Chris Choi's Blog

In Jack’s blog post, “South African chain reaches out to visually impaired with the ‘Braille Burgers,’” the importance of Wimpy’s marketing strategy focuses mainly on their product. What Wimpy did was try to influence customer’s decision by providing a way to differentiate themselves in their burgers. Usually when one thinks of differentiating food products, or burgers to be exact, they would think of changing the recipe, adding a special sauce, or even changing the style of the bun. However, Wimpy focus on burger differentiation in a more creative way by putting sesame seeds on top of their buns to form words in Braille.

I agree with Jack that by doing this, they set themselves apart from their competitors with their societal marketing concept. With only 15 Braille burgers made, they were able to pass their message onto over 800,000 sight disabled people. This was done so that they can let people know that Wimpy is a place where “everyone can feel at home.”

They were able to successfully open a target market where none of its competitors even thought of doing.  By being the first company in the industry to do this, they gain product leadership in their burgers and in their Braille menus. This is the stepping stone for raising awareness in sight disabled people through food.

After reading  Andy Mao’s blog on Nike’s brand power and Ginny Lo’s blog on Nike’s spelling error, I decided to do some research to see what kind of impact this had on the company. Even though brand loyal Nike consumers would still continue buying its products, I was curious on what significant effect would something like spelling error do to a business.

From another article titled “Spelling errors in your articles can spell doom for your business,” it says that grammatical errors, such as typing mistakes, might go as far as effecting the  company’s bottom line.  If a spelling error occurred when skimming through an article, this would create doubt in the minds of consumers, including myself, and question the reputation and credibility of the company. Moreover, it is also shown that in recent studies “that spelling errors in articles can reduce online sales up to 50%.”

Though Nike has enough brand loyal advocates whom continue buying its product, such a mistake in their advertisements would not harm the brand substantially. However, considering that they are a multimillion dollar corporation, making such a simple and easily fixable mistake should not be acceptable for a company like this.

The article, “Buy one, Give one Free: TOMS Shoes,” explains clearly why a company that aims to help society can be a successful one.

As a proud consumer of TOMS shoes, I really liked the idea of being to help another person out by also benefiting personally from it. TOMS has definitely built a good brand reputation by incorporating giving into their business model. Why this works is that people want to be part of something greater. People want to be able to give back to society. This way, TOMS is able to attract customers, opportunities, amazing employees and partners to all be part of something meaningful. More importantly, they are able to “attract the interest of mainstream media starting with Vogue, Time and People magazine.”

In one case, Blake Mycoskie (the person who came up with this idea), saw a girl at an airport wearing a red pair of TOMS shoes. The girl, without knowing who she was talking to, starts telling the story of these pair of shoes.  Blake was surprised to hear that the girl knew the entire story and would remember it. “When a message is a mission, people will tell the story to anyone who will hear it, even to a random stranger at an airport. And by doing that, they become your strongest advocates in marketing your product.”

In class, we discussed about the numerous ways a business can market itself and the importance of how a strong marketing campaign can determine the level of success of a business. After having shown the sequential marketing campaign that Old Spice used and the level of success it achieved in its business, it reminded me of the MAC vs PC commercials.

This video titled “Broken Promises” is one of many examples of the MAC vs PC ads where Apple uses a very simple and humorous way to market its brand. They put much emphasis on the simplicity of their ads by using a plain white room and very few props.  I believe that this marketing campaign is very effective as  the production costs were very low and it was a great way to efficiently represent the culture and the brand color of Apple.

These numerous commercials include a comparison and a criticism of their leading competitor, Microsoft (PC computers).They portray the PC character as a “suit and tie, often dishevelled, almost always frazzled and completely clueless,” while Mac portrays itself as a more seemingly relaxed, calm,  and hip. Additionally, every commercial, the Mac character always has his hands in his pockets, which in body language illustrates a relaxed and care-free posture. I think this definitely allowed Apple to successfully brand itself as being “user friendly, easy-going, and innovative.”

When creating a campaign strategy, building a brand needs to be memorable and discussion worthy, and I think Apple accomplishes this task quite well. The message sent across to consumers within these ads are clear, concise, and consistent and all the while combined with humour, effectively leaves a lasting impression on the minds of consumers.

COMM 293 has allowed me to learn some valuable skills, some that I know I will use for a long time. From the two major assignments given to us (i.e. Resume and Coverletter) in this course, I was able to improve my portfolio. I learned how to create a strong resume that heavily focuses on experience rather than on grades and awards. This has been really helpful because it allows me to sell myself and make myself more competitive over other applicants. I learned that it was extremely important to use C.A.R. statements to state experience and back them up with examples and the results that come after. Moreover, this course allowed me to learn how to write my first cover letter. Additionally, in the first term of comm 299, this really helped me get better at public speaking and give me more confidence overall. The biggest thing I’ve learned in this course is getting a head start on my career which i would never have had the motivation to on my own.

Within the past four years, I had the opportunity to visit my grandfather in Malaysia. My grandfather was one person who helped to shape my beliefs and goals in life. Although I always held academics in high regard, it was him who really helped me realize the true importance of it. When I was in Malaysia, he told me the story of his youth. He came from a poor and humble family and as a child, he was not given the privilege to go to school to earn an education. Rather, he spent his childhood days out in the field, along with the rest of his siblings, working at any job, no matter how menial or tedious, just to earn enough to help support the family. At the age of 79, he was still working full time to support his family and his wife. Unfortunately, just days after my 15th birthday, my grandfather passed away. His story has both motivated and inspired me to perform my best in every academic endeavor that I may pursue.  My grandfather always had faith in me and I truly believe that it is him who has truly impacted my life most.

Groupon, a Chicago company that was launched in Novermber2008, is a website that targets major geographic markets in the United States and Canada by offering daily coupons. Groupon works as an “assurance contract using ThePoint’s platform” which means that “if a certain number of people sign up for the offer, then the deal becomes available to all; If the predetermined minimum is not met, no one gets the deal that day.” This benefits both Groupon and the retail stores as it reduces risk for retailers by treating the coupons as quantity discounts as well as sales promotion tools.

Groupon’s success of earning $500,000,000 in gross revenue for 2010 was able to capture the interest of California based Internet Giant — Google Inc. Recently, Google has offered $6 billion to purchase this “Chicago daily deal setup;”  however, Andrew Mason, the CEO of Groupon, believes that this company has the potential to sell for a higher price later on and thus rejects this offer.

Was this decision by the board of directors a good choice? My analysis shows that Groupon should have just taken the $6 billion dollars and ran because their business model is very simple and easily copyable. Moreover, I believe that Groupon’s board of directors is too naïve and greedy in their hopes of receiving more from this. By not making this deal, I feel that Groupon may not get this kind of opportunity again.

Marian Wright Edelman is the perfect example of a social entrepreneur. Founder and president of the Children’s Defence Fund, also known as CDF, Marian sets her aspirations on improving child care and protecting children all over the world who are disabled, homeless, abused, and neglected. By adopting a mission to create and sustain social values, she wants to ensure that every child has a “healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start, and a moral start in life.” With this vision in mind, she embarks in the risk of being a Social Entrepreneur by founding CDF.

CDF fits every criteria and definition of what a social entrepreneurship should be. From recognizing and pursuing the new opportunities to serve Marian’s mission, to exhibiting heightened accountability to the constituencies served, CDF is able to act boldly without being limited by the resources  currently in hand. Financially, CDF is supported strictly and “primarily by corporate grants and individual donations” and does not require government funds or charity donations to sustain itself.

Nature’s Path Organic is definitely a company that I would consider to be an entrepreneurship., Arran and Ratana Stephens, husband and wife, founded Nature’s Path in 1985. With the aspiration to inspire both the people and the planet along the path of sustainability, Arran embarks his company under his father’s guiding principle of “always [leaving] the soil better than you found it.” Unlike most cereal companies, Nature’s Path Organic enters a new and sustainable market by using an innovative production method that allows them to reduce the amount of paper in their packaging. This business undoubtedly meets the criteria and the definition of Schumpeter’s View of Entrepreneurship – New Production Method and New Market.

Furthermore, Nature’s Path Organic experienced  a risk in entrepreneurial venture as they were “one of the first companies to sign onto the Declaration of Sustainability.” By providing a more green solution to the earth, Nature’s Path Organic is able to gain much support which led the company to a rapid growth.

Why do so many large corporations outsource call center services to India rather than China, Philippines, or other Asian countries? What is the benefits of doing so? The reason behind this is because India is the second largest English-speaking population and they are able to provide a “qualified workforce” composing of Info-tech literate, tech-savvy, trained, and experienced professionals. Moreover, this large educated workforce will only rise as there is an increasing number of training industries in India.

Since India has “the largest number of state-of-the-art call centers in the world,” they have the best software and top of the line infrastructure to present best and highest-quality customer service. These state-of-the-art call centers include, telemarketing services, inbound call center, technical helpdesk services, email support services, etc.

Ultimately, why global organizations prefer outsourcing call centers to india is because “India’s large manpower is willing to work for a lesser price.” Regardless of the high cost needed to train these workers, it would later seem more as an investment than anything else. Despite the fraction of what India employees earn in comparison with oversea employees, they still provide services that will not compromise on quality. Furthermore, the time zone difference between India and global organizations allows companies to provide a 24/7 round-the-clock customer service support. All in all, outsourcing call center services to India will definitely give an organization the competitive edge.