Marketing Through Senses

When walking into a store that sells any type of good, I can't help but wonder what products i'll see closest to the entrance and which ones will be located at the back of the store. There has to be a reason why products are placed where they're placed. This is most apparent in stores like supermarkets. When I walked into a supermarket the other day, the first thing I did was smell the aromas of freshly cooked bread. The bakery was located right at the entrance. This makes plenty of sense so people are enticed by other senses besides sight. The next thing I notice is the produce section directly in front of me. It is a very open area so it is quite easy to see all of the fresh fruits and vegetables. The lack of processed food in my initial view at the entrance of the store makes sense. Besides obvious nutrition, these fresh foods also have something that these packaged foods do not. They have the distinct smell of fresh food. When I first realized how the use of smell in the entrance of a supermarket is part of marketing it fascinated me. Marketing can be proven more effective through targeting other human senses besides sight. For instance, retail stores like Macy's don't just have clothes in them. They sell items like perfumes that people enjoy. Also, wholesale stores like Costco use free samples to help market some of their goods. This is using taste to help market a wholesale product that is often packaged instead of freshly made. These are my examples but I don't know. Are there any other major ways products are marketed without the use of sight besides these ones I've stated here?

Marketing Flops

I was viewing an online list of the biggest marketing flops in history, and I can’t help to discuss the ones that really caught my eye. For instance, one of the products was Smith and Wesson Mountain Bikes. When I saw this it just made no sense to me. Smith and Wesson has always made guns. Whatever caused them to believe that mountain bikes from Smith and Wesson would catch on is beyond me. I don’t see how the two are related. I wonder why upper management approved this? After all, gun and mountain bikes consist of target markets that are not even similar to one another. This just didn’t seem logical.

Another item on the list was Microsoft Web TV. This was a service in the mid-1990s that allowed people to get an internet connection through their television set. The reason this caught my eye was because having internet access through your TV is quite popular nowadays. The list states that one of the reasons this product failed is because of extensive customer service issues. I believe that this product’s concept was merely ahead of its time. Technology was not yet sophisticated enough to support such a concept and that is the main reason Microsoft Web TV flopped.

McDonald’s Arch Deluxe sandwiches were also included on this list. When I saw the explanation to this marketing failure it seemed obvious. The McDonald’s Arch Deluxe was meant to be for customers who preferred a more sophisticated sandwich. McDonald’s target market is mainly customers who want a quick burger on the go. This example caught my eye because it was another example of a company trying to venture outside its target market and just ending up with a failed product. Why do companies choose to expand their target market so drastically instead of easing into more closely related products?

Here is the link to the site where the list of marketing flops is located:  http://www.dailyfinance.com/photos/top-25-biggest-product-flops-of-all-time/3662621/

Car Commercial Marketing

Recently, I was watching television and I came across a commercial for the 2012 Nissan Frontier. The commercial showed a 2012 Nissan Frontier driving down a snowy slope. At the bottom of the screen it states, "Fantasy. Trucks can't snowboard. Do not attempt." While watching this commercial I began to wonder, why does this car commercial market its product with something it can't actually do?

Yes, it is true that it was exciting and interesting to watch a truck slide down a mountain, but in no way did that entice me to buy a 2012 Nissan Frontier. The commercial expressed no features of the actual truck. This confuses me because I believe that not marketing the features of the actual product are hurting Nissan.

Car commercials should express what the average car buyer wants to see. Through my extensive personal viewing of many car commercials, people nowadays are looking for a more practical car. People are looking for safety features that will protect them and the others in the car with them. Take the commercial for the new Volkswagon Jetta for example. This commercial expresses a level of safety and family values that many consumers find endearing. I believe that a commercial like this expressing the safety features of the car is more valuable in marketing than a commercial of a 2012 Nissan Frontier doing impossible things. But is there some value in marketing to parading around a car doing fictional stunts?

Here are the links for the two car commercials:
2012 Nissan Frontier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95bpVJJlI6s&feature=related  
2012 Volkswagon Jetta: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtYPhBK61d0

Product Orientation and Need-based Products

Many companies have to market their product in order to achieve adequate sales, but there are a few exceptions to this ideal. Following a product orientation is surely a risky business. Not catering to the wants of consumers is very dangerous indeed. Many would look at this strategy as impossible. How could a company that does not cater to its customers be successful?

I’ll tell you how. The key to this is a need based product. It is true that the consumer wants and wants, but what about what the consumer needs? The only types of large-scale companies I can understand following a product orientation with success are the ones that provide a product or service that everyone needs.

My example of this is electric companies. Electric companies need not market their electricity to others in order to get customers. The majority of the modern world uses electricity and there are few companies to get it from, especially in the United States.

Product orientation works here because we have a modern day monopoly. Electricity is essential to almost everyone. They can’t afford to question its provider, nor can they look elsewhere to another provider. A system like this works for most, but is there any other type of large-scale company that has a product orientation without the use of need-based products?

Opinions on Marketing Terms

 What is the difference, in your opinion (don’t look up definitions) between marketing, advertising, and propaganda?

Based on my current knowledge, marketing is the process of a vendor making a product or idea aesthetically desirable to a consumer. This idea can be implicated on either a small or large scale, from small businesses to large multinational corporations.

In my opinion, ideas such as advertising and propaganda are somewhat part of the overall concept of marketing. For instance, advertising is a general form of marketing. It is when a vendor tries to make a product or idea desirable to the consumer by showing them how useful it is. A typical form of advertising is a commercial on television. Television ads for products such as cars often make the viewer aware of qualities such as safety features and price. Both of these categories are very valuable to a person interested in buying a car.

My idea of propaganda is that it is when the qualities being used to persuade a buyer are made more desirable than they actually are. This can usually be in the form of an exaggeration or by not including important details about a product or idea when it is being advertised.

Through my opinions, these three terms seem to be a subcategory of the next. If that is incorrect, what qualities separate marketing from advertising or marketing from propaganda if there are any?