The failure of the man-gagement ring

When we look at the wedding industry, we have to look at it in different parts. We have the dress, venue, catering and much more. The jewelry industry has been said to be able to survive though depressions and recessions, along side the wedding industry. If there are going to be weddings, there will always be a demand of wedding jewelry. This includes the engagement ring as well as the wedding bands. Early marketing done by jewelry companies were targeted to women, leaving the men behind. In 1926, in order to seek a larger market for wedding jewelry, manufacturers and retailers began to promote an old traditional practice, the male engagement ring. Marketing deploys like radio ads and newspaper ads were spread around the country to gain some popularity. However, this attempt failed to stir up male interest or women for that matter because they weren't the ones "popping the question."

The effort to advertise a male engagement ring came to a low tide until 1950 when an entrepreneur decided to revive the old tradition of an acceptance ring. The timing could not be better.  After the war, families were shifting and men were becoming "home bound." More men wanted to show off that they were to be wed soon. This paralleled the concept of togetherness that the country was going though during the postwar era.  However the idea of togetherness had its dismay and after the postwar era, the trend of male engagement rings fell though.

I think the idea of male engagement rings is like a bad trend. It pops up with good intentions and then fails. I think the reason why it has never been able to stick is because weddings play with such tradition and rituals that breaking any would be unspeakable . So why is there a need for male engagement rings? Is it a way to show women that "Hey, this man is taken?" I mean if a man is engaged he doesn't need a ring to prove to anyone that he is faithful. If that's the cause, let me play devil's advocate and ask you this: Why do women need rings to declare they are "off-limits?" This is probably because it has always been tradition for a man to court a woman so no one ever questions the need for a ring for her. Don't get me wrong now, when the special man finally pops the question to me, you better believe there WILL be a ring, and a really pretty big one too.

Will this trend "pop" up again? Time can only tell. Nowadays male celebrities such as Michael Buble have been seen wearing them. Is the man-gagement ring back for another round?

The Perfect "white" Wedding

Like many others, I tend to research blogs that not only speak of the wedding industry but go into further depth about how weddings tie in with the advertising industry. I stumbled upon a wedding blog posted in the Woman's Studies Program done by The University of Pittsburgh.  In the article the author describes how every wedding magazine, billboard, tv show and even gossip magazine has plastered the idea about how a perfect "white" wedding should appear. They talk about the Christian nuptials, followed with the dream reception by the beach and finally ending with the beautiful white couple driving away to their Happily Ever After. Almost all of these types of ads show women who are Caucasian characters. However there is a large chunk of a potential market that the multi-billion dollar industry is forgetting, the Hispanic and black population. The industry, stated by the author, claims that they target around 78% of whites and Asians to marry, but only target 67% of Hispanics and around 42% of blacks in America. We have to ask, why they are forgetting this large portion of the United States population? I mean every race gets married, and more and more couples are having inter-racial marriages.

Isn't it the goal of businesses and industries to relate to ALL of their consumers. According to the census in 2011, almost 30% of the United States population is made up of Hispanics and black Americans. To me, that's a large piece to just "miss." I also believe that more people would relate to wedding advertisements if they showed more realistic weddings. Like I said before, there are more inter-racial marriages, different cultural marriages and finally a trend that has been slowly emerging, gay marriages, that advertising needs to adapt to. What is this perfect "white" wedding that the industry has caused us to spend more then our salaries can afford to reach?

To end, I believe the wedding industry must enter the 21st century of globalization and cultural assimilation and revamp their advertisements and hinder away from the perfect "white" wedding to the perfect "dream" wedding.

a picture is worth 1000 words

The way Splendid Insights has created such a trusted name for themselves has been to dig into the research and discover their consumer's true insights. Doing a little research myself, I've discovered more and more couples are planning on marrying earlier. With this being said the wedding industry has to conform a little to make sure these young couples are not excluded. With this being said, we now have a new type of bride. She is young but not naive. Budgeting is essential, 1 out of 4 couples now pay for their weddings without any financial support from their families.  She trusts her friends more than she trusts those huge wedding magazines (textbooks more like it) full of advertisements. Brides have short attention spans, they want information in front of them on a laptop in pretty pictures and bold words. Because of this new trending demographic, websites such as Splendid Insights has achieved in giving the best advice for new couples. Their use of info-graphics is essential.  The objectives of info-graphics is to give out a lot of information is a way that does not overwhelm the reader. Just like our typical bride they want all of their information on their screen in pictures. Info-graphics helps the consumer (the bride) understand statistics and information without being boring. Bride Appeal says that brides are on high alert when it comes to pictures and can relate to visual marketing methods in 5 different ways:

1. photos
2. inspiration boards
3. comics
4. info-graphics
5. video

Splendid Insights has created a great way to understand their bride and give her information that she can purchase and use to heart when she is planning her wedding. I mean wouldn't you rather read this:

...rather than a whole bunch of statistics, that will make your wallet cry as well.

A planner's secret weapon

This past week in class we learned about creative briefs. With that in mind, our advertising teacher challenged us to write about creative briefs in relations to our blog. A creative brief is basically a guideline stating the client problem and objectives it wants to achieve in a concise summary. So I began to think in the point of view of the vendors. However after a few minutes of empty thoughts and some googling, I decided to write in the point of view of the soon-to-be-bride (But really she makes all the decisions).  I would use the idea of a wedding as “The Client” and pretend to pitch my brief to those responsible of creating said wedding vision: the vendors.

The Problem: For a normal business, this is where the company would state whether they need to improve in profits, brand awareness, raise consumer usage. For weddings however this is where the engaged would provide how, overall, they envision their special day. Essentially this is the wedding theme. This is what the couple hopes to achieve on their wedding day.

The Objective: For weddings, I think this part would have to get separated into different sectors; the flowers, venue, food, music, invitation. Each vendor should have a clear idea of what you want for each detail. It’s advised you don’t use pictures from other weddings because it would limit the planner’s creativeness. This is where the brief can transform from just words to pictures. You could use color panels and inspiration from art.

The Target: Obviously the primary target is the couple. But they aren’t the only ones you want to impress (even though they provide the cash); you also have to be considerate of the guests. It has to be enjoyable for them as well. When planning, make sure guests are going to be comfortable, even at odd requests from the future newlyweds.

Single Minded Purpose: This is the main idea you want to communicate to the vendors. It is how you want your wedding to make you feel and what you want your guests gashing about. The vendors should have the ability to use these qualities and leave the couple and guests speechless.

When planning a wedding, I think planners should use a guide similar to this and other creative briefs to dictate to those in charge what they want as an outcome. Some of the benefits to having this completed it 1) it will keep you consistent on your plans 2) the vendors can refer back to it when make quick decisions and 3) briefs are quick to change and can be revised if you or a planner have suggestions.

Remember it is a brief, so keep it that way!