Herbal Essence Follow Up

Living in a sorority, you see a lot of products that girls use. I decided to see how many of these girls used Herbal Essense in comparison to other shower products to see the effectiveness of H.E.'s advertising.

When surveying girls shower baskets I found the following:

12 out of 56 women used Herbal Essence Shampoo or Conditioner.

3 out of 56 used Garner Fructis/ Dove products

41 out of 56 used something other than the listen above brands, most were Salon products, Sauve, Loreal, or Tres Semme.

What I found was interesting was the following:

There are 3 bathrooms in the sorority. 1 where all the freshman are, 1 where all the sophmores/freshman are and 1 where all the juniors are. (seniors live out).

In the freshman bathroom I noticed most girls used the "other" product category.

Of the frehsman/sophmore bathroom, I found that most girls used Salon Products or Loreal.

However on the Junior bathroom I found that most girls used H.E. Juniors are in the age range of 20+ years old. So perhaps this is the target audience H.E. wishes to reach....?

Herbal Essence Shampoo

When looking in the March 2009 edition of Glamour Magazine an interesting advertisement caught my attention.

We currently live in a new marketing era which is characterized as selling to and targeting the individual. Companies want to make you feel like you with their products by making the products more specific to needs of customers.

Herbal Essense does this with their line of hair products such as Shampoo/Conditioner. Whether you have curly, colored, fizzy, in need of volume, you name it, they have one for you.

(full product names see below)

But once again they have created a new type of shampoo series about targeting your hair because it is what "your hair's been thirsting for"....I didnt know my hair was thirsty...

The ad continues to say for one of the specified products Feather Weight Shampoo -- for hair that NEEDs body...once again I wasn't aware that MY hair needed anything. Its funny how they word these ads. It really makes the consumer think "what does my hair need" not what "i need" but my hair.

Its funny with women, because we all hate our hair. My hair is too straight and I wish it was move voluminous. I don't even own a straightner, it makes people jealous, like my roommates who all want my hair. Why can't we just switch hair. Now that would be a high-demand product!

Names of Product: see if you can guess their purpose

Body Envy

Color Me Happy

Break's Over

Dangerously Straight

Drama Clean

Hello Hydration

Long Term Relationship

No Flakin' Way

None of Your Frizziness

Totally Twisted

I didnt even know there were that many types of hair...

iPods

Thinking about to when I was in elementary school and junior high, I remember having a walk man that I would bring with me and my case of cds. I always found it frustrating when I had to buy a whole cd just for a couple songs. Then came the age of Napster and buring CDs. I remember that being the cool thing to do until Napster became illegal for pirating.

Then in high school this new thing call the iPod MP3 player came out. I remember seeing a couple people have them at first and then after one christmas I came back to school and EVERYONE had iPods. I didnt even understand what they were exactly. I remember the first time I used it...I had to have some help figuring out how to navigate through the music.

I didnt get my first iPod until I graduated high school in 2005.

My point of this story is that I thought this was a good example of how the diffusion of innovation is spread throughout a population.

The early adoptors and innovators were those very few kids in the beginning who had iPods before it was the cool thing to do.

All the kids who came back from christmas break with iPods were the early majority. After they saw their friends using them and became more familar with the product, they wanted them.

I on the other hand was on the tail end of the early majority, not quite late majority since they still are a tried.

My parents on the other hand we more of the late majority. They got iPods only justy recently, which was probably a smart idea since the product is more perfected with new up to date technology.

I also love their advertisments. I think it is a very good branding campaign. They are instantly recognizable and familar to the consumers.

Price Bundling

One of my favorite perfumes is Juicy Couture. I never really noticed it before but the use a lot of price bundling for their products.

For example, the picture above shows their perfume, lotion and body wash. You can get all of this in one package for about $100. Which is a great deal considering the perfum itself costs around $50, the lotion and body wash are about $40.

Super Bowl Ads Best and Worst

I have to say that I was a little disappointed with this year's super bowl commericals. However, one of my two favorites was the bud light board meeting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFE2wMADCuU

It was very clever and who doesnt wish that they had some beers when having a budget meeting. And leave it up to the young guy to blow it. Bud Light has a great scheme going for their ads, drinkability. But they also play on stereotypes (of course the intern sucks at new ideas) and rediculous humor. Like, the intern would have never survived that fall, but that is what makes it funny, when he gets up.

Or take this other super bowl ad for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN5w_utpHes&feature=related

I love how he explains drinkability, but you can't draw things in mid air and have it affect people like it did. Yet that makes it hilarious. Very clever.

They are definately targeting young 20 year olds with the commerical through their sense of humor and scenarios.

On the other hand, the Clydesdale horse commericals are a complete flop to me and unappealing. However, they are marketing their product to a different target audience. They say Budweiser in stead of Bud for slang. Their slogan is "The Great American Lager" which a young adult doesnt really care about.

So many different people are watching the super bowl at the same time that a company so large shouldn't just focus on one, but both, like what Bud Light / Budweiser did.

Diet Coke

As women, we all want to be fashionable, and when we go shopping there are some things we just absolutely NEED! Like the newest pair of Seven jeans or Ugg boots. Well Diet Coke certainly hit it to us ladies hard, to the core of our femining beings.

"Good Taste is about making a Statement" what women does want to have/do both! And what do they do, tie it in with a picture of Hiedi Klum, because we all secretly wish to be supermodels.

What I find funny is that in the add, the place Klum in the middle so you immediately look at her, and then the logo, and thats it! If you were just looking through the magazine in a waiting room you wouldn't have noticed that fact that everyone is wearing a longer dress that is more conservatice than Heidi, in her short strapless dress. Or you may not notice the lineage to her right, the women progressively aging (except the very last one)

I find this ad to be very ineffective in the spokesperson aspect. She is to big of a name and overshadows the message being sent. This ad was found in Glamour magazine and they do have the right idea, but people who read glamour are older and more mature females. I think this ad would have been more effective if they left Heidi out and just showed a picture of "real" women having "good taste" and "making a statement." Because I feel like this is a big joke. There is no way I can be those two things when you have Heidi Klum on there! Especially an older women who is really concerned about her Heart Health, oh yeah did I meantion that, that is the whole purpose of the ad?!?!

Good Advertising, Bad Marketing.