#mkt400

[liftandsip-blog]

Fit and fun, because you shouldn't have to choose just one

Hi all! Welcome to Lift and Sip where I will be blogging about my friends, and my own, fitness gains, goals, and routines, as well as how we each typically spend a night on the town. I'm doing this to show that in life, balance is key. I believe that in life you can incorporate both fitness and fun and be successful in both. I've never been a part of the blogging world before, but I'm excited to begin! Meet me! This is the part where I get to talk about myself I suppose! My name is Corissa and if you know me you know I've got the drinking part down, but you may not know how I keep a healthy lifestyle. I personally try to make working out fun, so I don't even feel like I'm working out and I actually get to enjoy myself. I'm not a person who can zombie it out on the treadmill for an hour or be entertained by riding a bike inplace, inside. I get my cardio done by running outside with my bestfriend by my side encouraging me to keep going while getting to catch up on each others lives while taking in all the beautiful views that nature has to offer. I also have always been very involved in sports in my life, and continue that now in college. Whether it is being involved in intramurals with friends, picking up a game of basketball with people at the rec, or playing football with my neighbors, I think sports are a fun way to burn some calories and I don't even realize that I’m working out! Now when it comes to lifting, in high school we were given a set plan that we had to follow for each sport and when I came to college I felt lost and had no idea what to do in the weight room. Feeling embarrassed that I didn't know what doing in a weight room packed full of jacked guys, I just stopped going. I realized recently how dumb that was and reached out to my friends to help me create a routine to get the gains that I am looking for. I just started this routine a week ago and it feels so good to get back at it and I'm excited to see the results it brings! Now onto the fun part. For starters, I'm a whiskey girl all the way. Doesn't matter if it's bourbon, Canadian, Tennessee, scotch, if it has whiskey on the label, I’m all in. If you ran into me downtown at the bars you'd see me with a rail whiskey and Diet Pepsi in hand, dancing my butt off. I'd probably be described at a cheap drunk, not because I get drunk easily, but when I'm downtown I always try to get the most amount of drinks I can for the minimal amount of money I have. No doubt everytime I go downtown you can catch me chugging drinks at a local bar that has $1 power hour from midnight until 1am. Don't worry, I'm a bartender, so I always tip. If you would ask my friends to describe drunk me they would say she is extremely loud, overly loving, talks WAY too much, dances the entire night, runs every where like walking isn't an option, and well a mess. All and all I'm a rowdy girl just looking to have a good time. Stay Tuned! If you are reading this you made it to the end! I really appreciate you sticking through my first time blogging with me. Get ready next time to meet my friend Lauren and hear how she stays fit and fabulous while having fun!

[minscollection-blog]

Why Study Abroad

1. Life Experience Studying abroad is undoubtedly a very unique life experience, this experience is that you can not experience in your home country. I often think that studying abroad is not only science and technology, but also an important channel for understanding and integrating into different cultures. It is very important for students to form a complete outlook on life, world outlook and values. Modern social information has been very developed. You may feel in the media and the Internet that you can understand everything, you can imagine how to live abroad. But this imagination is absolutely different from you actually live abroad.  As we have seen numerous TV scenes in the story of love, but only we actually experienced love, we can appreciate the wonderful and helpless. Studying abroad life will greatly broaden your horizons. The real experience of multiculturalism can help you exercise the ability to think independently, cultivate frankly in the face of victory and failure mentality, and help you to more comprehensive understanding of human nature and society, but also let you more concerned about and love our country.

2. Language

With the development of our society, it seems more necessary and important to be bilingual. In the domestic environment, it is more difficult to break through and to learn another cultural expression. People from different cultures tend to express what they want to express culturally differently. If you are abroad with the local teacher, classmates and the community has full contact with the exchange, rather than all day with students who speak same language as you do, you will learn a new language and culture faster. Also getting into another culture is not easy, you won’t be able to get involved into another culture unless you go to that country.

[mkt400ctejada]

Week 8 - Attitude & Attitude Change

In this week's lecture, we discussed consumer attitudes and the lengths that marketers will go to in order to change their attitudes. In particular, we went into depth in discussing the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements - do they really work? Does it always change the minds of the consumers? For the participation assignment that my group and I wrote this week, we talked about how effective David Beckham is as a brand ambassador to brands such as H&M, Armani, Adidas, and Samsung. I think that part of his appeal is due to the fact that he has a pretty good reputation in the public eye. For starters, he's very good looking and he has a beautiful wife (whom I have idolized since I was three). He hasn't been involved in any major, publicized legal conundrums, and he also is portrayed as a British soccer saviour. What's not to like?

I could go on forever about how much I love Posh and Becks, but this blog post is about another David: David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff. I got home after class and I set out to find an example of a celebrity endorsement that went totally awry, and I found this commercial. It's for Cumberland Farms, a chain of convenience stores in the U.S that also offers their own brand of snacks and drinks, like the iced coffee (or "Iced Hoffee) that Hasselhoff is promoting.

The ad is absolutely horrid, from the jingle to the fake beachy background (that has no connection to a Rhode Island-based company) to David Hasselhoff! But perhaps that was exactly what Cumberland Farms' marketing department was going for - as a result, sales for their #icedhoffee went up by 147% (Angel, 2013) I think that they were aiming to stimulate the affective component of attitudes; Cumberland Farms wanted to elicit an emotional response from consumers, and featuring a controversial, internationally-known D-lister like David Hasselhoff in their ads did just that. A normal person would think the ad's message wouldn't have a big impact because there is no match-up between Hasselhoff and Cumberland Farms - why would a celebrity like him endorse a store chain that is only available in the Eastern United States? In addition, what gives him credibility, or what makes him likeable after all the negative press he's received in the last few years?

To sum this up, this ad is effective for all the wrong reasons. I think that while it helped boost sales in the short-term, having controversial public figures like The Hoff can damage a company's credibility or reputation, and while it's fun to get a rise out of customers, decisions like this should be taken more seriously.

[nachocheesynewstand]

An interesting article highlighting what motivates consumers throughout their buying process. It explains how product involvement and perceived risk are greatly related. 

[mkt400ctejada]

This week in class, we discussed the effects of ads and consumers’ perception of them.

Funny enough, I found this recent article from The Globe and Mail about how scent marketing is a “projected billion dollar industry”, but also a big moral dilemma.

But I can totally see why - in theory, scent marketing seems like a really smart idea. It gives an augmented experience to the consumer that a 2D visual ad can’t compare to (unless, of course, there’s a scratch-&-sniff card on the ad somewhere). Using scent marketing, companies can establish that connection with consumers easier by relating their scents to past experiences, and by appealing to their emotions.

However, there are some bad sides. The article goes on by saying that it is an ethical issue because consumers may not be aware that they are being influenced olfactorily. But while scents can have positive connotations, it can also have bad ones. For example, I had a retail job at a store that sold candles and home fragrance items. The smells actually became repulsive to be after inhaling it for so long. Now, whenever I walk by the store, I need to plug my nose because I can’t stand it (also it brings up bad memories of working a stingy retail job with bad hours).

[gilnguyen]

A Social Media McDonalds Story Gone Wrong!

McDonalds, arguably one of the biggest fast food chain restaurants in the world suffered a huge social media disaster the digital world will not soon be forgetting.

McDonalds started a social media campaign on the micro-blogging site Twitter in order to promote their fresh harvest and positive relations with farmers.  The initial promoted hashtag McDonalds used on Twitter was #MeetTheFarmers.

The promoted social media campaign quickly went wrong when a member of the marketing team started to use a non-neutral hashtag; #McDStories. The use of this hashtag was as an attempt to further engage consumers on Twitter.

The issue with the #McDStories hashtag was the vagueness. Since the hashtag was so vague it opened up opportunities for consumers and competitors to exploit McDonald’s promoted message in any way they wanted.

Another mistake McDonalds made was not providing any directions on how to engage in using the promoted hashtag. Thus, the hashtag quickly became an outlet for consumers who had received negative experiences from McDonalds to share their stories.

Image By: (Gus, 2012)

McDonalds tried to start a new hashtag to quickly distance itself from the damaging one, but it was too late.  McDonalds learned a hard lesson that once something goes viral on the Internet it will spread like wild fire.

Image by: (Gus,2012)

The power of social media has become vital in the world of marketing. Although there were 72,788 Twitter mentions associated with McDonalds for the day of the hashtag promotion, only 2% were in relation to #McDStories (Gus, 2012).

In the end the lesson learned here is “a dissatisfied customer tells ten people. But…in the new age of social media, he or she has the tools to tell ten million” (Gillin, 2007).

 Image by: (BigStockPhoto.com)

What McDonalds Did Wrong:

Using such a vague hashtag and no explanation on what the hashtag’s purpose was

Stayed silent about the social media issue reinforced the stories told by consumers

What McDonalds Did Right:

Quickly removed the promoted hashtag

Stayed calm and tried to redirect consumer focus

What McDonalds Should Have Done:

Stay engaged with the consumers

Reach out to consumers for support

  Work Cited:

Gillin, P. (2007). The new influencers: A marketer's guide to the new social media. Sanger, CA: Quill

Driver Books/Word Dancer Press.

 Article:

Lubin, G. (2012, January 24). McDonald's Twitter Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong #McDStories.

Image:

Lubin, G. (2012, January 24). McDonald's Twitter Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong #McDStories. 

Article:

Thomas, H. (2012, January 12). McDonald's Twitter Mess: What Went Wrong. Retrieved     September 11, 2014.

[mkt400ctejada]

During class this week, we discussed the importance using social media marketing for businesses, and I think this video encapsulates the concept really well.

Taking advantage of the hot days in New York City, Evian promoted the use of the hashtag #evianbottleservice on Twitter for their followers to see. Eventually, enough consumers caused the hashtag to trend and Evian took to the streets to provide not just water… a bottle service. Complete with umbrellas, silver trays and smartly dressed staff.

The planning for this marketing event was also very clever. Evian is obviously known for being the "classier" water, and providing a bottle service to everyone made them feel pampered and most importantly, hydrated.