Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Smit N Shah

Article # 9
Head-On commercials


HeadOn is a topical product intended for headache relief, produced by Miralus Healthcare, which claims it is a homeopathic remedy. HeadOn's notoriety came in part due to its advertisements on cable and daytime programming on broadcast television which consisted of using only the tagline "HeadOn. Apply directly to the forehead" repeated very quickly three times, accompanied by a video of a model using the product. Inn September 2006 a new advertisement debuted on US channels; the opening is the same as the original HeadOn, with the words "HeadOn, apply directly" occurring before the sound fizzles out while a person walks on and mocks the tagline, stating "I can't stand your commercial, but your product is amazing!", "Hate your commercial, but love your product", or "HeadOn, your commercial is so annoying, but you got a great product!". The previous advertising campaign which was used to promote HeadOn included the phrase "Should I know about HeadOn?", but was changed in late June 2006.


The company used focus groups to try a number of potential commercials; with one focused solely on repetition; its results were incredible. The focus groups recalled the ads much more than with any other method. A number of people have considered the ads annoying. Dan Charron, vice president of sales and marketing, told the Los Angeles Times that nobody in the focus groups had told him that the ads were annoying.


Annoying or not, the fact is that almost everyone who has watched the commercial a couple of times remembers it. As the saying goes, "Even bad publicity is good publicity", they definately got viewers attention. They however have had problems with the Better Business Bureau. BBB has asked Miralus Healthcare, not to market their product as a cure for headaches. Irrespective of BBB's stand, their commerical did get people to notice them. I would say that their marketing campaign was a success.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeadOn

Accordion Hurricane Shutter
(AHS)

Accordion Hurricane Shutter (AHS) manufactures and installs hurrican shutters for individuals.
Their core products are


Their products are better in quality and not just meet but exceed the requirements set forth by the State of Florida. Their customer relations is the best amongst their competitors. They make sure their customers are satisfied with the service. Their professionalism and direct communication with their customers is a good indicator. They take the quality of their product seriously and do not cut edges to make a higher margin. AHS being a small company does not have the amount of awareness as some of their competitors do. Because they do their entire manufacturing onshore and with equity while striving to provide excellent quality, their cost of goods sold (COGS) tends to be higher then some of ther competitors. Their promotional campaigns have helped them build awareness, but they could do more with their marketing expenses.

Their customers can be individual home owners or commercial building construction companies. Majority commercial builders are looking for low cost alternatives, which for AHS would not be a good match. However, if the approach home builders, who offer their products as an optional upgrade, they might be able to gain sales volume, however it will be at a lower margin. If they try to do direct sales to customers (individual home owners) they have to spend additional marketing dollars to gain market awareness and market share. The margins are however higher. So, the home builders can be refered to as wholesale and individuals as retail. Currently they need volume for their business, hence having builders help boost sales seems like a good idea. And later on when have a stable volume, they can go for higher margin sales.

Some of the hurricane shutters offered by AHS help decrease insurance payments, which would be a good marketing hot button. For someone who is planning on buying a home, it seems like a good idea to add that to the total cost of the house and pay it in installments over the life of their home mortgage. They can even talk to local insurance companies, and have them approve and recommend their product. which would help sales and customer satisfaction. The word of mouth business is becoming more and more critical as competition increase. Their excellent track record and a long list of satisfied customers will help referal sales.

Promotional Plan



http://www.flshutters.com/
http://www.hurricaneshuttersflorida.com/
http://accordionhurricaneshutters.com/




Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Smit N Shah

Article # 8
Comcast ads on target market


Comcast is currently the largest provider of cable services in the United States. They offer services in broadband cable, broadband cable, digital content, broadband phones and content as part of their service packages. In the recent years they have been acquiring a lot of major cable providers. They have also acquired some telephone providers and internet providers along the road. They acquired Adelphia cable in 2005.


Some of their most recent advertisements on cable have been about how their advertising service provides you a target market. They have been playing the same single commercial at regular interval on prime time television. The commercial starts of with a dumbbell flying in the air with a swoosh sound. For the first two seconds, the dumbbell keeps flying to indicate the distance it is going and then it hits a black male walking alongside a black female on the side walk. The black male has a white and red band on his chest hanging over from his neck indicating a target sign. It then shows a serious of people in different setups each having a target sign hanging over their necks. The concept is simple; we will help you find customers in your target market. The message is clearly conveyed via their commercial.


I think that it is a great commercial. Their content is simple and easy to understand. The manner in which they present it is very appealing. Almost all business owners can associate themselves to the pain of being able to target their advertisements only to their target market, whereby they can decrease the marketing expense and have more qualitative return on their marketing expenses. As a business owner, one would be tempted to try out their service and see how the returns are. For a company that needs to target a market based on property prices (ex: Accordion Hurricane Shutters), this model would be a blessing. Also it could be targeted to students by only showing it in areas near schools, etc. This idea of being able to broadcast your campaign to your target customers is an awesome concept and sure to be successful.


Wednesday, April 04, 2007


Smit N Shah

Article # 7
P&G Damage Control Ad Campaign


The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is focused on providing branded consumer goods products. The Company is organized into three global business units: Beauty and Health; Household Care, and Gillette GBU. Its products are sold in over 180 countries around the world primarily through mass merchandisers, grocery stores, membership club stores and drug stores. P&G also owns IAMS and Eukanuba brand pet foods. In late feb the FDA (Food And Drug Administration) started getting complains about animals being sick. In end of Feb they started testing food items claimed to be the cause. In arround mid march more tests were conducted to test the food and tissues from animals affected by the food. By end of march there were lot of news about various companies recalling their products due to a possibility of contaminated contents.

Events like these cause great deal of concern for pet owners. If a brand recalls its products due to lack of quality, it leaves a bad impression on customers. The contamination has already been blamed for a lot of animal deaths. There are various animal associations that are protesting such carelessness. In such a situation, if a pet owner looses one of their pets to illness caused by their product, they will loose them as a customer. For this reason a lot of times, companies would start advertising to their customers, trying to gain back their trust and loyalty to their brand.

P&G made a good move by running those ad campaigns in papers. This would help win customer confidence and it may even help gain market share from their competitors who are not currently advertising their products. It is extremely important in case of events like the one they have on hand that their customers remain loyal to their brand. Also them being a big company allows them to have a big marketing budget for their campaign.

References:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/04/pet_food_recall_timeline.html
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003567366


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