A Marketing View

With the breakout of Internet of Things (IOT) devices over the last few years (i.e. smart TV’s/smart watches), it has provided a subtle platform for companies to infiltrate into our daily lives and learn more about us. In a data-drenched world, we cannot escape the fact that almost all our movements are recorded and used to benefit someone.  Perhaps the impact of IOT is best summarised by Nick Wreden of The University of Technology Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: “There will be absolutely no privacy, not even in the jungle, away from civilization. I don’t like this, but people have shown over and over again that they are willing to trade away their souls for a ‘$1 off’ coupon.” What does this mean with regards to IOT devices collect data? Consumers understanding of where the data goes varies depending on sectors, according to Boston Consulting Group (2012), for example in a study they conducted 79% of consumers were aware of their data being used by banks. What is ...

I understand the need for information to be delivered on-demand. It’s what we demand at the end of the day. We want information immediately and companies must be alive to the possibility to feed it too us, or fear losing out to other competitors to satisfy our needs.  The phrase “I want it now” is something kids say but is true of consumers attitudes. In a world where people want information and demand it immediately, it emphasises the importance for companies to be efficient in delivering the message. However, by being quick in communicating to the target audience, are you compromising your usefulness to the consumer? YouTube for example, is a mere platform for companies to demonstrate their uselessness. This is achieved every time an advert pops up as your viewing mid-video. From a personal view, there is nothing more annoying than being interrupted mid-video by an ad. I’m not alone, as most YouTubers share the same view (Pikas & Sorrentino, 2014): A h...

How can you effectively capture the attention of the market? Well for one, it helps when you appeal to something that’s held sacred within a target audience. Their sense of pride. Take ‘America’ for example. Budweiser temporarily renamed its brand ‘America’ for the American summer in 2016. The rationale behind it was to reverse the company’s sales slump and steal the conversation in a very congested period for the States (Presidential election race, Olympics, Copa America were on during this period).  The mission? Make a bold statement. Regain relevance. Reverse the sales slump. Steal the conversation. (Jom Socquet VP Marketing, Global, AB InBev) This was a time where the term ‘American’ was debated, evaluated, glorified and celebrated. They wanted to commemorate this ‘the most American summer ever’ by tapping into the people’s pride, conveying the statement ‘Budweiser is America and America is Budweiser’ . So as part of the rebranding to ‘America’, Budw...

After watching the two-part Al Jazeera investigation How to sell a massacre on ABC, something interesting dawned on me… It followed One Nation Chief of Staff James Ashby and its Queensland senate leader Steve Dickson on a trip to the USA, visiting pro-gun groups/activists like the National Rifle Association (NRA), to strike up relationships that could potentially result in donations received to the party. All of this being secretly filmed by Rodger Muller (hired by Al Jazeera), posing as a front for a fake gun lobbying group ‘Gun Rights Australia’. The aim: water-down the National Firearms Agreement (1996) , an agreement put in motion after the Port Arthur Massacre of 1996. Whilst meeting with the NRA about a third through the program, they were discussing how they respond to gun-related incidents. A strategy that they implement to combat this is to “exploit people’s anger and fear” by posting little videos on YouTube. This results in more people buying guns, becaus...

With the Formula 1 Australian Grand prix coming up this week in Melbourne, I thought for my first blog entry I would start off by talking about F1’s use of social media over the last few years. (I’m an avid F1 fan, particularly of Ferrari) To provide some context, in 2017 the owners of the sport changed hands to Liberty Media from previous owner Bernie Ecclestone (some of you may know Tamara Ecclestone, this is her father). F1’s lack of activeness on social media usage before the changeover was very notable; no race highlights, interviews or special features were available on its social media platforms. Rather, fans had to pay a subscription on the official Formula 1 website to access that sort of content. Fans were howling for this content to be made available on social media. One of the five points of being social in The challenges and opportunities of social media (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), is to be active. This entails businesses to take the lead and create relationships ...