I have always loved Tide to wash my clothes. It is funny to say but my "main" reason is not because it is a better care for your clothes over any other detergent. My reason to choose Tide over any other detergent is because it smells awesome! But, I do not deny that it is a great product which washes your clothes without damaging them and keeping them clean and soft. My mom is the one who does shopping for all the household items. If Tide wasn't a great product, she would have never purchased it again. Along with great care, I choose Tide because of its smell. I am so addicted to its smell that there has not been a single day where I have not smelled it. If I go to any store that carries laundry detergents, I will go to that aisle just to smell it. Because of my everyday passion for Tide I decided to do my paper on Tide laundry detergent.
I think it will be interesting to do this paper because I will get to study mainly the household women who take decision for day-to-day household products. I will get to study and learn their purchasing decision on laundry products. Everyone loves their clothes, especially if its one of your favorite and you definitely want to take good care of them. I want to research more on the reasons, if any, why women chose Tide or any other brand over Tide. The reason I am choosing the household women/ moms is because they are the one who are always concerned about the best care. Whether it's in health, food or anything else they want to stay in the best hands.
For this paper, I plan to research articles on Tide’s marketing strategies to sell their products over any other brand. I plan to read reviews that people post for Tide. Also, I plan do to research for this paper by interviewing my mom and her friends in order to get some primary data. My mom thinks I am never interested in any household activities, so it will be something I can do to make her happy. Along with that she is always screaming at me for smelling Tide and makes up all kinds of terrific things that can happen to me, health wise. I always have to hide from her when I smell Tide, but for this paper I will have an excuse to smell the products even more!
While searching the web, I found some interesting articles on Tide. Out of those, one of the articles is this one;
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/packaged-goods/e3i74e046bb4149b4ce86bd69ccbcbd3b2b
This article is titled "Tide's New Beauty Secret" which talks about how combining the product, Tide, with other fabric protectors such as Downy can be beneficial. The article talks about the new "Tide Total Care." This new combination of Tide will offer the most essential things that are beneficial for washing clothes. It will clean thoroughly, protect the original color, preserve the shape, maintain finishing, enhance softness and fight stains. I also visited the website www.Tide.com and noticed how their website is designed. I think the website is great in listing the products. You not only look at the specific product it offers, but you can also view the comments by people. It also has an option that offers customers to look up stain solutions and how to wash them. On the homepage they are currently advertising and asking for opinions about the Tide Total Care. I think the homepage is designed in a very user friendly way with all the latest products being highlighted.
I feel Tide has done a great job with combining other clothes protection products to offer the customer one bottle that carries all the needs. They offer several different choices for customers. Some are Tide with Downy, Tide with Febreze, Tide with Bleach, Tide for cool water, Tide Pure Essential with Baking Soda, and Tide Simple Pleasure. This was not enough that they are now offering products for H.E (high efficiency) washing machines, which uses less water as compared to the traditional machines. They are offering Tide with bleach, Tide with Febreze, Tide with a touch of Downy for H.E washing machines. I think this is interesting how they are marketing so many different products for different kinds of clothes by combining them with each other. I was fascinated to see how Tide in a way is marketing for H.E washing machines.
I feel this is a very interesting topic. I want to learn what the household women have to say about all the different kinds of choices Tide has to offer. I want to read and learn more on the future products Tide has to offer and if people would be ready to accept them.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Ads on Facebook
I thought it would be much easier to write something for this blog but I was wrong. After paying alot of attention when I could not decide on what to write, I decided to take a break.
Taking a break for me means getting on Facebook. So I got on Facebook and started browsing through my friends’ pages and I suddenly noticed some advertisements on the right side of the page. I got an idea to write my blog for this week, and decided to write about advertisements on Facebook. I looked online and found some articles which I thought were interesting. I came across an interesting article named “Can social networks make money?” Even before reading this article I had a personal opinion that Facebook advertisements do not capture its user’s attention. I myself do not pay attention to the advertisements on Facebook and just out of curiosity asked few of my friends if they do. They all answered no!
After reading the article, my opinion about advertisements not making money on Facebook was correct. The article mentions that with increasing number of users on social networks like Facebook and Myspace, marketers thought that it would be great idea to capture the attention of alot of customers. I was surprised to read that US advertisers will spend $755 million on MySpace and $265 million on Facebook this year.
Like the article mentioned, I do not think marketers on Facebook with their advertisement are capturing the attention of its users. Facebook has a lot of young generation users and they are not interested in looking at the ads displayed. I also agree with the article that not all the members on Facebook are active users. If people like me, who are regular users of Facebook, do not pay attention to the ads, how will the ads capture those who are not regular users?
I believe the reason we don’t pay attention to the ads on Facebook is because our main goal is to stay connected with friends. Speaking of my experience itself, I hardly pay attention to the ads. Even after noticing the ads, I do not remember clicking on the ads a single time. I do not think these advertisements are actually needed on Facebook. I will rather pay attention to ads on Yahoo.com or any other search engine than Facebook. The reason is because when you are on other websites such as Yahoo.com, you tend to look at news, games, gossip or ads. The reasons you get on those websites are because you want to be informed with new things. But with social networks, the focus of its users is mainly toward socializing with friends.
Like I said ads on Facebook don’t work but I also believe that if right kinds of ads are displayed on Facebook it might make a difference. An interesting thing I read was about Pizza Hut launching an application on Facebook so that the users can order pizza without leaving the Facebook website. I think this is a great way for Pizza Hut to advertise their pizza. The reason I think they might be successful is because pizza is something alot of young generation consume. I think depending on the right product for right people is really important. With majority of users on Facebook being the young generation, it is likely that a Pizza Hut application will work. Many a times, me and my friends order pizza online because we find it easy and quick.
Another way to attract its users, Pizza Hut does other promotions like drawing $50 gift cards if you order pizza online. I think that’s a great way to attract anyone who likes pizza.
Looking at Facebook currently, I see three ads being displayed. One is about a website where you can display your art. The other is about fitness and third is about an online degree course. None of these interest me, but if I had seen stuff like get pizza for $5 or save $5 on cosmetics etc I might have taken some interest. Displaying ads on Facebook is just not enough. Until the word is completely out that “xyz’s” application is on Facebook, they should advertise it on their official website. This means that if Pizza Hut is going to launch an application on Facebook, they should not just advertise it on Facebook but on their actual website pizzahut.com. Because alot of Pizza Hut consumers are going to their official website to order the pizza and if they see the Facebook advertisement on the official website, it’s more likely they will remember.
I think it was really interesting to read about the new emerging way of advertisement. I believe Social networks like Facebook and Myspace can be profitable on advertisement only if they research and advertise the right products.
Taking a break for me means getting on Facebook. So I got on Facebook and started browsing through my friends’ pages and I suddenly noticed some advertisements on the right side of the page. I got an idea to write my blog for this week, and decided to write about advertisements on Facebook. I looked online and found some articles which I thought were interesting. I came across an interesting article named “Can social networks make money?” Even before reading this article I had a personal opinion that Facebook advertisements do not capture its user’s attention. I myself do not pay attention to the advertisements on Facebook and just out of curiosity asked few of my friends if they do. They all answered no!
After reading the article, my opinion about advertisements not making money on Facebook was correct. The article mentions that with increasing number of users on social networks like Facebook and Myspace, marketers thought that it would be great idea to capture the attention of alot of customers. I was surprised to read that US advertisers will spend $755 million on MySpace and $265 million on Facebook this year.
Like the article mentioned, I do not think marketers on Facebook with their advertisement are capturing the attention of its users. Facebook has a lot of young generation users and they are not interested in looking at the ads displayed. I also agree with the article that not all the members on Facebook are active users. If people like me, who are regular users of Facebook, do not pay attention to the ads, how will the ads capture those who are not regular users?
I believe the reason we don’t pay attention to the ads on Facebook is because our main goal is to stay connected with friends. Speaking of my experience itself, I hardly pay attention to the ads. Even after noticing the ads, I do not remember clicking on the ads a single time. I do not think these advertisements are actually needed on Facebook. I will rather pay attention to ads on Yahoo.com or any other search engine than Facebook. The reason is because when you are on other websites such as Yahoo.com, you tend to look at news, games, gossip or ads. The reasons you get on those websites are because you want to be informed with new things. But with social networks, the focus of its users is mainly toward socializing with friends.
Like I said ads on Facebook don’t work but I also believe that if right kinds of ads are displayed on Facebook it might make a difference. An interesting thing I read was about Pizza Hut launching an application on Facebook so that the users can order pizza without leaving the Facebook website. I think this is a great way for Pizza Hut to advertise their pizza. The reason I think they might be successful is because pizza is something alot of young generation consume. I think depending on the right product for right people is really important. With majority of users on Facebook being the young generation, it is likely that a Pizza Hut application will work. Many a times, me and my friends order pizza online because we find it easy and quick.
Another way to attract its users, Pizza Hut does other promotions like drawing $50 gift cards if you order pizza online. I think that’s a great way to attract anyone who likes pizza.
Looking at Facebook currently, I see three ads being displayed. One is about a website where you can display your art. The other is about fitness and third is about an online degree course. None of these interest me, but if I had seen stuff like get pizza for $5 or save $5 on cosmetics etc I might have taken some interest. Displaying ads on Facebook is just not enough. Until the word is completely out that “xyz’s” application is on Facebook, they should advertise it on their official website. This means that if Pizza Hut is going to launch an application on Facebook, they should not just advertise it on Facebook but on their actual website pizzahut.com. Because alot of Pizza Hut consumers are going to their official website to order the pizza and if they see the Facebook advertisement on the official website, it’s more likely they will remember.
I think it was really interesting to read about the new emerging way of advertisement. I believe Social networks like Facebook and Myspace can be profitable on advertisement only if they research and advertise the right products.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Paradox of Choice
After listening to the Barry Schwartz's podcast I began to realize that we battle with making choices regularly in our every day life. Whether it's going to class, going out with friends, shopping or eating, we battle with choices all the time.
There were arguments where I agree with Barry Schwarz, but there were also moments where I felt maybe that's not true. I agree that more choices make us confused. There are so many options we have and we don’t know what to choose. But I feel the choices are given for people's comfort. I am a kind of a person who would spend the time to pick out a product that I feel will be best for me. I don't feel that if I pick something which doesn’t suits me later on will make me blame myself. It[s something I thought would work for me; I will not blame myself for it but rather take it as a bad experience. After that experience I know what is not right for me. With choices given I can always go back and choose something different, compared to if I have limited options I have to live with what is being offered. For example, I use a different face cleanser than my sister or my friends do. Why? Because all of us have different skin. My sister uses the same brand, Oil of Olay, but buys it for dry skin. I buy it for oily skin. If I use her cleanser it makes my skin even oilier and makes me look horrible. Now with choices given, we both are happy with the way our skin looks and we are satisfied with the product. If there was only one face cleanser, it would have only made those people happy whose skin type it worked best for. Another example can be Tylenol for pain relief. If you have any kind of muscle pain you take the Tylenol. But if you get allergies, flu, or cough, you buy the Tylenol that is specifically designed to cure your specific symptoms. That is why I think choices are great.
There was another interesting point made in the podcast was that the more choices we have the easier it is to regret. With so many choices given we are less satisfied if what we buy turns out to be something we maybe don’t like. I do feel it is true to an extent but it depends on how you look at it. For example, if you want to go buy a digital camera, they come in many brands with many different features. Now how do you decide what you want? I think a lot more people these days read reviews or talk to the people who already have used the product before making a purchase. I think reading reviews online or talking to people who can give you a good advice will make it easier for you to decide if it’s really something you want. My friend recently bought a digital camera. Even though she knows a lot about technology she read the reviews, spoke to other people for advice and then decided what she wanted. She is happy with the choice she made and she loves taking pictures with that camera.
As we are moving ahead in this world, each day brings a new choice because the market has something new and better to offer the next day. Barry Schwarz used a great example of jeans in the podcast. I am going to use the same example to describe my experience shopping for jeans. I used to have a tough time picking a pair of jeans that fit me good, or the style I wanted. There was always something I did not like. I was too picky. With all the choice I have now, I can find almost a perfect jeans for me. There is a wide variety of style, new sizing options; if you preferred a specific kind of brand they are offering more choices as well. My biggest issue was with sizing. If, for example, a pair of jeans is designed a certain way, it will not fit me perfect. But now with all the choices I have, I can pick something that just not fits me well but also gives me a chance to try new things. By trying new things that look good on me gives me an opportunity to be someone who I want to be. I choose the way I want to look rather then looking similar with everyone else.
This was a really interesting podcast. I really enjoyed listening to what all he had to say. His points mentioned were great about how choices make people miserable. But there is not really a right answer. I fell its how you look at it, and I think choices are great!
There were arguments where I agree with Barry Schwarz, but there were also moments where I felt maybe that's not true. I agree that more choices make us confused. There are so many options we have and we don’t know what to choose. But I feel the choices are given for people's comfort. I am a kind of a person who would spend the time to pick out a product that I feel will be best for me. I don't feel that if I pick something which doesn’t suits me later on will make me blame myself. It[s something I thought would work for me; I will not blame myself for it but rather take it as a bad experience. After that experience I know what is not right for me. With choices given I can always go back and choose something different, compared to if I have limited options I have to live with what is being offered. For example, I use a different face cleanser than my sister or my friends do. Why? Because all of us have different skin. My sister uses the same brand, Oil of Olay, but buys it for dry skin. I buy it for oily skin. If I use her cleanser it makes my skin even oilier and makes me look horrible. Now with choices given, we both are happy with the way our skin looks and we are satisfied with the product. If there was only one face cleanser, it would have only made those people happy whose skin type it worked best for. Another example can be Tylenol for pain relief. If you have any kind of muscle pain you take the Tylenol. But if you get allergies, flu, or cough, you buy the Tylenol that is specifically designed to cure your specific symptoms. That is why I think choices are great.
There was another interesting point made in the podcast was that the more choices we have the easier it is to regret. With so many choices given we are less satisfied if what we buy turns out to be something we maybe don’t like. I do feel it is true to an extent but it depends on how you look at it. For example, if you want to go buy a digital camera, they come in many brands with many different features. Now how do you decide what you want? I think a lot more people these days read reviews or talk to the people who already have used the product before making a purchase. I think reading reviews online or talking to people who can give you a good advice will make it easier for you to decide if it’s really something you want. My friend recently bought a digital camera. Even though she knows a lot about technology she read the reviews, spoke to other people for advice and then decided what she wanted. She is happy with the choice she made and she loves taking pictures with that camera.
As we are moving ahead in this world, each day brings a new choice because the market has something new and better to offer the next day. Barry Schwarz used a great example of jeans in the podcast. I am going to use the same example to describe my experience shopping for jeans. I used to have a tough time picking a pair of jeans that fit me good, or the style I wanted. There was always something I did not like. I was too picky. With all the choice I have now, I can find almost a perfect jeans for me. There is a wide variety of style, new sizing options; if you preferred a specific kind of brand they are offering more choices as well. My biggest issue was with sizing. If, for example, a pair of jeans is designed a certain way, it will not fit me perfect. But now with all the choices I have, I can pick something that just not fits me well but also gives me a chance to try new things. By trying new things that look good on me gives me an opportunity to be someone who I want to be. I choose the way I want to look rather then looking similar with everyone else.
This was a really interesting podcast. I really enjoyed listening to what all he had to say. His points mentioned were great about how choices make people miserable. But there is not really a right answer. I fell its how you look at it, and I think choices are great!
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