In response to Drew Farrar's post "What do you think of the commercial? Do you find it humorous or offensive?" K-Mart Ship your pants.

I find the commercial hilarious. One of the better commercials I've seen this year. It catches your attention from the very beginning. The wit and humor strategy is one of the more effective strategies in advertising. Especially since the commercial is one of the funnier ones, it makes you remember the product, the company, and the commercial. Something like this commercial gets attention on YouTube, and friends will show other friends how funny this commercial is. Regardless if you find this commercial funny or offensive, it will get attention from the audience which is the ultimate goal for an advertisement. Can you think of a commercial that actually offended you?

There are plenty of different advertising techniques that we see in commercials. The most popular techniques are plain folks, bribery, testimonial, wit and humor, facts and figures, and bandwagon. Plain folks uses the strategy that any everyday person uses the company's product. Bribery gives an extra incentive to buy the product like, buy one get one free. Testimonial is a strategy to use a famous actor, athlete, or person to advertise the company's product. Just like how Gregg Jennings was a spokesperson for Old Spice. Wit and Humor gives the audience a reason to laugh at the commercial to remember their product or service. Facts and figures gives statistics and factual figures to promote the superiority of the product. Bandwagon is a form of propaganda that tries to get you to join the crowd, and that everyone is doing it. Out of all of these main advertising techniques, which one do you think is the most effective for a T.V commercial?

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?

In response to Kevin Provost's post, "Do you think if Dodge threw some big gulp cup holders and an automatic transmission in the Dart that it would sell more units?"

I completely believe that they would have. In America the majority of cars that people drive are automatic transmissions. The car isn't targeted to be bought buy americans. It is targeted to be bought by Europeans. Americans, for the most part, aren't going to buy a European style car. They would have to make it more for americans, which would be throwing in an automatic transmission and the big gulp cup holders. Sports cars don;t sell well in america, and the Dodge Dart is just an example of one car that should sell more but won't because of how our society is. When looking for a new car, what is most important to you?