Shark Tank

Before our class started this summer I caught a bit of a television show called Shark Tank. The show features 4 extremely wealthy CEO's and entrepreneurs such as Mark Cuban. People who think they have have created the next "it" item pitch their idea to the millionaires in hopes for them to become stakeholders in their product.

In several of the products I saw I thought the people had a good idea, they just had no idea how to begin to sell it. When the "sharks" purchase equity in the company, they help the inventors to grow their company and to properly market the item. This is a huge asset since the people who are investing have the best connections you could ask for in the business world, and if they don't, they have a few millionaire friends who could help you out.

The most trouble the inventors had was finding a way to fund and market their item. By the first week of our marketing class I could see where they would all benefit from a basic lesson in marketing, the 4 p's, promotion, branding and advertisements. Anyways, I thought I'd post a few of the links to my favorite products I saw on the show for you guys to check out.

http://www.sweepeasy.com 

This broom links back to our discussion about a boring product with a huge upgrade.

http://www.littersf.com 

What I like about this jewelry company is they hardly have any costs. They use scrap chains and metal to create designs, thus having a huge profit margin.

http://www.unikeytech.com 

Probably my favorite. Check out how this guy adapted the standard door lock.

Subway Avocado

Along the lines of the discussion thread about advertisements that missed their mark, I'm not sure I'm quite getting the new subway commercial. I don't understand the audience they're trying to reach or the message they're trying to get across. Overall, I don't think it is very successful.

2012 Super Bowl

This was my favorite commercial from the Super Bowl this year. It's the ad for the new Volkswagen Bug. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the dog, but I think it's strategy of showing a "new and improved" version of the dog and the car was really effective. It was the right idea at the right time.

NBA

These 'NBA BIG' commercials have been catching my eye for a while. I'm not a huge sports follower but when I would see these ads I would have to stop and read what they said. They seem different from any other sports related ad I've seen. This is a huge industry that spends a lot of money on images and marketing. I think the marketers did a really good job of catching the attention of their specific audience. I haven't seen the ads run on just any television stations, they are usually focused on ESPN and such. Anyways, I think they're really good ads so I thought I'd post a few if you all would like to check them out.

For you Bull's fans...

Here's one for the Heat's victory last night....

Boston Celtics 

ASPCA

There are all kinds of advertisements on television, in magazines and on billboards asking for donations. And for some reason, these stick out so much to me. I am way more compelled to donate to this foundation after seeing all the starving animals than to other organizations. Are the marketers at ASPCA working overtime to get more donations.Do you guys think these ads pull at your heart strings more than others?

Branding

While in a waiting room for several hours today, I stumbled upon this gem and snapped a picture of the cover. It started to bring back some of the concepts we read about in Chapter 12. It has a list of 10 brands that are the most trusted and popular in the United States and how they became so successful. I found it really interesting what each company did to become so trusted, and each one is very different. Anyway, I found the article online if anyone would like to take a look!

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223125#

Hulu

While catching up on all my TV season finales, I couldn't get this one phrase out of my head, "watch out for my roots." It was then that I realized while using my Hulu plus subscription for the last year that they recycle the same 4 or 5 advertisements. 

To me, those ad slots seem about as valuable as television time. Since I'm not very familiar with this market, I'm not sure whether advertisers don't want to pay hulu or if hulu doesn't offer space for that many corporations. 

It doesn't seem to me that the ads on Hulu have any correlation to the type of show you're watching or the types of searches you make on that computer, the ads are always the same. I would be very interested to get some insight into why marketers choose to promote through Hulu and how Hulu chooses to distribute those ads. 

Here's that Sprint commercial in case you haven't had enough of it already....