Media & Society-Week Three

Topic One

After reading and watching the assigned resources this week, I pondered the concept of brand loyalty, especially when it came to whether or not I had brands that I felt had effectively marketed to me and that I had positive feelings towards.

Urban Decay cosmetics quickly came to mind as an example-while my finances don’t make me their most profitable customer, when I’m looking to get a treat or a luxury, I’ll frequently purchase one or two of their products and have been a fan of the company since my early teens.

I searched for their company on Facebook and found that not only did they have a slick, well-produced company on that platform (https://www.facebook.com/UrbanDecayCosmetics/) , but also had links on that page to their other social media pages: Instagram, Pinterest, and Youtube. The Facebook page has 3,689,779 ‘likes’ and 3,668,380 ‘followers’.

The Facebook page is very robust; there are lots of videos and photos demonstrating their products, which all have many likes and comments (including many responses to user comments from the company).

Urban Decay also has partnered with many Instagram users, who the company has titled ‘Beauty Influencers’, to increase the visibility of the brand by utilizing the ever increasing beauty blogger trend.

Urban Decay’s target audience appears to be ‘alternative’ young women and the fact that I became familiar with and developed brand loyalty when I was in my teens and have continued to be a customer for over a decade certainly suggests that it’s successful. Their slogan is “Beauty with an Edge™” and while I’m not sure how indicative that is of their customer base as a whole (I myself am certainly less ‘edgy’ than I was at 17 or 18), it was very effective in attracting interest. Several of their ‘beauty influencers’ are not the traditional make-up model (at least one man, and there are tattoos and piercings galore) and while several of their new products are less ‘alternative’ than they used to be, the names of their products and how they’re displayed are still quite different from most large cosmetics companies.

I first was introduced to the product about 12 years ago when my friend first dragged me into a mall (which I only agreed to on the condition that we go into Hot Topic, another company geared towards ‘edgy’ teens that has become more ‘mainstream’ over the years) and then dragged me into a Sephora. Immediately I was drawn to the black displays and packaging standing out like a dark island in a sea of pink and pastel and the unconventional names like ‘Oil Slick’ and ‘Shame’ attracted me: spot-on marketing for me and my demographic at the time, the young Goth girl with disposable income from her first jobs, who wanted black lipstick that wasn’t cheap smeary stuff from the Halloween store.    

I feel like they’ve actually done pretty well, while their inclusion of more traditional products into their lineup has helped keep them relevant (and kept cashflow coming in from their original customer base as they’ve grown up-there are a lot of moms and professional-looking 30-somethings commenting and ‘liking’ Urban Decay’s posts), they’ve also kept their branding on-point. Essentially, they’re accessible enough to not become a novelty company, kept relevant enough to not be a passing fad (like JNCO, an iconic ‘alternative’ brand that while still around, has not fared as well), and yet has maintained enough of it’s original ‘edge’ not to repel its original customer base. They’ve done well by harnessing the trend of beauty blogging, which seems to be firmly established as the new face of cosmetics marketing (that pun was unintentional).

Also, when I went onto the Facebook page to research this assignment, I saw this post and immediately wanted to purchase the product:https://www.facebook.com/UrbanDecayCosmetics/photos/a.71295988199.97876.60999753199/10155370027763200/?type=3&theater

Topic Two

1^st Ad: “Sorry, I was eating a Milky Way” (DUD)

The ad depicts a tattoo artist eating a Milky Way while working, which somehow causes her to mess up and tattoo a man with ‘No Regerts’. He expresses dismay, to which she replies: “Sorry, I was eating a Milky Way.” We are shown the candy bar with the text “Sorry, I was eating a Milky Way”. End of commercial.

Because Comedy Central has worked this ad into regular rotation on their online shows, I’ve seen this ad a number of times and each time I’m left puzzled by what exactly it’s trying to communicate. When I looked up this ad, I discovered that there is a whole campaign of ads doing their jobs incorrectly due to eating Milky Ways. Is it trying to say “This candy bar is so good you’ll suddenly be unable to your job upon consumption”? Because that seems like a somewhat counterintuitive way to market your product. I can understand the logic and have enjoyed the ad campaign for Snickers based on the premise of “You’re not you when you’re hungry”, where the solution to the problem was the advertised candy, not the cause of it.

I think part of the reason this ad annoys me so much is that I can’t figure out who the target audience is supposed to be. The people in the ads span several demographics (although all are white) as far as age and gender are concerned. In this particular ad, it’s a young woman enjoying the candy but she’s not portrayed in an especially sympathetic light, so it doesn’t seem like they’re trying to especially appeal to the ‘young, hip white woman’ demographic.

I feel like the company must be aiming for irritation with this commercial however, at least for this potential consumer, it’s backfired. Perhaps if I wasn’t familiar with the brand, it would’ve helped it stick out in my mind but I was already very aware of Milky Way as a product and now have an association of annoyance and irritation with the candy.

CONVERSELY, I’ve just completed a binge of the first four seasons of the show The Americans and Milky Way actually has product placement in one of the story arcs. That was very effective marketing, in my opinion, since I remember the storyline and the character the product was associated with, and by extension, the product itself (also ‘This candy is one of the decadent treats of the West!’ is better branding than ‘This candy will make you fail at important jobs and make others hate you’).

2^nd Ad: iPad Pro-“Any Given Wednesday” (WORKS)

A variety of people are shown using the new iPad Pro for many different tasks-work, entertainment, pictures, or even an alarm clock. An upbeat, catchy song plays over the ad.

Very rarely do I see an ad for something-especially something with a price tag like the iPad Pro has-and think “Wow, I’d like to own that!” but that was my reaction when I saw this ad. The ad promises that the product has versatility, is easily portable, is relatively durable (one of the final images of the ad is someone blowing crumbs or powdered sugar off of it), and most of all-it looks fun.

The target audience seems to be everyone (a long ways from the famous 1980s commercial touting Apple as the edgy outsider). Men and women, all ages, all occupations. The ad seems to be trying to communicate that no matter who you are-from a teenager taking photos with your friends to an architect-this product will improve whatever you’re doing.

This is a bit of a chimera of persuasive techniques: it seems like a plain-folks strategy mixed with emotional branding but with a subtle dash of snob appeal: anybody can use this product and it will make life more fun. You can design with it or have it wake you up in the morning. You might not be the kind of person who actually designs logos or jots down notes about market shares while zipping around in elevators but with this device, maybe you could be.

At this point, an iPad isn’t a new or exciting thing, iPads have been around for years but this ad somehow make this one look exciting and special but also accessible. I have devices that do almost everything that this one advertised does but this ad had me going “Sure, I have a Wacom Bamboo and a Kindle Fire and a MacBook but this thing is all of them at once and I could stuff it in my bag and take it anywhere! I want it!”. I’m usually a pretty conservative buyer (I refuse to replace my 2^nd generation 2 GB iPod Nano because you know, I’d like more music storage but I don’t need it) but this was a masterfully done piece of advertising because my gosh, I want that thing. Because of the broad audience this is aimed for, I think a large number of people with very different interests than I have probably really want it, too.

BONUS: This is one of my favorite ads ever. I have no idea why. (The costumes are really surprisingly accurate)