In Response to Jackie's Post...

If you are just as shocked as me, read the article. There really are people like this out there that do take brand loyalty this seriously. What do you think? Do you know someone with a brand logo tattoo? Would you, yourself ever consider getting one?

The question I chose to respond to this week was an article Jackie talked about. In the article it talks about how people are actually putting band names on their body. And by body I don't mean their clothing but ink. The article talked about how people are so loyal to a brand that they would get it tattooed on their body. I do not think I would be so loyal to a brand to get their logo permanently on my body. For example, my favorite clothes brand is American Eagle. Their logo entitles a small eagle that is placed on almost all of their clothing. Just because that clothing is my favorite brand, I am not going to get it tattooed on my body. There are many different interests within people so I can see why someone may want to get a brand tattooed on them. I do know one person that has the logo for a band tattooed on their body. They still like that the tattoo and she didn't have any regrets. In a way this is a type of marketing strategy for the company's logo. For example the person I know that got the band logo tattoo, has it in a sport where it's visible in a bathing suit. In a way she is giving that band free advertising since many people at the beach would see it. All in all, I personally wouldn't get a logo tattooed on my body. The only type of tattoo I would get is something that actually means something to me. Do you believe that the people that get logos of company's tattooed on them do it out of impulse, or do you believe they truly showing brand loyalty?

Sales Promotion Methods

Within the marketing mix, promotion is an important variable that if used correctly, can increase the profits and the number of consumers for that product or service. There are many consider and trade sales promotion methods that an organization can use. The use of consumer sales promotion is to encourage the public to try a particular product. Another type of promotion a company could use are coupons and cents-off offers. Coupons could be used to increase sales volume from repeat customers by lowering their products price with the coupon. This could be beneficial for the firm if the coupons increased the number of sales. It could also have negative aspects, such as not many people using the coupon. Coupons in a magazine would also be an advertisement for your firm. With the cents-off offer, the customer would pay a less amount that is originally displayed on the tag. This could get customers purchasing the item if they think its worth it at the lowered price. Money refunds are also a type of promotion. This is where a customer sends in something that says proof of purchase and then are mailed a specific amount of money back. Rebates (which are similar), is when the customer is sent a specific amount of money for making a single purchase. Most rebates are delayed, causing the customer to have to wait for the discount because it takes time for the customer to receive the discount. Frequent-user incentives are good ways to keep customers to return to your company. This is when a firm makes incentive programs to reward repeat customers. For example, at price chopper they offer an advantage card. That entitles the customer to get discounts on sale items and receive points to get so many cents off a gallon of gas at Sunoco. The more you spend the more rewards the customer will get towards gas. Do you think it is important for a firm to come up with a different promotional method than its competitors, to give them a competitive advantage?

In Response to Sam's Post...

Starting a show at 9:28 clearly separates it from any other show, and makes it very easy to remember. Do you think this idea was as brilliant as I do? Do you think it will actually help viewers to remember what time the show is on? Do you have any other ideas for how to get viewers to watch your show?

The idea to start this show was a great marketing strategy. Like Same had mentioned, it separates the television show from its competitors. Most people start their shows exactly on the hour or half hour, but by announcing the show will be on at 9:28. More people who are first time watchers will easily remember the show by it starting two minutes before all other shows. This is a great strategy even if they do not announce it to the viewers. From experience, one of my shows when I was younger was on the WB and started at 9 o' clock. I am the type of person that is always antsy when commercials are on and flip through stations until my show returns back on. By doing this I noticed that my show started about two minutes before the time it was supposed to start. I realized week after week the show was on it always started before other shows on channels above and below it. I think another idea to get viewers to watch my show would be to advertise short commercials. I know for me personally, I dislike long commercials. If a show advertised how short the commercials were I may be tempted to watch the program. Do you think it is important to be always finding new advertising strategies for television shows. Do you think viewers get sick of the same shows if there are many seasons of the show?

Channel-Selection Decisions

When a firm is selecting marketing channels, there are many factors that may be affected by this decision. The factors consist of customer characteristics, product attributes, type of organization, competition, marketing environment forces and characteristics of intermediaries. A marketing firm should consider the target-market members when selecting a channel. The correct channel should be chosen to benefit the customer. For example, a customer buying hardwood floors for commercial buildings compared with a person buying hardwood floors for there home. The person selecting the flooring for their home would probably want to talk with the producers directly. The next factor that could be affected is the product attributes. The type of product you are selling has an influence on the type of channel the firm will choose. For example if a company sells produce they would choose a short channel because their product can go bad at a faster rate than other products. Also, fragile products are usually distributed through shorter channels to reduce the risk of damage to the product. The type of organization also influences the decision to choose short or longer channels. For large firms it may be more beneficial to choose large channels and the company may be able to negotiate deals with the vendors. Supply-chain managers should take competition into consideration. Another companies failure or success given their marketing channel can give your firm an idea whether or not to use the same type of channel for your firm. Marketing environment forces play a role in channel selection also. Bad economic considerations could cause a firm to use the channel that is the most cost effective for the company. Also, the advancement of technology could cause a firm to move to a shorter channel by using technology (such as computer software/Internet). The last factor is the characteristics of intermediaries. If a company doesn't feel as though their products are being promoted, the organization may choose a new channel to change that. If you were a small business, would you use a small marketing channel or a larger one?

In Response to Gretchen's Post...

Do you think exclusive brands are better than non-exclusive brands? Why or why not do you like them? Is the quality of these products actually better than not exclusive items? Have you ever been disappointed with a exclusive brands?

There is no way I could say that for every situation exclusive brands are better than non-exclusive brands. I personally had experience an instance where an exclusive brand didn't have the quality I had expected it to have. This happened when I bought a shirt from Abercrombie and Fitch, which is known for having moderately expensive clothes. After having the shirt for about a month, there was visible ware and tare. I believe the ware and tare was from the washer machine, which shouldn't cause the shirt to get holes. Where as on the other hand I had bought a nice polo type shirt from Wal-Mart that had lasted longer than this. So based from this personal instance I can't say that exclusive brands are better than others. In some cases exclusive brands are better than some non-exclusive brands. For example, I only get my jeans from American Eagle. I had noticed that my jeans from American Eagle have always lasted a lot longer than other competitors. When it comes to medication, generic vs. non generic, I believe not one is better than the other. For example, Advil is probably one of the most expensive pain reliever. There are generic brands such as equate, that have the exact same ingredients that Advil has. In this situation I do not believe Advil is any different than the generic brand. They are both the exact same thing, just one is more expensive than the other. There are some cases that I do believe exclusive brands are higher quality than non- exclusive brands. For example, an electric Braun razor I had purchased was fairly expensive. It has lasted me a long time and works really well. Where as the razor I had prior to this had broke after four months and was a non-exclusive brand. Also, the razor didn't work well at all. In this case the exclusive brand was overall better than the non-exclusive brand. Do you agree that within the medicine industry generic brands are just as good as non-generic brands?

Pricing

Pricing is an important variable to the marketing mix. When it comes to product decisions, price is a key component. There are many pricing objectives, there are seven that come in this category. The pricing objectives consists of the survival of the product, profit, return on investment, market share, cash flows, status quo and product quality. When any price is set the firm must evaluate competitors prices. Find out information about competitors prices is apart of market research. It is very important for a firm to know what their competitors prices are. By knowing competitors prices it helps marketers to set competitive prices for their products. Sometimes, depending upon the product, it can be an advantage to set your price at a higher price than their competitors and at a lower price than their competitors. For example, Fuji water is viewed as a pure, elegant type of water. The price of Fuji water is much more expensive than say poland springs. Since the price is higher than most competitors, customers will think that Fuji water is "better" than the poland springs water. There are both different dimensions to pricing as well as a basis for pricing. The three different dimensions of pricing consists of cost, demand and competition. The bases for prices are made up of the type of product, the market structure of the industry, the brands market share relative to competing brands, and the customer characteristics. There are also three different types of cost-based pricing. Cost-based pricing is the dollar amount to the cost of the product. Cost-plus pricing is adding a specified dollar amount to the seller's cost. Lastly, markup is adding to the cost of the product a predetermined percentage of that cost. If a company didn't conduct any research before pricing their product do you think the product will be a success or failure?

In Response to Sarah's Post...

Have u experienced all of these steps before? Have you had any cognitive dissonance? If so what was it and what did you do, did you keep the product, give it to a friend, or return it?

I have experienced all of the steps in the buying decision process. Whenever I buy anything I usually subconsciously go through the five buying decision stages. For example I use this process when I go to the grocery store. An example I recently ran into was when the grocery store was out of my typical brand of bread and needed to buy another brand. The first step was already completed after my problem occurred, where the usual bread was out of stock. In step two, my information search kicked in immediately. The first thing I thought of was the difference in the other brands that I had used in the past. Step three occurred right away also, comparing the different brands and prices. Step four occurred when I purchased the store brand bread. In step five, I evaluated the bread after I had eating this specific type for the first time. Personally I wouldn't buy the store brand again. It wasn't terrible, just not something I would buy on a regular basis. I have also experienced cognitive dissonance. When I was at best buy I saw a pair of headphones that I really liked. I also needed headphones, so I made an impulse decision to buy the headphones. The headphones worked great and I didn't regret buying them until I went to Walmart. Walmart had the same exact set of headphones for much cheaper than best buy. I regretted not shopping around for the cheapest ones rather than making the impulse decision. Do you think it's more important to shop around for the cheapest price rather than buy on impulse?