Marketing and Tsunamis

Sitting here on Tuesday night in the midst of all of the craziness surrounding the earthquake and possible ensuing Tsunami has got me thinking. Marketing is not always about selling a product or service to somebody. Marketing can be simply put as "the need to get an idea across to a target group of people". Whether that idea is to go out and buy a I-pod or to run for the hills because of a huge wave, both must be pushed to the public. Now, most everybody you ask would probably not perceive breaking news stories about a Tsunami as marketing, but in a sense it is. The government and media want to convey the idea that people in some areas should evacuate and that others should remain calm and stay where they are. Watching CNN Chile right now, they continually bring on experts in Seismology or other government officials to give their opinion on the topic just as company would hire a celebrity or expert to put their stamp of approval on a certain product or service. People don't want to be told by some news anchor what to do. They want expert opinions. However, it seems that the media also it attempting to "scare" people into evacuating or worrying about this. More likely than not, nothing will occur in Valparaiso, yet, at least within my group of friends, people are rather scared after viewing the news. I believe you can relate this to product marketing well. Firms will produce commercials and other types of advertisements that attempt to force the consumer that they only have a limited time to purchase something or to get in on the hype. Stock market makers will push investors to a certain stock before it is too late, or a car company will say that there is only a limited time to get in on a deal before it is too late. In addition, social media and technology were so prevalent in the news of this earthquake. I think that one of the craziest facts about this, was that I found out that there even was an earthquake through something that my friend posted on Facebook. Not through the news, or a phone call from a relative, but just a simple post on Facebook that said "TSUNAMI!!". I think that simple fact goes to show the power of social media in marketing anything. These days I will often find a new product or service through Facebook or other social media outlets, not by traditional commercial advertising. If I read a news article that said there was an earthquake in the North of Chile, I might not have been so interested, but once my friend went crazy about it, I got involved. I think that marketers of products and government agencies who need to get news across to people must look deeply into social media as the trend of the future.

To conclude, I simply thought that there were some interesting similarities between what a company would do in order to, say, sell a car, and what the news does to warn people of a pending Tsunami. Both want to sell an idea to people and both will use varying tactics to do so. It may seem only necessary and moral to warn people of a natural disaster, but marketing penetrates all parts of our lives and there is always a strategy behind it.