“If the United Nations was fully funded, why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?

Why? Because the impact caused by the United Nations is different than the impact caused by social enterprises; while the United Nations aims to temporarily alleviate urgent social problems and issues around the world, social enterprises see social issues in a long-term perspective and strive to use the methods and disciplines of business as well as the power of the marketplace to solve social, environmental, and human rights problems.

According to Arielle Uwonkunda, while monetary donations to impoverished countries may create positive changes in the short term, they fail to create long-lasting impacts. In contrast, by educating and initiating business tools with entrepreneurs in developing and impoverished countries, social enterprises create long-lasting positive change that solves social, economic, and environmental problems. Hence, creating long-lasting social impacts is the feature of social enterprises that the United Nations cannot replicate with its short-term aids, no matter how much money it has.

Thus, social enterprises would still be necessary to our world even if the United Nations was fully funded – the short-term financial and political aid of the United Nations and the long-term development through the projects of social enterprises must combine to create a synergistic effect to the developing countries of our world today.

Sources:

http://news.ubc.ca/2014/06/30/upward-arc/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-growth/day-to-day/can-fair-trade-boutique-expand-without-alienating-customers/article4405520/

http://skollworldforum.org/about/what-is-social-entrepreneurship/

A hashtag (#) is a word or keyword phrase with a “#” sign placed in the front. This seemingly ordinary symbol that was interpreted as a number sign for decades now has infinite power and potential to change the business world. The impact of hashtags on modern culture has become undeniably huge today – in 2011, a hashtag of a street vendor’s name in Tunisia spread on Twitter and started revolutions throughout the Middle East, and in 2012, the American Dialect Society declared “hashtag” as word of the year.

Hashtags are now an exciting, new way of marketing for the business world today that allow for businesses to create engagement, interaction, and conversation with their targeted audiences. Highly targeted brand messages in forms of hashtags, when used in a proper and effective way, help drive businesses’ brand recognition, positively impact customer loyalty, and enhance brand visibility.

For example, Red Bull’s hashtag #givesyouwings became extremely popular with their targeted customers and effectively created brand awareness across users of various social networking platforms. Customers around the globe interacted with each other as well as the company by taking pictures of their Red Bull drinks and sharing it on social networking websites with the hashtag #givesyouwings. Domino’s Pizza UK had an event in which they offered 1 pence off each pizza for every person who tweeted #letsdolunch. The tweets containing the hashtag added up and dropped the price of each pizza from £15.99 to £7.74.

Through the use of hashtags, businesses are easily able to interact with their targeted audiences… and this is where the magic happens. The interaction turns the audiences to customers.

#HashtagsAreNowBusinessEssentials.

Sources:

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2014/02/hashtags-social-media-content/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevecooper/2013/03/31/5-reasons-businesses-should-care-about-hashtags/

http://www.business2community.com/infographics/history-power-hashtags-social-media-marketing-infographic-0997768

Nancy Lu, in her blog post Abercrombie’s Exclusive Marketing? criticizes the Abercrombie’s extremely exclusive marketing tactic of only targeting thinner women by refusing to stock women’s XL or XXL sizes.

In 2013, the American retailer Abercrombie & Fitch caused a scandal well known as the “skinny scandal” in which the company was hugely criticized for the CEO, Jeffries’ remarks about plus-size women. “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely,” Jeffries had said, in a 2006 interview with Salon.

To have the CEO of a universally renowned company like Abercrombie proudly stating that the company doesn’t want to market anyone other than cool, good-looking, attractive, and skinny people is very tragic; being a tremendously influential company to the teenagers of this era, Abercrombie should change their marketing strategies and furthermore take on the leading role in embracing the diversity of race, gender, and body types.

Why not have a “revolution” and start using “real-sized” models or hiring store workers from diverse backgrounds? By extensively changing its marketing strategies and broadening its customer segment, Abercrombie will be able to increase profit, repair its reputation, and most importantly cause positive change in the world – after all, there is no exact definition of “beauty.”

Sources:

Nancy Lu’s blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/nancylu/2014/10/05/abercrombies-exclusive-marketing/

http://www.businessinsider.com/abercrombie-wants-thin-customers-2013-5

http://www.salon.com/2006/01/24/jeffries/

Photos:

http://www.abercrombie.ca/

Pieces of paper or a small thin plastic? I’d prefer the latter option. Starbucks’ gift cards – Christmas themed, Valentine’s Day themed, spring, summer, fall, and winter themed, all, of course, with the legendary icon “Siren” in the top right corner, are the most wanted gifts for the average trendy consumer as well as the retailer. The invention of the gift card was a groundbreaking idea for people who are just extremely unskilled in choosing gifts.

In 2001, Starbucks marked a new era in history of the gift card revolution by selling gift cards that could be loaded more than once; this was a big shift from the traditional, one-time gift cards that would be tossed into the garbage can after their use. Ten years later, in 2011, Starbucks started providing its mobile app service for its gift cards, a stored value system that let customers pay, load money, and have access to prepaid funds in their gift cards through a 1-second “beeping” on a smartphone.

Today, one out of seven purchases in Starbucks is made with a gift card, and thus, the company absolutely loves gift cards for the benefits they bring to the company. When a gift card is never used after it is bought, the store still keeps the money. Unused gift cards add up to profits of billions of dollars for business; from 2005 to 2011 in the United Sates, an absurdly high $41 billion worth of gift cards were gone unredeemed! Furthermore, the advertising effect of gift cards allows for additional sales. Being a gold member of the Starbucks gift card rewards system myself, Starbucks’ gift card app compels me go back to the store so that I can earn an additional “star” for a free drink.

The gift card, building customer loyalty, increasing brand awareness, and improving sales, is an unique innovation of the 21st century that will continue to change its form as time passes. From plastic cards to barcodes on screens – I’m positive that the next transformation of gift cards will be a breathtaking one.

Sources:

http://marketingland.com/coffee-mobile-king-starbucks-serves-mobile-strategy-98823

http://www.canadaone.com/ezine/oct07/gift_loyalty_card_programs.html

http://www.canadianpizzamag.com/content/view/1390/38/

http://www.bluepay.com/blog/4-advantages-gift-cards

https://www.firstdata.com/downloads/thought-leadership/fd_giftcardmarketingguide_toolstips.pdf

In the blog post “Meet American Apparel” in the blog “B-Ethics”, Kate thoroughly discusses the clothing brand American Apparel’s value propositions and furthermore criticizes how their provocative, sexual ads fail to portray their values. I would like to focus on the values that American Apparel holds as a company because I found their distinctive, mature, ethical values that are complete reversals to their provocative, scandalous, and pornographic ads absolutely fascinating.

If you thought of American Apparel as a “pro-sex” company that sells clothes for an unreasonable price, you were wrong. As a matter of fact, American Apparel’s business model consists of all made-in-USA clothing, fair employee wages, and extremely fair employee benefits. The company strongly believes in the legalization of gay marriage and takes a strong public stance on immigration policy reform.

Most importantly, while nearly all major fashion brands use cheap labor in China and Southeast Asia to produce their products, American Apparel produces all of its products in its downtown LA factory. As the “largest apparel manufacturing facility left in America,” American Apparel’s factory uses anti-sweatshop manufacturing practices; moreover, workers receive $12 an hour, the wage almost doubling California’s minimum wage of $6.75 – this is sharply contrasting to the factories in Asia. Employees receive free English lessons as well as subsidized health insurance for $8 a week.

Although the company has a few problems left to solve such as their sexual ads criticized for demoralizing women, I believe that American Apparel is a big step ahead of its competitors in that the company has built extremely strong and vivid value proposition as well as choosing quality, business ethics, and the standard of working environments over cost and profit. I think I might have once more fallen in love with American Apparel again.

Source:

http://bizgovsoc8.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/meet-american-apparel/

Photos:

https://thethreadtheory.wordpress.com/page/2/

http://www.bloginity.com/2011/07/american-apparel-announces-exclusive-ebay-partnership/

Despite the controversies surrounding its “malignant marketing strategies,” China’s Xiaomi has now become the third largest smartphone vendor in the world. Following Samsung’s market share of 25 percent and Apple’s share of 12 percent, Xiaomi is now Samsung and Apple’s biggest competitor in the smartphone market with a market share of 5.3 percent – this is extremely notable as Xiaomi only released their first smartphone three years ago in August 2011.

One of the key reasons for Xiaomi’s fast growth and success is the extremely affordable prices of its smartphones. The business makes profit on selling “services” to the customers as customers use the smartphone, rather than from the sale of the physical smartphone itself. Furthermore, by relying mostly on online retailers and social media instead of having physical retail stores and employees, Xiaomi cuts down its expenditures.

However, in order for the company to stop being referred to as “the Chinese Apple wannabe,” the company should strictly invest in building its own unique and original design and features that differentiate the company from its competitors. Instead of producing the MiPads in the exact same colors as the iPhone 5C series and having the CEO dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans like Steve Jobs, Xiaomi should promote itself in a new, trendy,”Xiaomi” way.

Will the smartphone market transform from the strict domination of Samsung and Apple to a three-way competition between Samsung, Apple, and Xiaomi? The thought of the new ideas and innovations that the three companies will present to compete with each other with in the upcoming years make my heart flutter. World War 3? I think so.

Sources:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2840875/chinas-xiaomi-surges-to-become-worlds-third-largest-smartphone-vendor.html

http://www.cultofmac.com/291859/xiaomi-ios-7-ripoff/

http://www.centnews.com/Business/China-s-Xiaomi-Threatens-Samsung-and-Apple-Sales/S-2014-11-04/101820.html

Photos:

http://www.engadget.com/products/apple/iphone/5c/

http://www.embargozone.com/2014/05/15/xiaomi-the-company-that-sold-more-phones-than-apple-in-china-launched-its-first-tablet/

The Site C Dam project must be stopped for the First Nations communities of the Peace Valley.

Problems caused by the dam will severely hurt the First Nations communities who have always depended on their land and water sources of their traditional land for their economic, social, and cultural wellbeing.

The Site C dam will flood over 100 square kilometers of “rich valley-bottom lands, including farmland, wildlife habitat, First Nations cultural sites, and heritage sites” and furthermore cause in a devastating destruction of 6,000 hectares of Peace Valley farmland. Moreover, the richest agricultural land in Northern British Columbia as well as First Nation burial and hunting grounds will be demolished. All of this sacrifice is to produce electrical power “which no viable market has been identified.”

What is more infuriating is that this dam will cost Canadian tax payers over $8 billion dollars. As a resident of British Columbia I cannot tolerate $8 billion dollars collected from the citizens of Canada only to flood the valley, destroy homes, and displace the First Nations families who have lived there for generations after generations. The government had promised the land to the First Nations, and now they are trying to take them back, manipulating the land in order to earn profit.

At this point, we always have to keep in mind that the land does not belong to the government; it has been the First Nations’ since the beginning. The government should keep its promises and take the $8 billion dollars to find and generate alternative energy that is more cost-effective, for all of us all. Now.

Take action through http://www.StopSiteC.ca.

http://www.nelsonstar.com/opinion/letters/274529801.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Premier+urges+cooperation+more+litigation+government+natives+reach+fork+road/10194776/story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html

Photos: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/09/26/flooding-the-landscape/

As an iPhone 4S user who had been contemplating between Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 and Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus, Vivian Lee’s blog post “So, Who’s the Copycat?” caught my attention. In the blog post, Vivian wittily talks about the marketing competition between the two technology giants, Samsung and Apple.

A few weeks ago, Apple launched the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus with the slogan “bigger than bigger.” Although Samsung users had been using 5.3+ inch smartphones since 2011, Apple emphasized the new iPhone’s big screen size as if it was one of their latest mind-blowing brainwaves that had never existed before. However, Apple’s “new invention” is seemingly contradictory to what Steve Jobs had said about large smartphones. “You can’t get your hand around it,” Jobs had said, “no one’s going to buy that.”

In response to Apple’s new product, Samsung came up with numerous humiliating parody advertisements mocking the iPhone 6. In one of the advertisements, an ad comes up that reads ” ‘No one is going to buy a big phone.’ Guess who surprised themselves and changed their minds.”

Mocking and poking fun of Apple’s products shouldn’t be the top strategy for Samsung in order it to be reputed as an honorable fair player in the technology market. Nonetheless, completely abandoning the iPhone’s unique feature of being “small and easy to grab” and making the iPhone less unique and more similar to Samsung’s smartphones wasn’t a good strategy for Apple either. I agree with Vivian’s point: Samsung and Apple, the world’s leading technology companies should both create two distinctive, exceptional products and marketing strategies instead of spending most of their time peeping at each other.

Sources:

Vivian Lee’s blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/leeviviann/2014/09/22/so-whos-the-copycat/

http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-was-wrong-about-big-phones-2014-9

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/samsung-mocks-apples-iphone-6-watch-in-new-ads-20140912-10fxp3.html

Photo: http://www.techfever.net/2012/11/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-overtakes-the-iphone-4s-in-worldwide-sales/

I’m sure you too have experienced countless breathtaking moments in the midst of BC’s west coast – the fragile boundary between the land and ocean that changes by the hour, the majestic mountain ranges, the rivers, islands, lakes, and trees make me proud to be able to call this beautiful place my home. Other than being home for you and I, BC is home to countless more, fostering more diversity of organisms than anywhere else in North America. However, the Northern Gateway Project is threatening BC’s environment. Proposed by the Canadian oil company Enbridge, two pipelines would be built between the Albertan oil sands and BC’s west coast. This project is not in the public’s interest and will severely harm our environment. By selling Canada’s own oil to tidewater, Canada’s economy surely would be freed from the U.S. market where Canadian products are low-priced.

Nonetheless, the environmental damage is impossible to put a dollar value to. Enbridge reported that it “experienced over 65,047 barrels of oil spills between 2006 and 2010.” If a spill were to occur, it would be “especially hazardous due to the explosive properties of diluted bitumen.” Furthermore, the pipeline traverses the traditional territories of the First Nations. The government had promised the land to the Aboriginals, but now they are taking them back for profit. “It is a shame we have to go to court, not to establish law, but to uphold existing law,” says Ross, chief councilor for the Haisla.

Is the benefit to Alberta, Enbridge Inc., and the government from supplying Asian markets oil worth the risk, even if it means putting BC’s coast to a threat of a disastrous spill? If money is the most important decision-making factor of a country, haven’t we gone back 200 years back to the times when human rights were not respected?

Sources:

http://www.raincoast.org/wp-content/uploads/Conclusions-about-Northern-Gateway.pdf

http://forestethics.org/enbridge-the-facts

http://www.ppwc.ca/pulp-paper-and-woodworkers-of-canada-oppose-enbridge-northern-gateway-project/

Have you ever bought a cheap t-shirt only to wear it once and never again because it makes you look like a fashion terrorist? Have you ever thought: “why repair or mend clothes when it is way cheaper to buy a new one?”

Congratulations, you’re officially an active consumer of the fast fashion industry.

Fast fashion, cheap, overwhelmingly fast, and trendy, refers to low-cost, affordable clothing brands such as Forever 21, H&M, and Uniqlo that mimic the most up-to-date luxury fashion trends. However, although this highly profitable fashion business may seem like a win-win solution to both businesses and consumers, many questions are being raised as to how ethical the fast fashion industry really is.

According to Elizabeth Cline’s book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, merchandises of the fast fashion industry are designed to make consumers feel out of trend after a single week. Furthermore, the clothes are not meant to last more than a season in terms of quality. According to the Center for Environmental Health, Forever 21 and other fast fashion brands are selling lead-contaminated purses, belts, and shoes above the legal amount, and in 2012, Greenpeace revealed that companies such as H&M and Zara were selling products containing hazardous chemicals that were cancer causing and hormone disrupting. The growing demand for cheap fashion also leads to the establishment of more factories in countries such as Bangladesh where labor is cheap and there are little emission regulations.

Will it be possible for fast fashion and business ethics to be synonymous? Ethical solutions must be made.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannon-whitehead/5-truths-the-fast-fashion_b_5690575.html

https://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/5-effects-fast-fashion