Advertising and Public Relations

Verizon implements institutional advertising, product advertising, and comparative advertising along with many others. Institutional advertising is a type of advertisement that makes the company look better while also promoting a product but only to a certain extent. Verizon does this in there commercials where they often call it the Verizon family showing a typical family all using Verizon phones, this commercial makes Verizon look like a family friendly company.  Product advertising is when a company only promotes a product and its benefits and capabilities. Verizon does this with their recent Droid commercials in which there are no people in the commercial it is only the Droid model they are selling as well as a demonstration of its capabilities. Lastly, comparative advertising is an advertisement that shows the differences between two similar products. In many Verizon advertisements, they often display two maps comparing their coverage with that of their competitors.
Public relations is the way companies get a feel for the attitude people have toward them as well as how a company tries to influence these attitudes. Verizon did this through press releases when they release new Droid models. They used a press release to get the word out about the newest Droid while saving a lot of money doing it.

Retailing

I have recently visited a Verizon store in Queens near Lefferts Boulevard, and after leaving I was not impressed. While the Verizon store is a specialty store and the brand itself is very popular, the customer service is not as good as the product. Upon entering the store I made several positive observations in that the store was very neat and clean and well organized, everything was easy to find. However I soon came to find the reason for this was that there were so little customers to mess anything up. As a matter of fact the store was empty accept for me and two employees who were just standing around and did not even acknowledge me in anyway. I ended up approaching them after about five minutes of just browsing around the store. I asked about my Verizon Fascinate (which I had recently purchased) and to my surprise they were very knowledgeable when it came to my phone even though they seemed disinterested. However I cannot say I was very surprised as Verizon's reputation is good product without good customer service which was reinforced in my visit. 

The Importance of Understanding Consumer Behavior

Verizon uses several aspects of consumer behavior to tweak their product in order to be very marketable to several groups. Verizon uses the need recognition step in the consumer decision making process by understanding two things. One is that people have been made to believe that they need a cellphone. The second is that people also need to have the most updated, technologically advanced phone that can be produced. Verizon takes advantage of these needs by making and selling their Droid models. While using need recognition to make the product, when developing their prices and plans for the Droid phones, Verizon markets to the age and family life-cycle. While it is often the kids in the family that want the newer phone models, it is typical that the parents are the ones paying the bill. Due to this Verizon makes use of its family plan and fairly low cost service. This also helps in the fact that the social classes Verizon targets is the middle and working class and cost effective things are very attractive to the people in these classes.

Developing a Global Vision

Verizon Wireless and more specifically their droid model is a rapidly selling global product. Verizon first "went global" in 2003 when it started selling its products in many other countries. As of today many Verizon phone plans either come with an international plan or a international plan is offered and a fixed rate. Also a huge part in globalization, Verizon's phones are made in China exclusively because of cheaper cost and increased communication throughout all businesses worldwide. Due to the recent popularity of the Verizon droid model, as well as the global marketing and global business growing constantly, Verizon has released a global business specific droid model called the Droid Pro. This model is available in 220 countries and has great coverage in 212 of those 220 countries. The model is very business friendly with easy to use buttons, long battery life as well as built in applications to help in everything business related. While Verizon is global, they are far behind a few competitors like AT&T.

The Marketing Enviorment

Verizon's Marketing Environment has increased rapidly throughout the years. While Generation X would appear to be the target demographic, essentially all four generations are buyers of Verizon products. While the Verizon droid model is more popular amongst tween's and generation X, it has a modest presence within the other generations. The advanced technology of the Verizon droid has made it very popular among all demographics but especially among the Asian population as research shows that the Asian population is technologically advanced. Verizon also maintained its relatively low prices on family plans in its response to the economic times as well as the involvement of all four generations in its sales, as often displayed in many of their ads. In response to the large percent of the population in Verizon's region being Hispanic (also the largest of the minority population) Verizon has released several ads and commercials that appear to be aimed at this Hispanic demographic not only because of its portion of the population and its predicted larger portion of the future but also because research shows that Hispanics are very brand loyal and are far more likely to stay with the company.

Origin of Clothes

Shirt: Made in U.S.A
Cardigan: Made in China
Pants: Made in U.S.A                             
Boxers: Made in Mexico
Shoes: Made in China
Socks: Made in China

Corporate Irresponsibility

While very difficult to find an example of corporate irresponsibility in the Verizon company, a proposal made by the company seems to be very irresponsible. Verizon and Google made a proposed deal that they would use the fact that there service is used so much and by such a large amount of people that they would make a net neutrality policy for all its users. This idea however was quickly shot down by legislators as it is the same as regulating the internet.

Source(s):

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/17/markey_doyle_eshoo_inslee_letter/

Ethics And Social Responsibility

Verizon fulfills its social responsibility in its eyes by running a volunteer program for all natural disaster and to help the homeless population. On top of that Verizon has a donation program for a variety of charities and will match every dollar that is donated. As for its ethics, Verizon has a strict code of ethics. They require that every employee go through training so that they can make the right decisions based on Verizon's values. This program is constantly updated and has been updated as recently as 2009 and has new additions to the training program set to be implemented at the end of 2010. Verizon also offers three separate hot lines that they constantly urge employees to use if they have any concerns or ethical questions and each hot line number is completely anonymous. To ensure that things within the ethical questioning process is done ethically, Verizon established their Corporate Responsibility Executive Council in 2007 to overview all processes involving ethics. Overall Verizon's activities to satisfy their social responsibilities is fairly common and expected, their views on ethics and programs to ensure things are done the right way is very good.


P.S: Below is a link to an example of Verizon contributing to a social responsibility.


http://www.nj.com/hobokennow/index.ssf/2009/05/new_verizon_store_donates_2500.html

Strategic Planning

Verizon's droid marketing plan includes coming out with an updated Droid model almost monthly and recently has released the Verizon fascinate, a phone Verizon hopes will compete with apples iphone 4 as the iphone is the cream of the crop in the increasingly advanced world of cell phones. In regards to Verizon's strategic decisions, Verizon realized that in this age people want to have service anywhere they can and therefore Verizon made it a point to not only provide and develop the best all around coverage known as their 3G network, but to also expose there competitions lack of coverage compared to theirs as seen in many of their commercials. Verizon also has also developed some strategic alternatives to the droid and cellphone part of their business by selling packages that include land line, internet and cable television service in hopes of increasing sales my introducing a new product to their present market. Verizon's target market for their Droid models are young people between the ages of as young as 14 to someone in their mid to late 20s and even beyond.

History and Mission Statement

The first Droid was the Motorola Droid which was released on November 6th, 2009. The Droid was launched from Verizon as a alternative to AT&Ts i phone which was Verizon's main competition. The Droid sold around 200,000 models in its opening weekend and is estimated to sell around 765,000 units within a year according to Avian Securities forecast. Since the Droids initial release, four new Droid models have been released. The HTC Droid Eris which debuted on the same day as the original Droid, the HTC Droid Incredible which came out on April 29th, 2010, then the Motorola Droid X was released on July 15th, 2010 and most recently the Motorola Droid 2 came on on August 15th, 2010.



Verizon Mission Statement:


"As a leader in communications, Verizon's mission is to enable people and businesses to communicate with each other. We are also committed to providing full and open communication with our customers, employees, and investor."



"Verizon Mission Statement". September 1st, 2010 <http://www.samples-help.org.uk/mission-statements/verizon-mission-statement.htm>.