comm 101

In terms of advertisements, people are used to ignore it or feel disgusting while they reading something online. However, Instagram has turned the table. From Chu Han’s blog, it was said that over 5% of impressions Instagram runs on the ads resulted in Likes. This is an unbelievable data for a marketing expansion throughout the ads.

18 hours after the first ad of @michaelkors’s watch was posted, there were 33,985 new followers and an increase of 16 times followers as a result of it.

Even there were 20% of negative commitments, 1% showed their purchase interests on the MK products. The effectiveness based on the MK instagram experiment was successful anyway, the total number of “likes” has showed the prospects of the ads.

I think I would agree with Han’s opinion that its prospects were based on their novel typed ad and the better photography. From my opinion, instagram ads are making more than that. As we know, Instagram is making the short-video photos in their networks. It seems like a huge potential for the 3rd parties to make their creative ads on Instagram. In addition, Instagram makes ads more like artworks, they may not be considered as ads.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/chuhan/

http://nitrogr.am/blog/key-metrics-first-instagram-ad/

November 11th, an ordinary day in Canada, but not a usual day in China. 11.11 is a date which is considered as “Single Day” in China, because the number”1″ is always single. As a result, the online shopping website Taobao made a marketing strategy to make a big sale on every 11.11. From Zijian Mao’s blog, it was talked about the effectiveness of the online shopping festival, “Just 55 seconds after 12 p.m., the sum of business transaction is over 100 million RMB and the whole day’s business transaction is more than 6 billion dollars!” From my perspective, it was an amazing data for online shopping. Moreover, there is not only great discounts and shipping from taobao, but also the finical strategy from its prospects. Actually, they have improved the normal price before 11.11, then they just made 50% off from the improved price. So they just making easy money from customers who thought it was on a big “sale”. Also, I think the company Alibaba is doing more than that. More specifically, they are also making a online banking system. They split the member’s paying accounts into 2: one is pure paying account; while the other is an investment account with 4.67% yearly interest. (10 times higher than banks)

https://blogs.ubc.ca/zijianmao/

http://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bank/dsfzf/20131115/023017328189.shtml

After the great work-at-home kerfuffle of 2013, Yahoo made a new policy which forces managers to rank their employees on a bell curve. Then they fire those who performed interior than others based on the bell curve. For those high performing company, they are less likely to take this strategy to lower the motivation of their employees. From the twitter of Joshua Brustein, it was reported over 5 percent of those high performing companies used this system in 2011, which down from almost 20 percent two years earlier. For this bell curve ranking system, it was both high stakes and arbitrary. This system is based on the preferences of managers, and there is less likely objective about it.  As a result, many employees lose their faiths from their jobs, also the job satisfaction seems like to fade away. From my perspective, it seems like a horrible and unjustified policy for employees. More specifically, employees will be more likely unwilling to work since they have been ranked on a bell curve. They may use other systems such as the bonus system to reward and motivate their employees. In addition, they may also give their employees shares or ownership to motivate them.

Source:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-12/yahoos-latest-hr-disaster-ranking-workers-on-a-curve

Snapchat, which is becoming increasingly popular among teenage users. It allows users to share the disappearing-message craze in this social network app. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Snapchat turned down an all-cash offer from FB and will not consider any acquisitions or investment till next year. In other words, Snapchat can grow without Facebook’s help.This means that Facebook has to compete with Snapchat equally. It is not unusual that Facebook snap up a threatening competitor like Instalgram in the last spring.  Buyout offer to Snapchat is a strategy to widen its target market, and also enrich its fancy functions of their apps. From my perspective, Snapchat was not making money from their apps, however, the buyout offer is a double-edged sword, which consists of both opportunities for growth and risks of their future individual development.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303789604579196023009484870

People always feel disppointed that wait in a long line when they go shopping. For the fast fashion brand H&M, they started a new era of a convenient paying system- bringing cashier into dressing rooms. On this Thursday, H&M’s flagship store on Times Square, is starting a new paying option- “try and buy”. For this alternative system, the most concerned problem is whether the new system will work well without a extra theft-prevention measures. But Merriman says that this may not be a question if they do normally at sales. Moreover, H&M intends to implement their tech-savvy store designs, which including Social Media Lounge, free Wi-Fi, integrated iPads, headphones with music, etc. From my perspective, it is a catching motion to bring cashier into dressing rooms. It is not only an action to make convenient shopping, but also a marketing strategy. More specifically, it may attracts more people to go their shops thus boost sales. In addition, it was interesting for me because it seemed like to solve the big problems when people go shopping. Also, the high-tech dressing rooms are fancy for customers.

Source: (Article& picture)

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-13/h-and-ms-megastore-brings-cashiers-inside-the-dressing-rooms