Marketing in the Media 2013 - Blue Buffalo Commercials - Essay Example

? Marketing in the Media Blue Buffalo Commercials Candi number Marketing in the Media Blue Buffalo commercials Introduction Blue Buffalo, a popular pet food manufacturing company in the United States started an advertisement Champaign for their dog food to show the superiority of the brand compared to other brands. The commercials, all meant for the television, have found their way on the internet, especially the You Tube. Searching online for a pet brand, one cannot fail to find the Blue Buffalo pet food advertisement series. The adverts, mostly of real pet owners or staged accounts of pet owners, seek to use a real experience appeal in order to win more customers. Everybody wants the best for their pet, which in most cases receive as much attention as their loved ones. In fact, to some, they are their only source of companionship. Therefore, people want the best for their best friends, and the best way of doing this is by feeding them on the best quality food available. This is the marketing strategy that Blue Buffalo had when it launched the campaign series. Uploaded videos are short, directly addressing the main aim of the advertisement, which is showing the advantages of using Blue Buffalo food over other brands. Blue buffalo advertisement is not just an ordinary advertisement; it incorporates creativity, emotional appeal, engages the customers, and assures them of quality and results. Additionally, it is daring and convincing, especially by challenging the customers to take a test of their brand quality. Relevance of the advertisement Advertising is the manner in which producers of either goods or services seek to convince the public to purchase their goods or services, or sell their ideas to the people in order to make a sale. Marketing on the other hand is the act of communicating the value of an idea, good or service to a particular target audience in order to make a sale. As such, advertising is a method of marketing organizations use solely to make a sale. Advertising plays a major role in the creation of an awareness of the existence of a particular product or service or a manufacturer. Advertising uses different forms of media to convey the necessary message to the people. Organizations, in order to make a sale, make use of different advertising strategies. Among the common strategies used by organizations, include educative advertising strategy, informative advertising strategies, and aggressive advertising strategies, among others. The Blue Buffalo campaign highlights the need for an aggressive marketing strategy for the success of any brand. Most of the companies, despite having a strong brand, fail to make sales due to lack of aggressive marketing and advertising. Aggressiveness of an advertisement seeks to catch the attention of the target audience, convincing them that theirs is the best choice. Not unless a company embarks on an aggressive marketing strategy, people will never know of the existence of their brand. By aggressively advertising, Blue Buffalo aims at catching the attention of all pet owners, within and outside United States to use its brand. Persuasive advertising, according to (Armstrong, 2010) aiming at persuading people to purchase a product or service, is an example of advertising strategy that Blue Buffalo advertisements use. Blue commercials particularly aim at persuading pet owners to use their food to feed their pets (“Blue.com.” 2013). In order to consider a pet as successful, it must have achieved its purpose of sending the required information to the audiences. In this case, the success of Blue advertisements is persuading target market to purchase Blue Buffalo pet food. While advertising, different organizations use different methods in order to win target customers. Creativity is very significant in an advertisement, and every advertisement seeks to incorporate different styles in order to make the advert rather appealing and captivating. Not only does it capture the attention of the people, it also shows the uniqueness of the brand in comparison to other brands. Creativity gives a brand a competitive edge, especially by the fact that the images created in the advertisement remains in the minds of the target audience for a long time. McStay (2013) argues that for any advert to capture the attention of the target it is mandatory to possess high creative values. Creativity makes an advert unique from other adverts, capturing the attention of the people and the target group (McStay, 2013). Therefore, the higher is the level of creativity in an advertisement, the higher the likelihood of that advertisement selling the information to the audience. McStay (2013) observes that in advertising, creativity fulfils all psychological, marketing, and corporate needs of the customers. The Blue Buffalo advertisement creatively captures the attention of the audience by the manner of its presentation. Emotional appeal is yet another form of advertising strategy that advertisers currently use ion order to catch the attention of the audience. Williams & Drolet (2005, p. 345) assert that the creativity with which an organization or advertiser tries to incorporate emotional appeal in an advertisement, in most cases, determines buying whether the audience will immediately purchase the product or not. The two main types of emotional appeals used by advertisers include rational and emotional appeals. In the event that advertisers decide to incorporate emotional appeal when creating an advert, they target the customer’s psychological, social, and emotional needs. The main emotional appeals that advertisements target are fear, love, hate, greed, sexual desire, or humour. Srivastava & Sharma (2008, p. 38) argue that emotional appeal advertisements target at creating physiological tension to the target audience, which leads to consideration on purchasing the product. Blue advertisements use the emotional appeal of love and humour in creating of their advertisements. By showing how people adore their pets by hugging them or offering them high quality food, they prompt other people to treat their pets in such as manner (“Blue.com.” 2013). Marketing issues at stake With the aggressive manner in which the Blue Buffalo advertises its brand, several issues arise. Ethics in advertising is one of the main issues. Advertising ethics seek to ensure that the content aired or presented in an advertisement does not contain any defamatory information. The fact that the advertisement seeks to demean dog food containing corn is an ethical issue. This shows that indirectly, the company discredits any food containing corn. As such, any company selling food with corn, as an ingredient is likely top loses from such information. Additionally, the reality of the information contained in an advertisement is yet another issue. All pets showcased in these advertisements are healthy and happy. How can people ascertain the truth that these dogs all feed on Blue products? This is not possible, and as such, the company dares people to take a food test challenge on the quality of the feeds. This is however more convincing than mere speculation. Stakeholders involved There are few stakeholders involved in this advertisement. The notable ones are the audience, the company involved in selling the products (Blue Buffalo) and the media used. Target audience are the potential buyers of the dog food in the advertisement. They are the most crucial type of stakeholders in an advertisement campaign. The advertiser, Blue Buffalo seeks to sell its products to the people using different channels of communication, notably the television and the internet. The advertising channel in most cases helps in conveying the intended information to the target audience. The media plays a big role in determining the impact of the message to the target audience. Because demographically people prefer different media, advertisers use this as a way of reaching to the audience targeted. For instance, the old people prefer the print media and the television. Therefore, any brand targeted at the old people, in order to capture them, has to target on these two types of media. Additionally, teenagers and young adults prefer the internet as well as cable TV. Therefore, any brand targeting this age group should use this media in order to have a significant impact. Blue Buffalo, with the understanding that that the biggest group of people that own pets are the young adults and teenagers, used the internet and the television in order to reach these people. Lessons learnt from the marketing media The analysis of the Blue Buffalo advertisement highlights a number of important lessons. By aggressively advertising a product, there are higher chances of making a sale by capturing the attention n of the audience. However, the aggressiveness cannot yield any substantial results if the media choose is wrong. Therefore, the media chosen should have high compatibility with the target audience. Even as advertisers create advertisements, it is important to put into consideration a number of issues. One of these is the advertising strategy to use. Creativity and the use of emotional appeal are some of the most important strategies that have led to the success of the Blue campaign. Conclusion Creating an appealing advertisement is not an easy task. It takes the efforts of the advertiser to come up with a captivating idea, one that blends with the media chosen and the target audience. Blue Buffalo, in their effort to reach out to pet owners, uses television, and internet advertising media. The main reason for this is to capture the attention of most of the pet owners. While doing so, it uses creative methods of advertising as well as emotional; appeal. References Armstrong, S. (2010). Persuasive Advertising: Evidence-based Principles. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Blue.com. (2013). Blue TV. Retrieved 6 November 2013 http://bluebuffalo.com/tv-commercials Blue.com. (2013). Why BLUE? Because only BLUE is made with the unique combination of high-quality, natural ingredients plus exclusive LifeSource Bits. Retrieved from http://bluebuffalo.com/best-dog-food McStay, A. (2013). Creativity and advertising: Affect, events and process. Srivastava, M, & Sharma, M. (2008). 'The Role of Emotional Appeals in Internet Advertising: A Study of the Contributing Factors Involved'. ICFAI Journal Of Management Research. 7, 9, pp. 27-36 Williams, P, & Drolet, A. (2005). 'Age-Related Differences in Responses to Emotional Advertisements', Journal Of Consumer Research, 32, 3, pp. 343-354 Read More