Dove is trying a new marketing strategy called "Real Beauty" where they take girls that are not supermodel status but use them as the faces for their products saying that real beauty are the everyday girls that buy the product of Dove, not the supermodels that try and sell that. There is a controversy though that Dove is encouraging girls that they don't need to try to be healthy to be beautiful. This could promote a more unhealthy eating style of younger girls, instead of girls trying to be skinny to look like the models we see in everyday lives. The only problem is that younger girls need to focus on a happy medium between the extreme of Victoria Secret skinny and being able to be unhealthy or overweight. There isn't much focus on being healthy, but not to an extreme like a Victoria Secret model. Would it be effective to have a variety of different women (age, ethnicity, weight, etc) to market the same product or company all together?

In response to Allison Ray's post "Do you buy Fiji water or Smart water over a brand like "Cumberland Farms Natural Spring Water?" Even though it is more expensive, why would you buy it?"

All of the water to me is the same. It is all too similar to actually have a preference over which water is the best water. I usually still get a more famous brand like Poland Spring though since they have the most water bottles in a case. I don't shy away from other water bottles if Poland Spring isn't there. It is just the most convenient one for me to get usually. Are there any other products that you think isn't any different from their competitor's product?

In response to Cote Lagerberg "The advertisements themselves are supposed to be based off of what we look up and suggestion of what are friends like. My question is do you think this is an effective form of marketing?"

I think it is a good marketing strategy since they take the pages you like and realize what you are most interested in. For someone that really likes sports, they might like a lot of pages on Facebook about sports. On the side will pop up advertisements of maybe a jersey store and that sports fan could buy one just because they got that idea from Facebook. Anytime you can get an interest of your consumers in a product, I think it is a good marketing strategy. With everyone using Facebook now, Is it more effective to put an advertisement on Facebook, or cable?

Profits & Markups in the Fashion Industry (or, Did Banana Republic Make Money Off My $20 Dress?

Banana Republic is a store with usually higher quality brands. If they sell a dress for only 20 dollars, according to the math done in this article, the dress would only cost the company about 5 dollars to make. Now, I doubt that Gap Inc was making these dresses and selling them for the correct price. This still isn't bad for the company even if they made little profit off of each dress, say 5 dollars instead of 15. They were getting rid of excess inventory quick with cheaper dresses, and this will draw in customers to show that Banana Republic isn't just a store with high quality, high priced items. They actually have an item or two that is a "good deal". Even with the deal the customers are now in the store and are more willing to buy the products since they are already buying one of the products. Do you think it is a good marketing strategy to sell a product for almost no profit value to draw in customers to your store?