Today we will be looking at a few unconventional forms of marketing. After the lecture we will begin working in groups on banner ads for our blogs.
Liberation Marketing is another strategy whereby a product can masquerade behind an image that appeals to a range of values, including ethical values related to lifestyle and anti-consumerism.
“Liberation marketing takes the old mass culture critique — consumerism as conformity — fully into account, acknowledges it, addresses it, and solves it. Liberation marketing imagines consumers breaking free from the old enforcers of order, tearing loose from the shackles with which capitalism has bound us, escaping the routine of bureaucracy and hierarchy, getting in touch with our true selves, and finally, finding authenticity, that holiest of consumer grails.”
Thomas Frank
Liberation Marketing is used in an attempt to market to people whose values are traditionally against marketing.
Viral Marketing: The buzzwords viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages. The basic form of viral marketing is not infinitely sustainable.
Examples
Subservient Chicken: The TenderCrisp sandwich was first advertised using the Subservient Chicken character in a commercial called the Subservient Chicken Vest. The commercial was the first in a series of ads for the sandwich utilizing a line of viral marketing promotions by Crispin Porter + Bogusky for Burger King. In the ad, a man is sitting in his living room directing a person in a chicken suit to behave in any way he wants. The tag line was “Chicken the way you like it.” According to Jeff Benjamin, an Executive Creative Director at CP+B, the campaign evolved from a television idea into an interactive one. After the success of the Subservient Chicken, Burger King used the character in several subsequent advertising campaigns.
Cadbury Dairy Milk/ Phil Collins
Amazing Catch – Gatorade Girl
Guerrilla Marketing
The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive[1]; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places.[2] The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral. The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks.
Examples
Aqua Teen Hunger Force
Banner Ads
The class will split into three groups and you will work as teams to create banner ads for the other students blogs. The intention is to create an appropriate banner ad advertising someone elses blog. You must take into consideration the genre of posts and style of the other students blog and create an appropriate ad for them. You will be making sketches, assigning members of your groups to specific tasks, and completing the ads in Ryan’s Introduction to Computer Applications class.
