Ben and Jerry's Lin-Sanity

As I'm sure most have heard by now, Ben and Jerry's started a frozen yogurt line. One of their flavors in particular is called, Lin-Sanity, after the New York Knicks rising star, Jeremy Lin. The biggest problem that Ben and Jerry's faced was their original idea of putting fortune cookies into the frozen yogurt. This caused a slight public disturbance due to the association with being Asian and the stereotype surrounding fortune cookies.

For me, I'm impartial to the problem-- I can see how both sides could be offended. In a world that is becoming increasingly more politically correct, it seems like more of a PR move to keep the public happy which is understandable. It just seems like everyone gets offended by everything in this day and age.

BUT, when I was reading this, I wondered how wise is it to put all your eggs in one basket. As of now, Lin is a great athlete and has put up good numbers to support his fame, but what happens when his fame runs out? Not only could Lin be a one time wonder, but also Ben and Jerry's is stuck with a product name of a one hit wonder too. Does the company keep the name? Or drop it?

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Nike's Marketing

I recently just looked at a graph in Fortune on Nike's marketing expenditures. If I'm interpreting the graph correctly, it says that Nike spent $113 million on traditional media (print, tv, and radio) and spent $771 million on "unmeasured media" including direct marketing, internet paid searches, and social media. Clearly, this shows the ever increasing movement towards online advertising and the use of social media.

As we have seen this evolve over time, it is fair to say that people are really shying away from using traditional outlets for advertising. My question is: since we are always progressing over the years and making technological advances, what will be next after social media? Will this be the end-all-be-all? What could possibly replace these forms of marketing in the future?

Product Placement

Yesterday, I went to see Safe House, the new Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds movie. Above everything else, it was a pretty bad movie, but one thing I saw a lot was product placement. In one scene, Ryan Reynolds opens a refrigerator. The camera pans the fridge starting at the top of it and as it moves down towards the bottom, cases of Red Bull sit on the bottom shelf.

This is nothing new; I'm sure we've all seen the blatant advertisements of Coke and other major brands in movies.  One thing I'm curious about is how much does it cost to place a product in a movie like that. In addition, which products get chosen and which don't?

Sidebar Advertisements

For my Global Communications class, we just took a test on the world map. We had to know every country and know where they are located on a blank map. I spent all week Googling countries and maps and all of the sudden, every advertisement on Facebook and Google had to do with countries that I had been googling.

I realize that advertisers do this, but it never occurred to me how quickly they did it. Normally, I would see ads for fishing or skiing things and assumed that over time advertisers had put it together. I never would have guessed that it only took a matter of a few days to narrow in on me.

Granted, this is something that has been going on for awhile, I think we forget about how prominent advertisers are in our lives. The question that I have is, how far is too far? Does anyone feel like we are always being monitored and our privacy is being invaded?

Facebook's IPO

After hearing that Facebook filed for an IPO of $5 Billion I was shocked. It wasn't the monetary value that shocked me, it more had to do with how much Facebook has grown over the years. I can remember when I got a Facebook during my sophomore year of high school. When I first got it, I simply used it to connect with friends, look at pictures of what they have been doing, and toss around inside jokes. To think what it was then, to what it is today is unbelievable. I never would have guessed how it would have progressed social media so far. Everyone has seen the advantages of Facebook, especially businesses that use it.

However, I still have a hard time grasping at the reality that Facebook can be used as a legitimate source of information. To me, there still seems something impersonal about it, but I just might be old fashioned. It seems like the days where face to face meetings are gone and no one has to meet in person anymore. Is it possible that the use of these social media sites will hinder our abilities to communicate in person?

Obviously, I can see the advantages of these sites, but do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?