Month: December 2010

Not long ago, the FIFA committe decided to host 2022 World cup in Qatar.  Today, I am going to discuss general issues surrounding this incident in marketing context.

http://thegulfblog.com/2010/12/02/qatar-to-host-2022-world-cup/

http://boston.com/community/blogs/less_is_more/2010/12/how_did_we_lose_to_qatar.html

Among other bidding countries including the U.S., South Korea, Japan and Australia, Qatar successfully presented their willingness to host the 2022 World Cup and made their dream come true.  However, in a marketer’s perspective, this is not quite a true success.  After reading articles linked above, I have narrowed down to one idea that explains how I made my deicision.

“MONEY”

Qatar claimed that they are ready to spend 3 billion U.S. dollars to build 12 ultra-modern stadiums that are LED equipped and fully air-conditioned.  Building a stadium is a costly job, and it will cost astronomically to build such modernized stadiums.  Building stadiums is not the only problem.  Huge maintenance expenses will haunt them down even after the World Cup is over.  Transportation system is another one that would bother the Qatar government.  Maintaining an excellent transportation system that can afford hundred thousands of new visitors in a geographically limited country is a hard job, and again, costly.

Of course, it is perfectly fine (even legal!) to bring up some magic by pouring in massive “capital” (the rest of the world calls it oil dollar) to buy off the world’s biggest and most famous global event.  The Qatar World Cup Committee even paid a famous soccer player Zinedine Zidane over 16 million dollars just to show up in a Qatar World Cup endorsement.  They may have got what they wanted, but I would rather say that they failed to succeed in marketing context.

While I was checking out other people’s blog postings, I saw a picture that looked exceptionally familiar to me.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/eddieshin/2010/11/23/creative-and-inventive-advertisements/

This is one of Eddie Shin’s postings on his blog.  The energizer battery is an actual statue in downtown Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia.  While I spent 3 years studying in Malaysia, I saw many other unique promotion/events as well as marketing strategies that would only work in Malaysia due to its cultural backgrounds.

Malaysians love motorbikes.  When you drive on the main streets of KL, cars are packed closely from one to another, and tonnes of motorbikes fill up the gaps between lanes.   As a result, motorbiker-friendly advertisements thrive in a nation-wide context.  There are hundreds of outdoor shopping recks in gas stations for impulsive shoppers, millions of advertisements near/around motorbike parking lots, and billlions of short billboards on highways.

Also, because of their unique ethnicity variance (malaysian, indian, chinese), religious standards (mainly muslim and hindi) limit marketers to plan their job.  Shopping malls have a pray room for Muslims who have to pray regularly whenever/wherever they are.  Restaurants emphasize that they serve halal foods (dishes that are appropriate for Muslims).

In recent years, population of young Malaysians expanded, and they began demanding more of exotic, new, and sensational.  Energizer was one of their youth culture.  Yet there are so many other amazing treasures such as indoor amusement park on the top of 48-story building, huge shopping complex etc.  It may be hard to bring up great business ideas, but it’s even harder to adapt it to a certain culture.  In this case, Malaysia, has a fast growing culture.  It will be necessary to carefully combine conservative & religious context with young hip generation.

While I was reading other classmates’ blog postings, I found a very interesting yet argumentative article.  I would like you to read the article that is linked below before I start my critique.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/mmmm/2010/11/28/marketing-campaign-failed/

This is a posting done by my friend Ryan Lee, a 2nd year commerce student.  Although he has some excellent arguments on how Colgate’s promotion seemed to fail, I have some opinion that conflicts with those, and  indeed, claim that the promotion is a success.

Not practical? – Simply saying, an ice cream stick basically becomes useless after you are done eating the ice cream.  However, the purpose of having a toothbrush-shaped stick is to get consumers’ attention by making them giving a glance at it.  And you will be stupid not to notice the newly shaped stick because as you eat the ice cream, you will have to keep an eye on it so that you won’t go against the laws of physics and drop a huge chunk of ice cream onto the ground.  In company’s point of view, nothing is more practical to grab people’s attention, and that ice cream stick is a sure winner to the company.

Dangerous? – First, unless the tips of the stick is sharpened, a weak edibles-purpose wood stick cannot hurt a thing.  People take time to eat ice cream, they will not attempt to destroy their ice cream by finishing it in a bite or two.  Therefore, it is immoderately exaggerative to say that it’s dangerous.

Ironic? – In my opinion, it is not inappropriate to promote a hygienic products on desserts products which cause cavities.  Not everyone brushes their teeth after eating ice cream.  However, by noticing a toothbrush-shaped stick, they could be reminded to brush their teeth and therefore prevent having cavities.  By doing so, consumers benefits from Colgate, and Colgate earns money from those people.

Ryan had a great opinion, and I also had a reasonable idea that did not quite match up with Ryan’s.  It could be a matter of different perception & exposure to different cultural backgrounds.  Ryan had lived in Thailand for several years and I have only been there for a 3-day-long vacation.  The point is that a company needs to spend a great effort when marketing their products.