Blog 3: Popular Culture and Consumer Behavior

Hi everybody! Thanks for coming back. Today we are going to talk about how popular culture can influence a customers behavior. Recently in class we were talking how opinion leaders or well known people can influence the general public. Opinion leaders can be actors or actresses, politicians, athletes, community leaders and many more. At times, friends and classmates can be considered opinion leaders.

One of the main ways for opinion leaders to influence peoples buying habits is through the use of social media. In today's culture, it is not uncommon to see professional athlete or actors on different social media sites and some of them use their status to get the names of new brands out to the general public. Most of the time they are talking about how they love a certain brand and sometimes they are even getting paid to do it. A lot of companies will sponsor or endorse a public figure just so that their companies name is tied to that specific person. This doesn't mean that these people don't love the product they are using. The goal behind this is that the person's followers on sites like Twitter and Instagram will go and purchase the product.

Steve Weatherford, Punter for the New York Giants, is an athlete that promotes products on his Instagram page. He has close to 90,000 followers on his page and is known to many people as being one of the most fit players in the NFL. A lot of fitness companies hope that he can bring new customers to their company because his following and his image. Recently, Steve posted a picture on Instagram about a company called Formula Four Water; the caption on his picture reads "Time to rehydrate.... With @formulafourwater#FormulaFour #Oxygen #Recovery." This picture still has a great effect for Formula Four even though it only has 1,242 likes because it's safe to say that thousands saw the picture.

Some companies also use students to promote their brand throughout their campus. Knockaround Sunglasses and Pura Vida Bracelets are two examples of companies that have programs like this. Becoming a "Campus Rep" for these companies is a little bit different compared to that athletes become representatives of companies. Most of the time, you will have to fill out an application for this position. If selected you are then expected to promote that company through social media. 

Knockaround Sunglasses has college students fill out an application every August. If accepted they will receive free glasses and coupons to hand out to students at their school and they are also given the ability to hold Knockaround events on their campus. They will also send their reps free apparel, accessories and Limited Edition Sunglasses for them to keep.

Last year, I became a rep for Pura Vida Bracelets. To get this position, I had to send them my information and then they decided if they wanted to welcome me to the team. If accepted you are given your own personal rep code, a couple of cards with your rep code on it so that you can hand them out to people, a few bracelets, and some stickers. The code that you are given is usually the first letter of your first name and your full last name followed by the number 10 so for me it is CWILLIAMSON10. This code then allows people to get 10% off of their purchases and in return you get commission for each purchase that is made with your code. This gives the reps a reason to be more vocal orotund campus and through social media. Many Pura Vida reps will even go and make an account that is only for Pura Vida.

Knockaround Sunglasses does not only rely on college students to spread the word about their brand. They have a section on their website that shows a lot of celebrities from Snoop Dogg to Selena Gomez wearing their glasses.

I hope you all enjoyed my latest post and will think about how people are influencing your purchases.

See you soon!

Chris

References:

"Campus Representatives." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2015. 

"Celebrity." Knockaround.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2015. 

Grant, McKenna. "20 Campus Rep Programs That Are Available RIGHT NOW." USA TODAY College. N.p., 15 Jan. 2014. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

"Join 3,950 Pura Vida Reps Across the World!" Pura Vida Bracelets. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

Knockaround Title. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2015. 

"Opinion-Leader in Marketing: Definition, Lesson & Quiz." Education Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

Pua Vida Logo. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2015. 

Pura Vida Rep Code, Joyce Hall. Personal photograph by author. 2014. 

Snoop Dogg Wearing Knockaround Sunglasses. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2015. 

Weatherford, Steven. Formula Four Water and Steve Weatherford. Digital image. Instagram. N.p., Jan. 2015. Web. 08 Feb. 2015.

Blog 2: Demographics That Companies Target

Hey everybody!

I hope you enjoyed my last post. Today I am going to talk about how companies use something called environmental scanning to get information about trends outside company.  It is important for companies to keep an eye on the trends around them because it allows them to see opportunities that are available. There are usually five sources to an environmental trend. They are social, economic, technological, competitive and regulatory sources.

The main environmental trend that I want to focus on is the social force. According to businessdictionary.com a social force is "an element of society which has the capability of causing cultural changes or influences people." The social forces include demographics and culture of its customers and the rest of the population. Demographics is when you describe a population based on "characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, income and occupation. Many people categorize peoples age into generational groups. These groups are the Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y and the Millennials. Usually, companies will target one of these specific groups when advertising their product or service.

The Baby Boomers are considered to be people born during the baby boom after World War II between the years of 1946 and 1964. Baby Boomers are considered to be the wealthiest workforce in America because of their size. An example of a Baby Boomer is television personality Si Robertson of Duck Dynasty.

Generation X are people born between the ages of 1965 and 1976. This is the first time that a generation has had lees births than the generation before it. These people tend to be self-reliant, supportive of diversity and are better educated than the Baby Boomers. They have had their lives shaped by Global Issues that occurred during their childhood. An example of someone from Generation X is the actor Charlie Sheen.

The people in the Generation Y include people that were born between the ages of 1977 and 1994. These people have had great influence on music, sports, and technology. They are interested in memorable experiences and creating a work-life balance. The members are also passionate about the environment which make sense because many companies that raise awareness of environmental issues were born between this time period. An example of a member of Generation Y is the singer Justin Timberlake.

The Millennial generation is one that many people have a hard time agreeing about. Some say that they are the youngest of the Generation Y but really they are just people born after 1995. Millennials are great with technology. They feel the ned for a work-life balance because they have seen their parents working stressful jobs first hand. An example of a Millennial is actress Bella Thorne.

As you can see, companies have a lot to think about when they making a commercial. They always need to keep in mind the differences of the generations. A video game company obviously wants to target the Millennials instead of a Baby Boomer.

References:

Bella Thorne. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

Charlie Sheen. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

Environmental Scanning. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

Environmental Trends. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

"Generation." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

"Generation X, Generation Y, Generation Z, and the Baby Boomers." RSS 092. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

Justin Timberlake. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

Si Robertson. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. 

"What Is Social Force? Definition and Meaning." BusinessDictionary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015.

Blog 1: My First Time

Hi everybody! I want to start off by introducing myself. My name is Chris Williamson and I am from Middletown, New Jersey. Currently a sophomore at Saint Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont. Growing up in New Jersey has given me some great opportunities throughout my life. I am fortunate enough to live within a few miles of the beach and only an hour away from New York City and less than two hours away from Philadelphia. This has allowed exposed me to many different educational experiences due to the vast amount of experience and information around me. Luckily for me, my mom is able to help many of the dentists and oral surgeons that she works with through her job at Nobel Biocare to promote their business through social media, Google and their own websites. My aunt owns a girls accessories store called Groovy Girlz in a small South Jersey beach town called Sea Isle City. My aunt is able to use ads in local newspapers, commercials, social media and banners to promote her store. Through my mom and my aunt I have been lucky enough to learn some useful pointers on successfully marketing though social media as well as different forms of advertising.

While at St. Mike's, I am pursuing a degree in Business Administration with a minor in Media Studies. I am also a member of both the Soccer and the Water Polo teams so I had to quickly learn how to balance my time correctly. While at first it was difficult because I wanted to make friends, I quickly learned that hard way that while it is important to make lasting friendships you also need to always be thinking of your work or your grades because in the end, the better the grades the better the chances you have of landing your dream job.

Over the past year I have learned so much about myself. I changed my major, added a minor and learned how to equally balance my time so that I can succeed both inside and outside of the classroom. I hope that throughout my four years here St. Mike's I will be able to get the best education I could possibly get while also learning a lot from real world experiences.

Before I get ahead of myself, I just want to let everyone know that this is my first time writing a blog so please take it easy on me just this once. The reason that I am writing this blog is for my Marketing class at St. Mikes and throughout the semester, I will be writing a total of 10 blogs for my class.

On the first day of class, my professor asked the class to define the word marketing in our own words. The first thing that popped into my head was that marketing is when you promote your product, idea or organization to a group of people. The American Marketing Association or AMA defines the word marketing as "the activity for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that benefit its customers, the organization, its stakeholders, and society at large." While my definition encompasses part of the AMA's definition, we must also remember that our product, idea or organization is benefiting the people that we are promoting it to.

A key part of marketing is something that many people in the marketing field call the  marketing mix which is used when a company is trying to make consumers buy their product or service. The four main parts of the marketing mix or the four P's are price, product, place and promotion. Next time you watch a commercial or look at an ad you will realize that most likely they contain at least one of the four P's and many times will contain multiple. Lets look at this Southwest Airlines commercial to see how many of the four P's it contains.

First off, Southwest does a great job at using a little bit of humor to get their point across. In this commercial they are promoting their new inflight entertainment. Southwest was very smart when they decided to use a flight attendant named Marty who has been known to use humor while in the air. In fact videos of Marty's humor have gone viral online and she has been on television shows like Ellen. So you may be asking yourself, "how many of the four P's are shown in this commercial?" Well to answer your question, all of the four P's are shown in this commercial. I think that the one that many of picked up on very quickly is their product or the inflight entertainment that they offer for free from the comfort of your own mobile device. They are also showing the price and place of the entertainment which is on Southwest flights and it is free. They are promoting their new product through television ads like the one above. This commercial is unique because sometimes it is difficult to incorporate all of the four P's successfully into a commercial

I just want to thank everyone for reading my first blog post and I hope that you all will come back to read some more in the near future.

References:

Kerin, Roger A., Steven W. Hartley, and William Rudelius. Marketing. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print. 

Marketing. Digital image. Linkedin.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2015. 

NutsAboutSouthwest. "Southwest Airlines Commercial: Quiet Landing." YouTube. YouTube, 7 Nov. 2014. Web. 25 Jan. 2015. 

Saint Michael's. Digital image. Www.schoolguides.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2015.