So why do so many schools fall under that 10% margin?
If you think about it, most marketing units taught at schools consist on showing students sample ads to analyze. But what if students were given the opportunity to analyze the ads that were in their environment? What if they learned through experience rather than through a video, a picture, or a textbook?
Today during class we went to Jockey Plaza to analyze ads, and I was able to realize how many of the ads out there do not market their product effectively. They are either too small, too wordy, too colorful, or plain boring.
However, Adidas's newest add for their shoe "Springblade" was very effective. The combination of the adds location, together with the choice of colors, the huge model of the shoe, and shoe's display
Nonetheless, what most impacted me from today's visit was the way the same or similar products were being promoted. The only difference was the way they were being promoted or the store they were being promoted by.
This made me realize how we live in a world of extreme consumerisms. We are encouraged to buy, buy, buy, and buy. Why? Because businesses create a need for their products. Their job is to convince us that we can't live without their newest Louis Vitton purse, despite already owning a blue and a red one.
For example, why is it that girls don't wear a dress more than once to a party? Why do they own more than four pairs of heels? Why doesn't orange match with purple? Or brown match with pink?
It's not that the colors don't match, it's simply that society has set a norm that we feel we must follow in order to fit in. The key to breaking this norm is to find the balance between needs and desires. It's to recognize that despite our age or gender, we will always be a "target audience", because no matter where we are in the world, there will always be someone trying to convince us that we need more than what we already have, when in fact, we simply desire more.