Overall, I think the marketing plan assignment is well designed to get us apply what we learned in class to actual case analysis. We choose the largest Canadian Airline, Air Canada. Since this is a very large Canadian firm, and it has some apparent issues which many people are concerned of. We wanted to investigate on the firm to get a better ideal of how its is operating.

In the first part of our assignment, we learned how to research on company information through company website, library resources and online database. Then, we analysed the current situation of the firm, both internal and external. In our team, we divided the research task, set up a google doc to share our findings, in order to come up with more points in our analysis. During our group meeting, we each presented our research results, then summarized the SWOT and CDSTEP together.

For the second part, in the beginning, we didn’t get the exact right way of segmenting the market. After the professor explained it in class, we revised our work and came up with more detailed segments. We learned that several specific variables should be considered at the same time to better segment the market.

The video part sounded very tough to us in the beginning, but it turned out the be the most interesting part of this assignment. Our group managed to be very productive since we started on the assignment. We actually planned three weeks ahead of the deadline, and managed to finish last week. Our filming were made up of two parts. To better represent the company we are working on, we went to the YVR airport to film scenes related to Air Canada. We also did role playing to express our opinions in the perspective of Air Canada’s passengers. It is great fun for us to film the departing and landing of planes as well. The second part was filmed indoor, I was happy to play the role of the hostess, but as the video turned out to be, I still have a lot to improve on my acting skill 😛

It is an interesting and memorable experience for five of us to work together. We were quite efficient throughout the time and we could easily achieve a mutual understanding and decision among us. 

Every day, when I check my email box, I see more than half of the unread emails are coming from different companies which have me in their email lists. These include newsletters and promotion notice from clothing and cosmetic companies, also travel deals from online booking systems. Some of these companies started to send me emails after I have shopped with them once, some are simply because I signed up for their email online.

I notice that email marketing are becoming more and more popular these days. Businesses are putting a lot of effort in developing communications with its potential and existing customers through emails. If I try to open the official site of a clothing business, for example, Club Monaco, you will see the following.

This block pops up before you can actually look at their website. It clearly states what benefit you can get by joining the club. They even differentiate the gender by having women’s update/ men’s update for you to choose from.

By having you fill out the sign up form, companies gather your personal information, such as gender, age, also individual preferences on what kind of information you are interested to receive. This allows them to segment the subscribers, send information according to their preferences, even personalized deals such as sending birthday offers.

Email marketing is a very fast and cheap way of communicating with customers, subscribers gets to know about the sales before they go shopping in a mall, or find out about it on Google. Due to the substantial amount of internet and email users, this marketing method can reach a wide range of consumers quickly. It is also an effective way of building long term relationship with consumers and retaining their loyalty.

One of the drawbacks I experienced with Email marketing is the increasing number of spams I get. It is very important for businesses to keep the email account and personal information confidential. When we sign up for those newsletters, we should also be mindful of those check boxes on the bottom to avoid the possibility of being spammed in the future.

This post is a response to Valeria’s post: Is there an opportunity to grow?

While reading through the blogs, I found this post very interesting. The title attracted my attention and I was also curious about how these huge and successful multinational companies come up with creative marketing campaigns to raise their sales. From her post, I learned how the “Share a Coke” campaign launched by Coca-Cola was a huge success in Australia and how they are applying the same idea to target at more markets.

This new Coca-Cola marketing campaign is also reaching out to young Chinese. I knew about the new packaging of Coke this summer through Weibo (the “Twitter” in China), when people are sharing pictures of Cokes with popular internet buzzwords printed on them. Even though Coca-Cola used to print people’s names on the bottle, and this strategy seems difficult to work out in the Chinese market due to the mass volume of people using the same last name. The company found a nicer way around in the end. By printing those nicknames that are broadly accepted by many young people, it creates a stronger physical and emotional connection with its customers. It also promotes the idea of happiness and sharing which the company is trying to communicate to its customers.

Relating to our marketing study, Coca-Cola comes in third in the world’s most valuable brands. Speaking of the perceived value, it’s relatively high comparing to its actual value, since it’s just a carbonated beverage. Coca-Cola has successfully built up a very strong brand name by connecting with its customers, inspiring the idea of happiness, creativity, passion, and involving in improving sustainability and being environmental friendly.

(Meaning: Left: A Man, Man 😛  Right: Foodie)