the lecture, however, logo is just using  to communicate. "A product provides functional benefits plus added values that some consumers value enough to buy." For instance, MacDonalds  is the one of the successful brands, and they spread around the world. What great brands do is that they know themselves, in other words, they know what consumers want by them. Importantly, brands always have to be relevant, or consumers never get any products. Brands can be significant more than advertisements!

Stereotypes

Stereotypes negatively exists in everywhere, but I do not think it is right to use racial stereotypes in the ad. The use of these ad shows that racism still exists. For instance, this ad below shows racism. The six black runners bowing in front of a white man wears suits with "maximize the power of your employees." This headline exactly revealed it meant slavery. In American, there are lots of ads which meant slavery like this, and it should not be published because ads have strong impact to audience.


This Sony's ad is to promote black and white portable PlayStation. The strong looking white woman gripping black woman's jaw. It shows the domination of white woman over black woman.


Personally, the use of  negative stereotyping is totally bad, but why advertisers try to put it into the ads? Because it sells products. These ads can get people's attention although it is wrong. I've realized that there are lots of negative stereotyping in the United States. In my country, Japan, people never see these kind of ads because people do not accept its issue in public. Thus, America is more open to this issue compared to some countries. However, I do not hope to use negative stereotyping in the ads anymore in order not hurt someone in the world.

Semiotics

Semiotics are continually used in advertising to decode an advertiser's message through the use of signs or symbols, and it enables us to make sense of visual imagery and associated advertising messages.



 This is an advertising of Dettol, an antiseptic cleaning products in the United Kingdom. The signifier in this ad is a woman holding a hands from the hand rails. The signified is the feeling of sordid and dirty. This ad shows a normal young woman wearing a white shirt and good make-up in order to bring out how dirty to use public hand rails. I like "Whose hand are you holding" at the bottom because it makes the message of this ad more clear. Also,  This ad is effective because people can get thorough the message directly. As people cannot avoid ignore this situation if they use public buses or trains, this ad shows is effective to let those people use the hand sanitizer.



This is a billboard ad of 3D King Kong. The signifier in this ad is young girl and boy are holding on tight to the Universal Studio bus which almost crushed by King Kong's hand. The signified is the feeling of thrilling and exciting. Since this is the ad for 3D so that it achieved to show how 3D works to guests. I like the way this ad uses people. The use of stereoscopic acuity increases a thrill.

This is a Crystal Geyser commercial in Japan. In the commercial, over all, Beyonce with holding a Crystal Geyser singing a song and dancing. She wears a spangled dress and diamond pierced earrings. The signified is a feeling of gorgeous. Crystal Geyser is not an expensive water, and does not have an image of high quality, however, this commercial successfully shows a high quality.

Dietmar Dahmen

My very first of the advertising course seemed so much fun, so I am excited to learn a lot of new things in this class. The presentation by Dietmar Dahmen was totally great, and I learned a lot. He used some terms that I have never heard before, but I am clear because he explained clearly. Technology is always around me, and I cannot live without them. I am pretty much sure I depends on technology everyday. Even though my home county, Japan, is so far away, technology enables me to have a strong connection with people in Japan. I am very thankful that we have free apps which give free talk and text. Thus, laptop and iPhone are necessary in my life. Moreover, he mentioned that we need to know the history and date in advertising. The ads, Dietmar used in the presentation, was effective in order to explain lots of thing to us. Now I am interested in Advertising, and also want to know how the technology was changing.