Alexandra Lam's Blog

Agreeing wholeheartedly with Josh Andler’s blog post about the significance of packaging in consumer decisions, I think packaging is a great way for brands to grow and innovate without compromising their established value proposition or what consumers originally love about their products.

Packaging is one of the ways for products in the maturity stage to recapture the attention and affection of their consumers. It makes the first impression on consumers, and done right, it can delight them as well. Without the need for advertising, especially for established brands, new and interesting packaging speaks for and sells itself. Though introducing new packaging may seem like the easiest change marketers can make to a product, in reality, it is a decision that requires as much consideration as any other in the marketing mix. Changed too much, different or new packaging can alienate customers who are used to and comfortable with a product’s original design; changed too little, it risks not making an impact at all and cluttering the brand and image of the product. Spending a million of dollars to add the words “New and Improved!” may have worked in the 50s or 60s, but today, is the equivalent of burning money. Effective packaging adds or creates value for consumers without diluting or distracting from the great product within. For example…

Coca-Cola

In a perfect move to reacquaint the fashionable crowd to the decades-old brand, Karl Lagerfeld designed these limited edition bottles for Coca-Cola’s line extension, Coca-Cola Light. Though the shape of the bottle hasn’t been changed, the brand is distinctly modified and updated with new colours, while keeping the recognizable bottle shape and logo font intact. Coca-Cola has always done a great job of designing packaging for specific promotions (Olympics!), but this alliance was particularly tactful to gain the attention of and delight the waistline-conscious, style-conscious crowd whose faithfulness Coke has lost in recent years to health warnings and trends.

Kleenex

These cubic and triangular box shapes are a prime example of innovative packaging. It doesn’t alter the quality of the product, but presents it in a new light. Smaller than the traditional brick shaped boxes, this compact packaging is both appropriate for smaller spaces like desks, drawers, kitchen counters, bathrooms, etc. as well as adorable!

After reading the billions (understatement) of comments in my Facebook stratosphere, Emily Raven’s blog post, and Student Energy’s blog about the viral KONY 2012 campaign by Invisible Children, I have been hugely disappointed by the amount of often unfounded cynicism that the online community has reacted with towards the video. A lot of this skepticism about the campaign as a whole has been based on the organization itself, Invisible Children, which is a relatively young start-up of a not-for-profit. As a Facebook friend put it, these start-ups, like any organization, burn money faster than they make it because they incur larger operational costs and initial capital investments than World Vision or Free the Children, for example, which have been around for decades. Since Invisible Children’s mandate is to raise awareness for the issue of child soldiers through videography, it’s no wonder that significant portions of their annual budget goes towards things like buying and maintaining professional video equipment, professional editing, and thousands of labour hours not only filming, but also producing these spectacularly made videos. 31% of their money goes towards charitable programs like rebuilding communities and schools, etc. Needless to say, the amount of air travel and extremely basic accommodations for transporting volunteers and staff to and from the United States to the African continent doesn’t come cheap. So to those who think Invisible Children isn’t a financially transparent and accountable organization, I recommend a course in basic microeconomics. Or try starting up a not-for-profit organization without ANY substantial investments and 100% of your money going to charity, which is what people seem to think a not-for-profit is or should be.

My second issue with the negativity that KONY 2012 has faced has to do with people thinking that it will not change anything. If any of these people realized what the whole purpose of the campaign was, they would also realize that they’re contradicting themselves. The campaign’s purpose was not “RAISE X DOLLARS” or “SIGN THIS PETITION.” It was, simply, “MAKE KONY FAMOUS.” That people think that the campaign has failed and continue to blog, tweet, or update their Facebook about it is hilarious, because the only reason they know about the issue of the LRA at all is because of the video, which means that it was successful in its venture. The more people who know and care about the issue, the more onus there is on our governments to fix the problem.

Another equally ridiculous claim: that Invisible Children is in it to make a quick buck or to turn a profit. Invisible Children’s CEO graduated from the University of California with a job offer from Deloitte (which should be the first indicator that IC is financially run well). If the people behind Invisible Children were looking to make six-figure salaries, why turn down a secure, well-paying job offer from one of the Big Four to work for a not-for-profit? The name of the industry kind of gives away the kind of income you’d be making.

These points bring me to the culmination of my argument against the KONY negativity. Above all else, the people behind Invisible Children are world-class marketers. Any multinational corporation like Coca-Cola or PepsiCo would kill for the type of publicity and marketing that these videographers have done for their cause, and would likely pay five times as much as Invisible Children does for their talents. Those who think that International Children is burning money by paying for and investing in these people and their work are fooling themselves – the bottom line for IC and their entire value proposition is that they are able to get peoples’ attention, something that companies pay buckets of cash for on a daily basis. How many of us freak out over the amount of money PepsiCo spends on their advertisement? Or how many dollars Coca-Cola spends on sponsorship and freebies? Nobody. And that’s just soft drinks. But once a not-for-profit does that for an important social issue with a fraction of the cost? Different story. To those people, I recommend a basic marketing course to learn the value and price of fame.

Watch and learn.

In Timothy Cheong’s blog post about Apple’s persevering brand, “Come Rain or Shine” Timothy highlights not only how the company’s beautiful, pristine and minimalist marketing, but also the lifestyle that it consequently sells, is impetus enough for customers to spend all night in the cold squalor of New York City just to be the first to experience the luxury that is the glassy New York flagship store.

Brand power, especially that of luxury brands, is no stranger to the average consumer, and vice versa. Everything about the marketing of a luxury good, from product, price, place, and promotion, is never about selling just a laptop or a handbag – it is to sell a lifestyle. Looking at the first of these four Ps, product, it goes without saying that luxury goods are often of higher tangible quality than average goods. How often has your Macbook fallen victim to a virus? When have you ever needed to repair the lining of a Chanel 2.55 purse? And of course, the price often reflects that. A Macbook Pro retails for anywhere from $1500-2300, whereas functioning non-Apple laptops can be found for as little as $250. In fashion, a designer t shirt can often cost 20 times what a GAP shirt costs. Where a product is clearly vital to building and selling a lifestyle of luxury – you will seldom (legally) find an iPhone for sale in anywhere other than an authorized Apple retailer. Likewise, high end boutiques will buy real estate in the most expensive and affluent parts of town to situate itself in the midst of an equally affluent clientele, and everybody who aspire to be as such.

Lastly, there is promotion. With very few exceptions, fashion houses shoot ad campaigns that not only feature their latest and most fabulous offerings, but it will also be on the arm of a beautiful girl, swooning against an equally beautiful man, on a beautiful yacht in the middle of somewhere very expensive and… you guessed it, beautiful. Throw all these components together, and you’ve got a lot more than a product to sell. If this lifestyle is a cult, then LVMH and Gucci Group are its top recruiters… And we’re all dying to get in.

It seems that almost every company nowadays lays claim to the virtue of sustainability.  Whether it is “made from post-consumer recycled goods,” or stamped with the triangular triple arrows, what does it mean for a product to be recyclable, besides being able to be discarded in a blue bin?

For Lexus, it means a product that can be remade into others.  Through the engineering and development of highly renewable materials like kenaf fibre, castor oil and “infinitely recyclable” plastic, Lexus has produced the 90% recyclable CT Hybrid.  To prove this, the automotive manufacturer challenged four innovative fashion designers to recycle it in the Lexus Fashion Workshop, using a completely dismantled model.

Why is it that companies try so hard nowadays to put their greenest face forward?  Is it not enough to produce goods of superior quality and durability?  Simply, no.  To stay relevant, a never-ending hurdle in the most competitive industries like fashion, a new criterion has arisen, as important, if not more so, as marketing to a company’s vitality. Consumers today not only expect more of the products that they buy, but also of the companies that produce them.  It is not as important to sell a product as it is to sell a lifestyle – that means a sustainable one.

Lexus has been on the cutting edge of this concept for a while, while others are just starting.  Not to say that Lexus is the greenest automobile producer in the world, but it is the farthest-reaching in terms of the lifestyle that it sells.  Lexus Hybrid Living is an endeavour that promotes not only driving a hybrid, but also inspires consumers to experience the lifestyle that Lexus vehicles represent. Its slogan “Desire Luxury, Aspire Eco” is echoes through its many projects and initiatives, including the CFDA Eco Fashion Challenge, eco architecture and interior design, environmental social media awards, organic spa and salon products, and countless art, food and wine channels.  Talk about selling a lifestyle.

Lexus has raised the bar for sustainability and thus, for luxury, promising to make every automobile it produces 95% recyclable by 2015.  If in a perfect world, as Patrick says, “everything, everywhere is recycled,” it seems that Lexus is well underway on the pursuit of perfection.

While I have enjoyed COMM 299 this year, I’m afraid it defers to Organizational Behaviour as my favourite course, by which I mean the course in which I have learned the most about myself and about the society I live in. In OB, one of the concepts we learn about was Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and that at the pinnacle of that pyramid chart is self-actualization. Since coming to Sauder, I think I have achieved that in some aspect. For those of us who attend university, a question that has often plagued our minds in the middle of exam season, on Friday nights sacrificed in the name of Financial Accounting assessments, or in my case, on a day to day basis, is, “Why am I here?” COMM 299 teaches us that the reason we aspire to a post-secondary education is to attain a job. At the very least, I have learned that I am not here for the next four years for the sole purpose of acquiring a sheet of paper that will certify that I am capable of performing a task, following instructions, and thus, getting a job. Instead, I hope to do what I think a very exceptional few have done with via a business degree: to learn things I want to learn.

In my Arts elective, Philosophy, I learned that there are things that are good for the sake of attaining higher goods, like money, which is used to purchase tangible goods and services, and then there are things that are good for the sake of being good, like intellect and wisdom. I came to university to attain the latter. In fact, this is the most important thing I have learned about myself from COMM 299. I learned that I wouldn’t care to apply for jobs or to employers that would turn me away on the basis of a single formatting error on my resumé when the content of that resumé would realistically render me a successful candidate for that job, which is also why I don’t really care that I received 48% on a project for which I should have received 95%. I learned that I shouldn’t be afraid to write less-than-laudable reviews of a course I don’t personally approve of for the sake of pleasing an administration that doesn’t even bother to read the content of such a review. I learned that there will always be things about the schooling system, about government, about people and about the world that I don’t agree with, but I will always have the option to not squander my time deforming my own values into these twisted conventions, and rather, to learn how to do what I want. So for what it’s worth, I guess even the most pointless course at Sauder teaches you a thing or two about yourself.

Being the only first year student on the 49-person JDC West team this year was a unique experience in many ways, one of which being that it provided me with an abundance of inspirational peers to look up to. Of my many amazing teammates, Frankie Cena was not only my debate partner, but also my mentor, role model and leader, from whom I learned one of the most valuable lessons of life: perseverance. Frankie has debated since high school, won numerous awards and competitions, and now coaches high school students who have seen similar successes under his guidance. He has been a performer and singer for most of his life as well. Blessed with a voice full of passion and power, he has always aspired to fame, and after years of working towards that goal, he is now closer than ever to achieving it. Since I met him in October, Frankie has always seemed to be doing a million things at once. When our JDC West team started to prepare for our competition in January, he was also preparing for the Inter-Collegiate Business Competition as well as Nestea: The Recruit. Observing him throughout the months to come, I noticed that even though he was met with many challenges, and even some failures, Frankie always aspired to the next challenge, never losing sight of his goals. I once asked him how many major competitions he had won throughout his life, and he named about a dozen significant titles. I then asked him how many he had not won, to which he replied, “Hundreds.” While most people would have been discouraged by this, what makes Frankie exceptional is that his determination to succeed and to achieve his goal is so strong that his failures built not only his skill, but his character. Many people would agree that Frankie is kind, compassionate, sharp, hilarious, and ambitious, to name a few of his qualities, but above all, he is hardworking. In the months following October, he would win ICBC and debate before the Speaker of the House, compete in numerous singing and public speaking competitions, and just last week, win Nestea: The Recruit in Toronto, where he met many of Canada’s top performance industry professionals. After years of working towards fame, he has made it to national television, and from what I have seen and know of Frankie’s capabilities and determination, he will soon be on the world’s performing stage. Although I have no personal dreams of singing before the country or the world, what I have learned from Frankie is applicable to almost any goal. People have always said that one of the key factors to success is perseverance, but it is easier said than done. In Frankie, I have seen perseverance pay off, and look forward to seeing him in the spotlight one day.

If you haven’t used it, you’ve probably heard of it. If you haven’t heard of it, get out from under that rock and hit up Groupon.com, the daily deal site that’s been taking the world by storm. Groupon is one of the world’s fastest growing businesses, offering its users a new deal every day on goods and services for 50% to 90% off. Needless to say, in today’s economic climate, Groupon has found itself one heck of a niche.

You’d think a money-saving site like Groupon would recognize a great deal when it hit it in the face. However, this turned out not to be the case when Groupon CEO and founder Andrew Mason turned down Google’s $6 billion offer to buy the company. While Mason is notorious for his prankster ways, this is no laughing matter. Declining not only $6 billion, but also the tech services and network of the largest search engine in the world, most believe, could not have been a smart move for the internet-based thrift site. So will Groupon, like so many predecessors, flail, having turned down an offer of a lifetime? Or, like Facebook, grow to an extent beyond Google and all the search engines in the world could fathom? Only time will tell. Click. Tock. Click. Tock.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-06/groupon-prankster-mason-not-joking-in-spurning-google-s-6-billion-offer.html

There are 19 days until Christmas, and I feel… nothing.

Where’s the snow? Where are the lights? Where are the tacky plastic decorations? It seems as though the older we get, the less noticeable holidays become. I don’t know if holiday cheer is actually hitting an all time low… But it scares me.

To think of children ending their elementary school day in mid-December without the twinkle of Christmas lights lining the streets or the airy frosty nip of snow is too heartbreaking. This is not the Christmas I know and love.

However, the most imperceptible, yet one of the biggest differences between this holiday season and the ghosts of Christmases past, at least for me, has been the absence of holiday shoppers. I miss the people scurrying around the city streets clutching shiny, colourful carrier bags, and checking their lists with clumsy mittens. I miss the hubbub of kids throwing snowballs and grandparents drinking hot chocolate and the sound of cash registers.

I know it’s wrong to associate Christmas solely with retail, but I can’t help but to notice how the economic climate has put a damper on my holiday hamper. They say Canada was least affected by the financial crisis, but the lack of shoppers on the streets of this retail ghost town has this December looking a lot more like Halloween than Christmas.

Everybody’s had an earful of the currency battle between the loonie and the dollar. I, for one, have had enough. Sure, it was nice to rub it in the Americans’ faces a few months ago when our loonie matched the dollar and exceeded it – for about 5 minutes. How is it that after years and years of we-almost-made-it-on-par-with-the-States-but-not-completely, we’re still holding our breath for something as trivial as $0.001? Even Firas Askari, head currency trader at BMO’s Toronto unit wrote, “I don’t see too much happening in the loonie ahead of tomorrow.” Thanks, Firas, but I could have told Bloomberg Newsweek the same thing… about five months ago. I, personally, am bored of hearing that the loonie slid an infinitesimally inconsequential amount on Dec. 3, or that we were, yet again, just within however many decimal points to matching the dollar. To the government and the Bank of Canada: if you’re going to go on about the loonie, please try doing something in the economy that will actually have an effect quantified at more than a hundredth of a cent, or that lasts longer than one day’s trading period. In the meantime, to Chapters: I want to know why this hundredth of a cent means I’m paying $8 more than the USD price for my copy of “Tales of Beedle the Bard.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-06/loonie-falls-from-almost-three-week-high-before-bank-of-canada-s-meeting.html

In class, we learned that for entrepreneurial small businesses, a lack of capital is usually the sole reason for failure. However, what are some of the reasons that small businesses may lack start-up capital? There’s the obvious fact that since these businesses are start-ups, they have very little repute with investors of any kind, let alone banks, and are highly unlikely to be backed by grayhairs, especially if the entrepreneurs in question are relatively young. But is it possible that (in the States at least), some small businesses suffer from a lack of capital because racism and sexism? The findings from a US-government led study shows that businesses owned by African-American females tend to be more poorly funded than most small businesses belonging to their white and/or male counterparts. It’s interesting that while every American politician, at least for the last half-century or so, has championed ethnic and gender minorities, not to mention small businesses, American banks still hold to the social views of olde. In a country where banks and government are practically one in the same, are all men truly created “equal?” Maybe in the eyes of “their Creator,” sure, but when it comes to applying for a bank loan? So help you God.

http://www.economist.com/whichmba/minority-entrepreneurs