October 21, 2008

  • Have you ever been influenced by marketing and promotions? It's easy to say that you are annoyed by marketing and promotions and ask why they matter, when they do not seem to affect you. Or do they? Commercials, movie trailers, celebrity guest appearances, sponsors, a song in a soundtrack, coupons, politicial ads, etc.. are just some examples of marketing and promotions that's bound to get your attention.

    A commercial for a deal at a fast food place could have influenced you to buy a meal. Movie trailers can get you to spend money on a movie ticket. Celebrity guest appearances might have gotten you to look up any one of their projects, that might involve you purchasing something down the line. A sponsor of an event may expose you to a particular product. Hearing a song you liked on the radio or a TV show might get you to possibly buy some music. Coupons may get you to purchase something that you would probably never have bought, if it was at it's regular price. When I know someone who was clearly influenced by a promotion, I usually joke and say "the marketing department must be proud."

    There are some cases were the marketing or promotion simply aren't meant to affect you. An example would be video gamers, who see an advertisement for a game that is supposedly a "must have" purchase already. That gamer knows a lot of people who are already planning to buy the game, and then asks himself "why are they constantly advertising about something that doesn't need advertising?" Simple answer to that is that if a product has already proven successful to a certain number of people, then the additional marketing might be able to draw in the people who aren't familiar with the game. Then the gamer will ask "gasp, who wouldn't be familiar with that game?" Which makes me point out to him that not everybody are gamers and knows these things (the gamer's ego could be another blog topic altogether).

    All the marketing and promotions that is rampant in our everyday lives have a habit of subconsciously influencing us, whether we realize it or not. Just think about what you may have purchased recently, and try to remember if it was marketing or a promotion that got you to buy it in the first place. I got to say though that with the economy the way it is at the moment, the marketing department has their work cut out for them to convince people to spend spend spend.