Week 3 post

The first thing that came to mind when thinking about how companies utilize social media for advertising, was Nike. On twitter, Nike responds to a bunch of random people who tweet about their new Nike shoes, or a run they went on, giving them motivation. This is effective because it is giving people who already support Nike, a reason to continue to do so. It also gains a lot of publicity for Nike being in people's Twitter feed who might not even follow them. 

 In "What Would Google Do?" Jeff Jarvis talks about concepts of advertising. The most interesting being "Make money through the side door." He says Google and Apple make their money by essentially giving away most of their services for free, then make money on something else, or in the "side door". I find it interesting that these companies are giving away the bulk of their services for free. Where other companies assume that what they are providing is their revenue; and therefore, should be paid for it. It "Breaks through the clutter" because it is refreshing to see companies that are willing to give without expecting to immediately receive.






One advertising campaign that has stood out to me for the past few years is Doritos. It stands out to me because it very humorous.  This ad was played at the super bowl a few years back. And Doritos is known for having some of the best super bowl ads. Doritos launched a "Crash the Superbowl" campaign where they picked their favorite videos that their consumers created, then put them in the Superbowl. Seeing as how they were calling on consumers to record and submit videos, I would assume their target audience was a more tech savvy one. Ranging from age 15 to about 30. Also, the light hearted humor has the ability to appeal to almost any audience. So although the the main target was 15 to 30 year olds, I believe the Doritos campaign stretched to a wide audience on Superbowl Sunday. Not to mention the millions of views the videos have on YouTube.

The amount of Ad campaigns that I find annoying are somewhat endless. Most of the ones that bug me tend to be the ads that utilize the "Plain Folks" pitch. For example, FanDuel and DraftKings commercials, Weight loss commercials, acne commercials, and the list could go on and on. FanDuel and DraftKings makes it seem like anybody can win, but in reality, if you read the little text at the bottom of the screen and see the odds they are not in your favor. Of course anybody with half a brain should know it's a gamble playing right? But perhaps that is not the case. Maybe viewers are blinded by the sex appeal in some of the commercials. For example, one DraftKings commercial says "Just your average accountant but after winning he went from a guy with holes in his underpants, to a guy with bikini models in them." The scariest thing about this is that I didn't have to look that up. The sheer amount of times I have heard this commercial in the background of whatever more important thing I was focusing on is unbelievable. So, according to DraftKings, if you win you not only have money, but you also have all the women you could desire. This makes it clear who the target audience is. Men. More specifically, middle aged men who enjoy sports. But FanDuel and DraftKings have overplayed their commercials to the extent that most people I know change the channel to avoid them, and if they decide to stay on the same channel they role their eyes at the absurdities and unlikelyhood of what is presented in the commercials.