This year in Comm 296 Introduction to Marketing was truly an eye opening experience.

Contrary to many of my schoolmates who are enrolled with another marketing professor, I had the opportunity to film a video assignment instead of presenting a final business presentation at the end of the term.

My team collectively chose Aritzia, the female clothing store that began in Vancouver. Although I didn’t know much about Aritzia at first, this video project really allowed me to learn about the company and present my findings and recommendations in a new refreshing manner.

What I enjoyed most about this project was the teamwork required in producing. Granted, it took a lot of time to layout a concept for the video and at the same time transfer our research from our previous research assignments into a script for our members, I had a lot of fun bouncing ideas off of each other with my teammates whom I can now call friends. Compared to a generic presentation and recommendation where most people simply try to produce their own parts and come together to rehearse, the video project really required every member to meet up to plan and film over several meetings.

A lot of effort was put into the project and I feel that the end result was worth it. I highly recommend that the first years next year taking comm 296 do a video assignment as well. Oh and one tip, it always helps to have a teammate who is strong at video editing or else your video might look terrible.

In response to a post by Carmen Nobel titled “Should Men’s Product Fear a Women’s Touch?” on the Harvard Business Review.

In the article, Nobel focusses on Harvard’s Senior Lecturer Jill J. Avery research on gender contamination between a single product that is sold to both genders.

Nobel explains Avery’s take on the effect of gender contamination on brand of three well known companies: Gillette, Coca Cola, and Porsche.

Avery states  that “gender contamination occurs when one gender is using a brand as a symbol of their masculinity or femininity, and the incursion of the other gender into the brand threatens that.” Her her time at Gillette, Avery revealed that Gillette tried extremely hard to distinguish between the Gillette brand and the Gillette for Women brand. Even though the 2 blades are identical but with different colours: black for men and pink for women, Gillette was one of the first to understand the importance of protecting the gender associated with their product.

Avery continues with the issue Coca Cola had several years ago. Coke had trouble with trying to marketing the Diet Cola beverage to men as they typically associated a can of diet pop was for females. In response, Coke introduced Coke Zero which was Diet Coke’s cousin but in a black can. Coca Cola’s sales immediately shot up as a result of attracting male consumers to their lower calorie product.

Porsche has the exact problem with their introduction of their first SUV vehicle, the Cayenne. Many advocate Porsche owners were unhappy with the introduction of the SUV as it was typically for females. Many Porsche owners revealed stating that when they tell others what they drive, they say “I drive a 911” versus “I drive a Porsche.”

I was particularly interested with this article because of Avery’s final tips for future students looking into the field of brand management. She stated several ways to target this issue. She explained the “Not Us” and “Not Real” strategy which explains the tactics her example companies used.

Often in marketing class, the importance of the brand to a company is discussed. How to develop brand loyalty, how to brand the company to a certain way, or how to create brand image. As of the 2013-2014 NBA season, the New Orleans Hornets will change it’s name and brand to the New Orleans Pelicans. By applying marketing concepts into this rebranding of a team, I can see that this change made a lot of sense.

Previously, the Pelicans were called the New Orleans Hornets. However, before that, the team originated from Charlotte and was called the Charlotte Hornets before they relocated to New Orleans, Louisiana. The rebranding of this NBA franchise is a good choice because of a numerous reasons. First of all, it brings in cash. Sadly, after trading away their best star player (Chris Paul, Guard), the Hornets never played the same. And unlike those New York teams that always manage to sell out their tickets, New Orleans is a relatively small market, meaning, as the team begins to lose games, tickets decrease. For New Orleans, dubbed the Pelican state, the rebranding of the team spells change and loyalty. The Hornets named always felt like it belonged to Charlotte anyways. Secondly, the Pelican is Louisiana’s state bird. And after hurricane Katrina that stuck New Orleans, and the BP oil spill, many pictures of the pelican with oil spilt over them surfaced. By changing the name, the franchise is doing a good job connecting themselves to the people of New Orleans.

This change was a well though strategic choice because rebranding the team was not just about changing the name, it was about joining the entire state as a whole. The team is finally putting a larger focus in targeting its audience and catering to what they want.

Sources:

http://www.psfk.com/2013/02/new-orleans-pelicans-nba.html

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/12/07/in-the-end-pelicans-really-is-the-best-team-name-for-new-orleans-nba-franchise

http://www.nba.com/pelicans/new-orleans-pelicans-logos-unveiled

Recently, it seems that the topic of ethics has been often used to put a negative image on companies who aren’t doing their best in the areas of social and environmental responsibility. Instead of pointing out which companies are bad, Ethisphere Institute took another route, and turned the spotlight to the companies that deserve the recognition in doing business fairly and ethically by creating the World’s Most Ethical companies list.

Hasbro, the company that brought us Play-doh, Monopoly, and Twister, has now made the list of 145 of the world’s most ethical businesses by Ethisphere for the second year in a row. Every year, 5000 companies are nominated or nominated by themselves to make this prestigious list of 145.

Hasbro’s mission to eliminate the use of PVC (hard plastic used to package toys) in their product’s packaging has earned the toy brand giant a spot on the list. In addition to decreasing plastic use in their packaging, Hasbro has always begun using recycled paper in the their packaging and sources the rest of the non-recycled paper  from companies that practice forest management.

Personally, I am delighted to see that many more companies have begun to figure out that sustainability and ethical business practices can also be correlated to higher financial performance. Previously, when I thought about ethics, Enron and Nike would be the first to come to mind. However, seeing Hasbro, a company that has nothing to do with oil or child workers trying to make a difference in their own way is truly an eye opener.

Here is a video about Hasbro’s work in Ethics.

Hasbro Sustainability

This is a response to fellow classmate Susan “Ming Jee” Kim’s “Product Placement”

I recently watched the new 007 James Bond movie, Skyfall andI couldnt help but notice the ridiculously large amount of fancy luxury cars in the film. Nowadays, product placement plays an extremely large role in movies. However, I could not imagine how many different brands of cars were included into the english action thriller when usually, movies would only have one automobile brand. With Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, and of course the infamous Aston Martin just to name a few, Skyfall definitely makes the other action movies feel mediocre.

Although like my class Susan, who’s tempted to purchase certain products after watching a movie, I am not capable of buying these luxury cars. But I did take one thing out of watching the movie, and that is how important a brand is for a company. It is all about advertising and brand positioning. Thanks to the marketing lectures, I can learn to appreciate my favorite movies even more by understand the caliber of the movie based on how many product placements they have.

I’m writing a response to Garry Marr’s “Why we’re ‘in the back of the class’ when it comes to financial literacy” on the Financial Post.

In his blog, studies taken by The Brondesbury Group over 1000 Onatario citizens, showed that Canadians scored 53% of their 21 questions correctly.  91% of Canadians would know that longer debts result in more costs to way in total. However, they fail to understand that a mortage of 25 year amortization is more than a 20 year amortization, which essentially is the same as what they already knew! The only difference is that the words are switched up with fancy financial terms and Canadians suddenly do not understand.

The blog states that Canadians are still lacking in terms of daily financial literacy which will greatly hinder their financial position.

I took great interest in this blog because it I am surprised at how little average Canadians know when it comes to financial literacy. These are words and terms that I learn in business school, and I would hope that one day, if The Brondesbury Group does a survey in Vancouver and I get these questions, I will be able to answer them. Hopefully my financial position will be better off too!

Traveling by flight is not a cheap expense. I traveled to Hong Kong for a vacation this summer and my flight ticket was not cheap. This is why I greatly related to fellow classmate Ariel’s blog about Air Canada’s new low-cost carriers.

Air Canada understood the market need for a cheaper, less inexpensive flight travel and I believe it is a market they can thrive in. After doing some research on my own, their new low cost airplanes will have approximately 50 more seats than the preview regular prices flights. Compromising leg room for a cheaper ticket is definitely a choice many people will take and I believe this will help Air Canada’s profits.

Linking this to my Comm101 Class regarding our business tools, Calin Rovinescu, Air Canada’s chief executive said “We’re looking at this thing as being a significant tool in the Air Canada tool kit.” I believe it is similar to brand positioning, a tool I learned in my earlier classes. I believe Air Canada will do well by creating a new line under their wing using the Air Canada brand, which is still the strongest Airline in Canada.

The recent election was a typical bipartisan division between Americans. Some of them stayed Democratic, others stayed Republican. Year by year, most states don’t change their political views much. For example, California is always blue on the map, while Texas is always red. It all comes down to a few “swing states” that make the difference.

In addition, after, I also noticed the amount of celebrities that have backed up the two candidates as the elections progressed. According to Policymic, by August 2012, the celebrities supporting Obama raised $75 million dollars to support his campaign while Romney, minus Oprah’s millions, raised astounding $105 million dollars.

Money played an extremely large role in politics. As a business student, it was very interesting as to how much business, money and celebrities are involved in politics.

According to the financial post, Canadians have been on a steady decline in using cash as debit cards and credits have been used more frequently. However, Bank of Canada Review states that Canadians have begun to increase the value of their bills used at a rate of 5% per year. This means that Canadians are using more and more of their larger bills!

I found this article interesting as the new $20 banknote has just been issued and I was wondering how Canadians are reacting to it. I’ve many heard stories about how these new bills melt in heat, and shrinks after being soaked and thrown into the dryer.

After reading this article, I see that Canadians have begun to use larger bills like the c-note. Partially due to inflation as the penny and nickel seem obsolete to daily purchases, I began to wonder how much of an impact the $20 bill will have. It’s no wonder why they leave the $10 bill last to print because it creates a far less of an impact in our daily lives than the c-note will.

I’ve always been astonished at how well Canada’s economy is doing relative to the global uproar. Especially for our neighbors south of us, the US has been suffering from the weak economy greatly with numerous large firms closing or having financial losses. On top of that, Canada greatly depends on the American economy yet it is impressively stable.

According to Forbes, the top five Canadian banks own approximately 90% of all of Canada’s banking assets. Foreign banks have also begun to diminish in asset shares with only HSBC having a significant piece of Canadian’s banking assets.

So does this exactly mean? Well a law passed in 1967 nicknamed “widely held” rule, prohibits the ownership of banks. Much unlike the capitalistic approach in the states where every bank can be owned by an individual or group, the law declined the demand of takeovers of Canadian banks. This in turn resulted in a less urgency to produce large short-term profits but instead focus on the long run. Forbes also stated that the stocks for RBC and TD bank both increased eight and five folds respectively while the best bank in the states, JP Morgan Chase only increased 13%.

I personally understand the importance of how our Canadian banks differ from the Americans’ because my mother works at a bank. She told me that TD recently bought out a bank in States. This shows how much Canadian banks are improving compared to their American counterparts.