Fashion: Looking Great While Being Eco-Friendly

There is nothing wrong with looking great while buying products that are environmentally sustainable. Life Khacki offers a solid brand that looks modern, feels great, and retails for a reasonable $25-30. Fashion doesn’t need to be about buying products that enhance your physical image alone but can also include a new dimension on how you feel about yourself.  Few things compare to looking great while protecting the environment when wearing clothing with recycled material by Repreve.

Repreve is a recycle microfiber that uses items like plastic bottles and other waste to make a high quality material used in clothing. Because the materials are recycled there is less petroleum and greenhouse gases omitted. For example in 2012 they recycled 410 million plastic bottles. This equates to 2,934 acres of pine forest or 3.8 million gallons of gasoline.  You can also ponder on how they save enough drinking water for 52,313 people per year. 

The company’s material makes its way into everything from men’s clothing to television sets.  Think of companies like Life Khacki, Swiftwick, North Face, Haggar, Vitamin A Swimwear, Ford and American Flora Dance and Yoga Wear. In an increasingly cost conscious and environment conscience market companies are finding the benefit of including eco-friendly clothing. 

Repreve’s brand position doesn’t necessarily come from pushing sales. Instead, pushing environmentally sound behavior in the form of altruism can lead to higher levels of purchase behavior (Yeoh & Paladino, 2013). Customers don’t want to be pushed to buy a product but don’t mind being encouraged to feel good about themselves through the products they do buy.

You may be surprised to notice that many of the products that use Repreve’s microfiber are outdoor or beauty oriented.  These are the same demographics that not only enjoy the environment but also want to protect it. Nothing frustrates hikers and beach goers more than piles of garbage and entire forests cleared without significant justification. 

Clothing that is good for the environment and saves waste by recycling materials has more value than other textile products.  Contributing to recycling and avoiding the unnecessary opening of new fields or inadvertent destruction of the environment is the responsible thing to do. Companies that can take the old and build something new are not only inventive new outputs but also develop additional social capital.

http://www.repreve.com/

http://www.haggar.com/category/index.jsp?categoryId=12177899

Yeoh, M. & Paladino, A. (2013). Prestige and environmental behaviors: does branding matter? Journal of Branding Management,  20 (4).

The Effectiveness of Push vs. Pull in Online Marketing

Marketing strategy is arguably one of the major components of running a successful business. Without customers you have no sales, revenue or reason to exist. Online marketing is still in its infancy and will continue to grow and develop for the foreseeable future. A study by Spilker-Attig & Bettel (2010) analyzed the effectiveness of push and pull strategies at an online retailer by using 2.7 million orders across different price points. 

People regularly confuse the subtle but important difference between marketing and sales. Marketing is the long-term oriented strategy and sales are short-term customer-specific transactions (Homburg, et. al., 2007).  Marketing focuses on a larger demographic and casts a wide net while sales is focused more on specific activities that pin-point customers. 

All sales are based on interactivity between the company and its customers. Connectivity is seen as an important variable in online advertisement (Roehm & Haugtvedt, 1999).  The way in which the customer is attracted to a particular product/service and how they find that offering is the connective reaction between customer and company. 

Advertisements can generally take a central or peripheral route. The central route is used when customers are highly motivated and are willing to cognitively process the ad which changes attitude toward the product (Tam & Ho, 2005). The peripheral route is taken when low motivation is present and can temporarily change the attitude. 

Advertisements seek a central or peripheral route based upon the advertising channel used. For example, push strategies are more akin to centralized routes and make use of pop up displays, emails, and other company initiated methods. Pull strategies focus on search engine ranking, sponsored stories, and other customer initiated contacts. Think of putting it in your customers face or drawing your customers’ interest. 

The authors found that there was a significant differences of effectiveness between push and pull strategies. Clicks on price comparison websites, affiliate loyalty sites, and search engines produced higher purchase responses. Both cheap and expensive products responded well to search-engine market position. Higher cost products responded to affiliate loyalty programs. 

The study helps highlight how a number of push channels do not get the response rate companies desire. The internet is an amebic system that holds hundreds of millions of users it is generally better to develop organic methods of pulling customer interest. Focusing in areas where your target market is likely to be found, catering to your customer demographics, and drawing interest through key concepts and words seems to have the highest return rates.  

Pilker-Attig, A. & Brettel, M. (2010). Effectiveness of online advertising channels: a price-level-dependent analysis. Journal of Marketing Management, 26 (3/4). 

Roehm, H., & Haugtvedt, C. (Eds.). (1999). Understanding interactivity of cyberspace advertising. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Tam, K.Y., ôc Ho, S.Y (2005). Web personalization as a persuasion strategy: An elaboration likelihood model perspective. Information Systems Research, 16(3), 271-291.

Adjusting Aperture to Highlight Products in Marketing Images

Aperture in photography is important for encouraging more artistic shots. Artistic shots help to improve upon marketing messages contained within the picture. Companies regularly seek out photographers that are capable of creating different kinds of art products that highlight key points within a picture. Aperture is just one of the main adjustments to stronger photographic results. 

Aperture changes the depth of the field within the picture. You will find the front sharper than the rear. This is great for taking pictures that highlight a particular item and blur out a distracting background. Advertisers may change the aperture to ensure that the product stays in central focus and that the eye naturally rests at a particular place within the picture. 

Different types of people see different things within a picture. Helping potential customer’s focus on a particular aspect of a message is part art and science. It requires the right angles, scenery, content, and artistic shot. Photography is a powerful tool that creates a personality and brand image that helps companies get their message out (Pritchard & Whishaw, 2012). 

Companies can often connect their themes and messages to create an image. They have the ability to use different mediums with similar messages to ensure that customers within their core profile are attracted. The more relevant the messages the more motivated the customer. Great marketing reaches out and snags the interest of motivated buyers. 

Aperture is part of the three main pillars which include ISO and shutter speed. When aperture is adjusted so will the shutter speed (1). Aperture is the area where the light reaches the lens while the diaphragm blocks the light. A diaphragms size is designated as f/stops on a camera and has a corresponding number (2). The larger the number the more light blocking the diaphragm does.  

You will notice when adjusting the f/stops the speed of the lens will change. As the f/stop increases the speed of the lens will slow down and if the f/stop is smaller the speed of the lens is faster. Playing with the distance from the lens and the aperture will change the focal point of the picture. Generally, lower f/stop numbers increase the background blur while higher f/stops decrease this blur.

Pritchard, L. & Whishaw, Z. (2012). Commission photography or stock images-which is better? Design Week.