In Response to Kerri's Post

I too am a huge fan of Naked juice smoothies. The Rainforest Alliance, I think, is a great way to market a product. Much like Kerri said, it's not always a factor in people's decisions to buying a product, but similar fads like Fair Trade and Equal Exchange are really starting to take off with today's society, and products that use methods like this as a marketing tool I believe will help in future sales. Not only are these methods better for the environment and the economy, but they're a way to reach a growing number of people who are extremely interested in the environment.

Gap: The Water Quality Program

After looking into the Gap for the Marketing paper due this week, I got really into the idea of how different companies use their business to help the environment. Gap, for example, has a lot of different ways they help the environment, including steadily conserving energy and keeping water clean.

One of the biggest parts of the research involving their environmental responsibility was their Water Conservation Project. In 2012 Gap was named one of the most ethical companies in the world. This is a huge deal considering the problems some global, factory-based companies have with ignoring human rights and the environment. The Water Quality Program is the Gap's way of ensuring they they don't just build a factory in a foreign country and leave all of their waste behind. According to their website, making jeans requires washing with a lot of chemicals and dyes. These chemicals can seep into the water in the areas around their factories, and the Gap makes it their mission to make sure that doesn't happen. 100% of their factories participate in this program. They all send their used water through treatment so that they don't pollute the waterways.

Have you heard of any other companies forming or participating in programs like this? If so, who?

For more info on the program, click here.

In Response to Heather Young's Post

In Heather's post, she talks about Target advertising swim suits to women in a Sports Illustrated issue. She brought up the question would you be upset if there was an ad in a magazine you read that was directed toward a different gender.

I'm not sure if I would be upset about it, but I would definitely find it confusing. Now that I think about it, I can remember seeing an ad in a women's magazine that advertised both men and women's fragrances. So while I did find it odd in a fashion magazine for women, I think the fact that they are sort of blurring the lines of gender roles is refreshing. Because we can't say that there are no men out there reading women's fashion magazines, and the same goes for Sport's Illustrated. As an advertising issue I don't think it's the smartest choice, but from a personal standpoint I don't find it bothersome at all.

Technology in Marketing

Within the past twenty years or so, technology as a whole has really changed how we perform everyday tasks. With things such as email, texting, cell phones, pagers and iPads, people can be connected to each other no matter where they are in the world.

It's interesting to think that even in my lifetime (being part of a generation that relies so much on technology) that something as important as the internet wasn't even a common, household luxury when I was younger. Now, we use the internet for everything. Need to know how to bake a chocolate cake? Google it. What is the state bird of Georgia? Google it. What movie was the top box-office hit of 2012? You can google that too. And with the constant use of the internet, comes an entire new way to advertise products. You see ads everywhere on internet pages. One of the coolest things I've noticed with my browser specifically, is that most of ads are centralized around interests of mine. For example, I was browsing the website of Chamilia Jewelry for charms for a bracelet  and since that day I notice most of the ads being centered around companies that sell charms for that. The internet can not only advertise products to you while you take care of other work, but it's smart enough to specify the ads based on the places on the internet that you've shown interest in. So unlike newspapers or magazines, where many of the ads have no relations to your interests, the internet can advertise products to you that you may be more inclined to click on.

How else do you think technology has changed the way products or services can be marketed? Do you find internet advertising more successful or less successful?

Response to Gina's Post

In Gina's post (here), she talked about ethics in business, and how people's definition of what is ethical differ; which can cause conflict about what is right and wrong when it comes to operating a business. This means that if a company has an ethical issue, some people might not agree that it is an issue at all.

Gina asked: Do customers notice when a company makes bad ethical decisions?

When certain businesses makes the news for ethical reasons, anyone watching can interpret the situation depending on their own, personal code of ethic. Some of the businesses' customers might notice the bad ethical decisions made when they watch the news, but because other's might not consider them unethical, they don't notice.

Product (Red)

When the Product (Red) campaign started getting big, I remember a lot of kids walking around with those Inspi(red) shirts. They were everywhere, especially in the art community of the school. And I remember thinking how cool they looked. So, because I was a freshman high school and desperate to follow trends, I went out and bought one myself.

The one thing I remember most about wearing that shirt was that I really felt like a good person for wearing it. Not only was it a cool looking shirt, but it was going toward a good cause. And if there is one thing I learned from being in college, it's that everybody loves t-shirts. If there is an event on campus more people will go if they are giving away free T-shirts. I used to have people that were going to events pick me up shirts if I couldn't go just so I could have the shirt. I'm not really sure why people think it's so cool to have these shirts, but for some reason they do. And for organizations like Product (Red) it's a great opportunity for advertising  If you can come up with a cool logo for a shirt and you can get people to want them, you can not only make money off of selling these shirts (in this case money that can help fight AIDS) you can also get free advertising. This T-shirt design has become iconic in a way, and it was kind of like a win-win situation for them. For organizations like Product (Red), it's really important to get the word out there. This is just one way to do it.

Do you find yourself with a massive amount of T-shirts from functions? Do you think businesses using T-Shirts as advertising is a good idea or a bad idea?

Response to Sean Cowles Post

Sean's Question: Although customer satisfaction and customer value are interdependent, which one is more important?

For me personally, I think customer satisfaction is more important than customer value. I focus a lot on how I'm treated as a customer, so when I'm looking to purchase a product my overall satisfaction will go up or down depending on how the employee of the business treats me. If I'm satisfied with the overall experience of purchasing the product, then I will most likely do business with them in the future, and if not I wouldn't.