Month: October 2010

I was watching CBC Lang and O’Leary the other night and I saw something I had never seen before during a commercial. It was a commercial advertising a gold mining operation in Ghana. First of all, I have never seen a mining company promote themselves in the form of a commercial, and second of all, this advertisement made me SERIOUSLY raise my eyebrows about the ethics of marketing. The commercial started talking about how this particular company had “discovered gold deposits in Ghana” and that this was the beginning of a large scale mining operation.

I believe that the target market of this stock advertisement would be inexperienced and naive adults trying to make a quick buck on gold stocks. I say this because there are many gold and other precious metal companies that sell their stocks to finance their operations and they do not have to rely on advertising. I could also look at it from the other perspective that this company is exploiting an opportunity where they can use television to promote their product. However, I believe this is not the case.

In the commercial, the company’s president  (a shady fellow in my opinion) urges people to take advantage of this wonderful investment opportunity. My roommate, also a Comm 296 student, agreed that this was something he had never seen before and the commercial left us both skeptical.

At the end of the commercial, the stock name and symbols were listed at the bottom, and my roommate and I investigated a little further to see if this marketing strategy was working to improve the value of this company’s stock. Interestingly enough, in the last 2 days, the stock grew in value by more than 6%, much larger than any previous trends.

I’ve always followed the philosophy that if it’s too good to be true, it probably not. This commercial appeared to fit that criteria. I then remembered something I read about a company called Bre-X. Bre-X, a Canadian mining company, claimed to have found gold in the jungles of Indonesia. The company promoted this claim and their marketing strategy started a purchase frenzy of the stock, making it go from pennies to over $250 per share. Long story short, there was no gold in the Indonesian jungles, and furthermore the company’s core samples that they used to persuade investors and the public to buy their stock were actually fraudulently dusted in gold.

So here’s my point. Even though we haven’t yet covered ethics in marketing (ch. 3 I believe), I don’t think that there is a more important component of marketing than ethics. Without ethics, the promotion of one’s product is meaningless because the consumer doesn’t know whether or not one can be trusted. Ethics plays a huge role in maintaining the moral integrity of marketing and I believe that it should NOT be taken for granted.

As an avid skier, winter is one of my favorite seasons. I just love the feeling of going down the mountain after a fresh snowfall on a sunny day. One of my favorite mountains is Sun Peaks, just north of Kamloops. Often my family will take a ski vacation to the slopes and this made me think of marketing. It made me think of marketing because of the way that Sun Peaks markets their resort.

The resort focuses its attention on promoting its light, powdery snow, its fun-filled atmosphere, its quaint village, its affordable accommodation and most of all, its family oriented nature. Sun Peaks relies heavily on families coming and staying at their hotels, eating at their restaurants, shopping at their stores and shredding up their hills. To focus on families is an excellent marketing strategy in my opinion. Parents are slaves of their children, with children calling the shots, and parents willfully obliging. This demographic segmentation based on the segmentation variable of family status is an effective strategy, as Sun Peaks has been successful in gaining a sustainable competitive advantage over the rival mountains in the BC interior. Obviously, Sun Peaks segments their markets using additional segmentation bases and segmentation variables, but focusing on families allows Sun Peaks to capture the business of just many rather than 1 or 2 consumers.

Sun Peaks has effectively positioned the family as one of the target markets and they have done so successfully through several strategies. For example, cheaper accommodation and lift tickets for children, reduced rates on the swimming pool and outdoor ice rink, amusements for children such as a tube park and bungee trampoline and a snow carpet chairlift  for those beginner skiers and boarders. Using these strategies, Sun Peaks is attempting to illustrate the following message: Sun Peaks is a mountain resort for families, with entertainment for parents and children.

Because everyone knows, if a child isn’t happy… no one is.

I am a huge Vancouver Canucks fan, having grown up in a household where Hockey Night in Canada was our equivalent of “Family Game Night”. The Canuck’s inspired me to begin playing ice hockey at the age of 5 and I have been playing ever since. I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between the Vancouver Canucks and marketing and the relationship is significant.

The Vancouver Canuck’s organization sells a service: an entertainment service. They sell tickets for games, merchandise and apparel at their stores and food and beverages at their concessions. The Vancouver Canucks offer particular products and services, and to sell these products and services they need to market themselves.

A quick situational analysis reveals that the Canucks are in the sporting events industry, with their name and trademark being their most effective marketing strategy. Using the marketing mix, the Canucks have focused on the 4 P’s: Price, Product, Place and Promotion. Just focusing on one of the P’s for now, promotion, the Canucks advertise the sale of their seasons tickets online on their website, on TV, on the radio and in the media. It is impossible to walk the streets of Vancouver and not see a single item of Vancouver Canucks merchandise. The Canucks are being promoted everywhere, and this is contagious, with the Canucks having sold out every home game for the past several years and the fact that there is a waiting list for people wanting to become Season’s ticket holders.

This year is the Vancouver Canucks’ 40th year in the NHL and they have launched an advertising campaign to promote this milestone season. In my next post I will talk about how the marketing team for the Vancouver Canucks have segmented their fans to enhance their marketing strategy. For now, lets hope this 2010 season is a promising one for the Canucks!

and here is my favorite goal from last year