Amah's Blog

The other day, I was looking at the Canadian marketing blog and read an article on e-commerce.  Online shopping (E-commerce) seems to be another way for all companies to find another target market. I would say there are probably as many if not more online shoppers as there are normal store shoppers. Regular store shoppers can only shop during “store hours”. On the other hand, online shoppers can purchase their product whenever they please. There are no time restrictions when it comes to online shopping. However, there are shipping delays, which can be considered a con.

Return policies may also be easier at actual retailing stores, whereas it may be difficult for online users. I think that all companies (considering they are big enough)  should be open to online shopping. In a way, this doesn’t restrict their store hours. The customer can shop online if a store isn’t close geographically or if it’s actually closed.

I was looking at Andrew Kwan‘s blog the other day and read about the “new” red olympic mittens. I agree with the fact that since the Olympics are over, the consumer demand for the mittens could have significantly decreased. Also, because the mitten actually changed in appearance because of legal reasons, people may not see a lot of value in the mitten compared to the original during the olympics.

At the moment, the demand is low for these mittens. The Bay or supplier should try to advertise the mittens more, alluding to how high in demand the mittens once were. I have never seen any advertisements for these “new” mittens. Maybe they should be promoted more. For instance, at bus stops, in busses, magazines, newspapers, etc.  Also, maybe they should try to find a new consumer segment, since the current olympic segment seems to be diminishing, even though that may be very difficult.

For the last few years, there has been a battle between blackberry smartphones and the other smartphones available. Blackberry has identified a consumer segment –> people who want an integrated instant messaging system in their phone. Blackberry created “Black Berry Messenger (BBM)” as an application for its phone, that has to purchased through the Data plan. Many people correlate text messaging to instant messaging, but they are different.

Text messages take some time to get to the receiving end of the message, and in some cases, they sometimes don’t go through. Also, people sometimes ignore their text messages / forget about them. However, for BBM, the sender knows when the receiver reads their message. This kind of forces people using BBM to message eachother back (Consumers may value this ethical feature).

Iphone realized the amount of consumers that valued BBM, so they tried to create applications that were similar (WhatsApp, Ping!). For some reason these applications never got as popular. Maybe consumers felt that it was out of the way and a hassle to download/pay for an application.

People value their smartphones for their features. Iphones – for their millions of applications; no keyboard. Blackberry – for their BBM application; keyboard.

During the summer, Roger Video on West Boulevard in Kerrisdale ran out of business, leaving Blockbusters (which is directly beside it) to be the only movie rental store in the area. Rogers Video has been around for at least decade, but something must have made them leave.

I’m guessing its the demand for rental movies. Many people use torrents/streaming websites to watch tv shows and movies nowadays, therefore they don’t have the desire to rent movies when they’re able to watch them for free. Also, I’ve been noticing a lot of DvD Kiosks around, especially in convenient stores. You pay a lot less than at Rogers Video or Blockbusters and you don’t get charged as much for late fees, even if there is any. Some kiosk machines require you to return the movie, while others just expire after the determined due date.

With this “new” technology of renting movies out of kiosks, consumers see that this is less expensive and saves time. The people who rent at rogers video and those who rent via DvD Kiosks have the same demand (movie rental), but I think the one thing that differentiates them is the convenience and cost factor. Thus, I believe that DvD Kiosks are trying to target consumers who value availability of movies and their cheaper prices.

Recently I’ve been hearing a lot about a new type of technology for viewing television/movies. With 3-D movies becoming high in demand, Sharp was able to get exclusive rights to distributing television sets with Quattron technology – adding a fourth colour (yellow) to the standard RGB system. This technology will enhance all the bright colours on your tv. Even though this doesn’t sound like much, the visual difference is significant. Quattron is going to get a lot of publicity for being distributed solely through sharp tv’s – all the other tv companies are going to want this technology.

I think the demand for Quattron technology will be similar to the initial demand for Blue Ray discs. It wasn’t very well known a few years ago, but now it’s slowly taking over DVDs. In the same way, Quattron tech. is getting popular already and will be slowly taking over RGB system tvs.

I was watching television the other day and saw two commericals – both by Armani. They created different advertisements to tailor to the demographic segments of their target market.

Marketing their jeans, Armani made advertisements featuring celebrities Megan Fox and Cristiano Ronaldo. Each ad showed the celebrity putting on their Armani jeans with a housecleaner/bus boy of the opposite gender admiring then. Pretty much no words are spoken in the entire ads – just a catchy tune. In essence, this forces the viewer (us) to stay glued to the commercial, seeing exactly what it is offering. The fact that Armani uses celebrities also makes us want to watch the ad.

I think these simple but effective ads will help boost their company’s position in the jean market, with advertisements for both male and female genders.

Water is a commodity that everyone in the world needs. This creates a world where everyone is segmented into consumer groups by the water companies. Tailoring to different wants, the water industry creates differentiated brands.

The funny thing is, water is just water. Companies can’t really differentiate the taste. Majority of them time, people can’t tell the difference between bottled Aquafina water and Polar Ice water. The only thing that is distinguishable between the two, is the “cool-looking” bottle.

This forces companies to really market their water brand effectively. Looking at Fiji and Smart Water, we can see what consumers they are trying to target. Fiji Water is trying to capture the “pro green” consumers or those who want to drink “exotic” water.  Smart Water is using celebrities to promote their product.

Just as the last summer break started , the NHL playoffs commenced. Hockey devoted fans from every city cheered for their teams as they advanced in the playoffs.

A new type of advertisement that emerged due to the playoffs were the “History Will Be Made?” ads, showing a memorable/inspiring hockey goal during previous playoff games. They were being played religiously on sports channels! I think people really enjoyed these ads because of how they were presented to us – The memorable goal scored would be played in normal speed with commentary, and then slowly in reverse.

NHL teams began creating their own “History Will Be Mad” ads with their own players for their fans. I think these advertisements were a great marketing idea, allowing people to believe in and support their teams. This promotes the idea of buying merchandise (Jerseys, hats, etc) and attending / watching the hockey games within cities.

When I was looking through super bowl ads, I came across a funny/very true Audi car commercial. It shows regular people being “arrested” for  producing waste, consuming energy, and  producing emissions. Even though this seems over the top, it is actually a very accurate depiction of modern society. Almost all companies that produce a product that emits harmful emissions are innovating/using new technology to overcome this.(ex: green cars, water-reduced washing machines, etc). Most of the green car commercials I have seen (except this one) focus on the car and its new “eco-friendly” features.

This ad is quite effective/different  because it depicts what many people do in todays world.

This is my very first blog ever!

I’m going to start my blog with an advertisement by Google promoting a relatively new (at least to me) web browser called “Google Chrome.”  Personally, I’ve always used Firefox/Safari, but after watching this ad, it made me switch over. The ad was pretty creative in showing all their new features it would bring to the users (Faster browsing, better security, etc)…never seen a technology ad be so simplistic but effective. I thought it was pretty neat.

Switching to Google Chrome is a must do in my books if you surf the web religiously! I have already noticed a big difference with browsing/streaming speeds!