HBS Marketing Conference
I attended the Harvard Business School marketing conference on Dec. 2, 2007, at which I met with and listened to people from all different product companies that make decisions on marketing and advertising avenues and strategies for their business. There was nothing new that I really learned, however listening to the perspectives and being on the agency side, was interesting. Speakers included the president of Unilever Americas, vice president of global brand marketing for Yahoo!, Inc., and the general manager for Hasbro. In addition to the speakers, there are panels surrounding revitalizing brands, globalizing brands, and alternative marketing which included people from some of these same companies, but also from companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Dunkin Brands, Proctor & Gamble, and Nike.
The main point of interest to me that was touched upon was this idea of reinventing the brand and gaining a new target audience. Dove is a great example of this since they provoke discussion with their advertising. As a brand, they are really trying to get to their audience through another avenue. They are targeting “normal” people by using “normal” people instead of models/actors. Unilever has done a great job in evolving the brand and using different media outlets to get their message out there. Their ads and spots are so controversial that they get to the next level of marketing by causing controversy, which were discussed on “Good Morning America”, “The Today Show” and “The View”. If you want to spark interest to reinvent the brand, look to Dove.
In case you haven’t seen these provoking ads (to my surprise most of the HBS students had not):
Evolution
This second commercial was only aired some 4 times because of how graphic it was. Go figure that America can’t deal with the realities of natural beauty…
Posted by Nirali on December 11th, 2007
Filed under Advertising, Marketing | No Comments »
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