In this Snickers commercial two auto mechanics accidently kiss while eating the same snickers bar. To make themselves feel “manly” they rip off some chest hair and scream as loud as they could. This commercial was aired during the Super Bowl and received lots of complaints. There was so much controversy because it got complaints of being homophobic.

MSNBC said, “The Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation complained to the maker of Snickers, Hackettstown-based Masterfoods USA, a division of Mars Inc., which also makes M&M’s and other candies.”

They had a website featuring the ads and other versions of the men doing “manly” things. The web site also featured a video of players from the Super Bowl teams reacting to the kiss. According to MSNBC Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese said, “This type of jeering from professional sports figures at the sight of two men kissing fuels the kind of anti-gay bullying that haunts countless gay and lesbian school children on playgrounds all across the country.”

MSNBC also discussed other complaints like, “GLAAD spokesman Marc McCarthy said Tuesday the group believed “this kind of prejudice was inexcusable.”Masterfoods spokeswoman Alice Nathanson issued a statement in which she said the company would stop running the ad on television and the Web site. “As with all of our Snickers advertising, our goal was to capture the attention of our core Snickers consumer,” Nathanson wrote.

“Feedback from our target consumers has been positive. In addition, many media and Web site commentators of this year’s Super Bowl commercial line-up ranked the commercial among this year’s top 10 best." She noted that USA Today ranked it No. 9. “We know that humor is highly subjective and understand that some people may have found the ad offensive. Clearly that was not our intent,” she wrote.Masterfoods brands include Uncle Ben’s rice, Pedigree dog food and Whiskas cat food. It is part of Mars Inc., a family-owned company.”

This commercial received so much controversy because it doesn’t connect with Snickers large target audience. They have all sorts of consumers eating their product. So homosexuals, women, and even some men were quick to judge the commercial and get angry or offended. Before making this commercial Snickers should have thought more deeply into their organizations goals rather than making people laugh during a SuperBowl commercial. In The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott he says, “Marketing and PR people have a collective difficulty getting our departmental goals in sync with the rest of the company.” He also says, “we constantly focus on the flare-up du jour and thus always focus on the wrong thing,” and he also says, “Many marketers and PR people also focus on the wrong measures of success.” In Snickers case they focused too much on making people laugh and not enough on which of their consumers it would offend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAvMvmSIPc

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17011630/ns/business-us_business

Public Relations Class Promotion

If you’re a communications major Public Relations (COM306) with Professor Lowney is a great opportunity to learn more about the industry and how to promote your product or business. It is a Monday, Wednesday, Friday class form 11:25am- 12:15pm. So if you don’t have any classes scheduled before it you get to sleep in and you get out right on time for a good lunch at the dining commons.
One of the highlights of this class is Professor Lowney, she’s a great teacher. She knows how to make class fun and is very helpful to her students. Every PowerPoint she puts together is posted on first class (AIC’s student/teacher portal) for easy access to her notes. Each PowerPoint is a chapter in the book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, by David Meerman Scott. With all her notes on the chapters it makes studying much more efficient and gives you a better chance for high grades on tests and quizzes.
The class is very internet oriented; students will create their own blog and discuss topics assigned by the Professor. However, the blog can be for personal use as well. Using a popular blogging site students will have the opportunity to even design the template of their blog, choose little gadgets like video bars, photos, or even games. Don’t miss out on a great class with a great Professor this semester, take Public Relations (COM306) with Professor Lowney.

10 Online Advertising Trends in China in 2010

http://www.china-online-marketing.com/news/marketing/10-online-advertising-trends-in-china-in-2010/

The online advertising market for China in 2009 was a good year. "Search engine is the major online advertising platform in China, the search engine advertising market has reached 6.9 billion Chinese Yuan, while the comprehensive portal websites earned 5.0 billion from advertisers. Video sharing websites are the black horse, with 120% growth rate in 2009"(Chow). The trends of 2010 should bring the same success. There are 10 trends in online advertising market for China in 2010 discussed by Steven Chow in the article 10 Online Advertising Trends in China in 2010.

The first trend is obviously a huge potential for search engine markets. According to Chow this means, "Chinese search query accounts for 20% of global total search query, exceeding 17% of United states. However, the search engine market value of China only has 3% market share, while United states nearly get 50% market share." The second trend is that vertical search medias can grow fast. "The vertical search websites will perform better than portal websites, in areas like fashion, finance, automobile, IT, travel etc.(Chow)." The third trend is video sites are still hot, they grew 120% in 2009 and the increase should continue.

The fourth trend in online advertising in China is the community is popular to people. Chow says, "According to the research, community ranks No.1 in term of user number, user stickness, page views compared with other online medias. Community is ideal for word of mouth marketing." The fifth trend is online advertising is going mobile which obviously means peope can access online from their phones. The sixth trend is online advertising goes long tail. This simply means identifying the niche market. The last four are pretty much self explanitory. They are application development, advertising for ecommerce, traditional media embrace internet, and event advertising.

My opinion on all this is that these trends should work for pretty much any online marketing strategy in any country. The internet took some time to gain so much popularity for advertising but now it is growing faster everyday. Search engines have become so huge that most people rely on them now for their day to day information. So if you advertise on a search engine where a large population of people are looking to for information like Google, you as a marketer/advertiser are going to eventually get some hits. The article says U.S. has a 50% market share for search engines while China only has 3%. So China definitely better consider raising the percentage if they want their advertisements to better succeed.