Introduction to Marketing

Assignment 4: Promotion

Student name: Caitlin Cummiskey

Part I - Favorite Product:

Restate your Parallel Universe - Plain White T’s
chosen product

Promotional
piece:
Explain how the I attached two screenshots. As I’ll get into in later responses, the
advertisement Plain White T’s utilized solely social media to advertise their most
catches the recent album.
viewer’s eye and They used a lot of videos that were on their “story” or were used
cuts through the as sponsored ads that showed up while watching a bunch of
advertising Instagram stories in a row. Unfortunately, these aren’t available
clutter. anymore, so I chose to focus on these Instagram posts, which
ARE still available.
These ads use the logo of the album along with a 1980s-inspired
font.. They utilized suspense (posting one portion of the nine-post
full picture at a time as well as a countdown) to get potential
customers excited ahead of the release.
The bright colors of the logo, as well as the suspense created
using this method, certainly caught my eye at the time!
(*Please note that in the second screenshot, the three posts in
question do have the icon to show that they are video posts, but
the image just moves slightly, adding to the “80’s technology” feel
of the posts, but they aren’t really ‘videos’, per se, so I thought it
best to attach one screenshot of all three, rather than 3 separate
links)

Identify the The logo for the album was used in every advertisement they put
tagline, phrases, up.
and images that They used a font reminiscent of 1980’s video games as a part of
are used in the their countdown imagery.
advertisement. They used the hashtag “#ParallelUniverse” in every post in order
to get the tag trending.
Using research to The text in the 3 consecutive countdown posts is inspired by
support your original Nintendo-era fonts. As stated in previous assignments,
claims, explain the music of the album is heavily influenced by the 80’s. Many of
how at least two the T’s original fans grew up in this era and will recognize the
of the text, like I did.
advertisement’s According to a 2016 article, “Nostalgic advertising...uses past
creative choices music, people, or events to evoke positive reactions. Nostalgic
(the music, actors, advertisements elicit positive emotion, and more favorable
copy, images, attitudes toward the advertisement at the advertised brand” (Ju,
layout, design, et. al). Many original fans of the band (i.e., fans from when they
etc.) are had their ‘big break’ in roughly 2005-2007) will recognize the
appropriate for 1980’s theme from their own childhood, and therefore these
the product’s advertisements appeal to them. Even without hearing a single
specific target song from the album, the text in the countdown ads allows
market. (Include potential customers to see that the album is most likely going to
short or in-text remind them of this time period in their lives.
citations) As I’ve stated in previous assignments, the band chooses to use
the album logo frequently, and these ads are no different. Despite
the fact that the logo is simply planet earth, the way in which
they’ve personalized it has made it their own. The image is so
eye-catching that of course they used it in their ads! It’s the
background of every advertisement - they even changed the
colors to red and green but left everything else the same during a
Christmas promotion! The logo might seem overused to some,
but I think that potential customers seeing it repeatedly just seals
it into their minds!
Where does the The Plain White T’s only advertised on social media. They utilized
company Instagram most of all, between posts, sponsored ads, and their
advertise? (Please story. All of their posts were also cross-posted to Facebook, but
be specific and the ads and stories were not. They also posted frequently on
identify specific Twitter, although not as much as the other two sites. They also
publications, made “behind the scenes” videos, which were posted on
television YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
channels or
websites.)
Using research to The Plain White T’s are targeting a wide variety of ages. They
support your want their original fans - now anywhere from 25 to 40 or older - to
claims, explain know about their new music, so they used Facebook. Facebook
why the media is a popular social media site for most ages, but more commonly
vehicles were used with the older end of the “millennial” generation.
chosen to reach
the intended
target market.
(Include short or
in-text citations)

Part II - Techowear Wearable Technology Product:

Restate your new product’s Watch Your Step

name from Assignment 1,
Part II
Promotional piece:
Using research to support
your claims, explain how at
least two of the
advertisement’s creative
choices (the music, actors,
copy, images, layout, design,
etc.) are appropriate for the
product’s specific target
market. (Include short or in-
text citations)
Where would you advertise
I went with a billboard design using the logo (which I
altered based on feedback from a previous
assignment) and exciting things that my product can
do. I kept the text a little vague, as I’m thinking this
product is direct competition with Apple Watches
and the like, so I didn’t want to clog up the billboard
with information connecting it to them.
Utilizing an idea I found in a study on billboard
advertising, I decided to make this billboard ad
interactive. The 2017 article talks about an
advertisement Heineken did in Lebanon, where the
general public would sign up online in order to light a
bottle of Heineken on a billboard up in green. The
more people who signed up, the more “full” the bottle
became (Manavirad & Samadzadeh). In this same
way, people will enter their activity from the website
attached to the product and the billboard numbers
will change. In order to track your progress, you
would have to have an account on the page and one
of our products to link the information to (of course
this is too much for a billboard, and all of that
information would be on the website).
My target demographic was pretty broad, but I think
the age range (21-45 years old) would be absolutely
interested in this idea, particularly the younger end
of the spectrum. Additionally, people who are looking
to get in shape (a simplistic version of my target
psychographic) often like to work together in order to
motivate each other, and this is basically a large-
scale version of that!
This particular billboard would be posted near
this product? (Please be
specific and identify specific
publications, television
channels or websites.)
Using research to support
your claims, explain why you
chose these media vehicles to advertising and marketing world, billboards still
reach the intended target
market. (Include short or in-
text citations)
beaches and gyms. I live near a beach, and let me
tell you: nothing makes you more motivated to get in
shape than watching people in better shape walk
around in bikinis. I think advertising near gyms is an
obvious choice, as people passing the
advertisement would generally already be in the
mindset of the type of clientele we’re looking for. We
would mostly advertise in major cities, and also
some of the more popular suburban areas.
Honestly, billboard advertisements are surprisingly
still in style. As social media takes over a lot of the
remain, high up in the air, showing off every product
under the sun. Some are still just still shots, some
are digital and switch between three or four different
ads, and some are just plain attention-getting. When
I was younger, I lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia,
and every single day, I saw different billboards that
said simply “I HATE STEVEN SINGER . COM”.
Everyone – seriously, everyone – in the area saw
those signs. People still talk about them, even
though I hadn’t seen one in quite a while before I
moved away. It was a super eye-catching
advertisement, and I NEVER heard a radio ad or
saw a television ad for the same company. And, like
my ad, it was pretty vague. You had to go to the
website to find out what was going on. (Spoiler: It
was a jewelry store).
Currently, it looks like they’ve upgraded to more
classic forms of advertisement, such as radio ads
and social media, according to an article from earlier
this year (Lengel 2019). That’s okay: They know
where their roots are.
References:

Ju, I., Choi, Y., Morris, J., Liao, H., & Bluck, S. (2016). Creating Nostalgic
Advertising Based on the Reminiscence Bump: Diachronic Relevance and
Purchase Intent. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 30(3), 465–471. https://doi-
org.oclc.fullsail.edu/10.1002/acp.3210

Lengel, A. (2019, April 08). Why Does Someone Hate Steven Singer This Much?
And Who the Heck is He? Retrieved from
http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/22062/why_does_someone_hate_steven_
singer_this_much_and_who_the_heck_is_he

Manavirad, M., & Samadzadeh, M. (2017). Effects of Interactivity between

Audience and Urban Advertisement. Journal of History, Culture & Art Research /
Tarih Kültür ve Sanat Arastirmalari Dergisi, 6(4), 1091–1107. https://doi-
org.oclc.fullsail.edu/10.7596/taksad.v6i4.1132