Today while I was visiting one of my favorite celebrity gossip websites, I came across this photo of Snoop Dogg, sporting a Star Wars t-shirt, heading down Times Square with what looks like hundreds of Storm troopers marching behind him to promote the new Star Wars Collection Adidas shoe. Although we have all of the examples of viral campaigning we need for our video, I HAD to talk about this. So why is it that I like this picture so much? It show us exactly how fantastic marketers are at getting their brand into their target market with the most extreme ideas AND its a great example of vertical integration across industries! Check it out (It’s picture number 7 in the slideshow!):
So just out of curiosity, I went to look for a commercial for these shoes and what I found shocked me. I don’t think I realized how easy it was for companies to promote themselves and the variety of tactics they use until we started talking about it in class and now I’m starting to see it in ads all over the place, especially in this. So please watch this 59 second clip and let me tell you what I mean:
To begin, we can take note of the lovely advertisement for Rogers splashed across the bottom of the screen throughout the entire video- tactic 1. Now we have 2 companies promoting their brand. Then we see David Beckham, Daft Punk and Snoop Dogg, all sporting either Star Wars or Adidas clothing- tactic 2 & 3. Then comes in the Star Wars theme song and Darth Vader- well now we know there is actually ANOTHER brand or in this case, franchise, that is being promoted here- tactic 4. Finally as the commercial wraps up, there is a one sentance promotion suggesting that you sign up for free for more information on their facebook page- tactic 5. That means in 59 seconds, Adidas managed to include 3 celebrities, combine 2 major brands that have massive consumer loyalty and probably set themselves up to sell millions of shoes when they are released “on a street corner near you”. Kudos, Adidas, kudos.
Another thing I wanted to touch on was how this signifies the convergence of classes which is a topic we have been talking about in Dr. Strangelove’s class. It is safe to say that David Beckham, Daft Punk and Snoop Dogg are all members of the higher class. But now we see Snoop Dogg walking everyday people aka members of the middle class, through Times Square, promoting something with them and all of these celebrities are wearing articles of clothing to support the product. We can assume that when these shoes “hit a street corner near you” millions of middle class “you’s” will be out there buying the product their high class idol was sporting weeks earlier.
