Pinning is Winning!

http://pinterest.com/pin/97812623127065922/

An electronic form of a bulletin board has taken the internet by storm. Pinterest is its name and marketing is one of its (fairly new) games. The amount of people joining Pinterest is simply amazing.

I am an avid Pinterest user and being that I am interested in advertising I want to look at how Pinterest is being used as a tool to advertise and market products to its large amount of users.

To start off, for those of you who do not know what Pinterst is, let me explain. Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board where you ‘pin’ pictures of things you find online, that you like, on categorized boards that you create. In order to create an account you have to submit a request that you want to join or be invited by someone who already has a Pinterest account, then once your account is created you are free to go pin crazy!

Heather Sundell a guest writer for Forbes worded it perfectly, “Consumers are predominantly using Pinterest as a virtual treasure box of dreams, wishes and aspirations.”

http://wideinfo.org/revealed-90-of-pinterest-users-are-women/

However, marketers see Pinterest as a way to advertise their product in a new way. Pinterest had 21.5 million visits during the week ending Jan. 28, a nearly 30-fold increase over a comparable week in July. It is the 3^rd most visited social media site in the U.S. with 104 million visits in the month of March behind Facebook who has 7 billion visits and Twitter with 182 million.

Here are some ways that companies are able to use Pinterest to market and advertise their services and or products:

-Make a Pinerest account for your company in order to showcase your services and products to all the users.

-Link your Pinterest account to your company’s main website

-Create coupons or special promotions for customers only available via Pinterest

-Make sure to use interesting and fun images to promote your company

Below is a great illustration of how marketers use Pinterest as a tool.

http://go.maxymiser.com/PinterestInfographicMarch2012_social.html

I have seen, personally, how Pinterest can be a great asset from the consumer side of things. Right now I am in the market for living room furniture and after being unsuccessful with finding anything that I like in the furniture stores around town I was not sure what to do. I decided to search Pinterest for couches and found all types of couches that I loved. I found many companies who had furniture that I did not know even sold furniture. 

Pinterest is a pretty new thing and the idea of using it as a tool for marketing and advertising has only begun. It will be interesting to see what changes we will see happen with Pinterest in the future.   

But in the mean time, Happy Pinning!

Advertising + QR Codes= Success

QR codes have brought advertising to a whole new level. You may ask how such an odd-looking thing works, or better yet what does the Q and R stand for or how has it been a beneficial thing to the advertising world? Do they have any downfalls?

http://www.cimex.com/digital/qr-codes-explained

For starters, QR stands for quick response. You scan the box, which looks like the picture shown below, with your phone or smart device and it directs you to more information, usually a website, about whatever the QR code was on. This has been a great asset to the advertising industry.

A combination of all the factors that are listed below, are the reason QR codes are such a positive thing in the world of advertisement.

-The mobile market is predicted to grow to $2.3 billion by 2016 (most if not all the scanning of QR codes is done with a mobile device which needs to have a camera)

-QR codes scan rates have jumped by 4,500% since the first quarter of 2010

-Smith’s Point Analytics’ report predicts more than 160 million QR codes will be created this year alone

How does this relate in a positive way to advertisement? From what I have learned about advertising, it is a balance of getting as much information as possible while also being aesthetically pleasing at the same time. Now with QR codes you are able to include a lot more information by simply incorporating a QR code somewhere within your advertisement. Finding that balance is easier than before. The down side is you have to incorporate that odd looking square of smaller white and black squares somewhere within your advertisement.

 Even with the odd look of them, you see them all around. To the right, I have included a clip which does a great job explaining how companies use QR codes to help advertise their product, especially through magazines.

So these things seem to be completely wonderful. Right? For the most part, however, like most things they too have their downfalls. Such as:

-In order to use them you have to have a device that has a camera

-You have to be able to connect to the internet either
 via your mobile data package or Wi-Fi.

-You have to have the correct software, usually through downloading an app, which has the capabilities to read the QR code

I am unfortunately an individual who does not have a data package included in my phone service, so the only interaction I have with QR codes is via my iPod Touch. I am limited to where and when I can use them because I have to have access to Wi-Fi in order for it to work. Maybe someday, hopefully soon, I will join the smart phone family and interact with QR codes more frequently.

Advertisements interrupting your Listening?

When listening to music on an, ever so popular, music-streaming site such as Spotify or Pandora, the advertisements sure can get irritating. Listeners have been working on trying to find ways around having to listen to the advertisements. While advertisers have come up with some creative ways to make sure that their audiences have no other choice but to listen to the advertisements. You cannot forget about the advertisement for the online streaming website itself, they have also founds ways to incorporate advertisement into most things these days to get the word out about their program and fast. If that isn’t well thought out strategy, on both ends, I do not know what is.

Spotify and Pandora both offer free options of their services. However there is a catch: Advertisement. Advertising is Pandora’s only catch but Spotify only allows 6 months of unlimited listening and after that you are limited to 10 hours a month with a cap of 5 plays per unique track. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, just as of yesterday March 29, 2012, Spotify just lifted their limits, for the American users ONLY. Instead of only having 6 months of unlimited listening, we as Americans have an unlimited amount of listening from now on or until the terms change again.

Advertisements are not seen as a favorable thing to most audiences. Pandora and Spotify are aware of this and use that to their advantage. They strategically offer other levels, listed below, of services for a monthly fee and by paying for that upgrade you are able to listen to commercial free music.

http://www.spotify.com/us/get-spotify/overview/ vs http://www.pandora.com/#/account/upgrade

Are you willing to shell out the money for advertisement free music? If not, you can either just live with the advertisements or you can try to follow along with one of the several YouTube clips that instruct you on how to change your settings to automatically mute the advertisements when they start to play. After talking to a couple of my friends who use Spotify, they all had not heard of this change of setting ability. Between their responses and my research it does not seem as if this is a trend that is catching on or will catch on in the future.

Something that did catch the attention of my friends and has caused some irritation is what is being explained in the clip below.

 Clever, very clever.

Adding a feature to their website which causes the advertisement to pause when the volume is adjusted or muted definitely forces their audience to listen to the advertisements in full. They are now playing in full, whether you listen or not is a different story.  

Spotify, itself, is trying to benefit from advertisements too and has partnered up with Facebook for some help. Now when a friend of yours is listening to music with Spotify it shows up your news feed as shown in this screen shot.

Another clever advertisement move? With the large amount of Facebook users, I think so!  

Advertise 'foursquare' style!

Updated: April 24,2012

When you hear the word foursquare what do you think of? Foursquare was a game that you played at recess with a ball, now what is it? Why and how is it becoming so well popular? And how is it beneficial? 

Lets start with what foursquare means now.  Watch the clip below, which does a great job informing you on the app.

Apple says, “Join the 15 million people who use foursquare to explore the world around them! Keep up with friends, discover what’s nearby, and save money at places you love.”

What a great idea, right? Companies are able to advertise by “word of apps” through the people who download the foursquare app on their phone. The people who download the app do it because they are able to get deals and coupons for the companies that are apart of the foursquare circle. The combination of coupons and being able to use GPS to pin point someone’s location is an effective one.

http://www.techinasia.com/foursquare-marketing-tips/

In 2010 alone foursquare had 6 million users, grew 3400% and had 381,576,300 individual users check-ins. Foursquare is still growing and making changes to the application to better suite their users. One of the new developments that recently came out is a “Foursquare for Business” page. Their goal is to make the site easier to navigate and also easier to create a new account.

So this application is off to a great start but one may wonder how money is made with this app.  

According to executive editor of Inc.com, Christine Lagorio, there are 3 main ways to earn money on foursquare:

1.) Love your Mayor and Encourage Loyalty- A mayor status is awarded to the person with the most single day check-ins within a 60 day period at one specific venue. This feature is driving people to be loyal to venues because it is common for the person with the mayor status to receive deals on the product of the place they are mayor of.

2.) Attract New Customer- Foursquare has many coupons, giveaways and one time offers for many venues. There also is a feature called 'specials nearby' where your phone uses your location to show you coupons, giveaways and one time offers to venues that are in close proximity of where you are currently. That draws people to your venue even if they were not planning on going there originally, which then leads to new customers and then possibly new loyal customers.

3. Market your Brand in a Fresh Way- Foursquare does not allow advertisements, but non-retail or industry-service companies are still able to utilize foursquare. Pepsi, for example, partnered with foursquare this past December to promote its “Refresh Everything” community-giving campaign. Every time someone in New York City earned a point on foursquare, Pepsi donated four cents to an inner-city youth camp. In one week Pepsi donated almost $10,000.

Advertising is getting quite creative in their tactics. I wonder what they will come up with next.

But in the mean time… want to play a game of foursquare?

Advertisement as my Career

Advertisement in a way fell into my lap while at North Dakota State University. Here is my story.

I came to pursuing a career in advertising in a round about way. I came to North Dakota State University with my degree declared as environmental design also known as architecture. I was set that I would earn my degree and become an architect. At about the half waypoint of my degree I decided I really did not want to be an architect anymore.

I found that I loved the visual aspect of my degree and wanted to direct my future path in that direction. I decided I wanted do work more as a graphic designer and when I think of what they do, the first thing to come to mind is someone who works with and creates advertisements. So I went and filled out the paperwork to declare my minor in public relations and advertising.

I am very happy that I made that decision and very excited to see where this combination of education will bring me in my future.

The job market that I am planning to enter when I finish school is the design side of advertisement.  This profession is very competitive. On the positive side, the job market, for advertising, is predicted to grow 13% from 2008 to 2013. Here are some additional facts about job availability.

-The highest paid graphic designers live in San Francisco and San Jose.

-The highest concentration of graphic designers is in New York City

-Presently there are over 200,000 individuals in this profession nationwide with 124,800 jobs expected to open in the next 10 years.

Below is a graph showing salaries seen within this profession.

The profession of advertisement is not only growing but also has seen a shift in how it is created and used due to the changes of our interaction with the Internet.

Misty Belardo, the Senior Project Manager at Barefoot Proximity in Cincinnati, Ohio described this trend as, “Gone are the days when we have to wait for information. People get their information fast and in real time. They are spending more and more time online. Advertisers and brands need to see that.”

If you are not aware of what the trends are in your market you are going to fall short. Change is a good thing, and happens a lot in the world of advertising, so you need to make sure to keep on top of what is happening at all times.

My dream is to use all my knowledge from all my schooling to create advertisements that are on the cutting edge. I know in order to do that I am going to have to adapt to the changes within the industry and be willing to work hard.

Watch out New York City, advertisement capital of the world, I will be there before you know it to make a big and positive presence in the ever-changing world of advertisement.  

Below is a clip that illustrates how the internet has changed advertising.

Ads Specific to You

Advertisements catered to you and your interests have not been around for a very long time. What is this trend? Lets look at this new trend and how it is affecting the world of advertising.

Have you noticed that alongside your Facebook page or news feed there are several ads? The ads that are placed there are not the same for everyone. Have you noticed that the ads you see there are usually for something that interests you or for something that can be found around your geographical location in the world?

This is a screen shot of my Facebook account with ads specific to my interests and recent activity while online.

The ability to specialize the ads, which people are seeing, is due to the new concept of behavioral targeting. Lauren Drell, associate editor of supported content of Mashable explains how behavioral targeting works:

Targeting companies establish an agreement with a publisher, who puts a piece of code on his website. (That publisher must have a clearly stated policy for the consumer to opt out from having data collected.) Then, when you’re browsing the web, the site will put a cookie on your browser, which populates as you surf.

Now that your browser has a cookie, the targeting begins. Data points amass as you click your way from site to site, taking note of what you buy, what you read and what you search for. The more time goes on, the more data is collected.

The advertising companies use that information to personalize the ads that will show up during your time online. This seems like a neat feature for both the advertising company and for us as the consumer. The ads we will be seeing will be for products that we actually enjoy or would like to have.

At first thought it seems to be a win, win situation. But do I really want my activity online to be recorded? It works for specializing my ads but is that all that that information is used for?

This act of behavioral targeting is now spreading to your mobile devices. There is still much room for improvement when it comes to the mobile devices but it is predicted that mobile ad market will generate $20.6 billion by 2015 and paired with behavioral targeting the number will only keep increasing.

http://www.samsung.com/us/topic/our-smart-tvs

This concept is now also being introduced to TV. To the left is the TV that Samsung recently came out with that is able to connect to the Internet. 

 I do not believe it is not too far into our near future when we will only see ads that are chosen for us based off the shows we watch and what we browse on the Internet through our TV.

$3.5 Million enough for ya?

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word Super Bowl? My guess is, a big football game with a very close second, commercials. It is not uncommon for people to watch the Super Bowl purely to watch the commercials and not the game. I am one of those people who could really care less about the game but if I were to watch it I find more enjoyment in watching the commercials verses the game itself.

The commercials during the Super Bowl are not cheap. Volkswagen paid $3.5 Million dollars for their 30-second spot during the championship game. That is sure one pretty penny, if you ask me.

As a senior at North Dakota State University who is finishing up my minor in public relations and advertisement along with my degree in Architecture I find it very interesting how companies use their very expensive 30 seconds. 

It never fails, after every Super Bowl there are two lists. The good and the bad. Just think spending $3.5 million dollars and the commercial ends up being a dud. However, is it really a dud when so many people are taking about it, good or bad? In the world of advertisement talk is talk and even if it is negative it is still causing attention to the ad and then in return the product the commercial is promoting.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/
why-super-bowl-ads-keep-getting-more-expensive/250810/

Super Bowl 46 was also known not just for it’s commercials, like every other Super Bowl, but also for being the most “social” Super Bowl ever, and broke new ground in several areas of integrated digital marketing. This year the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee and the local social media agency Raidious joined forces to create the first ever, social media command center right in Indianapolis for covering the game.

Fans everywhere were able to watch the game on television while also logging into their Facebook, Twitter, Google+ accounts and get updates or have any questions answered that they might have about the game. Those sites have their own advertisement, which are automatically built in. So with those advertisements, plus the very expensive advertisements aired during the game, people were surrounded by more advertisements than they probably even knew what to do with.

Why you ask is commercial air space so darn expensive? Why the heck would a company want to pay that much money for airing and advertisement?

According to Jordan Weissmann, associate editor of   The Atlantic, “audiences have fractured the age of      Hulu and DVR, the Super Bowl is among the last of an     increasingly endangered species: The truly mass audience live TV event. In good times and bad, that distinction has been worth a premium to advertisers.” The amount of people that watch the game is huge and increases every year. And Nielson found that, Super Bowl ads are 58% more memorable than regular TV ads.

Are all those circumstances are enough for 3.5 million dollars for 30 seconds right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-9EYFJ4Clo