"Buy the Way…" Insights on Integrated Marketing Communication

Many organizations are involved in creating and selling products that are particularly harmful for human health. These products are usually addictive in nature and are found to be involved in adversely affecting our health. These corporate giants are also required to communicate their message across their target market in order to sell their products.

While the most common medium for advertising is Television; these firms often find efficient and clever ways to market their brands and to wash away the health related concerns attached with their products. Unfortunately, some non-profit regulatory firms are also indirectly involved in assisting these corporate giants.

These actions have fundamental significance for our daily lives as it reveals the grubby faces of our regulatory authorities that are given the responsibilities of the well-being of millions. However, in actual, they are found to be deviating from their core duty and obligations merely to get corporate sponsorships from big businesses like tobacco and soda manufacturers (Tobacco Analysis, 2016).

One of the prominent cases that came to light recently is linked to Massachusetts Health Council, which received heavy corporate sponsorship from Coca-Cola for hosting its annual award gala. The honorable Massachusetts Health Council does not deserve to receive any public health awards as its actions are deviating from its mission to which it is deeply associated i.e. prevention and wellness of the public health.

The Massachusetts Health Council is allegedly accused of facilitating and assisting the soda industry in marketing and promoting products that are recognizable and responsible for contributing to the country’s obesity epidemic (Tobacco Analysis, 2016). It has been exposed that the sponsors’ list of Massachusetts Health Council awards gala involves the name of Coca-Cola, which is among the largest producer of soda beverages across the globe.

We all are aware of the fact that Coke has been severely criticized for adding Aspartame as the low-calorie sweetener in Coke Zero and Diet Coke. The company used this ingredient to highlight its image of being a socially responsible brand, which cares for its people and community. Apparently, by using Aspartame, Coca-Cola emphasizes that the ingredient is used with the intention of offering the similar sweet taste but with low calories (Medical Daily, 2016). However, Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than normal sugar; that is highly hazardous to human health and therefore it increasingly resulting in Diabetes that can cause a hormonal imbalance leading to obesity. For this act, the company has been heavily charged for its fraudulent advertising and unfaithful intentions towards the community (Mercola, 2016).

The regulatory authorities like Massachusetts Health Council are responsible for facilitating such acts because including the name of Coca-Cola in its sponsorship reflects its endorsement of its business operations and activities. The underlying idea behind criticizing Coca-Cola for being Massachusetts Health Council’s sponsors explains how soda manufacturing businesses are using corporate sponsorship as a tool to elope the criticism and to enhance their public image by diverting the attention of the community and other regulatory authorities from the hidden effect of their product.

Not only this, but 96 more health and medical organization are found to be receiving funding from Coca-Cola. This has exposed the filthy intention and grubby faces of giant market rulers like Coca-Cola, as well as state authorities that are vigorously lobbying against the health measures for improving the capacities to fight against the epidemic of obesity (Food Business News, 2016).

The bottom line is that acceptance of corporate sponsorship by health regulatory organizations from firms like Tobacco manufacturers and Coca-Cola allows them to conceal the damage caused by their products behind their social contribution in order to create goodwill among the public, which eventually results in fuzziness and taking the community’s focus away from the damage (Washington Post, 2016). The corporate sponsorship is increasingly being used as a gismo to conceal social damage for the organizations that are allegedly responsible for harming the community health.

**I have no personal ill-will against the companies listed above. This blog post if solely for the purpose of this assignment**

References

Food Business News. Official Website. (2016). Retrieved From http://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/news_home/Business_News/2015/05/CocaCola_has_no_plans_to_dump.aspx?ID=%7B301D4144-E0CC-4BAA-A26F-27F54244BE2F%7D&cck=1 on November 5, 2016

Medical Daily. Official Website. (2016). Retrieved From http://www.medicaldaily.com/coca-cola-spreads-lies-about-aspartame-and-dangers-artificial-sweetener-311300 on November 5, 2016

Mercola. Official Website. (2016). Retrieved From http://www.mercola.com/infographics/coke-is-a-joke.htm on November 5, 2016

Tobacco Analysis. (2016) Official Website. Retrieved From https://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2016/10/why-is-massachusetts-health-council.html on November 5, 2016

Washington Post. Official Website. (2016). Retrieved From https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/27/why-pepsis-decision-to-ditch-aspartame-isnt-good-for-soda-or-science/ on November 5, 2016

For this week’s blog post, I decided to do a bit of research on Gary Vaynerchuk since we are reading his book, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, throughout this module. I found a recent news article from AdWeek that discusses how Vaynerchuk uses data analytics to help with hiring and promoting decisions. The reason I was interested in this article was because he uses the same methodical approach to people management as he does marketing. In his book he mentioned the importance of doing constant analytics, learning from the numbers and creating insights to improve marketing campaigns. He takes this same approach to his Human Resources practice and people management. His leadership team uses analytics about their employees to learn about their workforce, make insights about who should get promoted, and then use that data to execute on promotion decisions. I also found it interesting that the employee data helps to jump people through the organization without regard to a “traditional” approach to promotion. For example, based on reviews and employee data, if an employee is doing exceptionally well, they can jump the ranks.

Side note: For those of you taking CMGT505, I thought this would resonate especially well with all of you, as it fuses interpersonal communication with the marketing communication of this course. I always love when the content and insights blur between my courses!

Reference:
Coffee, P. (28 Oct. 2016). “Gary Vaynerchuck told us how he decides which employees to promote and let go.” AdWeek. Retrieved 3 Nov. 2016 from, http://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/gary-vaynerchuk-told-us-how-he-decides-which-employees-to-promote-and-let-go/119804.

No matter where on the political spectrum you find yourself, election season is divisive, nerve-wracking, and exhausting.  It’s hard to tune out all of the sensationalistic rhetoric, and at the same time there is so much noise that it’s also tasking to listen to any one piece of it.  Ultimately, we’d all rather throw the entire state of affairs in the trash and get on with our lives.  That’s exactly what Hefty managed to do with their new ad, featured below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGxPZIq4pfs

It’s short, simplistic, and most of all quiet.  It gives us a break from the bothersome attack ads that have been running in full force, and best of all (for Hefty), it makes audiences stop and think about the brand.  Hefty has a high degree of brand recognition, but it’s no simple task to make it stand out to consumers.  Plastic trash bags might be the most prosaic consumer goods imaginable — they are made to be thrown away, after all.  This ad, however, used timely insights to make Hefty prominent and desirable in the minds of consumers at a relatively low cost.

Although I’m a huge advocate of using technology to make our lives simpler, I have to admit the thought of riding in the back seat of a driverless car sends chills down my spine. Unless the car is on a track at Disneyland, I’m not interested. There’s just so many bad drivers out there, not to mention people who dart into traffic, broken signal lights, dogs and bikes zipping between cars — the list of split-second decisions that need to be made while driving seems endless.

So when I saw the Business Insider article about aggressive drivers that bully self-driving cars, I was intrigued. The benefit of riding in a self-driving car is you don’t need to worry about breaking any driving laws; the cars are engineered to follow the rules of the road and protect the passengers. According to research results from a study done on drivers’ attitudes about self-driving cars, there are those who intend to bully the automated cars by aggressively driving around them, forcing the self-driving car to let them pass. In situations where the self-driving car has the right-of-way, bully drivers say they will go first anyway, knowing that the automated car will comply.

Experts worry — rightly so — that this will lead to more bad behavior by already aggressive drivers. There’s so much road rage out there already, at least from what I’ve experienced on L.A.’s crazy roads, I’m not sure we’re ready for another excuse to drive like bullies.

Reference

Price, R. (2016, October 17). Aggressive drivers bully self-driving cars. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://nordic.businessinsider.com/aggressive-drivers-bully-self-driving-cars-autonomous-vehicles-study-lse-goodyear-2016-10/

I recently stumbled upon an article on Facebook about CoverGirl announcing its first ever male face for their cosmetics products. With that said, modeling contracts have long been for celebrities and top supermodels, however CoverGirl announced its first non-celebrity cover on the magazine and it’s a boy. His name is James Charles, from Bethlehem, PA, a seventeen year old high school senior who has joined the ranks of Katy Perry, Pink and Christie Brinkley to name a few. James Charles grew to fame on Instagram with over 400K followers for his quirkiness and creative approach using makeup. Additionally, he grew to stardom (15-minutes of fame turned to being the face of one of the top cosmetics brands in the world) when he retook his senior portrait twice to make sure his makeup highlighter will “pop.” In the like manner, he took his story to social media to make that claim and from there all is history.

What is truly fascinating about James’ story is that it puts a perspective on how much 21^st century has evolved and where it has taken society today. With that said, James is the first ever CoverGirl/Boy male to be featured as the face of the brand in 58 years. His face will be featured on various digital and social media platforms, as well as print. This is huge and a game changer in the beauty industry due to the fact this historical moment, especially given in a time full of hate, bullying and gender inequalities. Furthermore, the traditional boundaries of gender in beauty and fashion has expanded and major growth to both females and males becoming social media famous.

CoverGirl is an established and reputable brand that acknowledges beauty in every format and is not gender exclusive. Moreover, it gives hope to young people to live their dreams, have self-expression and not have society dictate what is considered the norm. As a matter of fact, the reality is that the power of social media is our digital identity and part of how we are and how people view us. Therefore, by leveraging the use of social media it opens endless opportunities or it may provoke negative responses. Furthermore, the use of social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is so powerful that it creates a buzz and a voice for people to express themselves. With that said, CoverGirl has broken the boundaries of what beauty and fashion is all about with the use of social media being a powerful tool in itself.

Source:

Chan, M.-A. (2016, October 11). CoverGirl just announced its first male face — & he couldn’t be more deserving. Retrieved from Refinery 29 website: http://www.refinery29.com/2016/10/126003/covergirl-first-male-model-james-charles#slide