Saturday, December 13, 2008

Billy's Shadow Box


I finally finished Billy's "you suck for leaving Houston and I miss ya already, jack ass!" shadow box. The collage of photos are 2"x2" that have different heights. I also screwed in a sign with his name at the top just to make sure he knew it was for him. I wish I had more three dimensional stuff but I couldn't think of anything else '_' sigh.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Different marketing that makes me wanna buy

I was pulling my car into Kroger and had a random thought, "Why did I decide to buy this car?" Of course... I saw it in the movie, The Transporter. On top of that reason? None of my family/friends owned one, it looked nice, it drives really well and it would grow with me as far as family. Would I have ever thought about buying that make if I hadn't watched The Transporter? Probably not and most likely would have chosen something similar.

From there, I did research online. I compared similar cars to pricing, safety, gas efficiency and of course, the cool factor. I didn't really talk to anyone else about it or get any recommendations. There wasn't much print advertising. There was search engine marketing text ads from the national and local dealers. And what really won E and I over was their customer service at the dealer. We had visited a few potential dealers but this dealer was so attentive, even still now that I've had my car for over two years. Some companies forget that customer service is also apart of marketing.

That brings me to Nintendo DS. It's probably the opposite of what happened with my car purchase. My sister, nephews and brother had one. I'd borrow my nephew's to check it out and play Super Mario but I wasn't all that interested... yet. I saw commercials for it here and there and was interested but still wasn't sure if it was what I wanted. One day, my brother and SIL were visiting and my SIL was talking to her DS, "YELLOW. BLUE. YELLOW. BLACK..." I asked, "Jenny, are you ok?" She just laughed. Of course she was playing Brain Age. THAT is when I decided that I wanted a DS. Now I see commercials for Cooking Guide and I think, "that is cool!" Using a game to teach you how to cook? That's awesome! See the commercial below:



I also heard you can get games that teach you a language. That's what I want! E & I speak different dialects of Chinese and this would help us communicate when we don't want to speak English. How exciting is that? It makes me love my DS even more. Even when I see ads for the DS, it reminds me that I have one and that I need to get the new [insert whatever they are advertising].

So what's all this babble about? AUDIENCE! Fulfill a need for your audience or a want : ) It's funny how when I think back at what I bought and why I bought it, none are the same reason. Of course one is more functional and one more entertainment. So, I ask you... "what made you buy _______?" If you're creating an ad, marketing a product, advertising or what not, ask yourself, "what is going to make someone [buy this, come to my site, do what I want them to do]?"