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Have you ever thought about being on a game show on TV such as the Family Feud? Have you thought about using your knowledge to win cash money under thousands of people’s eyes? Well, that used to be on my wishlist. However, I watch the show to gain more knowledge before, but now, I seldom watch them, not because I do not want to learn, simply because there is more ways for me to learn something, and now I know what I am interested in, so I will figure out myself, instead of collecting random knowledge based on whatever the game show has provided me to learn.

Now, since I am in the Marketing class, when I watch game show on TV, I have further thoughts in my mind — how is the game show making profit for giving away so many prices to competitors?

Well, the truth is, game shows normally receive a large range of viewers in all age groups, so, as a perfect promoting channel, companies invest money (sponsorship) to the TV station and the program itself, to make implantable advertising in the show, to create a great marketing influence. It’s a win-win situation and nobody will dislike it even if it’s a commercial.

As I was reading Malte Otremba’s Blog post “Rewards for watching your favourite TV shows and commercials” He introduced an application which rewards viewers for simply watching TV programs:

“To put it in a nutshell, Viggle is a TV loyalty program that gives people real rewards for checking into the TV shows they are currently watching. The application automatically identifies what shows its users are watching and awards them points when they “check-in”. For every TV-minute customers earn two points and bonus points can be received by watching certain series or commercials. These points can be redeemed for real items of well-known companies such as Amazon, Apple, Gap, Sephora etc.“

Notice how the sentence in red tells us a truth that, this application is not only advertising and promoting for TV stations but also sponsor companies  such as Amazon, Apple, Gap, Sephora etc to gain more sales and fame. The same relationship as views watching a game show or participating a game show and winning money.

The above phenomenon is caused by the emergence of Internet and loss of TV viewers in digital generation as people gets what they want instantly , but do not wish to waste time waiting for a show to begin.

A clip for a romantic game show will tell you why people love watching it, it is super interactive and dramatic, isn’t it?

I used to read about an interesting news on newspaper when I was taking sky train to school one day, saying how Google’s product “gmail” used information in their customer database, without asking for permission, just absorb what keys words they recently searched and automatically pick up some advertisements in its ad database, deliver to whom just looked up the key word, for example, if i was googling for “cheese burger” this morning, when i open my gmail account in the afternoon, I would be most likely to see this ad on the side bar in my page saying “McDonald’s cheese burger only for 99cents every wednesday for a limited time” or “get a Groupon deal for delicious cheesecake deals in Vancouver”.

So my real question was, how do you know what customers’ values are? and how are you gonna target billions of people online, each with different customer values?

A classmate in my marketing class DongShu has previously mentioned about what “customer value” is in his blog post, here is what he wrote for the definition:

“Customer value”, is the term that most frequently being seen in the marketing text book; just like “Money” in the finance text book. Marketing was not about just making fancy ads and attractive descriptions about the products, it is about managing profitable customer relationships by creating customer value and satisfaction. Apple can be a good example that has become successful by creating customer value.”

So he mentioned about CUSTOMER SATISFACTION which i strongly agree with. It’s such a key factor in any marketing setting, how ever, more important when it is under the Internet setting. Because posting advertisements online is not like handing out posters, a one-way communication, you will never know what people think after you’ve given them your poster and they left.

In the Internet world, feedback and reviews matters a lot! In this way, only if you advertise yourself in an appropriate way, not telling lies, nor exaggerating your excellency, then you will receive positive feedback and reach the goal of SPREADING your idea, and make more people believe in what you say, follow what you been up to.

As for how to screen the right crowd of customers you want to be advertised to, I think I will figure it out as I learn more in both Marketing class and MIS class.

As I was reading this article “Growth in Mobile Marketing” in “The Marketing Blog“, my phone’s screen turned on by itself and displayed a popped up notification from the New York Times, telling a breaking news today.It makes me wonder how many pop-up notifications I receive on a daily basis, by Facebook, New York Times, Twitter and some game applications that promotes other games the company creates.

interesting quote from the article:

“Mobile advertising
Mobile advertising spend worldwide is expected to break US$3.3billion by the end of 2011 and is predicted to rise to a massive US$20.6 billion by 2015. The main gainers here are in mobile paid search advertising and local mobile ads. In the US, over half of all mobile ad spending is on local search ads.
Of course, Google is at the forefront of pushing this growth, recently announcing that mobile website quality is now a ranking factor in their AdWords mobile ad ranking. They have even gone so far as to invest in a whole site dedicated to helping businesses ‘go mobile’ (HowToGoMo.com) by optimizing their websites and advertising.  Interestingly, in Germany mobile web advertising remains the most effective form of mobile advertising.”

Notice how the market is growing rapidly and expanding worldwide. I think one of the best advantage for this market is PORTABILITY, the fact that everyone gets to have access to a tiny piece of device in their pocket, and carry it everywhere they go, and he funny part is, the connection ,NEVER GOES OFF.

The 2nd factor I notice about mobile market is POPULARITY, as TV’s influence was taken over by Internet for the past two decades, but as we progress to 3G, even 4G generation where people can have easy access to the Internet through their private devices, more and more people choose to use their smart phones to browse for news, friends updates while living in a busy life, and only work on their computer in daytime.

the 3rd factor is CHEAP AND FAST, advertise through mobiles, meaning you do not have to pay for extra fee for letting your advertisement being broadcast on the golden time period (normally 8pm to 10 pm) so more consumers can be reached. It’s that easy to get any type of customers you want by just sending through whole mobile network.

And you’re sure that all customers will be reached, just as how nobody will ignore a phone call, generally.

First of all, I feel so happy that I can finally take this course in Sauder! In my third year, I wish I could study Marketing as a major and this Introduction to Marketing course really attracts my attention!

My name is Angel and I’m a 2nd year student in UBC. I am originally from China and immigrated with my mother to Canada since 2008. Magee Secondary School was where I went for high school and I really love the education style in Canada, it makes you want to stay in high school for a life time! However, UBC seems too “nerdy” for me, as it is very similar to the way of teaching in China’s high schools, students need to reach certain total mark in order to progress to the next year and in the end of high school, everyone attends the university entrance exam, that one exam will change your whole life! Because the top universities only accept something like 2 to 3 thousand students a year while there are millions of high school graduates each year competing for a spot to learn in a college or university. Many of them end up becoming sales or waiters because they did not gain a high-enough-score to go to school. In conclusion, the education market in China is simply a score-based market. Teachers there normally ask students to study all the time, gain good grades but seldom encourage them to develop their own hobbies, such as forming a band. it would be considered “not on the right track” thing to do. UBC is much much better than that, but still, compared to high schools, universities here in Canada truly care about scores, and the exams are not easy, most of my UBCers are getting scores like 70% and they are happy for it, while others who have their own career or job outside of school face the risk of being kicked out, which some of them already did. Anyway, not to criticize anybody, just feel bad for myself for becoming a student who now calmly accept the fact that she is getting 60%, 70% in exams and can still go to bed with a smile.

Enough chatting about myself, let me tell you more about Marketing to me. Ever since I was little, I was attracted to the humorous, creative or even touching advertisements on TV,  billboards and light boxes. After I grew up and began to shop for myself, I was amazed by how strong the power of branding is, making everybody in the market going crazy. The part that I love the most about marketing is that how good products and great ideas are being voiced to the world and create resonance to people from different cultural background. My favorite cosmetic brand is Benefit, only because it has the greatest marketing strategies and create its own culture so the brand image is so strong and vivid to consumers.

Hello again to everyone!