Well, this course is FUN! Before I was enrolled in this course, I was mainly doing mathematical and economical analysis in most of my other courses. I thought that this was something that I’m interested in because theories and calculations are more concrete and black-and-white. Everything could be explained and quantified in numbers.

However, after I have finished this marketing course, my way of thinking has changed. In the real world, there are many things that could not be done in any standard procedure. In many times, you have to judge and find the best solution with regards to the situation. During these 3 months, I have learnt different business marketing and strategic strategies. In addition, I have had a glimpse of how the business world looks like from the experience sharing by our professors. It is very interesting to learn new things in this course.

Moreover, this course has provided me a chance for me to work with people with different backgrounds. During group meetings, we have exchanged a lot of useful advices and opinions in a very fun and engaging atmosphere. I have also learnt to present my own ideas in a more logical and professional manner to minimize confusion. Our group has a common value, which is “Work hard, play hard”. In addition to learning in class and having group meetings, we also have dinners together and share our personal experience to each other. It would definitely be an amazing and valuable opportunity to chat with other people about the culture in China, Hong Kong and Canada. It would also be useful and easier for us to blend into different cultures if we have a chance to work in these places in the future.

In all, this course is just fun. Much of the course materials build from the foundation of human behaviours, which every one of us feel that these things are closely related to our real life.

live young

This commercial is very creative. In the video, there are a few adults and an old lady who saw the reflection of their younger self in the mirror on a street. They feel funny to watch their “mini-me” in the mirror, and then start dancing on the street. At the end of the commercial, there’s a message “Drink pure and natural, live young” and a bottle of Evian’s water near it, which links the idea of “live young” to the natural taste of Evian’s water.

Evian has put the faces of people with different races and ages in front of the camera; according to the liking principle, a larger group of audiences would find themselves attached to the product and the entire commercial. Aside from it, Evian intends to bring the message to the consumers that no matter who you are, you will live young after drinking our water. Basically, they target their product to people from all age groups, which makes logical sense because everyone drinks water, whether or not the water comes naturally. The entire commercial is hilarious and funny, which could help capture the audience’s attention more successfully. They also add an exciting background music into it, which stimulates the happiness feelings of their audiences. Some researches found that people with good mood would buy more stuff, which also explains why most retail companies often play exciting music inside their stores.

To me, I perceive the tastes and prices of their water are similar compared with all other brands. Yet, I would choose the water made by this brand because I like this company because of their creativity. In fact, I think that in the real world many products actually have similar values; yet, some products outperform the others because these companies are creative in marketing their products and communicating with their customers.

Recently, my friend told me that she was asked by her friend to invest in a Yoga business in Vancouver. She was interested in it but there were many reasons that keep her away from doing this business. Here I will talk about some ideas that we have come up.

The business is a no-go for her because the cost exceeds the benefit. The cost includes $8000 in taking over the business which I have no idea about whether this cost would include the purchase of existing assets or liabilities of the company, $1400 of monthly rent that can be regarded as an operation cost. Although the cost of investment is affordable, there exists a risk that this business is not performing well with their finance and creates a loss for you every month. This business is not a well-established business that already had plenty of customers. Moreover, my friend may go back to HK and wouldn’t be free to manage this business but to leave it to her only partner; thus, there exists a chance that her partner would make up the financial statement to her and “eat” her money. Most importantly, my friend does not know anything about yoga nor doing a business. If the Yoga class that they provided does not go well, there would exist a certain difficulty for them to diagnosis the problems.

Doing a business could be very interesting if you are fine to put your money and most of your time into it. There isn’t any working holiday for you in doing your own business because you want to spend your time in maximizing the value of this business, which also determines how much money you will get from this business. You will soon develop an obligation from this business that you are committed to. This is the fun part that I perceive of doing a business.

First of all, I have to admit that Coca Cola has done a brilliant job by applying such a innovative marketing strategy. Not only does it capture the attention of most people who live in Singapore, but it also encourages other companies to be creative/innovative in marketing their products as well.

They have well applied marketing mix strategy: promote their products through an innovative way that makes people happy and thus successfully implement a customer-caring/engaging brand image to the public; place their products in university to target for their major customer segment, and via their social influence they can attract more people. To me, I think that promotion would be the only element of the 4P’s that you can utilize your creativity in there. Every company is concerned about profit, except for non-profit organizations; however, Coke does well in hiding their evil side and in showing their customer/society caring side to the public.

You may notice that when you watch a movie at a cinema, there is the Coca Cola commercial, where a polar bear holds a bottle of coke and sing with his/her friends joyfully on the ice. At the end of the commercial, they have a message to the public that encourages everyone to be environmentally friendly and that their company is striving to protect these polar bears from global warming in action. Not only could this commercial help Coke implement a society-caring brand image, but it may also increase their revenue from having more loyal customers.

Last but not least, I remember just the past few months, I walk on the busiest street in Hong Kong and see a team of dancers holding a Coke and dancing on the street. It’s pretty fun to watch it. Not surprisingly, in such a hot temperature where every pedestrian was feeling thirsty, they would very likely be attracted by these dancers and would like to buy a Coke afterwards.

Does marketing reveal the true value of a product? No.

               Marketing serves as a great tool to promote a product and to reveal its functional values to the customers. However, when a marketer designs a marketing strategy, they usually over-emphasize the positive but not the negative side of a product. As a result, many costumers often purchase a useless product or service that they don’t need.

               In fact, knowing how to market yourself is a very important strategy in a job interview. Recruiters usually ask questions related to the candidate’s personality and career goals, in which the quality of his answer would mainly depend on how he markets himself as an outgoing, active and detail-oriented person etc. Nevertheless, they often have a problem with hiring people because some candidates that they have hired had an unsatisfying working performance, something that they wouldn’t expect based on their outstanding interview performance. So, the question is, if marketing does not reveal the true value of a product, why would the recruiters want to ask questions that they know the answers from the candidates would not be true? I believe the underlying reason for this is that when a recruiter makes a hiring decision of a person under the condition of incomplete information about him, there would be a higher possibility that a person who is better at marketing himself would outperform others in terms of the actual performance. This belief might be unfair to people who know working but not talking; nevertheless, this is how a society functions which one may think is cruel. Therefore, to succeed in a job interview or work, one must be skillful in presenting their strengths and ideas prior to being efficient in work. Despite all these, the recruiter would also be concerned about the person’s technical skills and abilities such as programming knowledge and GPA when he is making a hiring decision.

On 17 September 2013, the popular game “GTA 5” produced by Rockstar Games has been released. However, the GTA series has been criticized by the public because of its unethical content in the game play. For example, in the game you play as a gangster in the state, and you are able to control your character to kill innocent people, rob a bank, crash your car to a gas station etc. Although there is no official analysis or evidence to show that this game has corrupted the teenagers or has attributed to the rising crime rate in the real world, it is believed by the public that this game is an “unethical” product. Yet, the game has remained as one of the best selling games at all times.

In my opinion, I do not agree this game is unethical. Yet, I agree that the information brought by the game play has a significant negative influence over the teenagers because they are in a learning stage and do not have a well-developed ability to judge things yet. Furthermore, due to peer effect and pressure, these teenagers are especially vulnerable to inappropriate information.

Despite all these reasons, Rockstar Games has targeted GTA 5 to people elder than 18 only and has tried to avoid teenagers playing it. They have communicated with other game selling platforms to prohibit teenagers from buying this game. On the GTA 5 official website, you have to enter your age and be verified to view the content. Although these measures might not be efficient in avoiding the teenagers buying or viewing the game, it would be the parent’s responsibility, but not entirely the game producer’s responsibility, to teach their kids properly and to avoid their exposure to inappropriate information.

Hi my name is Albert, welcome to my blog. I’m an Econ/Math student who is interested in learning and listening to people’s opinion. So, please feel free to comment on any post that I have here. Happy marketing 🙂