Amanda Liu

In this blog, I will be commenting on an external link blog that is about Hermès Fashion marketing strategy written by Macala Wright.  Before I head off to comment on Hermès marketing techniques, I will first provide a brief summary of the article. Macala Wright has mentioned that Hermès is a brand that doesn’t adjust its business strategy and prices subjecting to the economic times, which allows them to maintain its prestigious and luxurious image to the public by employing the strategy of “model of scarcity”. The CEO of Hermès, Patrick Thomas, has stated that Hermès is nowhere close of becoming “masstige”. Masstige, given in Macala’s blog, means a company that massively produces prestige goods to the public. She also has mentioned a really important aspect about Hermès, where the company has to take at least three years to train each artisan since Hermès leather goods are made by hands.

I believe Hermès has done a great job in planning and implementing its business strategy, and it is in fact effective in positioning in consumers’ mind and differentiating itself from its competitors. Unlike their other luxurious brands, such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Marc Jacob and etc., Hermès only produces a significant limited number of purse models for each design, which allows them to set a premium price for its products. I personally think this strategy can attract and capture many target segments’ attention towards Hermès product. As consumers are aware that Hermès only makes limited number of bags for each model, they are psychologically persuaded to check out their products, capturing the interest of their consumers. People tend to be psychologically pressured that they should buy exclusive items, therefore having something that others don’t possess, simultaneously allowing them to be unique and stand out from the crowds. People who seek status as an important aspect or those who has interest in purchasing either limited or non-limited edition purses are desired to possess such exclusive products and can call for action to purchase.

Moreover, in Macala’s blog, she mentioned that the company has to slow down and delay their potential production time because Hermès needs to spend at least three years to train each artisan to hand make the leather goods products.  Such an intensive training program can definitely ensure the products’ quality, and indeed it is worthwhile for the company to do so because it has helped Hermès in gaining an extremely prestigious reputation for its exclusiveness and quality. It’s good that the CEO keeps quality as the company’s priority when manufacturing the product because that’s mainly consumers’ priority when purchasing goods. Therefore, Hermès compromises consumers’ waiting time by offering exceptional product quality and durability to their consumers, guaranteeing them that their purchases will definitely be worthwhile since their purchase products will be unique and exclusive, where others are unlikely to be able to purchase the same Hermès bag you purchase, and can absolutely meet their high expectations of the products

I really like the CEO, Patrick Thomas, statement about Hermès bag- “If people buy a Hermès bag, they know it is going to last them for 40 years. The bag isn’t an expense, it’s an investment.” I agree that even though a Hermès bag is a costly expenditure, but it is in fact an investment because as we all know, in the long run, a Hermès will have a dramatic increase in its value. Therefore, it is an INVESTMENT not an EXPENSE!

Two classes ago, we were learning about promotion- getting the right message to the right audience through the right media. The professor provided a detail lecture about the communication process that takes place between the company and consumers. When I was browsing and reading through my peers’ blog, I saw Iris Chen’s blog. She related current Sapporo Beer commercial and analyzed its communication process. The Sapporo Beer commercial that Iris posted on her blog is in fact the most unique beer commercial I’ve ever seen so far. I agree to what Iris said about how they did a great job in portraying Japanese culture, using traditional music, samurai, sumo wrestlers, geishas, etc. If you look closely, you will realize that advertisers have imprinted the logo of the product, the bright yellow star, on the background of almost every scene. Whether the logo shown in the commercial is obscured or explicit, it is very intelligent of them for doing so because it reminds the audiences of Sapporo throughout the whole commercial and enable them to think about Sapporo beer in real life when they encounter any of the aspects presented in the commercial. For example, consumers can now acknowledge that having at least a Sapporo Beer while watching wrestling tournaments, or attending any Japanese cultural festivals, etc. will make their life more exciting, joyful, and entertaining than without it.

According to Iris’s analysis of Sapporo’s communication process, I somewhat agree to some of the analysis for some aspects of the communication process, yet have different thoughts towards others.

Sapporo’s Communication Process

SOURCE- I agree to Iris that the source or the sender is the Sapporo Brewery Company.

ENCODE- Sapporo is an authentic Japanese beer, as mentioned by Iris, but it is also, I believe, a company that is trying to send a message of originality; where it is not like any other beer in the market. It is unique because the beer is actually handmade throughout the whole process and it’s not common to find handmade beer in today’s market. As you can see in the beginning of the commercial, men had to manually get fresh water from the river and deliver it to the manufacturing plant, while women were grinding the grains. Japanese profession direct the dragon for the fire instead of using heating appliance to boil the alcohol, men manually move beer barrels into either the storage room or transfer it to the next manufacturing process and etc. Since every part of the beer is handmade, it would taste better relative to those made from machines.

CHANNEL OF MESSAGE- I agree with Iris that the channels that are being employed are Youtube and TV advertisements.

DECODE- Iris has significantly mentioned the key point for the decoding aspect of the communication process for this commercial, where consumers perceive that Sapporo is a high quality beer that is brewed and created with a lot of care and effort. I believe that consumers are able to pick up the message that Sapporo beer is a brand that hand make their beer even though it is implicitly shown in the commercial.

RECEIVER- Iris is correct about how the receiver for this commercial could be “beer consumers”. Iris also talked about how the receivers could also be anyone who watches TV. However, I disagree with Iris because it is very inappropriate for kids who watch TV as the receivers for this commercial. According to laws and regulations, kids have not yet reached the legal age of drinking any alcohol should not be targeted and shouldn’t have any alcohol absorption or contact with alcohol ads. In fact, it is useless and not beneficial to have the kids as the receivers because even if they are able to decode the message of the commercial, they aren’t even able to purchase or drink their beer products. I believe the receivers are more likely to be adults, whether male or female, who enjoys drinking beer or simply alcohol.

NOISE- I personally disagree with Iris how the noise level is low. I believe the noise for the commercial is high for two reasons. First of all, the beer industry has a lot of competitors. The beer advertisements in the market, that are trying to compete for consumers, catch their attention and persuade them to purchase their beer. Although the graphics had made the commercial nice and outstanding, which could makes the ad more memorable and therefore people will mention it and spread the words about Sapporo. For example, people will bring it up in a conversation or people who are have not yet try beer would choose Sapporo because its what stands in their mind after watching the commercial. However, I believe this could be some kind of noise because the commercial is so unique and has such an amazing graphics that could possibly lead consumers to pay more of their attention to the graphics than the message the commercial is delivering. As a result, consumers are distracted from great graphics and in fact ignore or forget about the core message.

RESPONSE- Other than increasing sales, consumers are more likely to be more aware of the brand and its quality after watching the commercial and those who haven’t tried Sapporo before might give it a try.

As I was reviewing my classmates’ marketing blog, I came across Jerry Chung’s blog entry on “Hello Kitty @ Sephora”. I agree that it is a creative marketing idea in many ways.

It catches a lot of people’s attention; in fact it sure did grab mine when I was shopping at Richmond centre and Metro town. Sephora puts a poster on their window of a professional model, wearing the exclusive cosmetic colours that are currently in the trend; simultaneously dressing like a playful and adorable girl with a pink oversized bow tie on her head. As the ad relates cosmetics to the Hello Kitty image, it allows consumers to easily draw a connection between Sephora and Hello Kitty.

Sephora puts up these appealing posters on their windows, it has attracted many consumers to enter their stores and check out their new products. When I walked in and saw their ultimate bountiful Hello Kitty Makeup product line, I was just so into their packaging design. They package their products, such as fragrances, nail polish, makeup brush sets in Hello Kitty containers, or lipsticks in a cat-themed design in chrome and sparkly tubes and compacts, using dazzling Swarovski crystals to the surface of the containers. This really adds value to the product because it makes it unique and exclusive relative to other cosmetic products selling at MAC, DIOR, LANCÔME, etc.

I also agree to Jerry about cobranding and how the Hello Kitty collection makes people feel younger and refreshing. As Jerry stated, this exclusive cobranding really differentiate Sephora from any other beauty product retailers because it integrated the Hello Kitty idea to Sephora’s cosmetics product, so the collection carry both well-known brand names, Sephora and Hello Kitty, which adds value to the product as it guarantees consumers their product quality and reliance. However, I personally believe that it also benefits both companies because it offers consumers a beauty collection that is nowhere available in other stores, exclusively sold at Sephora.

Moreover, Jerry talked about how the Hello Kitty beauty collection allows Sephora to not only target young consumers, but also older women. I want to add that older women who purchase beauty products use it to cover their flaws to present themselves as a younger image in public. As adults see the Hello Kitty shaped containers and designs, it causes them to psychologically feel younger.

In class, we were talking about distribution, where it means all the activities required to get the right product to the right place at the right time. I found this apple advertisement that illustrates the concept of distribution to the right people, right time, etc. because it shows that PC has a lot of problems with their products and Apple took the advantage to release a new series of Macbooks to compete with PC corporations. For example, with negative reviews regarding the several problems with their newly introduced operating system, Windows Vista, many PC users switched to back to Windows XP. Perhaps, introducing the Macbook air before Windows 7 was released was a method to make consumers more aware of the Apple brand, which demonstrates the concept of distributing their brand to the “right” consumers -those who are becoming more impatient with Windows, leading them to become Apple customers. Moreover, distributing at the right time shows that Apple realizes the Windows is experience a crisis, which benefits Apple due to the fact that they can simply imply, through their ad campaigns, that they possess a more efficient and mature operating system that may eliminate consumers frustration with their competitors’ products.

In my perspective, I believe that Apple is unlikely to use a direct channel. Instead they would have a channel,starting with the manufacturers (producers) to retailers then to consumers. The Apple Company should ensure that their products are in the apple stores throughout the country because that’s where almost all  the customers expect to find the products. In a channel selection, I believe that Apple used to utilize a shorter channel, but now it has seem to be that they are expanding their distribution channel in order to increase their sales volume. For instance, other than selling their products in apple stores located in local malls, they also distribute their products to Best Buy, and Wal-Mart. This allows Apple to have the opportunity to introduce and sell their products to those Best Buy and Wal-Mart shoppers who are unaware or not familiar with their products.

Yesterday after all my midterms were done, I had the time to catch up with the most current season of American Idol. One of the contestants, Chris Medina, not only caught my attention with his singing and vocal talent, but also to his heart-breaking story.

Chris Medina had been together with his girlfriend, Juliana, for eight years and was engaged for two to three years. They planned and agreed on getting married two years after their engagement. Unfortunately, his fiancée was severely injured from a car accident few months before their wedding was planned. Although, Juliana is alive from the accident, she suffers severe brain damage, which changed everything in her and Chris’ life. Until now, they still haven’t gotten married, unable to make their promise come true. He promised and vowed that he would take care of her, dedicating his whole life to be her primary caregiver. The primary reason he joined American Idol bring joy and happiness to his fiancée, Juliana, by becoming a part of the Hollywood community.

Does this relate to marketing? In fact, it does. Companies try to establish a brand that could add value to their products and the firms.  With the usage of brands, consumers can easily identify and trigger knowledge about the company, enabling us to remember who they are, and features about their product, and further understand what the company represents. In this case, Chris has successfully branded and marketed himself to the entertainment industry with his dramatic heartbreaking story. The story about him and his fiancée has widely spread across international borders, where everyone remembers him by his tragedy. At the American Idol’s audition, he dedicated the song “Break Even” to his fiancée, singing it with passion. All his audiences were deeply touched by his singing along with his tragic story that he has successfully conveyed through his performance. He has won and touched the hearts of all judges and fans. Because of the tragic experience he has gone through, he is now able to grasp the techniques of delivering many kinds of  songs to its fullest extent in terms of the content of the story within a specific song, the mood, atmosphere, etc. that further touches the audiences. The story has nurtured him into a better artist, delivering better quality of songs (product) to the market.  Many goods songs are composed based on his story, for instance, the song “What are words”, written by Rodney Jerkins, specifically for Medina. The story has added value to many products today and to Chris’ reputation. We now see Chris as a passionate artist, yet a sweet and caring man who will always be by his fiancée’s side caring for her.  This is the brand he has created for himself. All I can say is, his brand is well-built and integrated, and this is why we  choose him over other contestants and artists.

Groupon has offered good deals to many people, encouraging them to be more involved in purchasing activities and participate in the market ever before. Basically, Groupon is a website that features great and unbeatable deals on any purchases such as restaurants, salons, theatre, food, clothes, groceries, etc. in the city you live in. I believe this website is a great idea because it not only benefits consumers, allowing them to find attractive knock down prices on products that they can’t possibly find anywhere else, but also companies benefit from Groupon since it guarantees businesses.

How Groupon works is individuals sign up for free membership, and Groupon will send emails to all its subscribers on a daily basis, updating them with the best deals that are currently going on.  Groupon has a high exposure to the public, thus, companies that feature their promotions on Groupon websites can definitely increase their annual sales since Groupon can generate numerous sales within a short period of time.

This is just basically a marvellous marketing tool for many reasons:

1.       Motivates consumers to buy: It increases consumers’ purchasing power. In other words, consumers can buy products that they seek valuable at a relatively cheaper price, and therefore they could use the portion of the money that they saved on other purchases. This way, Groupon encourages and motivates consumers to spend-which all companies exactly need and want.

2.       It publicizes the company: Emails about exceptional deals that are happening in the store will be exclusively sent to thousands of subscribers. Thus, members can notice about companies, appealing values, and entertaining write ups, which can maintain consumers’ involvement in the market.

3.       Online Advocate:  Groupon gives appealing deals to consumers. In return, members spread the words and share information either in reality or virtually (Facebook, MSN, Twitter, etc.) about unbeatable and valuable offers that are currently being promoted in stores with their friends and families. As a result, it can increase number of potential buyers for the companies, exposing companies’ brand and reputation to the public.

4.       Risk- Free promotion: Companies who work with Groupon will not lose anything. Groupon is unlike other advertising tools, such as commercials, TV, newspapers, etc. where it doesn’t ensure companies that they will earn a profit or increase their sales. Instead, Groupon promises companies that they will market the brand to public and increase buisnesses. Companies do not need to pay any fees to appear on the website. However, a certain number of people need to sign up for the stores’ promotion in order to get the Groupon deal, if a minimum number of people didn’t join the offer, then sales would be cancel. The company only pays Groupon when the sales happen.

5.       Meet company’s needs: Groupon spends time with their working partners to find ways to structure the companys’ offers that best maximize companys’ values and profit, yet simultaneously attracting and meeting consumers’ needs. They assist companies in investing in committed buyers.

I had a MIS (Management information system) group project, where we are the representatives of the company that we were assigned to in class and we were supposed to find strategies to improve the firm and assist them in reaching their missions and target markets. Through this project, I have used my marketing knowledge from what I’ve learned in class and incorporated into our project. All I can say is, it helped A LOT!! Our MIS group was assigned to VanRealty Company and we decided to choose International post-secondary students as our target market. Our group realized that most International post-secondary students have difficulties in searching up information about available housings in Canada (their need). Therefore, we decide to satisfy our target consumers with superior marketing & customer service, so we can minimize their effort and hassle that comes with finding. From marketing lectures, we learned that customers sees value in a service or product according to the benefits they receive not the features of the product.  Our group has used many strategies to reach our target customers, ensuring that they benefit far more than they would have if they go to other companies. In this blog, I will focus on explaining one of our strategies, Virtual Online Tour, and how our group used marketing to deliver the value of Virtual online Tour service.

As you all know, almost all real estate companies have their own websites and also use Google to allow clients to look at previous tenants’ reviews, and the available facilities in today’s market. VanRealty has already possessed these search engines on their websites like all other real estate companies. Therefore we want to provide our target consumers with something that other competitors don’t have and could maintain a sustainable advantage that differentiate us from other real estate companies. As a result, we introduced virtual online tour for our clients. Basically a virtual online tour is a representative of any houses you selected; it’s a video clip that shows you the inside of the house and the environment around it, providing consumers a clear idea of what it’s like in real life since photos sometimes could be deceiving. Youtube today is the second largest search site, and therefore our group would also link our videos to Youtube, widely marketing our houses to basically anyone who’s interested in purchasing.

We make sure that Virtual Online Tour provides the advantages and values that consumers seek in products where the benefits they receive are worth their hard-earned money and minimize their costs at all time.

Almost everyone go through the process where they first sit down and go online to search up houses available in today’s market using any search engines they have access of. They keep searching until they find one that they are interested in, and then travel to the location to see the house. However, it is quite often that clients don’t find the right housing during their first visit and therefore would have spent enormous amount of time and money to go through the whole cycle again. As Virtual online tour is introduced, not only post-secondary students with low to average income benefit from this tool, but almost everyone could take advantage of this program because  the tour assists consumers’ decision making process which allows customers to make more accurate decisions and can save money, time, and effort from going through the whole purchasing process again.

Furthermore, buyers coming from all over the world are able to see the houses right away, and could possibly find a desired housing in Great Vancouver through these videos. Therefore, they don’t need to spend enormous amount of time nor stress about finding residences when they’re in Canada and they could even move in right away since we provide a service where we take the role of contacting the seller and the buyer, faxing contracts to both participants, and setting agreements between the two in two different locations. As a result, this brings much convenience to any clients of the company.  Last but not least, Virtual Online tour allows Van Realty to target all consumers and increase our market share in the industry. Now we provide our clients with property flyers and photos, information of housing, Youtube videos, and virtual online tour. This program provides our company a sustainable competitive advantage that differentiates us from other competitors and consumers seek more benefits from us and indeed minimize their cost throughout the process.

Wearing or using branded items have become a popular topic in our today’s society. Some people believe it’s not necessary to purchase designer brands because they are extremely overpriced and a waste of money to spend enormous amount of  our hard earn money towards branded products where you could almost get the same thing or similar styles somewhere else for relatively cheaper price and better deal. I agreed to those who stand their opinions until recently, I was browsing on internet trying to shop online, and suddenly came through these ads that my friend sent me. All I can say is those campaign ads of Designer brands are excellent representatives for the companies because itself could already explain the reasons behind the expensive prices it offers to consumers.

These ads of Balenciaga have successfully captured all the perceived values that the majorities seek when purchasing products. I could see high quality, exclusively fashionable, and considerably be the root of where new fashion arises.  It is quite incredible to see these designers turning a patterned fabric that would be hard to design into an extravagant piece of clothing. Not only the design has turned it into a masterpiece, but also the cutting and the seam line make it exceptionally unique and durable. If we just compare these clothing to the ones in Zellers, Old Navy, or even Winners, it would be difficult to find something that would equally match the quality and the fashion. Therefore, designer brands have differentiated themselves in a way that they offer many valuable qualities that consumers weigh heavily on relative to other attributes and consumers could seek numerous benefits over costs.

However, not everyone buys clothing or bags from particular designer brand just because they like it, but several factors could have influenced their purchasing behaviour.  For example, social trend, friends, culture, are some of many aspects that could have impact on consumers’ behaviours. Many people today try to follow the fashion trend, purchasing anything that’s popular among friends, in society, and even culture. They tend to feel pressured and obligated to purchase almost anything that their friends, family or even strangers have, so they feel like they fit in the group that consumers belong to, and most importantly, today’s society.

After watching this video clip, I thought this commercial was a joke or maybe a parody of K-fee’s beverage commercial shot by others to prank whoever clicks on this clip on Youtube. However, I was surprised and in fact speechless when I found out that this video clip is the ORIGINAL version of K-fee’s commercial for its coffee drink.   When I saw this, the first thing I asked myself was “why would a company agree on advertising and bring their product to the public like this?”, “Is it considered an appropriate commercial for a product of this sort?”, “Is this the effect that the company really want, scaring the audiences every time it’s shown on TV?”.

The commercial starts with a white, clean, regular sized car travelling down the slope in the forest in a steady speed. Throughout this commercial, there isn’t any close shot of the car, but I (possibly unconsciously) seem to be convinced by the commercial’s atmosphere, as of this car is a safe, durable, and indeed a credible /reliable vehicle for our today’s transportation especially for long distance travelling. The commercial mainly focuses on the road trip, the car itself, and the green environment, nothing related to the beverage at all, which appears to be supporting the fact that this commercial intends to introduce and advertise a car to its target market. Therefore, my first impression of this commercial is it’s trying to sell a car to the audience, but I realized I was wrong until the very end of the clip, where a frightening zombie suddenly pops out, starts screaming at you and afterwards showing a picture of K-fee coffee drink at the very end. Then I figured out this commercial isn’t about a car, but instead it’s about K-fee’s coffee beverage. It was totally unexpected as I can say.

It was hard for me to take sides of deciding whether the company benefits or is harmed from the use of this kind of marketing strategy. Well, I personally believe that this commercial doesn’t deliver any messages to audiences nor provide single information about the product. For instance, it never mentioned about the taste, price, or what makes it different from other coffee brands, and why we should choose K-fee’s coffee over other options. Moreover, it even gave audiences the wrong impression of what it’s trying to advertise.  However, I got to admit. I never paid real close attention to the beginning of this commercial when I first watched it because it wasn’t interesting and it appears to be just like those typical boring commercials shown on TV, which hardly grabs people’s attention. Yet, when the zombie screamed real loud, the commercial caught my attention right away, and when I looked at it, I saw K-fee coffee drink. Thinking over and over again, my assumption of why K-fee use this to advertise its coffee is because the corporation wants to suddenly catch audiences’ attention, and when they do, they immediately present them with a picture of K-fee product, so it can be directly incorporated into audience’s mind. As a result, the only thing that consumers could possibly remember throughout the commercial is the scream and the product.

I watched this video clip 4 years ago and I still remember it till now. It has done a great job in letting viewers remembering this commercial, but not a good job in letting them know more about the product. All I can say is “this commercial is ridiculous, but remarkable.”

Every day as I commute to school by public transportation such as Translink, and Canada line, I always come across and see advertisements with non-celebrative people on ads endorsing for a wide range of products or services.  For example, I usually see an ad campaign mounted on Canada line’s skytrain from a travel agency, using flight attendants to represent and endorse its services to the public. In addition to using non-celebrative figures, other companies like Beard Papa, a well-known franchise which mainly sell dessert products like cream puffs, uses their own franchise managers to publicize its product to its consumers.

Celebrity endorsement has been a widely used in marketing strategies nowadays and is successful, to some extent, in advertising. When companies use celebrity endorsements, they cause many people to subconsciously create a connection between the celebrity and its product, therefore persuading consumers to follow the trend; possibly believing that “if a celebrity uses such a product, it must be exceptional”. Perhaps, companies who rely on celebrities, who are highly recognized by almost everyone, could possibly define the company’s market position and able to build their reputation and brand in the market in a short period of time.

However, I personally think it’s not a good idea to always use celebrity endorsements to advertise a products or a service. If a company uses a highly recognized celebrity, for instance, Britney Spears, to endorse for goods or product line, in this case Pepsi, it would negatively affect the company because the celebrity is extremely famous that all audience’s focus and attention now goes to the celebrity and the product is forgotten. ^*1

However, the travel agency and Beard Papa’s ads on the skytrain was a brilliant and successful idea because these non-celebrative people that were chosen, not only relates to the product that they represent for,  but also create similar effects as celebrity endorsements and all attention would now be focused on the company’s products or services.

*1: Main idea based on the following article: http://arunkottolli.blogspot.com/2006/07/celebrity-endorsments-as-strategy.html