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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.

In my 20 years life, I have watched various kinds of TV commercials from different parts of the world.  However, there are only a few that I can actually remember vividly.  Heineken was one, and here is another that I would like to introduce.

This is a  public service advertisement that is not promoting any fancy expensive goods or luxurious services.  In fact, they are demoting a certain common act that many may not see as being illegal and dangerous; text messaging on a mobile phone while driving. The advertisement primarily uses a “shock factor” by providing the audience with explicit graphic visual stimuli that depicts the possible negative consequence for text messaging while driving to try to deter such acts from happening.

The progression of this advertisement shows an ‘if-then’ progression where in the beginning it shows a female driver text messaging on her phone (the ‘if’). Then the driver’s lack of attention on the road due to text messaging leads to a horrific accident occurring killing many and injuring others (the ‘then’). The ‘if-then’ progression is a typical progression used in messages that have the objective of trying to educate the general public of possible dangers to certain non-harmful seeing acts. After the audience views the advertisement, the message will (hopefully) be encoded in their mind as ‘if I text message while driving, then it could lead to an accident’. With this new embedded idea the future driver will hopefully decide against using their mobile phone while driving and contribute to making the roads a safer place for both the driver him or herself and other drivers on the road.

A sibling/classmate/friend with opposite sex was my, and would be everyone’s biggest enemy of their childhood.  As time passes, we don’t really remember any reasonable explanation for why we behaved so in the past (at least in the male perspective 🙂 ).  A human being with different sex was no longer the devils filled with hatred, but just another person who you see on a street, a companion who you work with, a lover who you fall in love with, and a husband/wife who you live with for the rest of your life.

With more realistic perspective, a.k.a marketer’s point of view, gender demographic is a huge and essential group which shares so many different values, characteristics and beliefs.  In order to succeed in marketing gender groups and thus generate profit, knowing what they want is crucial. Louis Vuitton did not become the top fashion house by appealing blinging and elegant hand bags to men, and Heineken don’t want any woman carrying a keg of beer with her when she does shopping either.  Many firms, especially when the companies are gender-sensitive, spend much time on analyzing such information and have successfully developed marketing strategies.

Nike, a multi-national company that carries from clothes to sports equipments, brought up a new campaign “The Men vs Women  Challenge”.  It’s a form of a race held by Nike, and to win the race, men and women basically accumulate their running distance that’s been recorded on their iPods (or other electronic device if applicable) and compare each other’s accumulation after certain time period passes.  To be able to participate, a pair of Nike running shoes that’s connectible to iPods, iPods with special applications installed, and general interest in running/jogging are needed, and it won’t be really effective at all if a person misses any of those requirements.

As soon as I watched it, I recalled my childhood memories where girls were enemies, and this instinct-like feelings strangely made me become egoistic, passionate, and willing to win over (thus “destroy”) the female group, and this wouldn’t be just the case for me.  Both gender groups will get aroused and therefore gain interest on the campaign.  This is a humongous success for the Nike Corporation because they will be capable of grabbing two demographic groups with an effort for one.  I myself have to admit that I was intrigued by the commercial despite the fact that I don’t have any of the requirements listed above.  My old, childish, and insignificant memories, small excitements in my childhood, now re-emerged in the new century and it is now blended into a Nike’s innovative marketing strategy.

Soccer in Europe is far more popular than what North Americans expect it to be like.  Heineken, World’s leading beer brewery company, used this knowledge to launch their new promotion strategy with sensational and innovative approach.  First, Heineken chose hundreds of die-hard soccer fans who were anxious to watch the UEFA Champions League game AC Milan vs. Real Madrid.  Then, the company asked  family, friends, lovers, and bosses of the targeted people to force them to attend a false classic concert.  With despair and anger hidden deep in their heart, victims reluctantly gave up the game and went to watch the concert instead.  However, soon after when the concert was “over” and the game was on, the victims’ mood, emotion, and  facial expressions all changed dramatically and enjoyed watching the game.

This was an exotic and entertaining event to the victims as well as people who watched this.  However, with marketing perspective, this was more than just one-time extraordinary event.  When the victims’ frustration turned into a joyful & unforgettable moment, Heineken’s logo appeared and implied that their product (beer) will give the same result (feeling) of joy and excitement, just like how they feel the same way from watching soccer.  10 million people watched it, 1.5 million of them watched it live on TV.  5 million people shared this on the internet, blogs, social networking services etc.  Whether the viewers/readers were other European soccer fans or economists on the Wall street, Heineken was successful in appealing their brand awareness to different markets in the world.

To start off with my first blog posting, I have chosen Apple’s iPhone 4G to discuss about issues that are going around nowadays.

This was recorded on the first day iPhone 4G released in NYC.  This is Apple’s 4th iPhone they have put in the market, and yet people are still hungry with new technologies their god is creating.  Some people criticize the fact that many Apple customers are worshiping “the Jobs Family”.  However, as a marketing student, this is not the issue I have to focus on.  Rather, my question would be “how was Apple so successful in enslaving their loyal customers?”

In order to find the answer, I will have to find resources (textbook, internet, lectures etc) and match up with appropriate factors that affect consumers’ decisions.  On a regular basis, I will put up postings related to the topics I learn every week and apply it to the “iPhone madness”.