The Mind Sees What It Wants

      Subliminal messaging, the sneaky, behind the back, trapdoor advertising that has you falling for it before you even know its happening. There are thousands of examples of subliminal messaging and companies trying to be sneaky! Some forms of this are obvious, but still there are many hidden components that we are completely unaware about.

      See the picture on the right? That is a perfect example of how subliminal messaging works. The overall goal of this is to make you want to perform a specific action without it being obvious. Because most advertisements are only seen for a short period of time, they must make the use of that 30 seconds or so to get their point across. Face value is everything, if a company has a logo that feels rather cold, or too cut and dry, it could potentially put off consumers. But companies that choose to create a fun, exciting logo had more positive sales numbers.

      Does the logo of a company affect the quality of the product at all? No. It does not. No debating it! When you see a logo that is appealing to your mind, one that may follow the Fibonacci sequence, it creates a pleasing feeling subconsciously. Or consciously, or whatever it does to you! These logos are not just a title for the company, it could be the difference between them and the competition.

      See what I mean? It does not take much to see what went wrong in this logo. Sometimes the companies themselves cannot see what it right in front of them.

      This is the result of just that.We see subliminal messaging with the most ease when looking at alcohol commercials.

      Beer, vodka, tequila, pick your poison, nearly all companies that put out advertisements for their alcohol use sex to sell. It does raise the question "Why would each company use the same marketing strategy?" The answer is simple, because it works. essentially they tell you that if you purchase their product or drink their product, you will be just like the people they show in the advertisements. Movies have made fun of this because it becomes so ridiculous. The movie the Lorax (highly recommended) contains a commercial for bottled air. If you look closely you can see a few resemblances to a commercial for alcohol.

      The ad shown to the right is not meant to be very conservative at all. It is not saying that you will get the girl, but is directly comparing the beer bottle to the attractive girl in the bikini. Are the two related? Chances are not, but what we see is that this comparison is not the main message of the video. They are using the bottle to control the girl. If you try to control a woman with a beer bottle you are going to look like a goof and you wouldn't be successful, but what is stopping them from saying it isn't possible. The beer is not the main focus of the frame, its the girl dancing around all scantily clad! Not exactly a commercial you would want to watch with kids around. Even if you don't think the commercial is affecting you, it is.

      Subliminal messaging does not come only in the form of sexy models in swimsuits, it is also heard over the radio! Those catchy songs that you hum for hours and hours on end are using the same idea. But instead of using sex to sell to your eyes, they are using the equivalent for your ears, catchy tunes! Really annoying but extremely effective at the same time. Its horrible! You can remember them for years and there will always be another one to take its place. This never ending cycle is what allows companies to continue to develop ways to attack your mind instead of just your five senses. So I suppose that they are attacking your sixth sense!

     



 

There Is No Escape!

      Everyday, advertisements overwhelm us. Whether a webpage popup intrudes or a billboard steals your attention from the road,  there's no escape from Madison Ave. In many cases, people won't realize that they too are a walking advertisement. So if you want to avoid advertisements reaching you, you may be out of luck. The constant cycle of this lather, rinse, repeat method gives little wonder to why children are drawn to McDonalds just for the toys.

      I sure do love having all of those catchy jingles from TV or radio commercials stuck in my head, but after a day full of it becomes too much! Companies have begun to target their advertisements to all 5 of our senses.  When I walk down to the Portland Saturday Market, I cant help but notice overall ambiance of the place. There is live music, dozens of vendors, and the irresistible smell of food being cooked throughout the day. As I was about to cross Naito Parkway to visit my favorite gyro spot, Angelina's Greek Cuizina (Highly recommended) the sweet smell of warm candied almonds wafted toward me. Directly to my left there was a stand and there was a sign hanging on the stand that said "You can smell us!" They knew that one of their largest advertisements was a byproduct of their candied nuts.

The picture shown to the left is taken from Google Streetview showing where I was standing! Now the location of the stands have changed a little from where they are now so don't think I am giving you false info!

Advertisers invade on your mind before you are ever aware its happening. That melody that keeps running through my mind all night has been carefully crafted to just that. trigger your memory to remember the melody and in turn, remembering the company that made it!
 
      The flashy billboards of time square give an easy example of how intrusive the advertising game has become.

      Just like this image, the advertisements all around us invade into our lives weather we like it or not. This gets pretty damn annoying when you're always having some new and revolutionary product shoved down your throat that you wouldn't even want in the first place.
     

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuReA-AGa8

      Billy Mays was the king of  direct response advertisements. You know, the guy with the loud voice selling Oxy Clean. He made thousands of people in the country want to buy a product that he pitched in less than two minutes and that is pretty impressive. If you want to see just how hard it is, try to convince someone to buy something that fast. But I will save you the time, it doesn't work that well. Infomercials classify as these direct response ads because they are meant to have you, almost impulsively, pick up the phone and order whatever you might see on the screen before you. They serve the exact same purpose as junk email, phone solicitors, webpage advertisements, and even the leaflets in the morning papers. using direct response ads is typically the cheapest way a company can advertise their product without having to really specify who it will reach.
      There is no limit to where or how advertisers will be able to reach you, they always try to be one step ahead so there will be a never ending amount of products that they can sell.

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.

-Mark Twain

Timing is everything!

      As the year enters fall, leaves change on the trees, the days become shorter, and the holiday season begins. Just like the trees, the advertisements around us go through seasonal changes! With halloween right around the corner and thanks giving following closely behind it, advertisers have the chance to sell us a product for every occasion. This is called seasonality. An example of seasonality is like having a cycle, similar to the seasons, in your products sales. Nobody would want to sell christmas trees in july nor sell halloween costumes at easter, it doesn't make sense!

   
      When I was a kid I would spend hours looking through the halloween catalogues trying to find the costume that I would be able to wear trick or treating! My mom would always ask me if I had found the perfect costume and I would always say the same thing, "I want to be a ninja!" Without the catalogues, I would have never found the type of costume I would want to wear. Putting halloween ads in the mail weeks before the actual day can help get people buying products over the course of the month.
   

       Many companies will overlap their holidays so people can shop through the year! If there is anything that drives us all crazy, holiday shopping is high up on the list. The crazy lines, the never ending music... Why not beat the rush and start buying things now? If nobody sold products in this overlapping fashion, it would be a far bigger hassle the closer we came to the holiday.

      Americans are no strangers to buying products for the holidays. For example, this year halloween sales alone are expected to reach 6.9 billion dollars. A whopping 2.9 billion of this will be spent on costumes for adults, and the rest will be used for everything else! Many farmers also rely on these seasonal sales for their income.
   
      A farmer who sells pumpkins counts on selling their crops in time for halloween. Hundreds of thousands of pumpkins are sold every year to be used in seasonal festivities, such as Jack O' Lanterns!

 The picture on the left is my girlfriend and I's attempt at making Jack O' Lanterns! The one on the left is mine and the one on the right is hers.

Now Who Would Buy This?

      Whenever you need to sell a product or an idea, you need to know who you're going to sell to. Would you really want to try to sell dentures to a 10 year old? Well, maybe under certain conditions, but usually the answer is no! Companies will spend millions of dollars to figure out who would want to buy their products. This is called a target market. If you want to sell a product or an idea successfully, you better find that target market or you will not be making any large profits any time soon.

      

Marketing mix

      Selling any product takes some time and a combination of what we call a marketing mix. There are four aspects to this marketing mix, product, price, distribution and promotion.  There are many games which help explain how a business and a target market work. After some research I found the game Lemonade World. Now selling lemonade is something that I had become a professional at in my younger years, but this game captures all of the nostalgia still. If you want to see what this game is all about you're in luck, there is a link to it right here --->Lemonade World. 

      

      New businesses that arise have the potential for success, but there is never a 100% chance that they will make it. In the recent news Twitter has just released their initial stock offering. This is a major step for a company and in order for them to continue to be successful, they will need to select a price to attract potential investors. Putting out a positive company image and highlighting the potential profits to be made will be the most important step to the future of the Twitter. Problems with the IPO could result in the company becoming stagnant and losing many investors. 

Marketing and you

       Marketing has been around since the very first humans tried to promote their products. Although what we think of marketing today is far different from what it was then, the concepts have still remained the same. Marketing is summed up as the process of trying to promote a product with the intent to sell it to a different market.

How attractive is this?? ^^^^

       It is super fun to make up marketing slogans and then try to associate them with a product. This is a fun way to either waste some time or just create a joke if you have friends.

    Weather or not you like marketing, it is still a big part of your life. Its possible that some of your ideologies or opinions have formed due to someone sitting in their office telling you to believe one thing or another. I would put money you would be able to identify some major corporations slogans. Take a swing at "I'm Loving it." Ba da dup da daa. Thats supposed to be McDonalds. Or what about the classic "Eat Fresh" Thats Subway. I suppose the reason there are so many food references is because i'm constantly hungry.
   
    It is easy to just think of marketing as a way to convince a person to buy a product or use a service or whatever you want them to do. Its crazy how much of it there is in our society today. You know we are the "Capitalist America" where selling products or services thrive. Even you too could join in on the fun of the free market if you wanted to.

So maybe this first post isn't Bloggeriffic, but by the end will be a Bloggtastic page. have a good day!