Yik Yee Crystal Lee's Blog

Everyone has someone that has inspired them or has someone to look up to.

One of the most important people in my life had to do a lot with who I am today. Without him, I would definitely not be where I am today. For privacy purposes, let’s just call him Bob.

I met Bob through volunteering seven years ago, and ever since then, he’s been more of a mentor than a friend. He’s been always there to guide me through tough times, rough times, and most importantly, good times. I share with him the good and the bad, especially everything else in between. He teaches me different lessons through multiple experiences in life. Without his guidance and support, I wouldn’t be who I am today.

Always use the resources and help you have. Not everyone is as lucky as some people to be able to have someone guide them through life and its sour lemons.

In a recent blog, I mentioned how social media can cause people to become socially awkward. Of course, depending on which point of view you look at it from, it can be a good or a bad thing.

However, in a recent article posted by the Vancouver Sun, social media has been proven to be what I consider, more effective than word of mouth. Something as little as kittens massaging has had 787106 views since posted up on June 30, 2010. The fact that the video is based in Vancouver and it’s gotten over 700000 views says a lot about social media.

In a situation of person A and B….:
When person A find interesting videos on Youtube, person A often posts it on Facebook. This allows person A’s ‘friends’ to view what they find interesting. Person B is person A’s friend. Person B then logs onto Facebook and views what person A has shared via Facebook and reposts it on his Facebook hoping to share with his ‘friends’ the video.

This is why I consider social media more effective than word of mouth. And to leave everyone with a little something:

Have you ever heard of a fast food restaurant providing wedding services? Well, McDonald’s of Hong Kong has decided to take the first step: providing wedding services to those who want them planned by McDonald’s.”

According to an article posted in October, “people have been opting to use McDonald’s as their chosen venue for a long time.” The wedding package includes a baked apple pie wedding cake, a dress made out of party balloons, kiddie party favours for guests, and catering by McDonald’s.

This is a great marketing strategy as it will allow McDonald’s to not only be seen as a fast food restaurant, but it will also allow consumers to see them as a wedding service. Starting January 1, 2011, Hong Kong will be the first city in the world to roll out McDonald’s wedding packages.

Groupon is a website that sells coupons featuring a deal-of-the-day. They negotiate discounts (50% – 90%) with popular businesses in the local area. Their marketing strategies include sending out daily deals through emails, Facebook, and Twitter. The first market of Groupon was Chicago, and later expanded to Boston, New York, and Toronto. Today, the markets of Groupon had expanded to Europe, Asia, and South America.

A strategy is long-term, and it affects the firm’s overall direction. Many North American based companies see future potential growth in Asia, and thus sets their goals of expanding in Asia. Despite the rumours that Google might purchase Groupon for $5 billiion, Groupon recently made the announcement for the new launches of Groupon in Hong Kong, Singapore, Phillipines, and Taiwan. These launches will add join the launch of Groupon Japan (August 2010).

This will allow Groupon to offer more unbeatable deals to consumers throughout the world. More importantly, it will allow local businesses to gain valuable new customers and also have efficient, measurable marketing done without digging any extra money out of their own pockets.

Has it ever occurred to you that social media and the technology we have today may have caused more number of people to be socially awkward than people in the older generation? Vancouver Sun recently conducted a survey that showed how many people in Vancouver and Canada thought that social media has made society more socially awkward. Vancouver Sun’s Gillian Shaw stated that “75 per cent of social media users check their email, text messages and social networking sites first thing before they get out of bed in the morning and last thing before they go to sleep at night.”

Today, social media is a part of almost everyone’s lives. However, this doesn’t necessarily make social media a good thing. In Shaw’s article, she stated that “eight in 10 people surveyed said they prefer face-to-face communication with family and almost as many say that about contact with friends.” People nowadays say they prefer face-to-face communication,, but let’s face it… More people use email, text messaging, and social networking sites to keep in touch rather than actually meeting up and have a decent conversation over coffee.

Last but not least, this video is somewhat old but for those of you who haven’t seen it, stay tuned for the next 4 minutes.

How much would you pay for this pack of rubber bands that’s shaped into characters/letters?

The first set of Silly Bandz was sold online in November 2008. The idea of Silly Bandz is to wear them, and trade them with friends. The main target market is towards children, however, people from all age groups purchase this product.

According to Schumpeter’s View of Entrepreneurship,  a company is considered to be entrepreneurial if they place an emphasis on innovation. I see that Silly Bandz is an innovated product, it opens new markets, and it also creates a new form of organization. It is definitely an innovative product because it takes a simple elastic band and turns it into a product that’s attractive, and has gimmick. As well, this product opens a new market as it is a brand new product that’s simple, but brings in a lot of sales for the company. The new form of organization is formed around the trend of trading, as the people with the same interest in Silly Bandz would come together and share their passion for this product.

Although it is an innovated product, I feel that this type of product is catered more towards children, especially after hearing some people say that they paid $6 for 26 of these elastic bands. Nevertheless, they are a successful company as they sold over one million of these packages in the last year!

When I hear the word Rogers, I think of my cell phone. Rogers Communications is one of Canada’s biggest communications company. They specialize in the field of media and communications, providing services such as wireless communications and cable television. Rogers Communications Inc. is the big “umbrella” that the other branches of Rogers fall under? Under the big “umbrella”, there lies also Rogers Cable Inc., Rogers Telecom, Rogers Wireless, Rogers Media (which includes publishing and broadcasting), as well as sports. Yes, you read it. Sports.

When I think of Rogers, sports just doesn’t come to mind. On July 6th of 2010, Canucks Sports and Entertainment and Rogers Communications unveiled the newly renamed Rogers Arena, previously known as the GM Place. Rogers said, “we’ve got some exciting news to share with Vancouver sports and live entertainment fans. Effective today, the home of the Vancouver Canucks  will become known as Rogers Arena. This ten-year strategic alliance also makes Rogers the official telecommunications sponsor of the Canucks.”

So why did Rogers decide to expand its horizons this way?

1. This is the first time that Rogers has invested in a sports team of the West Coast. With British Columbia being one of the largest provinces, we are one of Roger’s most important markets. I think one of the reasons why Rogers made this investment is because Rogers sees the West Coast as a huge potential for growth.

2. Competition. No other communications or media company has yet invested in something like this in the West Coast. Rogers Communications is the first company to take such action. I think this was a brave move, but a good one, because Rogers definitely put themselves on top of the scale. From the marketing / positioning class we learnt that brand positioning is a manipulative, marketing tactic that tries to get products known by the market, or as Professor Paul Cubbon puts it, “brand positioning is the battle for the consumer’s mind.”

Most people use Rogers because of their phone selection and their network reliability. Now that Canucks and Rogers have a bigger and better affiliation with each other, more Canucks fans may turn to Rogers as being their cell phone or cable provider.

News of the week:
If you’re a Canucks fan AND a Rogers smartphone customer, you’ll be pleased to hear this: Rogers will be introducing a new application that allows users in BC / Yukon to watch Sportsnet games live on their smartphones for this season to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Canucks and the 50th anniversary of Rogers Communications. This application will provide content from live press conferences, practices, and much more. The best thing about this application is that it’s free live streaming and no data usage charged, meaning you don’t have to use any of your limited data per month to stream this!

In class nine of our class, I learnt the differences between tactics and strategies. Tactics are short term, and they are made in order to address specific objectives. Strategies are long term, and affect a firm’s overall direction. Tactics are measured quite easily whereas strategies are harder to measure.

Recently, McDonald’s had an offer where if you bring in Monopoly® money into any Alberta or British Columbia location on October 6th and 7th, you would’ve been able to get an order of large fries for free. (Who doesn’t like freebies?!) People who may not think about a company’s tactics when seeing something like this, but after our last class about strategies and tactics, I was really confused about what McDonald’s tactics were for this particular promotion!

A friend suggested that maybe Monopoly® wants to reuse and recycle their paper money and therefore collaborated with McDonald’s (along with their yearly promotion of the Monopoly® game that you can play when you purchase particular items). At first thought, it sort of made sense. Maybe Monopoly® is trying to raise awareness that they’re environmentally friendly too? After giving it some more thought, no, it doesn’t make sense for Monopoly® to do this because the paper money being brought in may be recyclable, but what’s in it for McDonald’s? They probably make more profit from just selling the fries itself than to take the Monopoly® paper money from consumers…

After much consideration, having people come in to stores being able to get free fries also meant that they would order other things along with fries. Most people don’t just eat fries by itself when they walk into McDonald’s, especially if customers bring their children in with them. With the purchase of some products, they are able to add to their collection of the Monopoly® stamps. This was McDonald’s strategy! Most people would go on thinking “yay freebies!”, but with a business mindset, I think this was a brilliant tactic!

Two classes ago, we had the chance to preview what finance is and may be like in class. I learnt that finance is about “allocating resources more efficiently in the economy” and is a “subfield of economy, applying basic economic principles to study the supply and demand of the capital”.

A couple ideas that came to mind about finance within our class was stocks, investment, big salary, and also currency, just to name a few. Our guest lecturer, Professor Murray Carlson had said that other aspects of finance also includes portfolio management, investment banking, and also security fraud. Prior to this class, personally, when I think of finance, I think of the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange. After this class, I had the chance to learn about other aspects of finance, and that it wasn’t just all about stocks.

Food for thought: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investor-education/investor-clinic/clinic-video/fries-with-that-dividend-increase/article1745934/
I think McDonald’s has experienced increased dividends because of the potential that investors see in McDonald’s, as well as the amount of money people are still willing to spend on McDonald’s foods. Even though the awareness of being healthy is being raised across North America, fast food restaurants like McDonald’s is still popular among food choices. It’s no wonder the dividends for McDonald’s has increased over tenfolds in the last the years!

A few keypoints I learned from the class was:
– When stock prices are underpriced, it may mean that the company is not doing very well and therefore the stock prices have dropped. Financial analysts will then tell the public to buy the stock so that the price will eventually increase again. Or it may be that the company isn’t well know and financial analysts see potential growth in the company.
– You cannot do finance without the reported numbers from accounting. Accounting is the language of business, and tells you the financial state of the firm. Finance includes both qualitative and quantitative information, usually provided to outsiders and investors to attract them to invest in or to buy the stocks of the firm. (Recall from our first class how we learned that marketing, accounting, and finance all have something to do with each other. In this case, you can’t do finance without the reported numbers from accounting.)
– Fundamentally, as an investor, you are giving up money today so that you can earn money for the future. The most important characteristic of an investment as an investor, is to understand its dividends.

I hope you guys enjoyed the Finance class as much as I did!

Starting last year, KFC in the United States introduced KFC’s Double Down, with “two pieces of breaded chicken acting as a bun, with two strips of bacon, two slices of Pepper Jack processed cheese and a special sauce”.

KFC’s Double Down “sandwich” contains 540 calories for the deep-fried version or 460 for the grilled version, 30g of fat, and 1740mg of sodium. Health Canada says that an adult’s recommended daily salt intake is around 1500mg. Knowing that this “sandwich” is 16% over our daily sodium intake, and the fact that KFC still insists on selling it, is a perfect example of poor business ethics.

Health issues have been raised in North America about how Americans are obese and that North Americans’ lifestyle is not as healthy as it used to be. With fast food restaurants like KFC introducing these kinds of fatty, unhealthy foods is not helping our improvements on trying to be more healthy than we already are. “For the legions of Canadians who Take Down the Double Down, there will be a Wall of Fame section launching on Facebook on October 18th. There, Double Down fans can claim bragging rights and post their photos for all the world to see.” Not only are they using us to promote their unhealthy foods, they are also conducting very poor business ethics.

The things that (some) businesses will do to get the attention of society……..