In response to Peony Au’s blog post about Starbucks unique culture, I have to agree that it is Starbucks dedication to quality and customer service that makes them such a successful company. Whenever I go to the Starbucks on campus I am amazed by the amazing service despite how busy the store is the barista finds the time to ask how my day is. Starbucks customization and dedication to customer service promotes a friendly atmosphere which makes buyers willing to pay a little more for their coffee especially when its customizable. In addition to Starbucks customer service values, they do extensive amounts of exceptional work for the global community. For example, on their website they are promoting their initiative of building “greener” stores to save more energy. The new design is visually appealing to customers, beneficial of the environment and saves energy which in the long-run will reduce costs. Another shared value initiative is how Starbucks is encouraging employees to volunteer in the local community and this year they hope to reach 1 million hours volunteered. This allows Starbucks to engage with the local community on a personal scale without accumulating any costs for the company. Overall, Starbucks is a very good example of a company with extensive shared value.

In Christopher Ratcliff’s blog post on Econsultancy’s website, he talks about the success of Michael Kors first advertisement on Instagram. The ad was shown to a select demographic in the US and received 218,000 likes in 18 hours which resulted in 33,000 new followers for Michael Kors. This is the first ad posted on Instagram and although the ad received 20% negative feedback, there were 20 people who expressed interest in purchasing the product. The biggest success for Michael Kors was obtaining 33,000 new followers because they can market future products to them directly for free by posting pictures of new releases. Instagram is an effective form of marketing today as they have 150 million active users. Utilizing this social media may increase sales but since it is in the beginning stage of sponsored advertisements it is difficult to tell. Companies who advertise on Instagram can measure the success of their advertisements by comparing the number of likes on each post and how many new followers they obtain from each post. This allows the companies to see which ads work best and expand on them. The blogger stated ” It’s difficult to tell how much of the [below] engagement was accrued just through the novelty, or notoriety, of being the first advert posted on Instagram.” Only time will be able to tell if Instagram advertisements are successful, in my opinion I think they will be since Instagram is growing so fast.

In response to Colin Lam’s post about Coin’s new credit card replacement venture, I do not think Coin will be a very successful company. There are several weaknesses with this venture that puts a limit on potential success. A significant weakness with the card, mentioned in the Daily Mail, is the fact that the card is using older technology since it does not contain the new chip/pin or pay wave technology. Critics worry that as countries move towards more secure features the device will become obsolete. Coin also has the weakness that the technology in the card could malfunction resulting in a bad reputation for the company. As well as the risk of a technological malfunction, the card cannot be used if the users smartphone is outside of a certain radius. While the company markets this as a strength since they see it as a security feature, it is inconvenient for the user because they cannot use their sole method of payment if they ever leave their phone at home or if their phone battery dies. I believe that coin has a good venture idea due to the fact they are solving a common inconvenience with their product but in order to be successful their product should not create other inconveniences.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/colinlam/2013/11/16/cash-in-on-coin-a-new-credit-card-replacement/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2508082/Coin-wants-replace-credit-card-wallet.html

It is a known fact that Google offers amazing and original services and opportunities to its employees such as, slides, free food, nap time, laundry service, free cars and time to innovate, but is this Google’s culture? Shannon Deegan, VP of HR said in a presentation to his peers “This is not really the Google culture. This is the cost of doing business in our market.” Meaning these features do not define Google’s culture but rather, embody their values and corporate culture. Google believes in treating their employees right and giving them opportunities to innovate and design brilliant ideas. Google tends to have a “work-life balance” culture and in order to sustain this culture they offer free services that allow employees to love their job which results in very low employee turnover and absenteeism. This means employees love going to work because it appeals to their values as well as the company’s. Google is known for its 20% time where employees must devote 20% of their time at work each week to innovating. This benefits the employees as it allows them to be creative and it benefits Google because they get new and potentially profitable ideas. This factor, as well as Google’s other services, embodies the company’s culture of “work-life balance” and innovation.

When company’s started advertising on the popular social networking website Facebook, they were only provided with information that members publicly displayed but now Facebook is getting more specific. Gokul Rajaram, product director for ads at Facebook stated: “our goal is to improve the relevance of ads people see on Facebook and the efficacy of marketing campaigns.” Facebook plans to do this by tracing what websites Facebook users visit and then expose them to personalized ads on their news feed. For example, if someone was looking to buy a new car and visited Toyota’s website, Toyota would be able to advertise on that persons newsfeed. Facebook is bringing together information and technology in order to provide a competitive marketing strategy in which they can charge more for. They use technology to obtain the information and then sell to advertisers for more than typical websites would because it is personalized. Facebook is doing this in order to raise their stock price as it has declined since the initial price offering. As technology advances we see more of this type of specific advertising where companies are able to obtain more and more personal information.