The giant fast food chain, McDonald’s recently launched new beverages such as White Chocolate Mocha and Pumpkin Spice Latte following the popularity of similar drinks at two big coffeehouse chains Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson noted that coffee is one of the fastest growing categories in its global drinks business and said that the company has less than its “fair share” of the market. Furthermore, McDonald’s might start to sell its coffee in the groceries next year and by doing that they will increase brand awareness and sell more coffee in its restaurants. In the mean time, it is certain that this will have negative impacts on Starbucks’ and Dunkin Donuts’ sales because the fast food chain is also trying to boost their breakfast sale. “Anyone that stops off to get a cup of coffee anywhere, that’s an opportunity” said McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson. Therefore, Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts should try to boost their food sales to attract more customers in the afternoon and evening hours.

Sources:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-15/in-mcdonalds-breakfast-war-with-coffee-chains-a-new-front-supermarket-shelves#r=hpt-fs

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/mcdonalds-eyes-global-coffee-growth-20891507

In a blog “Chobani’s Secret to Making Customers Feel Like Family” on Entrepreneur, Melanie Spring highlights the reasons of success that lies behind the successful yogurt brand, Chobani. Melanie gives a brief introduction about how the idea of producing this product has been arise. Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish entrepreneur, surprised when he realized that Americans were eating sugar-filled yogurts then he wanted to develop a better product by believing that Americans deserve delicious, preservative-free food. After they launched Chobani, the yogurt got so popular in US in a short period of time. Melanie explains their success by 4 points and I believe considering these points are important for all growing companies.
For the first reason, she said that Chobani crated a family culture at work, its offices feel like home. This is really significant since nice and warm environment gives employees an incentive to be there and work more efficiently. As a second point she emphasizes that the Chobani lives by their core value. Furthermore, as Melanie mentioned Chobani is creating relationships not just business deals. They have this marketing campaign called “Real Love Stories” where customers share their love for the product. Finally, she highlights the importance of leadership and says that CEO Hamdi Ulukaya spends some time in the Chobani SoHo store to listen to their customers and to get face-to-face feedback from them.

For Melanie Spring’s Blog : http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229823

Recently, the wrist has become the new frontier for the technological companies. Several companies have already released their smartwatches, including the Pebble, Cookoo, the Casio G-Shock, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear and Apple’s iwatch is on its way to enter this newly market. Generally, what smartwatches do is that they connect to your phone via Bluetooth and alert you when you’ve received an e-mail, text message, or Facebook post. The Galaxy Gear also has a RunKeeper feature that enables user to track their jogs. However the reviews for smartwatches are not so good so far. For Galaxy Gear, the New York Times’ David Pogue says that “The design is inconsistent and frustrating. Nobody will buy this watch, and nobody should.” Personally I believe that right now, any smartwatch is completely inferior to a phone. Usually Facebook messages and e-mails will be long for us to read on the watch’s screen or we won’t be able to write back them using our smartwatches. Nearly for each task, consumer will still need to use his/her smartphone even though they have smartwatch on their wrists. So, to overcome these challenges, tech companies needs to find some attractive features to make their products valuable in the upcoming years.

Sources

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-06/apples-iwatch-will-need-killer-apps

http://gizmodo.com/galaxy-gear-everything-you-need-to-know-about-samsung-1252036188/1252453557

In a blog “The art of ‘Putting a Smile on Customer’s Face’ ” Aylin Senem Piskin emphasized that what made Zappos, online shoe and clothing shop, different from its competitors. As Aylin mentioned in her blog there are various important features that they have carried out through their path of success. Zappos offers wide variety brands of shoes and clothing which means that their target customer is not limited on both their preferences and their income. Furthermore, they offer 24/7 free call servicing.

Besides these, the real thing that made them ranked as one of the best places to work in America is that they put people before profits in other words their unique company culture made them so successful. On their website they said, “We celebrate and embrace our diversity and each person’s individuality. We want people to express their personality in their work.” Instead of being a big company that feels corporate and boring they chose to be like a family. Even the CEO, Tony Hsieh, doesn’t have a special corner office he shares the same working area with his employees. He also gives them a great flexibility; there is no limited time period for employees while giving service to customers, employees are allowed to check social media during working hours and they also have health, dental insurance which is covered by the company. So they combined a little weirdness with making sure everyone is also having fun at work, it ended up being a win-win for everyone.

For Aylin Senem Piskin’s Blog Post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/aylinsenempiskin/2013/11/12/the-art-of-putting-a-smile-on-customers-face/

Source

http://about.zappos.com/our-unique-culture/zappos-core-values/create-fun-and-little-weirdness

“You must place your baggage in the overhead bins or under the seat in front of you.”
“Please make sure your mobile phone and other electronic devices had been set to flight mode and all switched off.”
…
Generally, travelers don’t pay attention to the preflight safety videos since they’re usually ordinary and not fun to watch. However, Virgin America brought a brand-new aspect to these safety videos by turning it into something like a musical clip that includes a catchy song and a super creative choreography where cabin attendants sing, rap and do break-dance. Company simply aimed to engage passengers to pay attention to the safety briefing. However, this video turned out to be a creative marketing tool for the company. In addition to airing the video on its flights in November, Virgin America has also released it on Google Play, YouTube and on digital billboards across Times Square including the American Eagle billboard. The video also quickly spread over the social media and it has received thousands of shares and likes on Facebook. Through this super energetic catchy video, the company actually raised its brand image by spreading its brand name all over the world and this means that more potential customers and more destinations.

“So tonight get ready to flight.
Cuz we’re gonna live it on up in the sky.
Virgin America knows all the places you wanna be.
Fly away with me, fly away with me.”

For the Preflight Safety Video:

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

http://variety.com/2013/biz/news/virgin-america-jon-chu-safet-dance-1200775515/

In a blog “Snapchat Spurned $3 Billion Acquisition Offer from Facebook” Isabel Vidri bring on one of the most striking news recently which is a photo messaging service Snapchat received $3 billlion acquisition offer from Facebook. However, according to Wall Street Journal, Evan Spiegel, the CEO of rapidly growing application, declined this offer. In her blog, Isabel Vidri states that she agrees with CEO Evan Spiegel’s decision since they still have the potential to raise their company value. As Isabel Vidri stated, this amount of offer clearly shows that Facebook realized the rapid growth of the Snapchat and they feared of competition. In my oinion, they are absolutely right to be afraid because according to The Wall Street Journal Snapchat’s usage had nearly doubled from 200 million messages or “snaps” per day up to 350 million in 3 months between June and September.

Even though Snapchat’s revenues are purely notional, likely to Isabel I also agree with the Evan Spiegel’s decision. Because Snapchat had quickly gained a reputation among young users as a fun way to trade photo messages but also picked up them as an easy way to send sexually suggestive photos. So, for Snapchat making a deal right now would leave many billions more on the table. Since, it is nearly obvious that they will continue to grow and become more valuable in the future.

Isabel Vidri’s Blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/isabelvidri/2013/11/14/snapchat-spurned-3-billion-acquisition-offer-from-facebook/

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/11/13/snapchat-spurned-3-billion-acquisition-offer-from-facebook/

Humor is one of the important elements in the advertising. It is not surprising that advertisers invoke humor, as it can make a big contribution to an ad’s memorability.

Let’s take the example of the mineral water company, Evian.

Evian’s the Baby&Me Youtube video released few months ago and reached more than 60 million of views and after that company released a brand new application called evian baby&me on smartphones. Similarly to the video, the application got so popular in a short period of time.

But what made it so interesting and popular?

Of course the humor inside the advertisement. People enjoyed it! This an important aspect of the ads. Firms need to be customer orientated while they are marketing their products. They have to consider that people used to see tones of different commercials in a day and only few of them stays in their minds.

Well, being humorous is not an easy thing!  It is hard to appeal every single person’ sense of humor. However when the company successfully appealed the sense of humor of its targeted audience, their brand name will stay in people’s mind for a long time.

“A humorous brand is a confident brand, and a confident brand is attractive.”

Sources

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-03/funny-ads-make-brands-stronger-dot-no-joke

For the Video,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfxB5ut-KTs

The luxury automobile company Mercedes recently launched it’s new sedan, CLA 250, with a starting price under $30,000.

The CLA is an all-new model in an all-new segment for the automaker. Now you can get into a Mercedes for the price of a well-equipped Honda Accord.

“We weren’t sure how luxury buyers would react.” said an analyst for Kelley Blue Book.

The price of this new model of Mercedes is much more affordable relatively to the other models of this luxury brand. However keep up with the affordable market is a threatening thing for luxury car company. One of the reasons for that is that their Blue-chip customers’ opinions about the company have a potential to get damaged and this would worsens brand’s image and respect directly.

On the other hand, CLA 250 is calling for the new customer segment which is young drivers. With the aid of the Super Bowl advertisement, they clearly show that they are especially calling out young-male drivers. The famous singer, Usher and sexy actress Kate Upton are appealing the targeted audience. So one of the biggest advantage of the affordable price would be the fact that they will start to create customer loyalty on young people.

Sources

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-02/mercedes-cla-sedan-with-budget-price-outsells-high-end-models-in-u-dot-s-dot-debut

So you might think that what is duffin?

Starbucks explains it as;

“Is is a doughnut or is it a muffin? It is both – a Duffin! A delicious doughnut/muffin fusion. Lightly spiced with nutmeg, with a raspberry jam filling and a buttery sugar coating.”

It is certain that it sounds delicious and tempting however this is another pastry for the indecisive.

The great coffee chain, Starbucks, launched the Duffin in 730 U.K. stores last Thursday. This is not a test run, the company is pretty sure that their new investment is going to be embraced by the customers.  Starbucks is pushing its largest ever investment in food in the UK through a flurry of new products and it is clear that they are striving to reach beyond coffee and get a share in the fast food market. In my opinion, Starbucks’ well-established name and their success in the pastry industry will be the first incentive for customers to try out this brand new production. I am pretty sure that the company will start to export these delicious looking duffins to the other countries very soon!

Sources

http://www.starbucks.co.uk/menu/food-list/muffins-pastries-and-doughnuts/duffin

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-07/starbucks-debuts-donut-muffin-yet-another-pastry-for-the-indecisive#r=nav-r-story

Abercrombie & Fitch, the American retailer that focuses on causal wear, has been ruled by a federal judge for firing a young Muslim woman who wore hijab head scarf in the work place.

According to the Bloomberg Businessweek’s report, in late 2009, Umme-Hani Khan was regularly wearing head scarf in the job area and fired four months later after a district manager visited the store. As Courthouse News Service reported on Monday, Khan never informed by her supervisors about not to wear headscarf.

After that the representative of the store reported that the headscarf violates the company’s “Look Policy”, the policy is part of a marketing strategy to convey the Abercrombie brand.

Since 2009, Abercrombie has been continuing to pay for their religious bias. “The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the case on behalf of Khan in 2011. A California district judge ruled last week that the termination violated the portion of the Civil Rights Act that bars religious discrimination.”

Abercrombie&Fitch is a company that expands internationally. Violating anti-discrimination laws and denying the civil rights might cause them to lose their cachet and that would bring them a sharp fall in the profits especially in the religious areas.

 Sources:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-10/abercrombie-still-not-down-with-head-scarves-still-paying-for-it

http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_24051549/judge-abercrombie-fitch-violated-bias-laws-muslim-garb