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)

Learning about global marketing and specific global entry strategies these days in class have reminded me of one thing I saw this summer when I went back to Nanjing, my hometown in China. When I was shopping in the city center, I came across a familiar logo of Best Buy, beside the logo of a local electronic retailer called the Five Star Appliance.

Five Star was founded in 1998, now being the fourth-largest appliance and consumer electronics retailer in China with its headquarter in Nanjing, Jiangsu. Whereas, I only got to know about Best Buy after I came to Canada, that Best Buy is a leading American multinational consumer electronics corporation. I was quite curious about what is happening between these two companies, so I did some research.

Best Buy has actually been in the Chinese market for a while since it acquired a majority stake in Jiangsu Five Star Appliance Co. in 2006. Regarding the global entry strategy, Best Buy had established a joint venture with this local Chinese company which offers them with local network, already established brand name and good understanding of the market. And later, Best Buy bought out the whole company.

However, Best Buy seems to struggle with gaining market shares and competing with its rivals. According to Euromonitor International, in 2012, Best Buy only had 1.8 percent of the Chinese market, while local rivals Suning and Gome had 10.6 percent and 10.3 percent respectively. The two large local competitors have almost formed an oligopoly situation in many cities in China, they have well-developed brands and strong bargaining power over suppliers. This absolutely restricts the growth potential of Best Buy in China.

Also, Best Buy has to adjust its strategy to fit into a different cultural and consumer behavior. Chinese consumers are mostly price-sensitive, they like to bargain for a better deal. They also favor a great amount of options to choose from and some strong local brands. It is essential for Best Buy to develop a better understanding of its target consumers in China so that it can seek opportunities to grow and compete with domestic firms.

One of the news I have noticed recently is the “iPhone trade in” program launched by Microsoft, right after Apple had released its new iPhone 5S and 5C. The deal says that customers can trade-in a gently used iPhone 4S or 5 to receive a minimum of $200 of in-store credit at a Microsoft Store. This is quite an eye-catching move made by Microsoft.(Link: http://content.microsoftstore.com/offers)

Microsoft has been running the Recycle for Rewards Program to encourage consumers to trade-in old computers, mobile phones, games etc. for store credit. I think it is a great program as it gives consumers the chance of getting rid of the old devices and even get some money value from them. From the company’s perspective, it creates a direct financial incentive for consumers to shop at Microsoft stores and make consumption with the credit they have. The iPhone trade-in offer is valid from September 27 to November 3, together with its existing iPad trade-in offer, target right on the consumers of Apple product. Under the offer, Microsoft has also suggested alternatives to the trade-in devices such as its new surface 2, surface pro and the windows phones. This is a smart promotion strategy of Microsoft to attract customers with out-dated devices from Apply to try out Microsoft products. They understand that customers do have some switching costs, and that is why they are offering you financial incentives. However, considering the value of trade-in for those customers, the minimum of $200 may seem lower than the expectations of some people. They may want to sell their old iPhones or iPads through online platforms which they can charge for a higher price and get some cash directly. Therefore, the effect of this offer still depends on consumer preferences, it might not have a huge impact on the market, but it is still a nice try of promoting Microsoft products.

With the EUR 5.44 billion acquisition of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, license Nokia’s patents, Microsoft is trying to build up its strength to compete with Apple for market shares in both mobile phone and tablet markets. As a potential customer to these two firms, I am looking forward to how Microsoft would develop on it products, especially the Windows Phones made by Nokia.

Abercrombie & Fitch is well-known as an American clothing retail company that targets mainly at young people. I believe many of us know this company or have shopped in their stores.

Recently, A&F has come into the spotlight because of a person called Robin Lewis. She has published a book called “The New Rules of Retails”, and in her interview with Business Insider, she brought up the issue of A&F not selling clothes to larger women.

People then went back to look at the interview of A&F’s CEO Mike Jeffries 7 years ago, in which he said: “in every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends.” This is probably why A&F doesn’t carry sizes larger than 10 for women, the CEO simply doesn’t want any fat people to wear their clothes.

From my perspective, this is an unethical marketing behaviour. Being one of A&F’s marketing strategies, it may not be illegal to target only at the skinny and fit young people. However, ethical issue is something on a higher level that a larger company like A&F has to consider. By excluding over weight and unpopular people from consuming their clothes, it actually violates the human rights of those people and creates inequality in the society. While H&M, American Eagle, A&F’s major competitors, both offering large size clothes, the way A&F behave would damage it’s reputation and put them in disadvantage in the competition, therefore losing its current and potential customers.

Reference:

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

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

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