comment on Danny Brown’s post “Why Context Marketing is nothing new”

Danny Brown’s blog post on “Why Context Marketing is nothing new” explains what context marketing is and why it is not a new trend. I found it very useful. I realized that marketing is not all about emphasizing products’ points of differences; it is about selling right goods at the right moment. For instance, as Brown said in the blog, posting stationary advertisements right before school year starts could bring beneficial results to the company.

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I also noticed what Tamar said in class was true. Branding is not everything; marketers must understand customers’ needs well in order to be successful. Context marketing perfectly displays this. Marketers know when customers will look for certain products in a certain time through numerous market researches. From that point on, they will focus on consumer’s pain in that certain time and then bombard them with advertisements through emails and social medias. In this way, companies maximize results of spending their marketing expense. Understanding your customers well is like having cheat codes on video games , it makes  life be so much more easier for marketers.

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A need for social enterprises?

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My economy professor always tell me that to answer a question, you must first define the question. So, what is a social enterprise?

Social enterprise is basically same as any other firms that make money by selling goods or services. However, the major difference between a commercial and social enterprise is that a social one will reinvest its profits back into the company instead of giving returns to investors.

I think even though United Nations is fully funded, there is still a need to create Arc or social enterprises because of the hardship to sustain enough donations. United Nations now receives donations from all around the world. However, what if no one donates all of a sudden?

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Social enterprises will most likely never encounter this issue. Social entrepreneurs who run the company will provide professional advice and sustain profits. For instance, a social enterprise that provides inexpensive dental care can reinvest its profits back to the company and open a new center in another location. In this way, it will be able to maximize the usage of donations and also the efficiency of helping individuals.

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A sky full of clouds

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Google recently decided to step into the market of online data storage called public clouds. While there have already been fierce competitors such as Microsoft, who invests billions of dollars every year to the industry, Google still believe they can take a bite of the meat. This is perhaps their servers contain an unique point of difference among all.  Is this actually the case?

According to the article, Goggle decided to cut its price in hopes of attracting more customers and it is also guaranteed that servers will work 99.95% of the time, a more sustainable quality than others.

I think this is a very smart strategy from Google. They realized that they have a rather weak point of difference to attract consumers . Therefore, they moved a step further and lowered the price in hopes of engaging more users to try their service.

Standing from another point of view however, Google might be overwhelmed by their ambition. With a rather shaky product differentiation and having well established competitors in the industry, the search engine giant may not be benefited at all. Although “clouds” are turning to become a profitable business , Google should consider the cost of just staying relevant in the industry. After all, their well-polished brand image of being user-friendly may become their strongest point of difference.

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A refurbished business model

 

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It makes sense to believe that protests would definitely drag product sales on that certain area down. However, reports showed that sales of food, apartments or even luxuries (Rolex) in Hong Kong did not affect by the pro-democracy protests. While I was trying to evaluate this case on the business model in external environment ,none of the areas suited this situation.

I figured out that the current model doesn’t support how accidental factors impact businesses.  Therefore, Corporations should include analysis on unexpected events and how it affects the building blocks in the business model canvas when developing their business plan. This will allow them to forecast ahead and react quickly to prevent huge loss in the future. While it is great to consider the worst, they should also construct a best-case scenario for their businesses. For instance, surging tourists from events such as the Olympics or World cup will increase sales of product, thus, affects revenue streams and diversify customer segments in the canvas. In this way, companies will have a more comprehensive understanding of their businesses and how it triggers growth or loss when surprising events occur.

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