blogs for fun

so the blogs I follow are as follows; gizmodo, io9, dc comics the source, and marvel comic blog, looking for group, and pvp. The last two are online comics but their curators do a little blog under each strip, so you find out a lot about them. I'm a bit of a fan boy geek so all these sites are one of the ways I find out what's going on in the world with science fiction, comic books, movies, and all that fun stuff which is a waste of time. I highly recommend gizmodo if your a gadget person, the amount of neat "toys" being introduced. io9 is a bit of everything in geek stuff, so its great for seeing whats new in everything, I also find that io9 has the most for comments under their posts. in a lot of cases their ridiculous, but every now and again you get a worthwhile comment or shared link from someone that leads to a interesting thing.

The world of blogs

so this week I spent much time going through several blogs about adverting and marketing. There are a lot, and they all seem to cover a lot of the same thing. But a few offer insight to things around the world which we don't get to hear about normally, or see as adverting here in Canada. I found I like George Parkers rants quite good, a combination of straight talk with colorful language, which made it enjoyable and fun to read. The psfk.com was a good one with a lot of sections and I liked how you could pick to read through just advertising if you wanted. the adrants.com and adverblog.com were good as well. I must admit I have stayed away from reading blogs or even doing one outside of for school assignments. I probably will still stay away from writing a blog outside of it being required (until I have something regular to say which I feel is worth having people read.) But I do think after visiting these sites and seeing that they offer more than I thought, up till now I really thought blogs were places to either seek attention for them selves or just bitch about whatever, These sites showed a much richer value than I realized or knew. The idea of taking a quick look every day or two offers examples of adverting and what's happening in the industry which for well anyone going into it or in it should be keeping up on and looking at to see what's new what's been done and well see what is working or not, what's offending or being loved its almost like a tool to be used and in this industry we should make use of every tool we have.

Brand personality MAC

So for brand personality I'll look at MAC computers they seem to come across as the nice guy/girl in jeans and a shirt, casual but can work. He/she is there to help you get the job done in a easy no hassle or hard time way. He/she is about 24-28, young but old enough that you would believe that he/she know what he/she is doing. He/she know that you want a partner to help you get the job done and not someone who questions you at every click of the mouse. HE/she wants you to have the best experience with him/her and wants to offer you the opportunity to do it many different ways. He/she will become your buddy, and thats what they want to be for you. They'll do the work and then be ready to party after.

Brand positioning volvo and the tank

So for brand positioning I have to go with Image differentiation. When one looks at Volvo you often will here people talk about how they associate safe with the position the cars have in their top of mind. This is something that Volvo obviously strived for in their drive to stand out from the crowd, they knew their cars were and they decided to show the world. In that old adage that actions speak louder than words, they made a commercial where they showed the strength of their cars by sitting a tank on top of the volvo car and it didn't collapse under it it held it up. People noticed that and the end result was that Volvo not only set a company's identity as the safest cars, but also in the consumers mind that was also Volvo's identity to them. I remember this ad when it played I though it was cool to see, my parents took notice of what it stood for. Volvo has always been their car, and every time they get a new car its a Volvo, my Sister bought one too, right after she crashed our moms and wrapped it around a tree, she walked away with out scrach, so one can see why consumers identify Volvo as the safe car.

Brand loyalty

I think that if there is one product, or product line which will result in brand loyalty from consumers it would be laundry detergent and maybe dish soap. For certain laundry soap, I don't know alot of people who jump brands of laundry soap for price breaks, coupons, special offers and such. Its one of the products consumers won't sacrifice on. My ex was a firm sunlight user and I'm tide, we had to do separate laundry cause neither of us was willing to switch. I actually broke out in hives when she washed my stuff in her detergent (I might be allergic to the artificial lemon). My family as far back as I can remember has used tide, my mother, my grandmother. When we go overseas we brought tide with us to do laundry. We believe in the brand it has never done us wrong. when we change its within the brand line, We have all started using cold tide, and wont even look at any other companies cold detergent. Personally I know I bring up tide every time we talk about brand loyalty in classes, its the only think I believe I have loyalty to as a product.

Brand Architecture

I think for me one of the best brand architectures is the President's choice, its a great family brand. The whole line is well supported by the company with lots of commercials and seasonal flyers which praise all the products, pair them off with each other in recipe combinations and meal combinations. They have had a great speaker for the brand when if first came out with Dave, and now with a younger gentleman who seems to speak passionately about the PC products. I know that there have been many times I have tried a new product because it has the PC logo on it and have associated great quality with that brand.

Brand Story

So a product that I think has a strong brand story, and has stuck with me since first year, is lucky strike cigarette. Started in 1871 as a chewing tobacco. in 1917 it started the slogan "its toasted" and L.S.M.F.T. which stands for lucky strike means fine tobacco.

The story about them that I like the most is their war time story. in 1942 they changed their package design for the reason that the two original colors green and gold used metals which were required for the war effort, so they changed the colors and made a big campaign out of it.

Luck strikes went with the slogan "Lucky Strike green has gone to war" and it quickly became one of the preferred brands of smoke for G.I.'s. The truth of the change was actually to attract more female smokers because the current colors were not appealing to them, but they marketed the change to be more American and patriotic and it worked.