Saturday, March 10, 2018

Absolut Vodka

Lately I've been doing research on Absolut Vodka and their marketing strategy. I was surprised when  to learn that in the 80's, Absolut Vodka was responsible for only 2.5% of the vodka sales, and in 2017 it was coined the #1 vodka in the world, and 10.9 million cases were sold.
The brand was started by Lars Olsson Smith in 1879, and it was an interesting situation becuase the Swedish government monopolized the industry. He ended up selling his vodka outside the city limits and offered free boat rides for people to come over and buy his vodka. It was introduced into the global market 100 years after the brand was started in 1979.
In 1986, Andy Warhol focused his attention on Absolut, and was regularly wearing it as a perfume. The brand saw this and commisoned him to paint a special piece showcasing the bottle. The brand paid him $65,000, and it sparked a very successful campaign. Over 800 pieces of art showcasing the Absolut bottles were created, and it raised sales by almost 50%.
Later on, they started the #AbsolutNights campaign. They released videos showcasing what it is to have an #AbsolutNight. It motivated people to drink the vodka while they were out because thye wanted to have a night like the ones in the video, and Absoliut promised that.
Overall, Absolut has been very successful in their ad campaigns, and I think that's always going to be one of their strong suits.

Saturday, January 20, 2018

The Headquarter's Competition

        In the news today, it was announced that Amazon has narrowed the decision for where their new headquarter's will go to 20 cities. The competition started with a total of 238 cities in the running, and now includes the cities of:

  1. Atlanta, GA 
  2. Austin, TX
  3. Boston, MA
  4. Chicago, IL
  5. Columbus, OH
  6. Dallas, TX
  7. Denver, CO
  8. Indianapolis, IN
  9. Los Angeles, CA
  10. Miami, FL
  11. Montgomery County, MD
  12. Nashville, TN
  13. Newark, NJ
  14. New York City, NY
  15. Northern Virginia, VA 
  16. Philadelphia, PA
  17. Pittsburgh, PA 
  18. Raleigh, NC 
  19. Toronto, ON
  20. Washington, D.C. 
This new facility will employ 50,000 people, and each of the cities had certain criteria they needed to meet before they could be considered a possibility. They needed to have over 1 million people, and have a major transit system, like a Subway, and a high skill labor pool. The criteria they have set really backs their value proposition. Amazon is all about being fast, efficient, and convenient. The transit system helps with the convenience of it all. The employees will always have a convenient way to get to work even if they don't have a car. The high skill labor pool helps with the efficiency and quickness of the company. If they have employees who know what they're doing, they'll do it fast.   

If people living in the town where the new headquarters is going don't know about Amazon, or what it does, they will now. This is marketing to the people who have never ordered from Amazon. They'll see the building, wonder what it is and look it up. Next thing we know, they're ordering from Amazon. 

With every action comes a reaction, and social media is where the reactions to this are. 
A lot of the responses include what Amazon should give to employees and the residents of the communities they're putting the new HQ in. Things like free Prime, healthcare, and subway passes. Other responses include people being bummed about their city making it to the finals, or in some cases, not making it. There's a large amount of people who are excited about the headquarters possibly being where they live, and there's also a large amount of people who do not want it to happen in their city. 
All in all, I don't believe Amazon owes anything to the community they're moving in to. It's just like any other business moving in there, and I don't think it's a huge deal. They should give perks to their employees like free prime, and transit passes. Some good benefits will lead good people to work for good company's. 

This is a huge thing for Amazon, and any of these cities would be a good option for them. I am excited to see what they end up choosing!




Friday, January 12, 2018

Alexa Dominating the Smart Home Experience

https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/01/11/amazon-is-beating-google-in-the-smart-home-battle-for-now/#cae420d3f99b

        Since 2014, the Amazon Alexa has been leading the move to make our homes "smarter." When it started, it was one product doing a limited amount of things. Now it's one product embedded into thousands of other products, doing a countless amount of things. You can connect almost all of your appliances to Alexa, and you now have the ability to tell her to flush your toilet for you, something the new Google Home cannot.

        You can only find Google Assistant on around 1,500 products, but the Google Assistant is proven to be smarter. But because it is advertised much less than Alexa, because of the lack of products that can be used with it, Alexa is being purchased more. Amazon has began a new marketing approach by putting stickers on gadget's they're selling that say "Just ask Amazon Alexa." We aren't seeing that from Google.
     
       One thing we know that google is dominating in, is the way they use technology outside of the Home systems. Google Home can easily know more about us than the Amazon Alexa can. Google is already in our phones using our personal in formation everyday. Name, address, phone number, calendars, and much more. Google also needs to watch out for Apple as well in the future, supposedly the Home Pod is supposed to be dropping soon from Apple, another company in our back pocket.

        Amazon's value proposition focuses on three things: convenience, speed, and choice. They want their products to be as convenient for you as possible. Being able to go online and buy things with just a few clicks, and being able to talk to your devices. They want their services to be fast, and that shows with their Prime free 2-day shipping. Convenience is all of that wrapped together. Google's value proposition isn't as clear. Smart, and fast is what they're about. Smartest and fastest search engine, and hopefully smartest and fastest Smart Home device.
       
        All in all, a big reason people make the decisions on what device to buy is how they're marketed. If they're seeing "Just ask Amazon Alexa" stickers all over, it's going to influence them to buy one. If they're only seeing a Snapchat ad for the Google Home (which is the only ad I saw before I purchased one) it's probably going to get tapped over. Google really needs to step up the marketing on the Home and do something that will grab people's attention. I haven't seen ads for it anywhere but Snapchat, and compared to Alexa that's a small amount of airtime.

        After reading this article, I learned how important advertising products really is. How are people going to be encouraged to buy the product if they never see it? The more we see something advertised, the more we're going to buy. Truthfully, I have an Amazon Alexa, and a Google Home in my house and I use the Home much more than Alexa. The problem is that no one's seeing how good the Home can be, we're just seeing what the Alexa can do.


Relevant Link:
https://newatlas.com/amazon-echo-google-home-apple-homepod/52620/

Thursday, January 11, 2018

About Me

My name is Kaylene Wolfe, I am a Business Administration major at LBCC. I enrolled in this class because it is required for the transfer degree that I am working towards. I don't know much about marketing, but I am taking classes like this because I may not want to major strictly in Business Administration. I am curious to see if I become fascinated with marketing, and may want to focus more on marketing throughout my future in college. I am passionate about my job at Subway. I have been at that job since I was 16 years old (almost 3 years!) and am getting ready to move my life to Corvallis to assistant manage a store there. In a few years I am hoping to land a job as my boss' regional manager. I am also passionate about music, and was a percussionist in school from 6-12th grade. Hunting is also a passion of mine, and I love the thrill of chasing big bucks throughout the fall season.