Week 3: Stuck in Traffic

I was driving to work the other day and saw a truck with a little sticker on the side of it about advertising. This made me think of what a great idea to have a semi truck with an ad on it. So I found a site that would take an ad and have it on the side of their trucks.

This I think is a great idea, not only for the truck company to get a little more money, but also advertising. Sure that there are other ways to advertise, but I think that this one is especially great. Can you imagine how many people would see this a day? I know that if I was working on something that I wanted to get people's attention with this would probably be the first place that I would get my ad posted.

Week 2: Raising the bar

Many companies go from changing logos and taglines all the time. Cingular has changed their tagline and logos quite a few times. When ATT purchased Cingular the company tagline was "Fewest dropped calls" After a few months Cingular changed their tagline to "More bars in more places"Many people have wondered why a company would change a tagline from stating that the calls don't drop as much to you have better reception in more places. I think that it is a little confusing to say that you have the fewest dropped calls then change everything to say that you have better reception. People have noticed this change and begin to wonder what exactly Cingular is trying to say. Marc Babej and Tim Pollak wrote a good article about the tagline change on MediaPost Publications.

It seems to me that once you create a tagline, you should back it up with full support. It is something that identifies your company or product. It shouldn't be changed but if it has to be it should be something minor, something that won't cause confusion all around. Cingular I think did make a mistake by changing their tagline, causing a lot of people to question what the reasoning behind it was.

I still see the Cingular "More bars in more places" still advertised today, though mail flyers, web banners, billboards and television. This caused me to look around some more and try to figure out why they would change from "fewest dropped calls" to something completely different.

Week1

Advertising can be found by just looking around anywhere. One trend that has caught my eye is the dealership putting on the stamps on the back of the car.

I think that this is good for the dealership, but what message are you trying to show other people on the road. We all know that if you liked the dealership you would keep the free license plate frame. Seeing these makes me really think about what the dealership is trying to portray. If you are not happy with the dealership, you would simply remove the license plate frame from the car and put your own (I rather be swimming). I think that they (the dealerships) are trying to force the image of where people got their new car. I think that it might be harder and harder for dealerships to make money especially with the way that gas prices are these days. However is it really worth it to stamp a car with where you got it from? I have seen this a few times driving around and have thought about it a lot recently.

If people aren't happy where they have bought a particular car I think that we would know. But how many times do you hear that people have a bad experience when they are buying a car? I think that advertising is key and helps get the word out about your business, but I don't like seeing this trend that is spreading. I know that if I went out to get a new car and saw this, I wouldn't be particularly happy with it.