The first one seems the most obvious, but you would be surprised how many people do not know there is a dedicated site for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. This site is a page rank 8 with a user-friendly design.  The medal table section is above the fold and you are able to copy the code in case you would like to embed it in an email or a blog.  There is a latest news section and a latest videos section, but the best thing about this site is the navigation at the top of the page that is organized by the name of each Winter Olympic Sport. This is great because you can easily see all the different sports and go into the one you are interested in. Each page has further detailed information about the sport and even weather information on for the location the sport is taking place.

Then we have the NBC Olympics site. This site is a page rank 7 and has tons of videos and slideshows, which seems to be the focal point of their page. Like other sites I posted here, they include a medal chart section, a live blog, and results. What stood out the most about this site was the focus on the US and some Canadian Olympic Athletes. Go down below the fold and check the athletes’ profile section.  When you click on the athlete, you can see a bio, get connected to their Twitter accounts and see special coverage of them as well as photo albums and stories. I also like the Olympic Pulse feature that shows tweets of the athletes who are updating their Twitter during the Olympic Games.

Yahoo Sports has a decent page in their sports section for the Winter Olympics that has Olympic headlines, a sports blog where you can communicate with other sports fanatics, and videos of event coverage. On the Olympic homepage you can see a chart of the overall Medal Count with an easy to follow format.  If you scroll down the page, you will see a chart that is updated with the latest medals. The name of the winner of the medal is displayed and clickable allowing you to view stats and a current medal count for the athlete that won the medal.

Alright everyone, that is my coverage of the best websites to get your Winter Olympic fix; hope it helps. If you know of any other good sites, please feel free to post here. If you visited these sites or are currently using one for your Olympics coverage information, let me know your likes and dislikes.  Go USA!

February 19, 2010

The debate here … is this really fair? Is it fair to fool consumers that this is a real image?

In France, lawmakers are trying to combat the misleading advertisements by implementing a law requiring all images that have been retouched to have a disclaimer that states this. Lawmakers claim that these re-touching procedures aid women in developing body image issues that could lead to anorexia and bulimia. Being an individual that works in marketing and was trained in graphic design, I completely understand why companies use retouching in advertisement. It gives the photo a finishing touch that helps showcase the product and helps the buyer get a better visualization. It helps them feel what the product is all about. Essentially that is the point of marketing a product correctly. The idea is, “use this product, and you will look or be like this.”

Although I understand the marketing ideals behind this technique, I am also a woman and while I am stable enough to understand that I shouldn’t starve  myself I must confess that when I look at magazines,  I wish I could look like the women in the images. I could definitely see how this could give women a false sense of how women should look like and puts an emphasis on what kinds of women are idolized by society.

In the U.S., it would be very hard to pass a law that would stop advertising agencies from re-touching their photos before print. There could be a good argument that this goes against freedom of speech. I think there should be a fine line between too much retouching and just enough. I agree that some blemishes, maybe softening wrinkles, and evening out skin discolorations can be done to naturally enhance a photo. When you change the structure of a person’s face and body, it pushes the limit of what is real and what cannot be naturally achieved.

October 6, 2009

Necessity is the mother of invention, and in the business world of today you either keep up or you lose the game. Over the past year Heinz has proved itself to be an emerging product innovator. With innovations such as lighter containers and new caps, Heinz has created a competitive advantage in its market allowing the company to turn from a “sluggish underperformer” to outperforming its leading rivals. Heinz has also expanded its line of products and created many new ones. This gives Heinz a fresh new feel and appeal to customers. By giving customers more choices, as well as new choices they might not have had before, Heinz is changing the way we look at our condiments.

Not only has Heinz expanded its line of products, it has expanded its market as well. Heinz’s traditional customer base was Americans, or consumers of traditional American food. Heinz has now branched out into the Asian market and has made many innovations to target them. The creation of new lighter poaches of soy sauce has appealed to many customers in Indonesia who have to carry their groceries home. With the expansion of new markets Heinz has also been able to introduce old products to new customers introducing ketchup into many homes that had never even heard of the product before. By understanding the wants and needs of its customers, Heinz has been able to be successful not only in a business sense, but also by providing their customers with products that they need AND products they want and would buy again and again.

These new innovations clearly foster increased sales, prices which eventually will be expressed in its stock price and overall shareholder value. The Schumpeter-Smith Wealth Creation Feedback Effect takes place here, where wealth and capital is beginning to build-up and present better opportunities. However, while launching newer brand extensions, Heinz is in fact showing more strength in product development. Brand extensions are an application of an established brand name to new product offerings. As we all know, Heinz is beyond a doubt closing the gap with competitors such as Kraft Foods, Kellogg, and Campbell Soup. Recent examples are Smart Ones breakfast sandwiches and Ore-Ida microwaveable mashed potatoes; Heinz consistently expands its product lines into new markets.

By starting a new line of soy sauces, called ABC, they have segmented the market for Asian consumers. These Asian consumers can be from any life cycle stage, because most households in Asia are likely to cook at home… They targeted customers by including other sauces in the Asian culture in an easy-to-carry and convenient pouch. As opposed to the United States, most Indonesians carry their groceries home. They do not use a car to drive them home. Heinz analyzed this and created an easy to carry pouch for them. Not only is this pouch useful for busy lifestyles, but also the sauce itself is targeting Asian culture because that is their main sauce; like ketchup is ours. In order to meet the needs of the segment, Heinz customized the product’s packaging to include nostalgic elements. Heinz customized the sauce, the packaging, advertised it massively in Asia, and made the product available in local stores… The bottle does not look like an ordinary American ketchup bottle; it is shaped like its competition, Kikkoman. The packaging even includes symbols and language for their market. Basically by redesigning our American ketchup bottle and filling it with a product native to another segment, Heinz was able to make massive profits and almost dominate the market. In soy sauce alone, Heinz is now the world’s second largest soy sauce. Heinz’s idea to market even further by offering ABC flavor syrups for non-alcoholic drinks for Ramadan, a Muslim celebration, was genius. This is pushing American ideas and customs into Asian homes.

Another example was Heinz’s campaign to introduce ketchup into Indonesian homes. Heinz was able to examine product usage by gathering information about demographic, geographic, and lifestyles. These aspects of product usage were that the Asian culture, mostly from Indonesia, and the products are targeted toward their religion but very busy lifestyles. An example of a religious product would be the non-alcoholic drink syrup for Ramadan… Using this information, they determined that Asia was the perfect place to push forth new products.

Companies have endless opportunities in expanding to newer markets and segments. Research, the right process, and approach will make these opportunities a reality.

Duran Inci

November 3, 2008

The company, Mars, took the opportunity of the Beijing Olympic Games to promote the  Snickers chocolate bar. In order to get the attention of the consumers, they hosted a Snickers Street Olympic tournament in hybrid sports. The events that they included were “basoccer” and “streetminton.” Mars also created a game, which was called “Snickers Jump Satisfaction” in which people needed to jump as many candy bars as possible, and, in the end, the winner would win tickets to the Olympics Games. The marketing department was clever to create these “fun and interesting” games which attracted consumers. Mars’ main focus was targeting teenagers. The marketing department knew that once the teens would try it, they would tell their friends and by word of mouth Snickers could become a trend amongst youth. In better words to describe it, Paulette Velasco, vice president of Helio’s partners stated “It was about creating the buzz”.

This shows how certain marketing strategies can work if thought out and implemented correctly. The main questions that companies need to think of are “Who are your customers?” and “Who will buy your product?” Mars targeted youth and used Snickers as a convenient candy for teenagers to buy in case they were hungry. It is important as a marketing department to focus the product on a specific consumer; it’s not best to want to target everyone because that will be unlikely to succeed if the demographic is too broad.

Another important factor is how Mars used the Olympic games to both introduce Snickers to a certain demographic and communicate with consumers, being that the Olympic Games is a highly publicized event. The marketing department has to think of how consumers are feeling about this product as well. All consumers do not think the same way and do not have the same mindset. The older population will look at the calories in the chocolate bar and do not like the fact that it can be fattening. Then we see the teen consumers who are getting addicted to the chocolate bar but yet are somewhat resistant to buying it every day since it is expensive for them. This comes down to a challenge for the marketing department. How do you price a product that is loved by the consumers but is viewed as expensive for everyday use? Do you decrease the price and have more consumers purchase it or do you keep the price high?

While the answer of that question depends on the specific strategy (price skimming, penetration pricing etc), it’s no question that Mars has benefited from a world event to advertise their bars to a new market. We should all leverage from world events and recent developments to get our names and our clients out there.

Duran Inci

November 3, 2008