Photo From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/mg/f/f8/Apple_chrome.png

Choosing a culture for your business is one of the most difficult decisions you have to make. In an article by Martin Zwilling I found on Forbes there was a description of 10 directions that an entrepreneur should use to create a good culture in his/ her business. Zwilling took these 10 directions from a book by Jim Stengel and some of the directions included setting your standards high, thinking like a winner, and training all the time. The reason why Zwilling brought up Apple in his article was because of their successful business and culture that goes along with the name “Apple”.

One of the 10 directions that specifically interest me was the one that was more specific to Apple and the legacy that Steve Jobs left on the company. It is important to leave a legacy and especially a good one. Everyone wants to be know for something so why not build a business to create your legacy? To create this, you need to have a goal and everyone in your business, including yourself, need to be working towards this goal. Steve Jobs was very successful at this and it is one of the reasons why Apple is such a successful company.

For more information on the 10 Ways to Build a Business Culture Like Apple visit the Forbes website.

Photo from: http://www.bigkahuna.ca/pages/links

Today I helped with a photo-shoot for Stormtech. If you dont already know, Stormtech is a performance apparel store that sells everything from sports uniforms to daily clothing. Today they had a photo-shoot for their catalogue on my sailboat and it was a great learning experience and made me think a lot about marketing and business. The effort that was put into the photo-shoot, that took approximately three hours, showed how much work is put into marketing portions of the company. It is not just simply taking a photo and putting it into an advertising campaign, it takes time to get the perfect shot with the angles, lighting, backdrop, and pose all having to be perfect. The photographers also needed to make sure that the clothing and logos on the clothing were perfectly positioned so that the pictures accurately portrayed the brand.

I thought that the photo-shoot was well thought out since Stormtech is trying to become a competitor in the sailing market. Advertising people using their clothing on a sailboat or at a marina is a great idea to get sailors interested in their brand.

I enjoyed watching the photo-shoot and getting to meet the photographers and models and I thank Stormtech for the opportunity.

Reading through some business blogs made by fellow UBC students I found one called “Fun Times With Business” by Antoine Chopin. His blog “Coursera: another example of social entrepreneurship” caught my interesting because it examined a social entreprise that did not have to do with “helping the poor nor is it about supporting African agriculture” (A, Chopin, 2012). Most people think that to be a social entrepreneur one must be helping people who are struggling, but this is not true. A social entrepreneur tries to solve a community problem which Coursera does by providing free online university courses. The problem that this company solves is that there are many people who would like to get an education but do not have the financial funds to support them and therefore they provide education for free!

This company is a true social entreprise because it is a mission driven (giving people who wouldn’t normally have the chance, a higher level of education) organization developing a social product (free university level courses).

Social entreprises are a very important part of our society because, without them, a lot of social problems wouldn’t be solved. They are different from Charities because they are self sustained and do not require donations and therefore can have the possibility of being more successful.

Photo curtsey of “Trusted Reviews”

Looking through the Blog posts done by fellow Comm101 students I found Hans’ Blog and his post “Which one is better? Samsung Galaxy S3 vs Apple IPhone 5“. This post was of interest to me because I thought it related to class 5 when we talked about positioning & Value propositions. In Hans’ post he described the competition between the IPhone and the Samsung Galaxy and how their marketing strategies are different. In Comm101 class 5, we learned how companies who came into markets that already had a market leader could advertise and still be competitive by associating themselves with the leading company. By saying “the next big thing is already here” as a play on words of apple’s calling the IPhone “the next big thing” was a very strategic marketing plan. As talked about in class, when a company comes into a market after another company has already established itself in the market the new company should not try to take over the market, it should focus on their points of difference. Samsung does this well by advertising their S Beam feature which shares “pictures, music, videos, and more” by the touch of two phones together. Samsung S Beam Commercial.

Which phone do you think is better?

Looking through the blog posts made by people in my Comm101 class I came across Gaby Hebert‘s blog. Her blog post called “These Boots Were Made for Profit” caught my attention and I felt like it could relate to our class on Supply Chain Management when we talked about the company Zara. In Gaby’s blog post she described the shoe store, Aldo, and how well they were doing as a Canadian company in the world market. I decided to relate this post to our class on Zara because of the inventory turnover ratio. Zara has a very quick turnover rate of about one week from design until the product is in stores. Aldo, on the other hand has a turnover rate of four times per year and a very long selection process. This long process can be good because it means that bad products do not get put into stores, but it can also cause some problems. These problems could arise because trends change quickly and if the company only changes their product every three months, they do not have a quick reaction time to changes in trends. It is great that Aldo is internationally known, but it could be better if they had a faster turnover.

Microsoft has decided to expand their products by creating Xbox Music. This system will be like iTunes in that its users can download songs to own, download music videos, and it has a “cloud storage feature”. It also includes a free radio streaming feature that has advertisements every 20 or so minutes or an ad free version of the same feature that costs only $9.99.

There are, as with everything, costs and benefits of this new service. The benefits include providing a competitive service like iTunes for Microsoft users and expanding their products to take part in the music industry.

There are also costs of this service that include creating the service and marketing it to their consumers.

The company also needs to think about the competition that iTunes provides. Apple is a very large, influential company and it will be hard to enter into a market that they already have a hold of. It will be difficult to convince people to make the switch from iTunes to a new Microsoft service. However, if Microsoft can convince its users that this new Xbox music is different and better than iTunes it could succeed in taking over part of the music market.

Malathi Nayak, Reuters, Financial Post, October 15th, 2012. http://business.financialpost.com/2012/10/15/microsoft-rolling-out-xbox-music-service-to-take-on-apple/

The question of gas being a necessity vs. a luxury has always been a controversy. Some people believe that gas is a necessity and that they can not live without it, but others may argue that there are other possible ways of transit including buses, taxis, biking, or walking.

The government has taxed gas as though it was a luxury as apposed to a necessity even though most people use it as a necessity just like they would heating for a house. The gas companies set the gas prices as if it was a luxury as well which doesn’t seem fair when most people treat it as a necessity.

The article in “The New York Times” talks about how people buy less of other luxuries including clothing and technology but they will continue to buy gas even as the prices rise. Continuous buying as prices rise is a characteristic of a necessity not a luxury. Therefore, gas should be considered a necessity.

The Associated Press, The New York Times, Sept 28, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/business/economy/consumer-spending-jumps-rising-with-gasoline-prices.html?_r=1&ref=consumerbehavior

Mercedes-Benz knows their target market well. It is very important to have this knowledge because, from it, you can figure out how, where, and when to advertise.

Mercedes seems to have used their marketing strategies perfectly by promoting their product at events that their target market attend including, but not limited to, the Ryder Cup (a large golfing event in the United States), New York Fashion Week, and the 2012 Superbowl.

Mercedes recently entered into the football market by buying the naming rights to the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans (a football stadium). This was a great marketing strategy because the finals of the NFL known as the “Super Bowl” will be hosted in this facility. Seeing as 30 second advertisements during the Super Bowl are now selling for as much as $4 million, having your name in association with the Super Bowl is great publicity.

Mercedes seems to have a firm grasp on who their target market is, and is using this to their advantage by advertising in places that these people are most likely to notice.

Picture: http://www.logodesignlove.com/images/evolution/mercedes-benz-logo-design.jpg

Kurt Badenhausen, Mercedes-Benz Uses Football, Fashion and the Ryder Cup To Boost Its Brands, Forbes, September 28, 2012. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/09/28/mercedes-benz-uses-football-fashion-and-the-ryder-cup-to-boost-its-brand/

Deciding which brands are the most influential is a difficult task. Whomever is making the decision about how influential the brand is has to take into account financial performance, the role the brand plays in influencing the choices made by consumers and the brand’s ability to help its parent’s earnings (Stuart Elliott, The New York Times, October 1st, 2012).

The brand consulting company that created this specific list of the top global brands is called Interbrand and is owned by the Omnicom Group. They decided that the top brand was “Coke” with “Apple” coming in a close second. One of the reasons why the results were interesting was because six of the top 10 brands were technology brands. This particular finding is interesting because branding is all about knowing human beings and “It’s irony, a group of technology companies showing the way how to be human”(Jez Frampton, Stuart Elliott, The New York Times, October 1st, 2012)

Another interesting fact found from the study is how much companies can rise and fall in the standings. Some companies rose up to 30 spots and others lost up to that amount in only one year.

Branding is important to a company but it is difficult to determine how well a company brands itself.

top 100 brands

The New York Times, List of Global Brands Keeps Coke on Top, and Apple Jumps Up, Stuart Elliott, October 1st, 2012.

Picture: http://www.squidoo.com/coca-cola-logo

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2104319/Avon-Est-e-Lauder-Peta-reveals-cosmetic-brands-ordered-animal-testing.html

Estee Lauder and Avon are both large cosmetic companies. In this article they are being questioned for testing some of their products on animals.

In the article both companies say that they do not support using animals for testing products, but that Chinese laws (and some other countries) require them to use this testing for some products.

The article attached has a quote from a spokesman for one of the companies who said “‘Some select products may be required by law in a few countries to undergo additional safety testing, which potentially includes animal testing, under the directive of a government or health agency.'”

I believe that animal testing for beauty products, no matter what the consequences, should not be tested on animals. If products require this testing in some countries, then they should not be sold in those countries.

I can give some reason to animal testing for drugs, such as cures for cancer of other life threatening diseases because it could save lives of thousands of people. Using this type of testing for cosmetics, on the other hand, is not ethical. Cosmetics are not something that one “needs” to stay alive, therefore, if anything is harmed in their production, it is not acceptable.

This problem doesn’t just relate to these two companies, it happens everywhere, it is just not publicized, and therefore does not get any notice. However, it is a very important issue that deals with company ethics and it needs to be brought to the attention of the public.