This week, we delve into the controversial world of Gender Marketing. How did it all start? Why are aisles and products separated by gender? Why do some companies charge women more than men for identical items? Marketing different products to different genders leads to profit but also to big consequences. It’s not a black-and-white issue, but it’s definitely pink and blue…
This week, we look at the fine art of selling the dream. The world of Real Estate Marketing has its own rules, its own techniques and its own unique breed of salespeople. We'll tell the story of how the word "Realtor" was reluctantly blessed by Merriam-Webster, why so many real estate agents use photos of themselves as a marketing tactic and what happens when the real estate business tries enticing buyers using...humour. It's a form of marketing that touches all of us and it usually involves the biggest purchase of our lives.
This week, we peek into the emerging world of influencer marketing. Today, the most popular social media Influencers aren't celebrities, they're regular people. Bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTube stars and Snapchatters have amassed millions of followers, promoting products using only the trust of their fans as currency. We'll look at a single YouTube review that shot Patti Labelle to the top of the baking industry, why J.K. Rowling only needed seven people to promote the biggest movie attraction of the year and exactly what happens when influencers break the trust of their loyal followers. It all comes down to integrity and transparency.
This week, we take a peek into the risky, yet delicious world of commercial parodies. Some spoof ads are created just for the laughs, while others are sharp critiques of questionable products, overzealous advertising claims and self-congratulatory corporations. We'll look at a magazine that satirized one of the most controversial court cases in history, a company that parodied the competition, then sued another company for parodying their parody, and unpack the Saturday Night Live skits that brought commercial parodies into the mainstream. Commercial parodies didn't just lampoon the ad industry, they influenced it.
This week, we analyze inventors who later came to regret their inventions. Sometimes it's because the product ended up being harmful. Other times it's because of the way their product was used. And in most cases, the creators simply lost control of their creations. We'll look at why the inventor of the K-Cup doesn't own a Keurig machine, why the creator of Mother's Day later tried to have it rescinded and how the Wright Brothers lost control of the airplane. It's one of the most unwieldy aspects of marketing - you create a product, you inform the public, you put it into the marketplace, and it's out of your hands.
In this episode, we look at what happens when seemingly unrelated companies decide to partner up. By pooling their resources and, more importantly, by leveraging each other's strengths, unlikely brands collaborate to achieve much more than they could have achieved alone. We'll look at a hotel that partnered with an animal rescue organization by bringing dogs into the hotel, a budget-priced car that redefined the term "luxury vehicle" by teaming up with Prada and how NASA got the public to support the space industry using...a toy. Sometimes, odd couples click. And what they create together is highly unusual and unique.
