Starbucks Coffee!
Throughout the term, our marketing team worked really well alongside each other. It was very easy to get along with my group members from the get-go. We were able to complete the first two parts effectively without a hitch and I really enjoyed working on the project itself. We found the majority of our problems with the last assignment. Everyone was busy, so finding a time to meet got to be very difficult. Even so, everyone showed commitment to the project and in the end, we were able to complete it at a level I thought was beyond acceptable. I saw everyone put the effort into the assignments and really contributed their ideas to ensure we covered all our areas in each part.

And none of

The assignment really did a great job in putting ideas and knowledge into real life applications. It does reveal the importance in research a company must undertake to expand into a new market place and the difficulties in so. With the amount of time I got to spend reading up on Starbucks, I feel like I know it like the back of my hand (don’t know if I’d really take that as a good thing!). I definitely believe it was a great way to prepare for midterms/finals in that I’ll have worked quite a bit in understanding a section of marketing prior to the upcoming final.

Mmmm Coffee 

In reading Natalie Mak’s “Role of Trademarks in Marketing” post, I was really surprised by the aggressive nature in keeping trademarks from being used in other businesses. I understand that businesses need to do their due diligence in order to protect other firms from hurting their business, but in the case of an innocent misunderstanding and even a situation I would hardly call damaging for the Louis Vuitton brand name, I don’t believe the actions taken were appropriate against a little hair salon such as the one in the video presented:

Louis Vuitton collection design results in a lawsuit for this Hong Kong Barber

Natalie brought up the point that LV may be damaging their own image by acting as a bully and I think this is valid. I, personally, don’t see the damage to the LV brand nor do I see how the hair salon could have gained too much from simply having a design put on the chairs matching that of the LV brand. They could have taken different measures that didn’t require such aggressive behavior for a local hair salon, which would have made the situation a lot cleaner.

It is important to note the importance of doing one’s due diligence when setting up their own business. Hopefully it is an eye opener for current and upcoming businesses to do a lot of research in the rules and regulations of the business environment. One will have to watch out for infringements on names, phrases, logos, and, in this case, the pattern of other companies–even if they’re a part of a different market.

In addition to doing one’s due diligence, it goes to show the importance in developing a brand image. Creating a set of colours, patterns, words, anything you can think of is crucial to any business. It may be an aspect overlooked by many companies, but a successful business sets up a marketing department to help with the development of a positive and consist brand image from the birth of a firm. 

Reading Mr. Rohit Bhargava’s Blog, I came across “5 Tragic Ways to Lose An Audience Despite Telling Great Stories.”

It was interesting to read over some of the points and a lot of it can be applied to when you’re marketing. A few points definitely stood out to myself, Mistake #2: Toxic Words, #3: Personal Disconnection, and #4: Experience Blindness. Each had an underlying theme; keep a neutral standpoint.

I recently read a trending article on Bing and I found it interesting how they wrote the article up. They put so much emphasis on what they believe was right and what was wrong, then moving onto what they thought was smart and what was not. The author had a strong belief and it showed throughout the article and can be pretty upsetting for many people, which in turn leads to an ineffective article even if it is a great story.

Taking a side means facing the opposing side with little to strong resistance. With Marketing, you want to appeal to everyone. You don’t want to exclude anyone because you worded a message inappropriately. Something as simple as involving Puma over Adidas may flare up problems with preferences towards one brand to another.

If you want to put out a message for marketing means, try to stick to a perspective and use of words that is neutral to its audience. Strongly sitting on one side may bring up problems that you don’t want to deal with.

Thou shalt not do brand-ing.

The act of “brand-ing” telling your consumers what your brand is about and what they should associate with your brand. The most popular example are car commercials. When you watch an ad for the new release of the BMW X5, what do you see? What does the company tell you about their product (who is it for or how and where do you drive it)? What is the typical scene, music that goes with the commercial, or even how are they driving the car (racing down an empty long road)?

Does thislook familiar?

Automotive companies try to convince you their product is sporty, powerful, convenient, and has an all purpose use. Caravans now look sporty to convince families of buying their caravan because their sales drooped when consumers were led towards the new “hip” and sport look of the new cars. Automotive companies adjusted their brand by brand-ing.

With a new generation of consumers that are more “intelligent, informed, and empowered” (Fou 2012), will this approach work just as effectively? No. The power of the internet has enabled consumers to research companies and their products. Firms have less control over how consumers see their brand how they want them to.

Thou shalt not do brand-ing.

How legitimate and truthful does a firm look when they make false claims in their commercials, but consumers are now able to look them up on the internet on their phone? To build a powerful brand, a firm should be able to create an honest and truthful company image/brand simply by following their founding principles. A firm who set out to produce environmentally, yet convenient, vehicles should only be focused on achieving their goals. Consumers will see this. Consumers will react to this. Consumers will essentially be the ones who create a brand image for the firm.

Source:

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1702901/commandments-modern-marketing
10 Commandments of Modern Marketing by Augustine Fou
January 5, 2012

Reading an article on promotion of your business and products, I came across a point that I got me thinking about the use of business cards and standing out. It said:

3. Hand out promotional products instead of business cards. Those companies that produce business cards are charging more and more these days to create customized cards that will stand out from the millions of others. And that is exactly the point – most people are given stacks upon stacks of business cards that they will never look at. Save time and trouble by giving out promotional products with contact information and service offerings. You can also encourage shared marketing by offering a small discount to those that show they are using your promotional product.

Although business cards are useful and making a first impression in person is important, I think it’s also important to stand out from the rest even when it comes down to the simple things like business cards or being creative.

Imagine coming back from a networking event and you have a pocket full of cards. There’ll be those people you found interesting and stick out. How about everyone else? Perhaps some had given you something in replacement? A small unique, and portable, portable storage key chain that had the business logo or style written all over it?

This unique object could stand out to you and maybe you’ll find time to call that person back to compliment on their design or you really liked the company’s gift and you found it useful to you. The key is to be outside of the box and useful that the person receiving the personalized “business card” will recognize it anywhere.

Do you want to be one in a big stack of cards?

So I’m wondering, what kind of ideas do you guys out there have as a replacement of the business cards if you were at a networking event?

Taken from: http://frugalentrepreneur.com/2012/03/4-tips-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-promotional-product-marketing/

Social Media helped spread the word that Subway’s “$5 Footlong[s]” aren’t always quite one foot long… And it hit fast!

Posts of pictures and consumer’s opinions has hit the company hard. In this article, you get a response from Subway to why the footlong sandwiches aren’t one foot long, but rather 11 inches.

Now, in my opinion, I found it silly that people were outraged and building up a storm on the smallest of details on the size of the sandwiches at Subway. I was then very surprised by the return response. The phrase “SUBWAY FOOTLONG” is actually a “‘registered trademark as a descriptive name for the sub sold in Subway® Restaurants and not intended to be a measurement of length.'”

The article then goes on to saying “as BuzzFeed’s Copyranter points out, Subway makes it pretty clear in its ads how long a footlong sub should be” through televised ads that showed a footlong sub should be the length of one foot.

Are Subway advertisement misleading in what they offer? Should this be a problem to consumers? Is it really that big of an issue? I personally think it was a pretty misleading in making people think the footlong is one foot long, but I also think it’s a little ridiculous when it comes down to it. We’re looking at an inch loss in bread every now and then because the inch was lost in the process of baking bread.

We also see this many other fast food chains, like McDonalds and Burger King. Do you really get what you see on the advertisements? Are the burgers really as big and filled as they appear?
  No, but it sure makes the burgers look desirable.