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Do Advertisers Have The Flu Bug?
Posted by: | CommentsThis year, the world witnessed a major pandemic of a type of swine influenza called H1N1. This outbreak of the swine flu has caused consumers to be more concerned about getting a flu vaccine and taking preventative steps to counteract the spread of the virus.
Yet as fears of the swine flu increase, so do the number of flu prevention advertisements, especially within household cleaning product categories like soap and antibacterial cleaners. Brands like Dial, Purell, and Lysol have all released marketing efforts aimed at educating consumers on flu prevention (see the Wall Street Journal article).
Other campaigns have focused on vaccine preventions. Take this Walgreens TV spot centered on the importance of receiving the flu vaccine:
This ad features Walgreens CEO advocating early flu vaccination to protect your loved ones. This ad would appeal to those consumers who value their health during the cold and flu season. Walgreens positions their brand as a helping partner to help consumers fight the flu. The spot uses appeals like ease of effort with convenient hours and days of business. Using Walgreens’s CEO, a pharmacist himself, increases the credibility of the advertisement.
Some bloggers and consumers, however, feel that the exploitation of consumer fear of getting sick is “quite a sleazy course of conduct” ( see the Wall Street Journal article). Dean Crutchfield, an independent branding consultant, believes marketers should donate resources to school and hospitals instead of increasing their marketing budgets. These actions create a sense of benevolence and charity around their brand.
This sense of goodwill is exactly what brands like Walgreens are doing. Walgreens partnered with Dr. Oz from the Oprah show to educate about preventing the flu and committed to distributing 1 million dollars worth of flu shots to those in need. Take a look at their feature on Dr. Oz’s show:
Other brands are taking similar steps to provide sanitizers and cleaning products to schools and hospitals in need.
There will always be those critics who say the flu vaccine is unnecessary or even harmful. But with 14 to 34 million cases of H1N1 and 2,500 to 6,000 H1N1-related deaths in just seven months of 2009 ( see more statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) any preventative step could be seen as necessary. Advertisers can help keep the flu at bay by playing a role in the education and prevention of the swine flu for consumers. Now that’s what I call a clean bill of health.
What do you think: is it ethical for advertisers to market swine flu prevention-related products and services?
MassMutual and Stouffer’s: Promoting Family Values in Advertising
Posted by: | CommentsFamily values are a central part of the traditional American life. The traditional family presented in images and media consists of a stay-at-home mom, a working dad, and their children. Today’s modern families, however, don’t necessarily fit this mold. Modern families may consists of dual career parents, single parent, same sex parent families, or families with no children at all.
With a variety of modern family types, some Americans believe the traditional family values of love, security, and nurturing are losing their importance in modern culture. How can advertising help to promote these family values? Through messages that emphasize family over work, family teamwork, and spending time together as a family, no matter what your family may look like.
Dual-career families are more prevalent than ever in modern society. Families with two incomes tend to have higher discretionary spending and less traditional household decision roles. But most importantly, dual-career families can suffer from role overload, meaning parents may have less time because they juggle a career and family.
This TV spot for MassMutual depicts a workaholic father who faces a difficult decision between work and family:
The father, who has a great office with a fantastic view, chooses to move his office to home to spend more time with his daughter. The commercial asks the consumer, “What is the sign of a good decision?” The spot clearly supports spending time with family as a good decision. This classic debate over work and family has been featured many times in popular media, including movies like Click with Adam Sandler.
This TV spot for Stouffer’s uses family values like teamwork, spending time together, and creating memories to promote their dinner entrees:
The copy states: “Tonight’s dinner specials: teamwork, time together, real conversations, and memories. All for under $2 a serving.” Stouffer’s attempts to position their dinners as a way for families to connect and spend time together.
MassMutual and Stouffer’s are just two examples of brands using family values in advertising messages. These brands recognize the diversity of modern families and a problem that many families face: choosing between work and time with family.
Family values are not uncommon in advertisements today, especially within household product categories. It takes consumers like us to identify the positive messages and family values in advertising today and to realize the socially responsible implications of these messages.
What examples of family values have you seen in advertisements lately?
Spreading Holiday Cheer and Consumer Diversity: Gap and the Holiday Commercial Season
Posted by: | CommentsAh, the magic of the holiday commercial season. Gap, Garmin, Wal-Mart, Kmart, and a bevy of other brands are hopping on the holiday bandwagon and releasing feel-good campaigns the represent the sentiment of the holidays.
It’s no secret that advertisers use holiday appeals in their campaigns, and not just those end-of-year holidays. This year, Heineken beer ran print ads as the “official sponsor of Halloween” (see print examples at Paula Zargaj-Reynold’s blog).
For the end-of-year holiday season, advertisers attempt to evoke positive, sentimental, warmhearted, and uplifting affective consumer responses. You might know these ads from the “warm and fuzzy” feeling you get inside when you see a holiday ad (see Rennie’s Nov 14th post on WalMart’s Christmas TV spot). But how does “warm and fuzzy” translate to increased ROI?
This year, many companies are increasing their holiday advertising budget beyond previous years, many hoping to combat falling sales in an economic downturn. Companies like Kmart, Wal-Mart, Target, J.C. Penney, Home Depot, and Lowe’s are all up on advertising spending for the holiday season (see Wall Street Journal’s article). Increasingly, these retailers are emphasizing value for frugal consumers in an economic recession, hoping that their holiday appeals will capture the heart (and the wallet) of holiday shoppers.
Retailers like Gap are releasing campaigns with a mass holiday appeal for consumers with a variety of holiday beliefs.
The Crispin Porter + Bogusky TV spot, Gap’s first in over two years, features “Glee-style” dancers chanting, “go Christmas, go Hanukkah, go Kwanzaa, go solstice,” in an effort to include consumers with a variety of beliefs. Embracing the diversity of American consumers, including their religious differences, is an effective way for advertisers to create mass appeal and celebrate the holidays responsibly. Gap embraces the sentiment of the holidays with a message of inclusiveness.
However, the American Family Association called for a two-month boycott of all Gap brands, claiming Gap failed to use the word ‘Christmas’ in its advertising. The War on Christmas happens every holiday season, but this ban is particularly interesting because the Gap spot does, in fact, use the word ‘Christmas.’ But Gap shouldn’t fret about the AFA ban: historically, past AFA bans have had no impact on sales (see LA Times article).
Whatever your holiday beliefs may be, embracing the diversity of consumers is a smart and socially responsible way to usher in the holiday season, especially in advertising. Marketing messages of sentiment, tenderheartedness, and “warm and fuzzy” feelings are the best way to celebrate the spirit of the holidays.
