Buying into Brand Marketing

Gr 9 Up—Brand marketing and the ways in which a company attempts to successfully use it to influence consumers to buy their product over their competition's brand is addressed in this well-done program. Among the topics defined and addressed are marketing, brand identity, the brand experience, brand loyalty, advertising, target marketing, how theme songs and jingles help sell a brand, the importance of packaging, brand positioning, and much more. A narrator presents the information while live-action footage of consumers buying products, pictures of popular products and brands, and portions of commercials are shown. Among the stores and products featured are Target, Nintendo's Wii, Netflix, Microsoft, and Coca-Cola. This program provides a good starting point for marketing classes to gain a basic understanding of brands and brand marketing. An online teacher's guide offers critical thinking questions, graphic organizers, free response questions to use while viewing the program, fill-in-the blank questions, educational standards, and useful Internet resources. A good choice for high school marketing and advertising classes.—Lindsay Mandell, Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK High School, NY