Month: October 2015

When thinking of companies who have dominated the marketing world, one obvious company comes to mind for me: Nike. What pulls at the heart strings better than a triumph sports commercial? A huge example of how successful they are in the marketing domain would be their product Nike Digital Sport created in 2010.  This includes popular apps such as Nike+ running sensor and the Fuel Band. The reason Digital sports is considered such a success though, is because all the consumers’ data gives Nike the ability to follow them and their statistics, create an online and technological community for them and finally create a close and personal relationship with consumers. With so much data, they are able to construct their products and apps specifically to the direct data they are receiving from their applications. This concept alone, is considered the next big thing comparable to Nike’s unforgettable Swoosh symbol, or Just Do It slogan. So what makes Nike so great at what they do? The obvious examples are as follows:

• They truly understand their target market, whether it be Men’s football, Women’s yoga, children’s gear; etc. They specialize and do so in a successful way.
• Their overall marketing as a company, “JUST DO IT”
• The athletes they get to sponsor their products
• Their constant adaptation to a digital age and growth as a company

As someone who is interested in marketing, constantly looking at Nike among other companies like Apple, Samsung and Toyota, I’ve learned more from these companies than most “marketing how-to do’s” on the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy1rumvo9xc

A Nike commercial which got close to 90 million views. Not too shabby.

http://fortune.com/2012/02/13/nikes-new-marketing-mojo/

My favourite iclicker question up to date: What is the appropriate amount of ethics needed in business. Seeing the class dynamic was interesting, but also slightly discouraging. I understand the importance of being a profitable company- as I am someone who wants to succeed in business, but what I cannot wrap my head around is how there are people in my class who believe that profit is more important than ethics completely. The best way to understand, obviously is to research and learn more about who “cooks their books”, what companies have done so and the success as well as punishments they were given for doing so. Doing my research what I came to understand was that maybe the issue weren’t people and companies themselves, but how easy, and tempting it was to “cook the books.” An interesting article I came across by Investopedia, was literally called “Top 8 Ways Companies Cook the Books.” Looking at companies like Enron, Aldelphia and Worldcom, the quick article goes through accelerating revenues, delaying expenses and other tricks multi-billion dollar companies have used in the past. I understand that governments around the world are attempting to sweep away white collar crime, but with it being so easy how can you blame people in these companies for letting the glitz and the glam of greed get to them?

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/analyst/071502.asp

http://international.triangl.com

In our operations class, our guest speaker informed us that contrary to the article focused on Dell, typically a direct business model is not the best way to go. After the class struggled with even just coming up with business with this type of model, I was intrigued to find a business that not only had this type of model, but was successful with it. What I came across was that lots of modern, business model focused company primarily worked from online stores. Super successful companies include the Triangl bathing suit. As a teenaged girl, I’ve noticed that most, if not all of my friends own one of these bathing suits. As someone trying to study direct business models, its easy to understand why. The reason they are so successful is because of how specific their product is. Selling primarily bathing suits for teenaged girls gives them the ability to specialize their products and help consumers customize the bathing suits they want. As an online company, people could argue that they would have troubles marketing their product. Triangl find and contact popular women on social media, sending them their product for free and have the marketing done for themselves. Through conquering social media, and making their product loved by their specific target market they are a company I would personally consider of an example of a good use of a Direct Business Model.