Monthly Archives: March 2011

Recently it was my friend’s birthday and I was planning a dinner for him.  However, since more people decided to come and I couldn’t change my reservation (because the restaurant couldn’t accommodate all of us that night), I had to find another restaurant.  I called other places like The Keg in Yaletown, Italian Kitchen, Earls, and Moxie’s – where I was finally able to make a reservation.

I was planning to get my friend a gift card from the restaurant and expected them to offer it since almost all well-established restaurants do as a marketing and business strategy.  With their company’s gift card, consumers are “forced” to go to their restaurant and provide business for them.  So why wouldn’t a company offer gift cards?  I was searching online to see if I could get the card beforehand, so that I didn’t have to purchase it at the restaurant in front of the birthday boy.  That’s when I discovered Moxie’s customizable gift card!

The first step in customization is to add an image from your computer to put onto the card.  There’s a photo editor bar on the bottom where you can edit your image until it fits just right.  In addition, there are three different banners you can choose from, each with a different layout that includes the name and logo of the restaurant.  You can also add text to your card – for example, “Happy Birthday.”  The card will be shipped to you charging a $3.99 processing fee.

The card adds value to customers because of the personalization.  But in my opinion, a $3.99 processing fee is too much – I would rather credit an extra $3.99 onto my gift card then to get it personalized, so I ended up purchasing it at Moxie’s instead.

When I was planning to use the A&W coupons I received in the mail to buy lunch today, I saw a poster in their store unit advertising their new product, the Grandma Burger! I was really surprised to see this because they just launched the new Uncle Burger not too long ago.

The Grandma Burger is different from the rest of the family burgers – this one is a prime rib burger.  The slogan for this new product is “Upgrade your taste buds to first class” – inviting consumers to try the top-of-the-line burger.  A&W appears to be introducing more and more higher-end products, as exemplified with the Uncle and Grandma burgers.  I wonder what they will come up next?  The burger is priced at $3.99, no significant difference in price in relation to the family.

But why is it called the Grandma Burger, and not, say, the Aunt Burger?  In my opinion, since the Uncle Burger is the only burger not made of just plain beef, the prime rib burger should be named accordingly – the Aunt burger.  I imagined the Grandma Burger with somewhat similar characteristics or ingredients with the Grandpa Burger, but that’s not the case.

There’s a significant difference with the packaging of the Grandma Burger.  While all the A&W burgers are packaged in silver wrapping, the grandma burger is wrapped in gold – another emphasis on the premium of the burger.  In addition, just like the Uncle (Sirloin) Burger, the labelling of the Grandma Burger emphasizes less on “Grandma,” but more on “prime rib” by using a bigger font with the latter.

Consumers have been wanting a Grandma Burger, so they came up with an online petition.  Although I didn’t order the Grandma Burger today, I would give it a try in the future.

After thinking about a wedding at Disneyland from my previous post, I suddenly have the urge to go there this instant!  But of course this won’t happen because I’m still in school, so the most I can do now is to just look at Disneyland commercials until I actually go!  In search for many commercials, I found the most interesting one ever!

Unique isn’t it?  What is even a tilt-shift video?  For the miniature effect of the customers, this video was taken from different photo angles, focus settings, and colour saturation adjustments.  Did you know this 2:38 minute video took seven months and 4000 photographs to produce? (source)

Let’s encode this masterpiece.

Colour: Definitely bright and colourful, truly symbolic of Disney.  There’s never a moment in the video where you’re not seeing something uncolourful – even during the night time of the tour, the Disney parade is beautifully displayed with bright lights.  The vivid colours create attention, especially to Disney’s target market—children—who are attracted to colourful objects.

Images: The clip brings you to a day spent at Disneyland Paris with a series of images starting with the park entrance to the monorail; to the many attractions including rides, auto shows, and parades; and to finish off with fireworks.  Despite the miniature customers, they symbolize how busy and packed the theme park  is from day to night.  Also notice the blurry background that puts the park attractions into focus.

Music: The music played is a gentle trumpet tune, one thats similar to what you would hear at the entrance of every Disney theme park.  This trumpet tune creates a cheerful mood that is perfectly symbolic of what Disney offers.

And I have to say, the high definition of the video really makes Disneyland Paris extremely vivid – an absolutely gorgeous effect.

I’m totally ticked from what I just read on Mandy’s blog (blogs.ubc.ca/mandycheung37)!  WOW, a wedding at McDonald’s!  Now that’s really unexpected!  I thought Mandy was just making it up until I watched the video with my very own eyes: McWedding

The McWedding started in Hong Kong and created huge media because who would’ve thought of having a wedding at McDonald’s!  According to this article, McDonald’s found this new brand extension because it saw a potential in the market for those who have met and dated at McDonald’s.  Yes, it would be meaningful to have a wedding hosted somewhere significant in a couple’s love story – but McDonald’s just doesn’t seem to be the right place for that.  I was so shocked by this I showed the video to a friend, whose first reaction was “All I can think of is the guy is too cheap.”  Which is true – even the article says a table for ten at a five star hotel can cost $1300CDN – compared to $1300USD for the entire McWedding!  Since the Chinese like to invite everyone to their weddings, cost may be an issue; thus, they go for a McWedding.

Of course, McDonald’s is part of everyone’s childhood –but so is Disney.  Like Mandy said, Disney is all about fantasy and making dreams come true.  Every girl lives in her own fairytale and waits for her prince charming –trust me, I know this because the girls I work with at YMCA always choose to colour a Disney princess, among many colouring sheets.  Disney is magical—it’s a lifelong journey to find your prince charming.  McDonald’s, on the other hand, is an everyday life experience.  I’m confident that most couples would not associate Ronald McDonald with their “perfect” wedding, but perhaps a Disney princess, at least from an ordinary girl’s perspective.

Have you heard about Facebook email yet?  I certainly haven’t, until my friend told me yesterday she just got it.  Facebook email was announced in November 2010 in San Francisco, but it’s certainly not any major news, since a lot of people don’t know about it (yet).

So how does Facebook email differ from its competitors – Google Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo?  Facebook email doesn’t have the traditional functions, such as a subject line, cc and bcc abilities, or “out of office” auto messages.  Facebook highlights its selling point of an unlimited file size constraint on picture and video attachments.  In addition, Facebook will be working with Microsoft Office to allow email users to view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint attachments with Office Web Apps directly in Facebook.  Now that’s interesting!

I guess Facebook is trying to expand its market by adding a business component to its social network market.

In my opinion, Facebook email will not be successful.  It should stick with its brand of social networking and expand its image from there, rather than adding or introducing something new and not quite related.  Email is essential in the business world and professionals would use the one that offers the most to them.  Although Facebook is adding Microsoft Office features to its email, it’s still incompatible with its competitors, especially Gmail – which almost every business professional uses.  For example, most business students are Gmail users because it offers features that other companies don’t, such as Google Docs.  For Facebook to match Gmail, it will have to invest a lot of time and money to innovate something better, or at least something new to the market, to make Facebook distinctive from other email companies so that it’s worthwhile for consumers to try out Facebook email.

This blog was written in response to this article.