Blackberry: a perfect example of the product life cycle

Who hasn't ever had a Blackberry? Probably most of us have ever used one, but it is probably too that the majority of the people who liked Blackberry a few years ago isn't using this brand anymore. This can be explained because this brand has reached its last stage: decline

In the last few years, Blackberry has passed through all the stages of the product life cycle:

1. Introduction:

Its first product launched was the Blackberry 850, in 1999, and it supposed an innovation in technology because it had a complete keyboard and internet connection, what differentiated it from other mobile phones. Sales increased slightly, and there were no competitors in the market.

2. Growth:

Blackberry became public, and it received a huge amount of money allocated to investment. Blacberry reached 10 million customers in 2007 and had operations in 120 countries, becoming the leader in sales in the telephony market. New competitors emerge, such as Apple or Samsung.

3. Maturity:

From 2007 to 2011, Blackberry reached its top in sales, and then sales remained constant. It had a market share of 25%. In this stage, it was clear that its main competitors were getting closer.

4. Decline:

In 2013 Blackberry had a market share of less than 3%, what was an indicator that something was going wrong. Probably the worst mistake of the company was to underestimate its competitors, trusting in the loyalty of its customers and not making any innovation.

In 2013 Blackberry launched a new version, the 10.3.1., trying to get to a stage of Re-Introduction, but it seems difficult for the company to reach the fame that it had before.

Tomorrowland: the best event in terms of Marketing

Tomorrowland is a electronic music festival that takes place every year in Belgium. The first edition was in 2005, and in only 10 years of existence it has been considered as the best music festival in the world. This year, more than 500,000 people have gone there, from different countries all over the world. But, has Tomorrowland achieved its fame only because of the DJ's?

The answer is no. Tomorrowland wouldn't be the best festival without their marketing strategies. The festival came up with new marketing tools, and it has reached the top thanks to them:

1. Strong Brand Image: the catchword of the festival is: "Yesterday is History, Today is a gift, Tomorrow is Mystery." Everyday a castle of fireworks is projected, and the scenery seems that has been taken out of a Hollywood film, needing months of construction.

2. Videomarketing: after the festival, Tomorrowland makes a video where the best moments of the festival appear. It is called the Aftermovie, and these videos reflect the feeling that you will have a great time in the festival, trying to convince more people to go the following year. More than 25 million people have watched last year's aftermovie. The videos are released as if they were films.

3. Social Networks: 2.2 million fans on Facebook, more than 150,000 followers on Twitter and more than 350,000 subscribers are proofs that show the magnitude of the festival.

In my opinion, no one knows how to promote itself better than Tomorrowland does.

"The best prize is to share it"

The Spanish Christmas' Lottery takes place every year on December 22, and it is the most popular lottery during the year, not only because of the amount of its prizes, but also because the amount of people who participate. Also popular is the advertisement that promotes this lottery, that changes every year. And in this advertisement is extremely important the way to communicate and persuade the customer.

The promotional strategy has always been the same: a rational marketing. However, in the last three years, advertisers have developed a strategy that consists in appealing to emotions. After the "disaster" in 2013, the advertisements of 2014 and 2015 tried to play with feelings, and they had great results. They were catalogued as the best lottery advertisements ever.

"The best prize is to share it" is the idea that the lottery institution tries to communicate to the people in this ads. They transmit kindness, solidarity and the importance of small details. "If we talk about human relationships and feelings, and we locate in Christmas time, emotivity is the road that we must follow" says the executive director of Leo Burnett, agency that developed the ads.

With the ideas presented before, I must conclude saying that the Lottery ads have focused on transformational appeals. In this case, they depict what kind of experience results from winning the lottery. And, if you don't acquire a number, you will not experience the feeling...

Music in Advertisements

We see many advertisements everyday. And, in the majority of them (almost in all of them) we can hear a song while we see the promoted product. This is not something casual: companies study and analyze what type of music should they put in their ads.

Publicity and music have always been a useful binomial, and it has achieved success in all marketing strategies where it has been employed. Some analysts that have studied the relationship between marketing and music say that 90% of ads in TV are associated with any of music or melody. In fact, any television advertising that wants to ensure success must be complemented with a melody.

We can distinguish between 2 types of music that can be used in ads:

- Library music: songs that already exist. Publicists must pay rights to use them. Example: "Hugo Boss"
- Jingles or corporate music: an advert where main characters sing, and the main topic of the invented    song is the product. Example: "Natillas Danet"

A suitable song can achieve the transformation of a standard product into something special and attractive to the consumer. Moreover, advert songs are a good way to know a product and be interested in it. For example: who hasn't ever sung the famous Cola-Cao song (Yo soy aquel negrito...)?

Political marketing

Not only does marketing exist in selling products or services, but it also appears in politic. Electioneerings have been always related with big meetings and advertising posters, but nowadays they are introducing more and new elements with the goal of achieving better results. In this post I will explain some of those new factors that politicians must take into account when they want to get better results.

1. Social Networks

Social networks (such as Twitter or Facebook) are essential if you want to "connect with voters". But we must remember that, as they can be fundamental in achieving new voters, we can lose some of them if we don't use them correctly. Politicians should take into account that the number of followers or the number of "likes" don't mean potential voters.

Joan Roselló, who is the director of Public Affairs Experts S.L, argues that "being in social networks doesn't mean winning elections, but without them we can't win."

2. Interviews

More than advertising, conceding interviews in different communication media is essential. Politicians or parties that decide not to speak with certain journalists or channels usually have a bad image.

3. Closed to people

"Looking to voters' eyes, hearing them and knowing their names is crucial" Joan Roselló remarks. 

Being close to people hasn't been a usual technique until the last few years. But now, people is fed up of hearing politicians, they just want to talk with them. This is known as "Proximity Policy", and is being more common in Spanish politicians.

4. Think before acting

I have talked about this before in this post, but I would like to conclude that we can't go back in social networks: any tweet or any comment will be in the cloud forever. It is also important to be clear and don't lie in messages, because we can anger possible voters.

Mercadona's pricing strategies

Mercadona is a spanish supermarket company founded in 1981 in Valencia, when Juan Roig bought a company of meat to his parents. Juan Roig transformed the shops into supermarkets and expanded them to the rest of the country. Nowadays, Mercadona is the leader in its sector, with anual revenues of 19.000 million euros, 1400 shops and 74.000 employees. It is known as a company with low prices, but it hasn't always had the same policies.

At the beginning, Roig considered the possibility of establishing a reduction in prices complemented with strong advertising campaigns, in order to attract new customers. But the results were not the  expected ones: with te revenues obtained by selling the products he could not finance the process of advertising. So he implemented another policy...

The new pricing policy started in 1993, and it consisted in "Always low prices", what allows customers to buy products of a high quality and at the lowest prices. By this method, Mercadona satisfies the 5 components of the company: customers (The boss), suppliers, employees, society and capital.

Because of the bad experience investing in advertising, Roig distrusts in it. Promotions are not usual in this company as prices are always low.

Finally, I have to say that competitors have increased in the last few years, and they have also implemented policies of low prices. Will Mercadona be able to maintain its position in the market without decrease the quality of the products?

A T-shirt made of recycled plastic

On November the 26th, Real Madrid played a soccer game against Sporting de Gijón, a match corresponding to the Spanish League. Everything seemed as usual, but there was a special detail that made this match unique: Real Madrid t-shirts were made of recycled marine plastic.

Adidas is the brand that sponsors Real Madrid's clothes, and, collaborating with the firm Parley, it has launched a campaign that tries to raise awareness about the problems of pollution. As a part of this campaign, two of the most important football teams of Europe sponsored by Adidas (Real Madrid and Bayern Munich) wore recycled T-shirts.

In the neck of the T-shirt we can read a sentence: "For the oceans". According to recent studies, more than 250,000 tons of plastic are thrown to seas and oceans, and the animals that live there are affected by this problem. Millions of them die every year.

This campaign that Adidas has just designed can be included into the Marketing 3.0, because the aim of this operation is not just increasing sales, but focusing on values and society. Adidas may be seen now as a company concerned in global warming and pollution, and it will carry along a strong position in the market.

The Rise of Primark

Primark is an Irish clothing retailer that operates in nearly 10 countries, including Spain. It was founded in 1969, and, since then, its revenues have rocketed. In Spain, the first shop opened in 2006, and last year's profit increased by 36 % from the previous year, reaching a profit of 971 million euros. How is it possible that, being relatively new, a company like Primark can earn so much money?

1. Low operating costs

Primark offers clothes made of artificial materials, what reduces the expenditure of the production process. Moreover, economies of scale allow the company to realize volume purchases, reducing prices too.

2. Price for consumers

Some marketing analyzers agree that price is the most relevant factor that has contributed to the success of Primark. Primark has opted for a winning equation: "I buy something, I use it and I throw it. It's so cheap that it doesn't matter throwing it." The product is cheap but is not of bad quality, it is right because of the selling price. As I said on the previous paragraph, the fact that the company doesn't use expensive materials affect the price.

3. Low investment in advertising 

When it opened a new shop in Gran Via, Madrid, the brand promoted itself in a few occasions and just with informative messages. We could only see them on the nearer underground stations (Gran Via, Callao...). The absence of investment in advertising means saving in costs and an orientation to the "mouth-ear" as a platform to reach consumers. Social networks have also been important mediums of publicity in recent years.

4. Merchandising 

The cheapest products are usually located in the entrance of the store, and have a function as elements of "calling effect".

5. Expansion in recession period

The economic situation contributed to end with the belief that cheap clothes were bad.

The success of Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is nowadays one of the most famous and prestigious brands all over the marketing world. Its logo is known by everyone, and it appears everywhere (TV, newspapers, sports events, ...). But, how has this company reached the top?

1. Intouchable Logo

Coca cola was founded in 1886, and the company established its logo in 1923. They decided that, in addition to the recipe, the logo should also be fixed. That is how a logo that is recorded in everyone's mind was born. Nevertheless, the packing has been changing over the last century.

2. Same prices

It is very common that new companies start offering their products or services very cheap or for free, and by the time price increases sharply. Coca-Cola also used this strategy; however, they offered a bottle for the same price (5 cents) during 70 years. In 1959 the price changed.

3. Pioneer in merchandising

In the last years of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th, Coca-Cola was much more than a drink, it was a consumer brand, and it carried out different marketing strategies. Between 1987 and 1920, 10% of the products were given for free, in order to create brand awareness. Some other free products such as watches, calendars or decoration items were given to retailers. That is how Coca-Cola was the first one to set the brand in articles not related with the product, what we know as "Merchandising".

4. Property of bottles

In 1915 they launched a contest for a new design of bottle. The Root Glass Company of Indiana participated in the contest, and they found a curious picture of a cocoa plant. Although Coca-Cola didn't have anything in common with the cocoa, the plant had a significant and attractive shape. The Root Glass Company designed a bottle taking into account the shape of the cocoa plant, and they won the contest. The company has been promoting the bottle of Coca-Cola as an icon over the last decades.

Food Advertising Tricks

We see and hear adverts of fast food companies such as McDonalds or Burger King everyday and in all types of media (TV, newspapers,...). In the majority of them, we can see a huge burger, ready for consumption, what is a temptation for people who are hungry and need something to eat. However, what people do not know is the fact that in most of those adverts,  what seems food is not really food. Moreover, in some images of the product you will not see any piece of food. In this post I will explain some tricks companies use in order to manipulate food.

A good presentation of the product is essential in order to keep consumers and get more. Bread, onions or bacon are some accessories that a typical McDonalds burger may contain. But, did you know that cotton and pins are used in adverts of this company? By using this materials, burgers look bigger, more colorful and more attractive to consumers.

"Real food, but not really", is a trilogy produced by Minhky Le. Here, he visually shows us techniques used by companies in order to make a product more attractive. He focuses on three products: burgers, ice-creams and drinks.

Not only do tricks consist in manipulating the product, but they also deal with colors. Have you ever thought why do fast food companies always use red in their logos? The answer in simple: scientific studies have shown that warm colors (like red or yellow) activate our hunger and grab our attention.

Finally, I have to say that, although these tricks seem misleading, they are not illegal, so we will have to get used to watching these manipulated food.