Week 7: Effective Marketing/Advertisement

      Advertisement is a paid impersonal promotion of goods or services through serving persuasive information to the audience.  There are many different ways to advertise products and services. There are two major kinds of advertisement, the one you have to pay for and the one, which you can get free.  To paid advertisement, we could classify for example TV, radio, newspaper, search engines, social media et cetera.  There are also free ways to advertise, for example organic result in search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. YouTube channels are also a great way to advertise on the web.  

Advertisers have full control of the message they want to pass to the public through whatever form of promotion they prefer.  

There are several different ways to approach potential customers with advertisement. Some advertisements are comic, some are rather serious building the pure prestige for the product or a company, and some rely on product price to attract the audience to make a purchase of goods/services.

Are funny adverts effective in terms of marketing success? What is your personal opinion? 

Doritos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWdfUBajb4I

Companies often advertise to create their image. It is a great way to build prestige and respect for  their brand.

On the internet we can often find unusual advertisement videos. Those videos have never seen TV screen. We often refer to them as "banned advertisement". Search YouTube for "banned advertisement" term to watch some of them or see the example bellow.

Brian Trancy states that there are four fundamentals of marketing which determine success or failure of business. The first is "Specialisation" which determines the market in which your company will specialise to make it a little bit better than others did. It would be a great advantage if the company could lead and create the new industry standards.

                                      

The second is "Differentiation" which is the true key to business success. It determines how we are different from the others. It is important that this "difference" is useful to our customers. It is crucial to develop a "Unique Selling Point", which will allow the company to provide a better quality product or services. USP determines our differences from competitors.

   

Nowadays customer’s purchase decision is based on the terms of the deal, unlike in the past. People used to buy goods and services from merchants that they would know well. It was more likely that we would go to the same store as our parents did. Today this is not a case anymore. Customers want to get highest quality for the lowest price and this is all that matters. There are no emotions in the process of selection. Decision-making is purely based on quality and price.    

The third is "segmentation".  This process is responsible for segmenting and identification of potential customers who are more likely to buy advertised products.

"Concentration" is the last  fundamental. This process is responsible for concentration on the most important target group of  business. Potential group of customers that are more likely to buy company products. Brian Trancy in one of his videos states that around 50% of funds spent on advertisement were wasted because of the bad audience targeting or the ineffective advertisement system.

We can look at some marketing failures. Those advertisements simply did not work.

If you find this post interesting and want to watch some more interesting adverts go to: top 30 adverts at: http://www.creativebloq.com/3d/top-tv-commercials-12121024

What is your favourite advert?

Can you remember any other advertisement failure?

How would you advertise your product/service?

What is the best way to advertise at low cost?

Do you think a funny advertisement is a good way of attracting new customers?

Week 7: Great Pacific Garbage Patch

     The Earth’s surface is covered in seventy five percent with water. Everything that lives on earth need water as well as oxygen to stay alive. Unfortunately, human activities damage our environment. Water is not as clean as it used to be years ago. There are places where fish dies because of water contamination.

Water pollution is dangerous not only for animals living in water but anyone who drinks it. Water pollution affects entire biological food chain. If an animal drinks contaminated water, it becomes contaminated. When we eat meat that comes from those animals, we transfer those contaminants to our body. Water pollutions are caused by direct incorporation of hazardous pollutants like plastic and oil into the water system.

Why is plastic bad for environment?

Some products made from plastic are more harmful for the environment than others. Plastic bags are one of those products that are very harmful for the environment. It happens that plastic bags are more likely not to be recycled than plastic bottles. Plastic bags are also deadly for animals living in water. They are produced from not renewable resources.  Plastic can take up to 1000 years to decompose in the ground, and about 450 years in water, releasing poisonous chemical substances.

  

Industrial waste often gets into water through blowing wind or urban canals.  About eighty percent of waste in the ocean comes from land. The sources of these pollutants are yet again the large industries and factories that dispose off their waste in lakes and ponds. It is said that this waste is collected in the "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch", also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex  located in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N  42°N.

I think that people should take responsibility for the actions they take. Humans cause environmental pollution. It is in our interest to be eco friendly. Perhaps there are things we can do to minimize pollution. Do you have any ideas how we could minimize industrial pollutions?

We are responsible for the environment we live in, as we are the ones who change it so rapidly. This harm will come back eventually in water we drink and food we eat.  

What can we do to stop this from happening? 

Week 7: NSA, ARE THEY REALLY WATCHING?

I would like you to read/watch and comment on/discuss the presentation NSA, ARE THEY REALLY WATCHING?

–You will find it at http://konwersatorium1-ms-pjwstk.blogspot.com/2013/11/week-6-nsa-are-they-really-watching.html

  Comment on  it here please. 

Week 7: First glance at RPG

I would like you to read/watch and comment on/discuss the presentation First glance at RPG

–You will find it at http://konwersatorium1-ms-pjwstk.blogspot.com/2013/11/falling-down-rabbit-whole-first-glance.html

  Comment on  it here please. 

Week 6: PayPass users!!

Figure 1 -
http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/ew-radar-handbook/images/imgx1B.gif

Paypass (MasterCard)/payWave(Visa) technology is storming the banking industry. All Polish banks want to jump on to the bandwagon to bring their customers the newest debit/credit cards with RFID tags. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a technology that originates from the military use during the II World War. Tags were used in airplanes for radar identification – the so called IFF (identification friend or foe). As the radar beam would hit an Allie plan the RFID tag would reflect a modified signal back to the station and on the radar screen a green dot (for friendly aircraft) would appear.

Nowadays RFID is used just about everywhere, also in banking cards. But just how safe is this technology? Simply have a look at a video from MythBusters where they tried to test it out.

As you can see something is going on. This technology is extremely vulnerable as tags transmit unencrypted information to the receiver that anybody (even using a smartphone with NFC) can read simply just standing next to you. The scary thing is just how easy it is and everybody with newly issued cards (about last 2 years) can be “robbed”. Just have a look how it’s done…

Figure 2 -
http://corporatesnobs.com/blog/wp-content/
uploads/2013/10/sleeves-rfid.png

How to protect yourself from theft? Well it’s quite easy; simply protect your card in an aluminum case which doesn’t allow radio waves to pass though. An alternative might be a specialized RFID protection certified wallet – which might look like an ordinary wallet but has aluminum casing inside the leather.

How do you protect your bank cards? Were you aware of the risk? 

Week 6: Global warming?

According to meteorological experts from the Russian Academy of Sciences this winter will be the harshest in the last 100 years. The scientists predict, it will start earlier and last longer with temperatures falling to record low levels. Signs indicating that the cold is coming are visible in the so-called North Atlantic Oscillation. The observed changes in the average temperature of the air and water in the oceans indicates that it is highly feasible that we will have a repetition of 1950, where the winter lasted very long and the snow fall was so burdensome that many people had problems leaving their houses as their weren't able to open their doors. Are those the symptoms of global warming?

The main view regarding the global warming is that humans are releasing massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. However, some scientists don’t agree with that view. They claim that the so called global warming is not fully elicited by humans and that it comes in cycles – meaning that global warming occurred even before human beings occupied the planet. A very interesting documentary which is attached below, “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, explains very well how the climate change became a business with immense amounts of money being made by large companies…

What do you think of global warming? Do you think that it is manmade or a natural phenomenon?

Week 6: From Russia with love

With the recent introduction of the local border traffic law (also known as small border traffic) with Russia the amount of traffic at the Kaliningrad Oblast border has increased by over 60%.  In the last 8 months over 4 million people have crossed it. Since the introduction of the new law in July 2012 the Russians flock to visit shops on the Polish side, especially when buying food. Polish markets warmly welcome the new customers as they leave large amounts of cash every time they shop. The considerable sums of money impel (entail) to most supermarkets, restaurants and even hotels close to the border but also in Elblag and Gdansk employ people with the knowledge of Russian language.

People from the Kaliningrad Oblast not only come for shopping but also to visit our medical centers as they say that the Polish doctors are much better educated and have higher qualification and advanced equipment than their counterparts in Russia. There’s even a hospital close to Gdansk which is building an ultra-exclusive new wing just for the new clientele.

We can see more and more Russians not only around the Baltic Sea but also in our mountains. Whoever has visited Zakopane in the last few years must have seen all the cars with Russian and Belarusian license plates, even the gorals are starting to learn the language of our neighbors.

Not only Polish people are starting to like their Eastern neighbors for the money but also the Eastern neighbors love visiting our country. They even created a song which is taking the internet by storm.

What do you think of the current situation?