Global Branding

My last assignment was a Brand report assessing the value of the brand "RAF Recruitment" and what routes it could take in the next year or so. The critique of the brand was nothing special- that it seemed to be fulfilling its goals of reaching 13-24 year-olds through mediums which they use. I did discover one aspect that surprised me though. That most of the straight mass marketing that the RAF currently undertakes is not to recruit people, although that's what the call to action is at the end.

I stumbled across a thread in an RAF forum in which people who serve in the RAF were complaining that when the said they were in the RAF, but not pilots people looked confused. One went as far as to say people had no idea why we had an air force at all. This is when it struck me that the RAF was trying to save it's skin. People are paying taxes to pay for a service which they don't understand. So when the advertising appears to appeal solely to "white, middle-aged men" they are reaching their target audience, the tax payer.

The main focus of this report, however, was to ascertain where the brand could go next. Again I started with the fairly mundane reasoning that they should be trying to attract women to the force as 92% of roles are available to women, yet they only account for around 12% of these positions. It was when I was researching these figures that I stumbled across the Girl Guides UK

website and found that the values and skills they try and instil in their girls correlate directly to the values and skills that the RAF states on its website it looks for in potential recruits. It may not be ground breaking, but it is solid and it really does make sense.

This is what I think I had previously been missing. I saw branding as the be all and end all of a product, that without it there was no product, and that a good one would catapult it to the forefront of the market. I thought that it had to be all glitz and glam to appeal to anyone.

After I had finished my assignment it occurred to me that perhaps where I may have fallen down was in my lack of research into branding in general, so I will make up for that now. My tutor, Vic Davies, told us two stories about marketing at the beginning of the year which have stuck with me. The first, which The Good Agency has recently blogged about, is the Stick of Rock principle- that your brand/marketing message should run through your business like the message through a stick of rock.

The second is about a moon mission. The President of the United States goes to The Kennedy Space Centre to watch the shuttle take-off and is given a tour of the Centre. He gets separated from the party, so goes off in search of them. He comes across a man sweeping the floor and asks the man what he does here. The man replied, "I'm putting a man on the Moon." That's a powerful brand.

Wally Olins states that there are four parts to a brand; Products/Services, Environment, Communication and Behaviour. Marketingpower.com defines the brand as anything that distinguishes it from another product/service. To me it's synonymous with PR. Both are what your brand/company/product/service says and what is said about it. Simples.

According to a study carried out my Millward Brown Cisco is the 22nd most powerful global brand and the 7th most powerful technology brand. Business Week recently ranked Cisco as 14th most powerful brand. But what does that mean for Cisco? Especially as "anti-globalisation thinking is strong across Europe" and now that "human attention has become a global currency".

Marilyn Mersereau stated that Cisco is very good planning for now, but wants to get ahead of the game. She said that by acquiring Pure Digital, and with it the Flip Digital Camera, Cisco is moving towards its aim of becoming known for video; in the home, at work and on the go. She compared Cisco's "video experience" hope to that of Dolby and the "sound experience".

Jeremy Bulmore, in "Posh Spice and Persil" state that the global brand is not just a contradiction, but and "impossibility". This statement strikes a chord with me, as I have always had trouble with the idea of globalisation. In my mind a brand is only as real as the consumer perceives it, and as culture affects perception, then surely a brand could be perceived wildly differently in Jamaica to Mumbai, as has been well illustrated by the long running HSBC ads. Bulmer concurs that branding resides in the mind of the consumer. Holt, Quelch and Taylor, in The Harvard Business Press, assert that global brands, along with politicians and celebrities, have become a uniting lingua franca for consumers everywhere. As the brand is a corporate's most profitable asset there is so much more to be discussed on this topic, but I shall leave the topic, for now, with this final thought:

"A Brand that captures the mind gains behaviour; A Brand that captures your heart gains commitment."

Scott Talgo

Broadband Usage, Connection and Age

In 2006 Neil Salerno & David Hart asserted that 88% of 18-29 year olds in America go online. Telco2.0 states that n 2008 a staggering 93% of 12-17 year olds are on the internet. The Annanberg School of Communications state that internet use increases as ages decreases, with the high level in under 18s. The School also claims that although teenagers aren't reading newspapers, research shows that they are more interested in current affairs than any other generation, they're just not getting their info from print media.

The Online Publisher's Association has a presentation that highlights some key facts to consider when talking about this topic. One such insights is that of the 18-34 year-olds who are still using a dial-up connection, the majority said that they would be upgrading to Broadband in the next six months.

Although this is quite an old study (2003) it still brings up some interesting topics, such as; how much difference does broadband (compared to dial-up) on the amount of time the user spends on the internet? And what effect does it have on the content he looks at?

Views on Online Marketing

Ultimately I want to look into how to effectively combine and integrate online and offline marketing strategy, but to start with I need to better understand what people are doing in the realms of online.

One area of offline marketing that it seems would not be easily transferred to online is events. An event, in my mind, is a physical, tangible element, yet it seems one organisation has succeeded in this arena.

Adobe has created an event to launch of it's latest product entirely online. Instead of having 2,000 people in a room who would report this event to the rest of the world, anyone could register and attend the streaming of the event live.

200,000 people attended live, viewed product demos and cut out the middle man. A further 200,00 viewed the launch over the following week.

Adobe became the facilitator, the audience and the mediator all rolled into one user friendly package. And it was a roaring success.

Another area that is being converged is mobile technology, the most popular of which appears to be downlaodable iPhone apps not just from Apple, but content created by other organisations and users.

Benjamin Moore, an American paint company, launched an innovative app to try and increase their market share. With a few swift touches you can capture a colour that you like and find the store nearest to you that stocks a Benjamin Moore paint in that particular colour.

These are just a few examples of how businesses are creatively using new media. I think both of these examples illustrate how benefitial these medias can be, but niether are excluding offline potentials.

Talking with the Media and Settling Back into Uni

This is just a short blog whilst I get back into the swing of life at Bucks. I have enjoyed the first two weeks of lectures. I have been waiting for a lecture that compelled me to write a blog, so here goes. Last week Bill asked us to think of a company and come up with a story or message. He would then interview us, as a local reporter. Had I done this research and blog previous to this morning's interview it may have gone smoother, but I think I did alright anyway.

I think that Bill got his message across fairly well in his lecture, but after a little digging, I found that the things that he was saying are being said all around the world. The fact that this message is being repeated time and time again says two things to me; first of- it works, second- most people are not doing it. This is a message of warning and guidance. On a daily basis, people are talking to the press, and getting it wrong. Or at least not maximizing their coverage potential.

This message is clear and concise: Know your audience.

It really is that simple. Know what the publication writes about, who reads it, what geographical area they live in. People only want to read about things that are relevant to them- so make it relevant to them. You have to know what angles the publication takes, whether it wants a human-interest story or facts, figures and statistics. These really aren’t hard things to find out, and they really do make a difference.

Every journalist wants to have a story handed to them on a plate- you just have to make sure that the story you want put out fits their agenda. Create a win-win situation. If you’re launching a revolutionary new lighting system and you’re telling the journalist all of the technical details about the product, but he just keeps asking you off topic questions, ask yourself why. Don’t get frustrated. He might be trying to get you to relate it to how it will affect his readership- so tell him. Tell him how this lighting system will replicate natural sunlight and replenish Vitamin D, which in turns makes the user feel happier.

It’s more than likely that the journalist will try and steer the conversation towards the angle that he’s looking for, go with it. Adjust the message, whilst still getting your key points across. Make it relevant, simple and compelling and you’re message will get across. The benefit of trying to work with the journalist in this way is compound. You’re story is more likely to get published, by being co-operative you’re more likely to be called by the journalist on other issues, and the story written is more likely to contain the message you wish it communicate.

Top 5 Things I Will Never Get Used To

5. Not having perforated toilet paper

4. Having a constant beat pumping through the wall

3. The attention of being a foreigner

2. Brushing my teeth with bottled water

1. People hawking up bucket loads of phlegm and spitting in the street

Top 5 Strange Things I’m Missing At the Time of Constructing This List

5. Air (I’m on a bus)

4. Knowing where I’m going (see 5.)

3. Men’s aftershave

2. Hummus, tzakziki, cucumber that is neither dangerous nor soaked in iodine

1. My preconceived perception of the consistency of life

Kathmandu- The City of Senses

Living in Thamel is a fully sensory experience. Every time you step out the door, and often before you’ve stepped out, there is a great barrage of sights and sounds, of smells and feelings and, quite frequently, tastes.
The colours of Kathmandu, as one might expect, are enchanting. Shops are filled with the most varied and beautiful coloured clothes, tailors display a multitude of fabrics, even the scenery saturated with colour. Lush, green, forest-covered hills are interspersed with the golden peaks of temples glittering in the sun and striped with multi-coloured prayer flags whisper gently in the wind.
You can also see some pretty strange things around. On my first day I saw one sign claiming that an “All New Condom House! First In Kathmandu! Coming Soon!” (none of us have quite managed to work out what, exactly, this is) and another sign for a “Teenage Dance Bar with Showers” which we were told was exactly what it said- a place where teenage girls go and dance in showers an people watch...
When I think of the sounds of Kathmandu I think that they leave a lot to be desired. I think that every place has a background noise, something constant and, often, quite local. Kathmandu’s background ‘music’ is the relentless, perpetual beeping of horns. The high pitched horns of scooters, the low horns from cars, the strange noise that protrudes from the homemade horns from the rickshaws and the varied but all the more annoying bus horns, which play a short tune of beeps.
Added to this is the thump thump thump coming from the nearest dance bar, getting louder and louder as the day progresses. Then in comes the sounds of a hundred different people; some loud, “Namaste sister”, “Come and have a look inside”, “Taxi?, “Rickshaw?”, “One Rupee?”, “Tiger Balm?” (which is knock off Tiger Balm called Wild Tiger, not the same thing), some almost imperceptibly, “Hashish? Marijuana?”, but all persistently annoying no matter how many times you say “No”. And if you should be seen to the others to say “yes” to any of them, well then you’re in trouble.
It doesn’t matter where you are, whether you are inside or outside, walking through the streets or in the hotel lobby the smells will always fluctuate. Sometimes you will be besieged by the warm, sensual smell of incense that seems to float from every shop and every window. Sometimes you will salivate at the spicy smell of cooking from a restaurant. Then suddenly you will smell sewage, sweat or over-ripe cheese that has been sitting at the counter in the supermarket for far too long.
There are two main sources of feelings. The first is the beggar population and the second is the weather. When walking through the streets you may be bathed in beautiful sunshine, the weather so warm that the dogs will move out of a premium shady spot for nothing- not even a bus hurtling towards them beeping its horn excessively. (Most bus journeys include swerving to avoid some animal or other in the road; cows, dogs, goats, chickens). If it is not sunny then it is most likely raining torrentially, soaking you through the few layers that you put on half an hour ago when the sun was shining. Fortunately the showers don’t seem to last long, you just have to go and have a cup of ginger tea in the nearest retreat.
The beggars, on the other hand, provide a much less welcome feeling, physically and emotionally. There are quite a few guest houses on the street where I am staying which makes our front door prime begging real estate. Standing at the door of the guest house it is most likely that you will be grabbed by an affectionately named ‘glue kid’ asking for rupees, or a mother wandering the streets with a baby on her hip waving a empty bottle at you, or possibly even a member of a particular caste that maim themselves and their children to get more money from begging who have been exiled from India.
Kathmandu is a spicy place. Most food is filled, or at the very least sprinkled, with chilli. I am really trying my hardest to get used to it, but I’m not a big fan of sitting, glowing red, downing my drink not being able to enjoy my meal. Hopefully by the end of this trip I won’t be such a spice coward, but only time will tell. I did manage to buy candyfloss though, which pleased me a lot, although it was far more fluorescent than any food I have previously bought.
I think that going on the bus is perhaps the most fully sensory feeling that I have experienced so far. One of the first times that I got the bus back from work I remember looking out of the window (which James was half poking out of because the bus was so crowded) watching the scenes of everyday life go past and feeling something on the back of my head. It turned out that not only was I right next to some guys armpit, but it was so cramped that he had to bend over me to fit in and I what I felt was his nose on the back of my head.

The Beginnings of a Nepali Trip

After having endured the rudeness of Heathrow Airport, the sheer boredom of Abu Dhabi Airport and the endless waiting, I arrived at Kathmandu International Airport. I stepped off the plane in the warm, wet night and made my way to the terminal building where I was greeted by, no one. I wondered through the deserted corridors, past a room full of army people, until I saw a man and three women wearing surgical masks. One of them stuck what looked like a barcode scanner against my forehead. In my sleepless, hungry state I thought, just for a moment, that they were scanning my hair to records my DNA, but apparently they just wanted to check that I didn’t have a temperature. Obviously they didn’t tell me this themselves as they couldn’t speak any English, but I found out later. I was then confronted by a man behind a desk who shoved a form in my face. It asked my whether I felt ill, had a cough or sore throat.

The next task got all the more difficult. I had to fill out a visa form (which I had already filled out in England and sent ahead, as I was asked) and produce $40, which I had somehow missed I would have to do. So with no money I was waved off in the general direction of a cash machine, whilst the man behind the desk held my passport. After having followed his directions I was confronted with a security checkpoint to get out into the baggage reclaim area. I explained I needed an ATM and he let me through. I went past all the carousels, and out of the terminal building, onto Nepalese soil with no passport, not knowing whether I’d ever see it again. Fortunately this was the point at which I met Chris, my trip co-ordinator, he gave me the money, and I made my way back upstairs. I just can’t understand how every rickshaw driver, street vendor and cheeky scammer can speak perfectly good English, yet they can’t get any to work at the airport.

Things progressed well from there, apart from the visa man unintentionally running off with my passport to have an argument with some very unhappy chap and some guards. I got back to Chris and we caught a very funky purple taxi to the guest house, which is to be my home for the next month. As the taxi wove and ducked over rocky roads and through narrow alleys I, rather unsuccessfully, tried to make out some of the sights Chris was telling me about through the rain and darkness. When we arrived the guest house was in complete darkness due to the nightly blackout that the city endures. I was pleasantly surprised to see a large double bed, a desk and an en-suite toilet/shower when I got to my room.

The following day consisted of a tour of the area where we are staying Thamel. I found out that this is a place where you must have your wits about you all the time. It is unlikely that you will be pick pocketed, although it is possible, but you quite likely to get mowed down by a rickshaw trying to pick you up, or a moped with a family of four on it. Everyone is very friendly, often uncomfortably so, and if you stop to respond they will probably try to sell you hash. Most of the street vendors that don’t have a stand have a particular patch that that they keep to, although this won’t prevent them following you halfway through Kathmandu if they think you are remotely interested.

There is a man who positions himself at the end of our street talking to a vendor with a stall, but as soon as you walk near him he produces a handful of beads and necklaces from his bag and shouts, “Necklaces! Pretty jewels forra pretty lady!” just like the guy from Aladdin. The taxi drivers will ask you if you want a taxi, and if you say “no” the next taxi driver down the road will say, “What price he give you? I give you better price!”. There are a thousand tiger balm sellers, which seems to me to be the strangest things to wonder around selling. It’s not even tiger balm and incense, or tiger balm on the corner of a stall- they just sell tiger balm. And I don’t know anyone who has bought any.

On Tuesday I experienced my first bus ride, and what an experience it was. The buses are slightly bigger than a people carrier, and they have a guy who leans out the sliding door to shout out where the bus is going. As far as I can see there are bus routes, but they don’t seem to mean anything. There are enough benches, facing in various directions, to seat around 15 people. Most of them seem to be able to fit around 20 on the benches, and a further 15 standing, hovering, crouching, balancing. I have usually managed to get a seat, but that usually means that you have someone stooped over you. Once I could feel the nose of the man behind me on the back of my head.

The monastery where I am working is very funny. The temple is in the middle, a big red and gold building, with the monk’s rooms and classrooms around the outside. When I arrive first thing in the morning I go into the office for a cup of tea. The tea lady there is a well known character. I was told by Chris that if she doesn’t feel like it she won’t serve any tea at all. She’s got a weathered old face that gives her a rather witchy look, but despite all of that she attempted to make a conversation with me this morning, as we were the only ones there. It was about the burns on her hands from serving tea, but it was nice that she made the effort. And she showed me the cream that she could put on them, I looked suitably reassured. I hope.

When I walk into the courtyard in the morning I am greeted by a chorus of “Hello Miss” from various different students, many of whom I don’t teach. After my cup of tea in the office I head of to the classroom, which is on the fourth floor. My students scamper up the stairs ahead of my calling “Morning Miss” along the way, and looking down from above grinning at me, making sure I haven’t changed my mind and gone home again. The little monks that I teach are from tiny ones to about 11. I also have a class of older students, but I haven’t started teaching them yet as they are involved in a Puja, a festival. They are all very lively, apart from the few that fall asleep in class, note to self: must be more engaging.

I start teaching at around 8.50am and I am usually finished by 10.30, although with the other class I will finish nearer at juts past 11. This means that I am home by lunchtime and have the rest of the day to explore the delights of the city. Yesterday I James, one of the volunteers, went up to Swayambhu, The Monkey Temple. It’s around a 20 minute walk away to reach the steps, and another hour to get up the steps. It is a beautiful, peaceful shaded walk up the steps with many resting places selling you different wares; golden bangles, singing bowls, tiger games. And there are lots and lots of monkeys. I was told that they could be quite vicious, but they seemed quite friendly to me, and there were so many baby ones. When we got to the top of the steps we had reached the temple which can be seen from all over Kathmandu. As Kathmandu is a very flat city you are able to see the whole of the city from up there, it was just a vast expanse of higgledy piggledy houses.

We went into the temple and walked around the Buddha in the proper clockwise fashion. As we walked further into the area we met more monkeys, and got a little brave. One was sitting behind some bars that were guarding a shrine, so went up to it and it didn’t move. So I took a picture of it, just as I pulled the camera away it shrieked and jumped up onto the bars, and ran off over the golden roof of the shrine. I jumped out of my skin. We kept a slightly bigger distance after that totally non scary event. Further up onto the hill behind the monastery there is a very tranquil seating area with thousands and thousands of brightly coloured prayer flags, fluttering above your head, some are gauzy and let the sun through, some were more solid and silky. It was quite an amazing, calming feeling being up there. Plus there was no one trying to put a dot on your forehead and charge you 500 rupees.

So far I have found this to be a wonderful place and I am enjoying myself immensely. I have seen a monkey on a roof in the city, a cow lying in the middle of the road in a city, and no one seeming to mind, I have seen feral pigs running under a bridge, hundreds of gold roofs, a drink called “Pokari Sweat” although I haven’t tried it, I have heard Nepali karaoke and I have done the most intense yoga. It has been a full and interesting few days and I can’t wait to do more.

Extreme Nostalgia Marketing

It all started with a loaf of bread. The 2008 Hovis Advert started an advertising revolution, telling the story of this brand in a very personal context. This year has seen M&S, Sainsbury's and Persil follow in it's footsteps. Even Virgin Atlantic has launched an advert crammed with vintage imagery for it's 25th birthday. Why is it that brands have decided that they are all going to celebrate a birthday this year? And why celebrate it by running a history of the brand? Are they all telling the truth? One article suggests that the M&S advert is to remind customers, "of things that were pioneered or invented by M&S, but are now taken for granted" but I think that's spurious.

It is well known that in hard times people, especially Brits, like to turn to what they know and love, and stay well away from risks and the unknown. So is this the reason that big brands are turning back the clocks? Nostalgia? Richard Bent, senior lecturer in retailing and marketing at Queen Margaret University, in an article for The Scotsman, confirms this theory saying that both Sainsbury's and M&S are trying to stimulate sales through a the appeal of nostalgia. This article goes further by introducing a second point, they are attempting to convince consumers to "put their trust in stores that have a long and reliable tradition of serving the public with quality goods from home and abroad", and trust in a brand is key to it's success in more difficult times.

Claire Beale, writing in The Independant, agrees with this view;

"Even though recent events in the financial sector have shown that longevity is no guarantee of stability, we are still more likely to see brands that have been around for a long time as reassuring and reliable. Their

sheer familiarity is comforting. After all, these are brands that served our parents and our grandparents, they're part of our family history. And they're on the side of the family."

And this is what is seen in all of these adverts, bar Virgin, is that the family is at the centre. This makes the viewer feel that their personal family is the priority of these brands, that the brand is doing it for them.

This great war between the Sainsbury's ad and the M&S ad, both released within weeks of each other, has been dubbed the avocado war, as both an avocado. Most people seem to view both of these as jumping on the nostalgia bandwagon that Hovis pioneered last year. Which brings me to the conclusion that they may not be as innovative as they like to think...

Utalkmarketing brings home a very good disadvantage with these adverts though, "There’s a danger with heritage adverts. Some can play so much on the past that the relevance of a brand today can be lost." A view from Marketing Magazine corresponds with this stating that

nostalgia is, "powerful, but delicate". This article points out that Persil, a brand once about pioneering the future, may have tarnished it's name by harping back to a time when mothers were tied to the kitchen sink and relinquished their freedom for that of their families. But surely the target market is formed of these mothers, who fought so hard for liberation from the kitchen, who would not harbour the warm, fuzzy glow of nostalgia about these times.

An article named "Persil not looking so white hot" from MediaWeek furthers this outlook, "a browse on Internet forums suggests some mothers find the ad condescending". A quick search on Internet forums for parents shows just how much Persil have missed the mark with this one with comments on Mumsnet ranging from the harmless, "'someone who uses Persil' how is it possible to define a Mum as someone who uses their own brand, what about the Ladies with children who use Fairy, what are they if not Mums?" to the clearly outraged,

"Perhaps that's it - perhaps she thinks "sod the lot of you, do your own bloody washing, I'm off to follow my dream and play cricket for England in Barbados as I should have done years ago, before I met and married your father and became the drudge you now see before you".

Yes, now that would make me buy Persil!"

So why does the use of nostalgia in advertising work? When I explored nostalgia for my class blog I came across many definitions of nostalgia, one of which came from a course textbook; "Consumer Behavior, Solomon et al. defines Nostalgia as a bitter sweet emotion when the past is viewed with sadness and longing." But this is not the type that is currently being exploited, there may be an element of "bittersweet" but sadness is not the key here. To understand how nostalgia is used, it is, firstly, important to understand how it works. "Historical and Personal Nostalgia in Advertising Text" by Barbara Stern (1992), describes the process;

"Social forecasters (Louv 1985; Naisbitt 1982), literary critics (Doane and Hodges 1987), and marketing and advertising researchers (Havlena and Holak 1991; Holak and Havlena 1992; Wallendorf and Arnould 1992; Holbrook and Schindler 1991; Stern 1992) have commented on the increasing visibility of nostalgia themes in the past two decades. These themes seek to tap into consumers' "vast structure of recollection" by reviving promotions, products, and packages associated with the past. Advertisers claim that the use of nostalgia is a way to capitalize on the "gift" of brand equity possessed by recycled advertising (Winters 1990). In this view, even though consumers can not literally return to the past, they, can, nevertheless, recreate it through nostalgic consumption activities." Don Drapper, Mad Men, says that nostalgia is a twinge of pain, an aching to go back to a certain place.

As Claire Gaunt illustrates in "Future vs Nostalgia", "It’s understandable that, at a time when it feels as though the foundations of the society we’ve built for ourselves are collapsing, looking back to when bank managers at least seemed like honest brokers is an attractive form of escapism." Gaunt also reaches the heart of the issues, "Where contemporary nostalgia works is where it’s saying, reflecting or playing on something modern". The Persil advert says nothing new, contemporary or innovative. It is simply a montage of old adverts, saying the same thing they have always said, which appears condescending in today's society.

The Sainsbury's advert certainly has nothing new to add. M&S focuses slightly more on the aspects that effect our life today. But what is really missing from these adverts is what they are going to offer in the future. Consumers are looking for brands that are future-proof, and are doing this by looking at the longest standing, comfort brands, but as we have seen this is not a good measure. What brands need to do now is look to the future and assure their market that they will be around for years to come.

For another superb blog on, roughly, the above topic, follow this link to the ever funny PRvert's blog.

"It is possible to persuade people to act irrationally if you link products to their unconscious desires and feelings”

There are so many exciting things that I want to impart to you about this character, that I hadn’t heard of until yesterday, I just don’t know where to start. I guess I should start with the basics. His

 name is Edward Bernays, he was the nephew of Sigmund 

Freud and he lived from 1891-1995, in America. I was sent a BBC video called The Century of Self by a friend, which was the inspiration for this post. It is where I have got most of my information from, and where most of the quotes in this post are from, unless otherwise specified.  Eddie Bernays was the first person to use product placement, celebrity endorsement and he instilled in America the idea that products were an extension of the personality. He convinced regular people, not just businesses, to invest in shares, by borrowing money from banks that he represented. Single handed he doubled that market for cigarettes.  He invented Public Relations.

The significance of what Bernays achieved in unfathomable. The entire society that we live in would be an utterly different place. Goebbels used many of his ideas for Nazi propaganda; the fashion industry thrives on a concept of style as an appendage of the self that he created. He introduced the idea that democracy and capitalism are entwined and need each other to survive.

“If you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace”

Bernays’ initial dabbling into this idea began with a conversation between himself and George Hill, the president of the American Tobacco Association. In the early 1920s it was not permissible for women to smoke in public, and many places had laws against it. Not only was this seen as grossly unfair by women who were fighting so hard for equal rights, but this prohibition noticeably cut the cigarette market by half. The exchange between Bernays and Hill was to determine whether anything could be done about this. With much help from Dr. A. A. Brill and using a paper, written and sent to him by his famous uncle, on psychoanalysis Bernays determined that cigarettes were “a symbol of the penis and male sexual power”. Bernays decided to make the cigarette a sign of freedom and liberation for women, to smoke would mean you were a “new women”. A modern, enlightened, open-minded woman unchained from the shackles of men.

The slogan, the hook, the pictures, the article, all of this was thought up by Bernays for this stunt. All he had to do was get the photographers to be in the right place to take the pictures and let the journalists hear the story. It was New York City, March 31^st 1929. The world famous Easter Day Parade was in full swing. The whole city was watching and the rest of the United States was waiting to hear about it in their morning paper. The photographers and journalists been alerted that a group of suffragettes were going to use, what they called, “torches of freedom” to protest by lighting up cigarettes in the street. These women were young, affluent, wear fashionable clothes, they were debutantes. They were not to be taken lightly by the press or the public.

The view of America at that juncture was a place of emancipation; its whole culture was based on liberation. The Pledge of Allegiance, which would have been said by American citizens many at public gatherings, even contains the words “liberty and justice for all”. Any person who agrees with these principles must now agree, by definition, with women smoking in public, simply by using the word “freedom”.

 

"If Edward Bernays were the father of spin, then Obama is the son."

Larry Tye

In Nancy Snow’s article If Edward Bernays was on Obama’s PR council she presents an extremely valid point that Bernays could only used PR in an abusive because he knew how to use it in a “pure” way. She relates this to the present and former Presidents of the United States, saying that each President fashions their policies with the greater good in mind, but that they always end up getting involved in the “Big Sell”. Maybe if everyone knew a little more about Bernays and the things that he did the industry and the leaders of this world could use it in the “pure” way. And maybe the consumers and citizens would learn to be more aware of the tricks that it uses.

“Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.”

Don Draper

 So if marketing is just a way of making people feel excepted, then it must be ok. But if marketing is just a way of making people feel that being accepted is just out of thier grasp then that's not good, is it? Bernays' interest and use of psycho-analysis lead to leading the masses down the path that he wants, making them believe that they are getting what they what- but what's the difference between giving someone what they want and making someone believe that they are getting what they want? Is it wrong to give people what they want by taking away thier deffences?

When Two Molecules Collide

Where will I be in five years time? I will have glided through university, sailed into my first full time job and be gracefully working my way up through the company. Having travelled to many places far and wide, colliding with other lives. When you meet someone, part of that person stays with you. You interact with them, and you change them in varying degrees. Whether they remember you and you them throughout the rest of this captivating expedition is yet to be seen, but you will have imparted something to them. And what would you want to impart? If you met someone fleetingly what would you want them to know? Something about yourself? Your world views, beliefs, causes or crusades? That you feel that the salvation of the world is that people must realise the perfection of the world in which they live? Or would you simply reassure them that they are a good person and should carry on doing good things for themselves and those around them (which I think is what advertising does!?)? What would you want to receive from them? Would you want the reassurance that you're a good person doing good things? Or would you want to learn of the world that they have come from? Whatever you learn from the people around you, you can be assured that knowledge is power, and that by learning and sharing knowledge with the people that you meet we grow stronger as humanity.

Despite all of the new views, opinions and information that you can incur from Googling and searching the web, it would be just as easy to only find people who agree with your world view, which is not what I would use the web for. Since I have been thinking about the massive world of the web, I have been thinking about the benefits it could have on expanding people's view of society globally. But it can just as easily be used to convince yourself that you are correct and right in your views and morals because you can quickly find hundreds of other people who agree with you. And that means you are right, right? Thanks to the broadness and frequentness of advertising we have become very good at screening out unnecessary information, such as adverts. But this could stretch to include screening out views that you disagree with. This is a less inviting way of looking at the world.
But this isn't just sharing information with people you meet, oh no. No longer can you, vaguely, control the people that you share this existence with, or at least those that you don't share with. Since I started blogging less than a year ago I have had absolutely no control over who reads it. I don't even have any way of knowing who's reading it. I can't even be sure who comments on it, despite them having to leave a name. But I guess that point could lead us to the "how well do we really know anyone" debate, and I'm sure I will get to that in due time, but it's a little deep for my first post of my new blog.

B2B

A company grows cotton. That company sells it to a factory where they spin the cotton, and turn it into fabric and thread. A t-shirt company buys some of thier cotton fabric and thread. They also buy dyes and print (with it's own trail of transactions behind it). The t-shirt company sells those t-shirts to Topshop. Topshop sold the t-shirt to you- only, of course, after a hefty mark and and putting it's own label in.

Inbetween each of these transactions transportation companies have been hired to ship around these goods. All the companis in each stage of this process has will probably have bought a property from an estate agency, furniture from IKEA, electricity from EDF, hired staff from a temp agency or through a newspaper, bought computers from Currys, pens and pencils out of a Viking catalogue, put new windows in from Velux, had local painters in to re-decorate, hired a repairman when the coffee machine stopped working, calamity, I know, hired a solicitor, an accountant and a cleaner and had so many other transaction with many other businesses. And for what? So that You could buy a t-shirt from Topshop.

Business to business (B2B) transactions are much more likely to be of a higher value,but fewer, than B2C transations. Most companies are buying to create something else to sell on, and therefore buy in bulk. This means that you cannot afford to lose any of your customers. An example that was given in class was the comparison between a company selling MRI scanners (B2B) and Coke (B2C).

Focusing on the UK, Coca-Cola has millions of customers. A company selling MRI scanners probably has very few, probably only the NHS. However, Coke has hundreds of compititors, other soft drinks, hot drinks, squash at home, water, alcoholic drinks, all from different companies. There probably aren't many retailers of MRI scanners in the UK. This means B2B retailers must work much harder at building a relationship with the customer. This is why personal selling is much more efficient than advertising and many other types of marketing that are widely used in the B2C sector.

Because there are often fewer substitutes in B2B markets the demand for products and services is more likely to be inelastic- "A situation in which a cut in price yields such a small increase in quantity taken by the market that total revenue decreases". This means two things for marketers. Firstly, it is harder to stimulate sales through price cuts and promotional offers. Secondly, the marketer is, often, able to set the price because if cutting the price doesn't increase sales it is likely that raising the price will not decrease sales. The cause for this, in many cases, is that if a business needs a product, it needs the product. An example given for this in class was financial software, but the same could be true for communications solutions, farm machinery and hospital beds. There are three core causes of price elasticity, "a measure of the sensitivity of demand to changes in price" ; 1. the availabilty of substitutes 2. the amount of budget available to spend 3. time.

The availability of substitutes probably has biggest influence of price and demand elasticity, as has been discussed earlier. Budget affects elasticity as a rise in the price of a product without a rise in the alloted budget for the product would mean that the company would not buy the product.

There are three main types of organisations (Fill & Fill, 2005):

• Government Organisations- eg. Health, NHS, and Policing, London Metropolitain Police
• Institutional Organisations- eg. Not-For-Profit, Cancer Research UK, Community Based Projects, Watford Women's Centre
• Commercial Organisations- eg. Distributors, Eddie Stobbart, Retailers, Zara

The main method of marketing in B2B is personal selling. Salesmen and women have a lot of pressure on them to make sales, and a lot of time and money is put into training them. Earlier in the module we were shown Kotler's Buyer Decision Process. Quickly we realised that this was not always how consumers bought products, especially FMCGs and impulse buys. But his model is much more applicable in B2B buyer behaviour.

Problem Recognition > Information Search > Evalutation > Purchase > Postpurchase Evaluation

In the B2C market this might translate into something like:

I'm Hungry > What's Available? > Ice-Cream or Cake > Ben&Jerry's > Should have had Cake

In the B2B market it might look quite different and involve many more people, especially in a larger organisation. The Marketing Department might decide that their sales team need some extra training, so they go to the Finance Department to see if there is any funding. The Finance says there is. So the Marketing Department look for what type of training is available. They then take this to the CEO, or who ever needs to sign it off, and the R&D Department want to see what type of course it is, to see if it will be effective for what they are working on. The CEO and R&D agree. So the salesteam go off for training. Then the sales figures speak for themselves. This might look something like:

Sales needs training > What training is available? > B2B or B2C? > B2B > Good choice, most of our clients are Businesses

Randy Shattuck, of the Shattuck Group, summerizes corporate buying as the following things:

• Methodical
  Complex
• Budgeted
• High-risk
• Analytical
• Coordinated

Shattuck states that B2B buyers are motivated to spend because they know that if they don't spend their budget they will probably lose it. He emphasizes that the desired effect of the product is what creates the risk. "The bigger the desired effect, the bigger the risk". Shattuck's version of the B2B buyer decision process differs slighlty from Kotler's:

Identify the Problem > Create Criteria > Search for Providers > Evaulate the Options > Test the Options > Procure the Solution

The main difference is the lack of post purchase analysis. With most B2B purchases there is no option to get it wrong, this is why the solution must be tested. When you are the driver behind a big purchase decision it is often the case that your position, or at least credibility, in the company is at stake.

To improve sales and build inter-business relationships many companies use reciprocity, "A buying arrangement in which two organizations agree to purchase one another's products". They enter into an agreement that, for example, a mobile phone company will provide phones for a car company in return for a company car. Another option is leasing. Companies often make the decision to lease a product rather than buy it out right. This may be because it is an expensive product and they do not have the budget for it, or maybe they feel that because it will become obsolete soon.