At Safeway I noticed a promotion running for Fiber One at the beginning of the semester.  I quickly took a picture of it, knowing that I will make a post about promotion towards the end of the semester.  As you can see from the image, you will receive a FREE box of Fiber One Toaster Pastries with the purchase of 3 other Fiber One brand products.  This type of promotion is called an in-store bundle, and can be very effective in introducing new products and helping to raise sales.

In a struggling economy where companies are tring to remind people of the good old days when the economy was in a buying phase it takes more then changing the LOGO back to the old school look.  In this case, they not only showed you the good old days, but they also reduced the price of the candy bar to $0.69!!  This would promote a push to sell the product fast, and get consumers hooked back into that Hershey’s taste!

Nothing says “Augmented service” more than a good old warranty.  And when it comes to the Auto industry, you can’t get any better of an Augmented service then that offered by Kia.  Kia has an amazing 10 year/100,000 mile warranty that will keep your car moving for quite some time!!

Product lines are very important to the growth of any company.  For this week I have chosen to attach a picture of the LEGO isle of our local Walmart.  I think it speaks for itself when you can see the different types of LEGO products shown in this one image.  And this is only one isle out of the 3 rows of shelves and 2 end-caps of LEGOs available at Walmart.

Creating new and innovative products can really shake up a current market.  Just look at the introduction of the iPhone.  Before diving into the iPhone, its important to note that competition is one of the leading factors in how fast our technology around the globe has progressed so fast since we started to introduce technology into our lives.  For example, you can look at the military.  WIth such strong competition around the globe to be the leader in war fair and to be the biggest and strongest, governments have helped create some amazing technology that is now part of our everyday lives.

Now to discuss the iPhone.  Before the introduction of the iPhone, we had a stalled cell phone market.  Everything was just a phone, and you just pushed buttons to dial and thats it.  Texting was on an uprise do to the introduction of full keyboards, but nothing like the introduction of the touch screen.  Apple single handily is responsible for the upward jump in technology in the cell phone industry.

I can tell you that when I walked into McDonald’s a few weeks back, I realized, I was not their target market.  I think it is safe to assume that McDonald’s doesn’t just run out and create advertisements and promotions off of ideas built from thin air.   A lot of time and money goes into research to help determine the types of products their targets are buying.  In this case, its a whole lot of food.

Trade Magazines are a very important way for businesses to introduce themselves to other businesses.  Which is what B2B is all about.  I have chosen the above advertisement because not only is it a trade magazine ad, but because of the use of line and shape that are important to advertising.  It also has a strong call to action at the bottom stating that for more information to visit the booth.

The second I read subliminal advertising in the glossary of this chapter I was instantly reminded of a video one of my professors showed me in a previous class.  Although this only relates to a very small part of the chapter, I couldn’t help but be reminded by it, and thought it would be a fun thing to share on the blog.  Some of the messages in these advertisements will blow your mind, and really make you wonder what else is out there, or if they were all done on purpose.

I chose this video not only because it is by far the cutest advertisement every released, but because it shows the research that went into the development of the spot.  The problem with PC’s is that people view them as hard to use, very complex.  This commercial shows the target market of the product that look, even a 4 year old can do these amazing things on the computer.

Axe Hair Commercial

I chose this commercial cause I thought it was a funny way of expression the type of marketing planning that went into the creation of the advertisement.  The commercial targets men (or course) and how the axe hair products can alter your appearance drastically.  They use super models to demonstrate that girls view them as ugly when they don’t use the axe hair products.