Better Late Than Never...

Superbowl weekend I was not only disappointed by the winner of The Super Bowl, but also the caliber of commercials. In past years I have anxiously awaited The Super Bowl the way a little kid awaits Christmas. Each commercial break is like unwrapping a new present and the wait kills me. This year I felt like the kid who got coal in his stocking as I was extremely with each present unwrapped.

There were a few gems among the clutter. So without further ado, here are my five favorite (or the only five I can remember) commercials of this year’s Super Bowl.

Taco Bell has always had a way of mixing quirky images and broken Spanish that makes me fall in amo. This year I was not let down by their Live Mas campaign.

There are few things I crave more after a good night on the town then a Cheesy Gordita Crunch. I can relate to quirky elders of this commercial who raged hard and were craving some (as I affectionately call it) T-Bell after. The music in the background and the ridiculous situations just added to why this commercial is so memorable to me.

For anyone who has ever wondered what won't Meatloaf do for love, M&Ms attempted to answer that question. This isn't the first commercial to employ this tactic. My favorite of the "what I won't do for love" series was the Dr Pepper commercial of the early 2000's.

The red M&M starts out doing similar things like cuddling on the couch watching chick flicks. When the commercial takes a turn for worst the women is trying to eat "Mr Red" by icing him, baking him into a cake, and other various methods of "enhancing" chocolate.

I really enjoyed the Audi commercial where this poor boy doesn't have a date to prom so his dad lends him his Audi. The kid, I'm assuming because the Audi made him feel like such a BAMF, walks into the prom no fear and does every teen boy's fantasy, kisses the prom queen. The next scene shows the boy driving away with a black eye and a smile on his face.

Any car that can make you forget you got punched in the eye is a winner in my book. Live out your dreams kids, live out your dreams.

I know it may depend on who you ask, but Gangnam Style is not overplayed and it still makes me smile. That being said, I've always been a fan of the Pistachio commercials. I love how they inject their bright green color into every character they use i.e everyone know Charlie Brown's shirt is yellow with the zig-zag strip, and because his shirt is so iconic turning it bright green while keeping the strip did not take away from the Charlie Brown image. I enjoyed the pistachios doing the gangnam dance too.

What I thought to be the cleverest of the commercial came from an unlikely. While Budlight usual goes the route of man drinks beer man gets girl this year they went a different route. Throughout the course of the 2012 football season, they have shown us some weird superstitions people believe helps their team win. I've been a fan of these series of commercials the whole season, and was not disappointed by their finale in the Super Bowl. During (almost) every commercial break a new either a Ravens or a 49ers fan would pop into Stevie Wonder the king of superstition himself's lair and wish for the opposing team to loose.

The colors used were indicative of NOLA which is where the Super Bowl was held and a voodoo theme for such a town only makes sense. All in all very well done and my favorite commercial of 2013's Super Bowl.

Runner Up

Amy Pohler and Best Buy. Mainly because Parks and Recreation is my favorite TV show and instead of seeing Amy Pohler I saw Leslie Knope being her typical ridiculous self.

My opinions are very different from the pro's and maybe what I like is very different from what you like too, so here are some other evaluations from some real columnists .

The Invisible Push: Benedict XVI > Adam Smith?

I am not Catholic nor was I raised in a catholic family, but since I was 16 I have partaken in lent. Everyone knows what fat Tuesday is, the last day of Mardi Gras, and a very popular day for college students to live like there's no tomorrow. Lent starts on Ash Wednesday and lasts for the forty days until Easter. People have always asked me if you're not Catholic why give up anything; I have always seen lent as a good practice of self control, kind of like a new year's resolution, but much shorter and easier to follow through.

I usually like to look into the darker side of consumer behavior and believe in general people have no self control in the items they buy. As Adam Smith taught me, people will act in their own self interest.Take new years resolution's for example, people tend to resolve to change something they do not like about themselves and it is in there self interest to change it.The gym will empty out towards the end of January when it is in their self interest to do something better with their time. Generally people do what they want. Lent however, is a time when people give up something they love to test their self control. A contradiction to my typical beliefs on how human behavior works.

Thinking about what to give up for lent this year has made me remember some good and bad ideas I've had through the eight years I've observed it. If you too are struggling with ideas of what to give up hopefully reading through some of my failures and successes will give you inspiration.

The first year I thought a forty day fast from something I loved sounded like a good idea, I gave up soda which I actually am grateful for was because the habit stuck. The next year I became more adventurous and gave up something I adored; I gave up chocolate. The day lent started by boyfriend at the time had no idea I practiced lent(because I wasn't Catholic), and bought me a Hershey Sundae Pie. That pie sat in my freezer for the next five weeks until I could finally eat it.

Makeup was actually not as difficult to give up as I imagined it to be. Every morning instead of putting on mascara I would use an eyelash curler to make my eyes pop without also applying the black stuff. The best part of giving up makeup was the extra half hour of sleep I gained in the morning.

For such a plain tasting food, potatoes were WAY more difficult than I thought, and have the most amusing story to go with them.I remember waiting in line at the Bruger's Bagels in the Kent State Student Center starving and hoping the line would just move faster. The nice gentlemen behind the counter offered my friend, Lisa, and me a sample of a new bagel type they were offering. When I went to tell the man I thought it was delicious I caught the description of the bagel out of the corner of my eye...Potato. I immediately spit it out and started rubbing down my tongue with a napkin. By the time I got to place my order everyone sitting by Bruger's Bagels must have thought I was out of my damn mind.

I don't remember what I gave up the year I turned 20,but the year I was turning 21 I gave up alcohol. Genius, I know. The year after that sweets, and last year could have been swearing but I'm not sure.

In many of these anecdotes I betrayed Adam Smith's sense of self interest and controlled my inner urges. An economist may not be proud, but maybe the Pope would.

Multiple Selves: Exam One

This is my written exam for the reason I write this blog. You may find the content interesting, you may not, but there is a new blog post to come before the end of the week :D

To please the physical self we buy staple foods or medicine when we don’t feel well, but other than that the only self we make purchases for is the ideal self. I look around my room and think to myself why do I own everything I have? I have a large movie collection because I like to see myself as a movie snob, I own books to make me look like I read more often than I actually do, and I spend why too much on clothes because that’s how I think I should look. I guess an argument could be made that I buy textbooks for my actual self, because in actuality I am not a movie critic, a literary expert, or a person who can afford the clothes I wear, but rather I’m a student.

Belk describes extension of the physical self in his work, Possessions and the Extended Self. Possessions details how people get so attached to items they own they no longer feel whole if those items were ever to be lost. In a person’s mind, these items become part of their physical selves. As consumers we “convince ourselves… that we would be a different person without them” (Belk 145). In a person’s psyche we have two selves the actual and the ideal self. As a marketer it is our job to bridge the gap between what is ones fantasy and their reality (Solomon 169). Most consumers will do as Meghan Daum did and “exert a great deal of energy trying to get realities to match fantasies” (Daum). In order to do so marketers will use the four “P’s” of marketing to create that fantasy for a customer. Dichter believes “ taps into hidden desires and urges”. I think these urges aren't so much hidden, but rather part of our ideal self that is not fully exposed.

Product creation is crucial to create an ideal self. For an easy example we can look at the Betty Crocker cake mixes for example. When women only added water to the product it was threatening to the women’s sense of self. She felt under valued and therefore the product did not sell. (Dichter) It is not that adding eggs instead of just water made women anymore of a baker than the other, but her perception of her ideal self was not being lived up to. When consumer’s put so much clout on a product and how the possession affects their value (Solomon 165) it opens a huge door for marketers to reach inside human psyche to produce a product that will help one create their ideal self.

Consumer’s start to develop immunities to advertisements (The Persuaders) and reaching them through the clutter becomes harder and harder everyday. Coming up with clever promotions are how to show people your product extends the physical self. Sex and the City was and still is a show with a cult like following. The show created characters likely to be your ideal self. Whether you’re a Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte or Samantha tuning in each week to see what you should be doing if you were your perfect self became a ritual for many women.

Absolut saw this show as a promotions Mecca. They wove a whole character’s story line into their vodka. At the end of a hard working day what did the women of SatC drink other than an Absolut Hunk. While it maybe a stretch to some that seeing your favorite T.V character drinking a certain cocktail means that is the cocktail you should also be drinking, to the women who saw themselves as say Samantha, it was a must. (The Persuaders) The placement and promotion perfectly tapped into the women who “chose some products… to help reach an ideal standard” (Solomon 168).

If reading Meghan Daum’s blog did nothing else it taught me people who have a strong sense of an ideal self will pay more to reach their ideal standard. Companies can charge more for frivolous goods because that is why you buy. “The increasingly common definition of getting by… has more to do with keeping up appearances than keeping things under control” (Daum). “Some people seem to be more sensitive in general to the image they communicate to other” (Solomon 172). The people like that, the people like Meghan or even me will pay large amounts of money for things we just don’t really need.

“Contemporary consumption also shows that the feeling of identify invested in material objects can be extraordinarily high” (Belk 144). That statement is truer now than 24 years ago when it was written. The physical, actual and ideal self become closer to one person as possessions become a stronger part of what defines us.