One of our group members suggested that we choose Abercrombie and Fitch as our company for marketing project. There are four boys in the group, who have different backgrounds with different interests in clothing style: Muieen is obsessed with Hawaiian shirt, which he believe can replace any formal suits in any formal events. We had some arguments and disagreements as we we deciding our target market and as we were rapping.

Learning the importance of identifying target market for a company is the biggest lesson from this project. Second lesson I learned from this project is how important it is to have respect for teammates’ voices in every decision making. I had the most subtle idea of the term “marketing” that all commercials which companies made were  just natural results, not a product of efforts and consideration of target market.

For example, A&F specifically targets 18-22 years old young generation customers to look cool, sexy and attractive in all American style. The CEO, Michael Jeffrey, sometimes explicitly announces how bad he targets those good-looking people as their customers. It was interesting to see how companies sometimes fail in targeting customers. P&G targeted their product, Swifter, to women but found out later how Italians love the product and makes lots of profit in Italy.

Our group criticized the company’s strategies with the 4Ps (price, product, place, and promotion) and made recommendations for them in our own rights. This project helped me understand what Rui Da Silva, my marketing professor, said, “marketing is everything.” I can apply these experiences to know what my STPs (segmentation, targeting, and positioning.) I can start now marketing myself to the world.

If you have been thinking that a CEO of a not-for-profit organization or cahrities gets paid only minimum, or even works for free, your perception of nonprofits is a little outdated. Since 1970, more than 200,000 nonprofits have opened but only 144 of them have reached $50 million in annual revenues. For example, the CEO of Boys and Girls club receives a annual salary of more than 1 million US dollars.

Marketing has become more and more important for those organization because of increase in competition for fund and tax revenues. Those organizations that have the following characteristics must consider more and more marketing strategies for themselves:

1.         They have a need to identify their target groups and better understand their needs, wants, and desires.

2.         They are faced with a continuing increase in tough, smart competitors.

3.         They must confront diminishing markets due to changing demographics or behaviours.

4.         Their customers, constituents, or publics are becoming increasingly needy and/or demanding.

(From website http://smartamarketing.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/undertanding-not-for-profit-marketing/)

Considering its nature, we should not argue that nonprofits focus on sales because, strictly saying, their end-customers do not purchase their services or products. But nonprofits have had all they need to continue their “business” in the past and, most importantly, the need to effectively persuade the publics to use their services has not always existed, said Brian Monger in “Smart Marketing.”

Many people suggest that nonprofits should stop the old traditional lay-back style of business to start acting like real business, profit-seeking companies that feast on money and capitalism.

Marketing is the promotion of the exchange of goods or services at a mutually agreeable price. It involves a tangible, reciprocal transaction between a seller and a buyer . Nonprofits make their funds through mostly tax revenues and user charges. With a good marketing, I believe that those organizations can realize their vision.

-Michael R. Maude

       Using social media and a spread word of mouth in marketing gives the Generation Y a chance to make their own identity. This generation has grown with everything they wanted at their hand is characterized to be practical. A sense of having connection with other people is also an important trait of this generation.

       Out of few generation cohorts we learn in the marketing class, the generation Y, also known as millennial with birth dates from early 1980s to early 2000s, is the unique generation for its first adoption of the internet usage.  Unlike their precedents, Generation X, their life was exposed to the ocean of connection, communication, and information that are unbounded online.  Whereas marketers had to make more of physical moves to target the Generation X, it is easier now for marketers nowadays to reach the potential loyal customers.

         Baby boomers and generation X were approached and marketed by production, sales and marketing orientation. However, given the proliferation of information and easy accessibility, marketers also have high level of threat from its rivalry.  Therefore, even though a firm has secured a number of loyal customers, it is extremely likely that those loyal ones would shift their preferences to any other firms when those  firms capture better values.  That said, building trustworthy relationship with Generation Y customers is imperative.  Make it more convenient, make it more valuable, make it stronger, and make it cooler.

Conventional rules for successful marketing strategy may state that touching on emotions of people, as we human beings, is the best one you can ever do. But it is as difficult to achieve as it is obvious because it is all about making money. Psy, who has become a world billionaire Korean pop singer, is in point. Beginning from July 15th 2012, Psy’s new title Gangnam Style spread virally all over the world.

How did Psy’s Gangnam Style make such a huge success? His music video has been watched on Youtube almost 1.8 billion times around the world. People whose mother-tongue is not even Korean just love his catchy dance moves and interpret his lyrics they do not even understand.  However, Psy was indifferent and completely laid back when it came to infringing on his copyright of his music video; he decided to give up on his copyright, which resulted in thousands of different parodies.

His decision on copyright, of course, was a shock to the norm; you would most likely make copyrights on your ideas to make more money. As a result, the phenomenon of unbounded awareness and reputation through YouTube, his appearance on TV shows such as Today, Ellen, and Saturday Night Live, and commercials, like Samsung Electronics and LG’s provider UPlus, created social validation and scarcity, which, in turn, gave him maybe ten times of what he would have earned through his copyrights.

    At some american weddings, a hired DJ would play the DJ’s own version of Gangnam Style and all members, including “older generation” will stand up and perform the horse-riding dance. A lesson we can learn from Psy’s viral success across the world is that sometimes we should make marketing strategies that people feel it is ownable that everybody can freely enjoy it and love it, using consistency principle. 

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20121209/07431921317/psy-makes-81-million-ignoring-copyright-infringements-gangnam-style.shtml

Greatest historical philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill said,  “Resolution of ethical dilemmas requires a balancing effort in which we minimize the harms that result from a decision even as we maximize the benefits.” Companies are responsible to impress its investors who provide capitals into the company to run profit-maximizing operations. This string between investors and corporation managements leads to pressures and incentives to make unethical decisions to make profits. What used to be the 7th largest corporation, Enron, in the United States as of 2001 went to nonexistence within 24 days as a result of unethical marketing performance to attract more employees and investors.

Founded as a power supplier to utilities in 1985, Enron corporation’s famous slogan was “ask why?” and its core values were placed on, ironically, respect, integrity, communication and excellent. However, it went through substantial losses in 1999 and, with Arthur and Andersen(A&A)’s help decided to provide fraudulent financial statements to its information users in three consecutive years, ’98, ’99’, and 2000. Employees who felt guilty and tried to do the right things, such as telling any potential investors the truth, were encouraged to leave the company or be quiet. A sense of morality and ethics was discouraged and fired some right people (John Olson, Margaret Ceconi, and Clayton Verdon.)

Of course, the fraudulent and unethical actions were discovered and both companies went bankrupt and destroyed many innocent people’s lives. As a result of Enron Scandal, the US initiated Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and public company accounting oversight board (PCAOB), which requires all public companies to be subject to much more restrictive regulatory compliance and disclosures as well as a sound code of ethics from both employees and managements that will prevent another Enron Scandal.