For me the video marketing assignment took me by surprise at first glance as I thought that it would take a lot of work and coordination among the team member to create a decent video. In addition, I would have to come out from my comfort zone in this case doing a slide presentation which I find troublesome. Sure enough creating this video was destined to be a challenge because creativity differs from one individual to another and although we might share a same opinion on the points that we will elaborate on, discussing the design and how the video would look like took a lot of meetings and time.

I believe that the video assignment was a useful way for us integrate and use the new technologies that are available today. It managed to help us to learn on creating videos using simple software and create effects that mimics to those that have had a professional touch to it. However, as I have mention it takes too much more effort than one would use for a traditional presentation and brought the team moral down and also started some conflicts due to the separation of the work among the team member. The iPeer is a great way of figuring out others opinion about how participative you were and how much you contributed but without actually seeing what you did, it would be tough to judge them. This is why we managed to incorporated all of our team member in the video.

It took some time and a lot of editing but we believe that it is the best way we could show the lecturer that all of us contributed. Overall, the assignment was fun and a fresh way of making us think more creatively and would certainly get my vote as the most interesting thing that we did in the class this semester; however, there should be a specific guidelines on how members should distribute their work and showing it on the video to make it easier for the students in creating the video.

Based on an interesting read in Oliver Zhang’s Re: The most famous copycat in China — Tencent, there was a dilemma that he questions that is, since China has banned social media network such as twitter and Facebook and has a company that creates such social media, would it still be unethical or is it acceptable since it is the only way the people in China to enjoy such facilities? I find that this question to be situated at the cliff-hanger of ethicality, one could question that without the piracy of these social media, the Chinese people in China would not be able to express themselves like the rest of the world but if it were to be allowed, should there be other companies in other county besides China to copy ideas and create goods that are similar to brands popular in other parts of the world which have patented and is supposedly against the law to do so.

I believe the reason that these companies are allowed to operate freely without any action from the government and companies where these brands originate from because of the lack of power they hold among the consumers in China and the power that the Chinese people are currently and increasingly holding in the global market.

At the end of the day, it is how one feels when committing piracy and not the law that can help slow down piracy in country because it cannot stop them unless they are willing to change themselves.

Chris C. Ducker “The Easy-to-Follow Guide to Building an Online Brand for You and Your Business” is a fool proof’s way of enabling oneself to build their personal brand and online brand. Building an online brand as he mentions is especially important if a person is dwelling in the realm of entrepreneurship and business as it helps to increase the credibility of oneself towards potential customers and garner their trust. Earning one’s trust will help to ease your transaction and business dealing with them and also will list you to their potential sellers the next time when they want to buy the same good or recommend you to their buddies when you managed to do a good job in selling them a good item.

Chris also points out 10 ways that will enable you to create the online branding and gives out the reasoning for doing so. He mentions that in today’s market after ensuring that your brand is recognizable, you have to make your consumer to like you and the best way to do so in the current market is connecting with them on a personal level. Throughout the blog post he regularly mentions that being trustable is the key that will help you to win the hearts and wallets of your potential consumers and being able to want them to connect with you is important. The last thing that I found interesting in his post is that, he says that one should always be themselves and not to forge something fake in order to attract customers and I find that to be something worth remembering because you don’t want yourself and your potential consumers to be pulled into something that is not true.

http://www.chrisducker.com/building-an-online-brand/

Social media has been one of the key striking feature in the past decade. Since its inception it has blown out of proportion and has users from all over the world. The two notable social media mediums or company currently on the virtual world or the world wide web are Facebook and Twitter. When it was in its introductory phase, Facebook or at that time known as The Facebook, was a small virtual space where friends can get connected and share ideas among them. Few years from the inception of Facebook, it currently has 500 million users and is growing every day with people around the world using it as a means of getting connected with their friends and family. With the huge amount of users Facebook has also indirectly become on of the largest marketable medium and has huge potential earning. This huge potential earning has caused its Initial Public Offering (IPO) to skyrocket and made it a very attractive to investors.

Companies could use Facebook as a mean of marketing their good and figuring out how their goods are perceived by the public. For example, an act as simple as press the thumbs up button if you like this new design of handbags by a known brand in its web page could save the company its resources, estimate a rough demand for the handbag, increase its efficiency and even receive valuable comments about the design of the handbag and how to improve it. The company could then redesign it or sell it in the market if it sees that there are  enough potential consumers for the handbag. In addition to that, people who share the design in their home page will allow their friends to see the design of the handbag and if it is to their liking they will like it as well. Small companies could save a lot money as they would not have to pay for marketers to survey the demographics through interview and scrap designs that are not attractive to the potential consumers.

The marketability of Social media sites have much more potential and since Facebook, Twitter and other sites are still in the growing phase its true potential is unknown and could be much more profitable for the social media sites, its investors, other companies and the consumers.

People always have the assumption that the American Government plays a role as a Big Brother for the nation and  by doing so prevents any privacy after the Security Act which was initiated after 9/11 terrorism incident. And i would totally agree with; however, i believe that there is a bigger Big Brother that exist among us and that Big Brother is Google.

Why Google? Based on the facts from 2012, there was about 5,134,000,000 searches in Google that ranges to any form of questions, answer and  much more globally. This is  a staggering number that show how much the world has advanced and uses the world wide web as a source of information. What worries me is that, Google has the capability of tracking each person who uses the search engine and in addition to that, one of its most installed apps in the android market has the capacity to know where a person lives and his whereabouts when he or she uses the app.

With all these information Google could do much damage to society if it wants to; however. the more practical thing that it would do is  to reap profits from its consumers. How can they do this? Since Google has the information of what the consumers search for, it could track down this information and sell it to companies that are related to it and gain profits from it. The company could either email the consumers or directly send them mails regarding their promotions. Selling such information is possible although it is illegal.

Besides that, Google could also figure out the trends of the people who uses its search engines and buy out companies or even make companies to produce goods that follows the trends. This is of course hypothetical and would cost immense start up cost but could happen in the future. It seems that there is a new Big Brother among us and he is here not to control us but to benefit from us economically.http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/

http://mashable.com/2012/09/12/500-million-android-devices-activated/

Based on the article “McDonalds’ Faces Possible Lawsuit Over Fast-Food Marketing to Kids”, i could clearly see how McDonalds’ marketing team has abused their power and produced a rather unethical way to market their fast-food to the younger generation. It is mentioned in the article that about one fifth of children in the United States are facing obesity and with that a higher percentage of diabetes and other diseases related with obesity has increased in that country among the younger generation.

Prior to this addition, the scrumptious, mouth watering adds were more than enough to attract the children attention; meanwhile, the affordable and convenient method of feeding their kids attracted their parents. With the current Happy Meal plan that consist a toy from popular cartoons and animations, it is a fool’s proof method to attract children into buying them. However, adding a toy as a mean of gaining popularity from kids is deemed to be a unethical method of marketing in both CSPI and my view. CSPI believes that McDonalds’ new form of marketing their Happy Meal is a form of embedding into the minds of children into buying the meal unethical and should be stopped. Questions arises on which part of the Happy Meal’s marketing is unethical, is it the product, the way the market it, the price? I would argue that all of it does and believe that it should be banned for children to be eating fast food. In the end CSPI has threatened McDonalds that it should be taken off their menu within 30 days. 3 years have gone by and we still see the Happy Meal in the menu, it seems that either McDonalds has managed to negotiate a dealing with CSPI or their kids have managed to convince them that Happy Meal is good for them.