Week 5 Recap

This week we dug into the consumer purchasing journey and how it connects to advertising or sales promotion. Before class on Tuesday we read three articles that outlined some key points to the process and how there are essential steps that influence greatly the consumers purchase. The articles focused on word of mouth and moments of truth. Word of mouth is extremely important to a brand success or failure. Obviously word of mouth is an uncontrollable factor but if they want positive feedback, they must live up to their brand's reputation and provide consumers with a quality product. As consumers ourselves we hear and see word of mouth everywhere especially with today's great expansion of the internet. E-WOM is a huge thing in today's world. Social media is a presence that is very daunting and influential. There are millions upon billions of social media accounts out in the inter-web that are based off of opinion. These individuals speak honestly and truly of goods or service and this clouts consumers decision making process. This also goes for blogs, reviews, or even comments on media. I am someone who grew up in a generation that relies on the internet for so many needs or demands. As an avid internet shopper or someone who looks into companies before purchase, I rely on reviews from other customers in order for me to make a purchase. I have been close to buying a product do to positive WOM but after seeing one poor review or comment, I've changed my mind. We also looked into passive and active loyalists. An active loyalist is one that stands by a brand and will recommend it to others. A passive loyalist is someone who just stays with the brand because of convenience and does not look to endorse it. I originally never looked at customers in this aspect but after talking through them and looking at examples such as Apple IPhone users, I was able to put into perspective what kind of brand loyalist I am.

In terms of moment of truths we learned about four specific ones. The first is in reference to Google, the zero moment of truth, which is the online search of the brand or product. the second is the first moment of truth where the consumer actually considers making a purchase. The next one is the second moment of truth also known as the actual use of the product. The final one is the third moment of truth where the consumer decides whether they want to share their experience or not. All of these moments of truth are kind of like touch points that resonate with the consumer and guide them to the most success or satisfaction. 

On Thursday we looked at an article that was focused around the Super Bowl and how companies advertise during it. Some observations we made involved the golden window, advertisement spending, viewership, and conversation. We went through our peers questions and interesting facts from the article in order to hear from one another ans spark our own discussion. The golden window revolves around the concept that there is a place and time where conversation is at its peak that aids in an advertisement. the specific window mentioned in the article was seven days prior to the super bowl and three days after. This is when the most conversation occurred. I personally thought it was interesting how most conversation happened before the event. This means that the hype and buzz for the advertisements was huge. I learned about hype and buzz in my promotional strategy class which I feel like applies most to this. Hype is created by the company itself and buzz is created by the people. Companies have a given hype for their advertisements since each year it is a tradition for these happenings. The buzz I feel occurs during and after the event since this is when consumers get to share their opinions of the advertisements. All of this occurs in the golden window. We also touched on how companies will spend massive amounts of money on an advertisement after doing no research or trial on the advertisement to see if it is worth the money. We talked about the fact that they do this because they know that this event is the most viewed in the world and that all of the consumers look forward to those commercial slots to see the advertisements. They take this risk because they know their advertisement will be used. This then becomes a matter of how do they make their advertisements interesting enough so that it resonates with the viewers and then leads to positive word of mouth. 

If I was the brand manager at this company there are a few things I would offer to them. First I would recommend to play their commercials more than once or great two or more separate commercials that all link together in some way or another. Most viewers of the game watch all the way through which means they would be able to see all of the parts of the advertisement and link them together. This can even drag in primacy and recency. This means that the first advertisement you saw and the most recent one, are the ones that stick. So if the company coincided these commercials it could leave a lasting mark on the consumer. I would also recommend not worrying about analytics before hand since we know that consumers will be watching; we must focus more on what is occurring today that we can incorporate that will draw the consumers attention to then spark that ZMOT (like in class when we talked about Budweiser using puppies). Finally I would recommend some kind of coupon or rebate chance that the consumers would get if they followed up with the brand or if a specific event occurred during the game (if "x" is the score at half time, those who sign up get a free product).