Brands are all around us in the world today. It seems like you cannot walk five steps without encountering some kind of brand, logo, or advertisement. I mean, they are everywhere. According to one my old marketing management textbooks Marketing Management: Knowledge and Skills by Peter and Donnelly a brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. In addition, branding is the process of trying to make one’s product or service different from that of a competing product or service by using the characteristics mentioned above.
According to Sturken and Cartwright the role of the brand has been central to commodity culture. Furthermore, the process of branding may include the look of the packaging, the typeface of package and ad print, and product, packaging and ad design concept and language, as well as the content and form of the product itself. Sometimes, it is a company that becomes a brand and not just the specific product.
With this being said, my question is: What attracts people to a certain brand?
To answer this question, I believe that what draws people to a brand is the association and visual insight that the consumer has with a certain brand. These associations and visual insights can be established through advertising, word-of-mouth, or any other promotional medium. This means that when a consumer sees a product they desire they immediately try to associate themselves with the name, term, design, symbol, product, or any other feature of the product. For example, I have bought a few pieces of Under Armour equipment because I was able to associate myself with the brand in the advertisements/branding efforts that I witnessed which I was quite impressed with. Essentially, it was the ad design concept that attracted me to the brand. The ad design concept according to Sturken and Cartwright is a process of branding and it caught my attention.
This concept worked for me, however, there are more ways people are attracted to certain brands. Perhaps some consumers have a particular attachment to a brand from past experiences. Or maybe once a person consumes a particular brand they like; they stay loyal to the brand. Anyway, what attracts you to a certain brand?
In addition, another thought crossed my mind in the wake of thinking about branding. Rather it is a question which is: Does the influence of certain brands change as we get older?
I think yes. When we are younger I believe that we are influenced more by brands that friends are deeming as superior and chill, thus, as a follow up we may be inclined to consume these certain brands. However, as we age and are more and more able to think for ourselves, we tend to veer away from the brands that others consider high-end. Nonetheless, the influence from others is still there but not as much. Hence, I believe that marketers realize this and will try to attract people to establish brand loyalty when they are young. In essence, it is a battle that the brand is attempting to win as it tries to hold onto your loyalty before you start swerving to other competing brands.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
News or Olds?
News or Olds?
Mass media has many different ways of communicating information to us “the viewer”. According to Struken and Cartwright media is the plural form of medium which refers to the group of communications industries and technologies that together produce and spread public news, entertainment, and information. When we refer to “the media” it usually means a plurality of media forms (entertainment, film, news, radio, the web, television, etc.).
Last week I took a couple of days to study the news. Doing so, I paid attention to different mediums that the news is offered to “the viewer”. These mediums included the newspaper, television, and the web. During my little study I paid close attention to the kinds of different news stories that were explained. I found out that during the first five to ten minutes on television, the majority of the opening sections of the newspaper, and the major headlines on the web news all dealt with a common subject. This subject to me if I had to put into words would be something like a combination of depressing downbeat anecdotes of information. It seemed like at the beginning of all of these mediums were the same stories over and over. These stories ranged from violence erupting overseas in war zones, the economy crises hitting the western world, and violence happening in North America, just to mention a few.
After realizing this pattern after a couple of days of tuning in the news I asked myself “is this news?” Or is this olds? I mean, I have heard downbeat stories of unfortunate and ill-fated happens taking place concurrently one right after the other but on different days. It seemed like these downbeat stories were going in one ear and out the other. Hence, are these stories all news? There are such an extreme number discouraging stories produced by all mediums in the news that I can see why some people can experience depression while watching it. Paying attention to and thinking about the unfortunate happenings I can see could cause people to not want to watch the news.
This brings up an interesting question that stems from all this: Have we heard the same kind of information being televised on the news too many times that we just automatically hear it and then disregard it? Therefore, is the news, news? Or is news, olds? Olds, in this case, meaning stories regarding topics and subjects that we have heard over and over again.
Also, according to Struken and Cartwright, the presentation of news in different media affects our perception of it. For instance, in television news, our perceptions can be shaped by such elements as the cultural status of the newscaster, as well as by how he or she is situated on a set. I also tried to gather some perceptions of this and did not really notice anything or pay much attention to it. Therefore, my perceptions of the news did not really influence me in how I watch the news in any of the mediums that I viewed the news in. Nevertheless, does a different medium affect our perceptions of the news? For me, I have to say not really.
Mass media has many different ways of communicating information to us “the viewer”. According to Struken and Cartwright media is the plural form of medium which refers to the group of communications industries and technologies that together produce and spread public news, entertainment, and information. When we refer to “the media” it usually means a plurality of media forms (entertainment, film, news, radio, the web, television, etc.).
Last week I took a couple of days to study the news. Doing so, I paid attention to different mediums that the news is offered to “the viewer”. These mediums included the newspaper, television, and the web. During my little study I paid close attention to the kinds of different news stories that were explained. I found out that during the first five to ten minutes on television, the majority of the opening sections of the newspaper, and the major headlines on the web news all dealt with a common subject. This subject to me if I had to put into words would be something like a combination of depressing downbeat anecdotes of information. It seemed like at the beginning of all of these mediums were the same stories over and over. These stories ranged from violence erupting overseas in war zones, the economy crises hitting the western world, and violence happening in North America, just to mention a few.
After realizing this pattern after a couple of days of tuning in the news I asked myself “is this news?” Or is this olds? I mean, I have heard downbeat stories of unfortunate and ill-fated happens taking place concurrently one right after the other but on different days. It seemed like these downbeat stories were going in one ear and out the other. Hence, are these stories all news? There are such an extreme number discouraging stories produced by all mediums in the news that I can see why some people can experience depression while watching it. Paying attention to and thinking about the unfortunate happenings I can see could cause people to not want to watch the news.
This brings up an interesting question that stems from all this: Have we heard the same kind of information being televised on the news too many times that we just automatically hear it and then disregard it? Therefore, is the news, news? Or is news, olds? Olds, in this case, meaning stories regarding topics and subjects that we have heard over and over again.
Also, according to Struken and Cartwright, the presentation of news in different media affects our perception of it. For instance, in television news, our perceptions can be shaped by such elements as the cultural status of the newscaster, as well as by how he or she is situated on a set. I also tried to gather some perceptions of this and did not really notice anything or pay much attention to it. Therefore, my perceptions of the news did not really influence me in how I watch the news in any of the mediums that I viewed the news in. Nevertheless, does a different medium affect our perceptions of the news? For me, I have to say not really.
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