Week 5 EOC: What My Classmates Think About Advertising & Marketing

One of my classmates and I share the same view of advertising. She said, "Advertising is impersonal, one-way mass communication about a product or organization that is paid for by a marketer." ( MKTG, Lamb pg. 212.) http://luckybugproductions.blogspot.com/

I agree. It is about getting the message out there to the masses in the most effective way possible. I liked my example I used last week about men’s body wash and how placing it on a website like ESPN, that a vast number of men commonly frequent, is a great way to reach your target market.

Another classmate elaborated more on the process of marketing and how it relates to advertising. She said, “"Marketing is a process that focuses on delivering value and benefits to customers"(MKTG, McDaniel, Pg. 3). http://minnie-livingbydesign.blogspot.com/

She also went on to say something to the effect that marketing is the tool that advertisers use to get their products out there. The marketing process is what determines who we are marketing to, where is this target market located, and is this product going to do well in this market from a research and study point-of-view. The Ad companies need depend on this information to market effectively and efficiently. I will go back to my example of men’s body wash. Most men are generally only concerned about smelling clean and fresh. The key is the scent, clean and fresh. Men want to smell like men and not like women.

One more classmates had an interesting view on advertising. She said, “Though advertising cannot change consumers’ deeply rooted values and attitudes, advertising may succeed in transforming a person’s negative attitude toward a product into a positive one.” (MKTG, Lamb, pg. 228) http://gamboldeproductions.blogspot.com/

I also agree with her view. Her example is the tobacco companies. The age old question was how so they keep people lighting up every 10 seconds when the detrimental and deathly affects that come along with doing so. They turned a negative into a positive. After being blacklisted by their own medical research, the companies had to change their approach. They used images and attributes of product, like “It’s Toasted,” to revive its market and create a new buzz big enough to kill all the other medically supported ads they used in the past. All though this may not get someone to start smoking, it will keep the people who already started distracted enough to keep buying and lighting up.