Monthly Archives: November 2012

11/28/12

Down to the Final Stretch of the Term!

It’s the last week of the term and it feels bittersweet how all of courses are winding down; gratified at all of the new knowledge I’ve gained, yet worried and stressed about the upcoming finals. In addition, recently finishing off all of the final projects has definitely taken away some of my sleeping time. I’ve noticed that my caffeine intake has increased (partially due to the fact that every other person on campus is carrying Starbucks’ famous red cup). Starting off the holiday season early with their Christmas themed marketing strategies, Starbucks has surely captured attention through its packaging promotions and of course, the red cup challenge.

iPhone Screenshot 1

Worrying about my coffee drinking habits, I made use of an app, Caffeine Zone that was introduced to me while I learned about the Nanny App trend in one of my earlier posts regarding September trends from Trendwatcher’s blog. After trying out the free app, I I’ve become more conscious of my caffeine intake. Before reaching for my mug, I can “ask” the app to evaluate my intended choice. First I enter in whether I will drink coffee or tea, then I choose my predicted consumption speed, the time I will consume the beverage, and then the data will be inputted in my graph. As you can see from the screenshot on the left, the green area is the optimal level of caffeine. Because I previously entered in my personal details, the app analyzes my optimal amount of caffeine for my goal sleep time, and will notify me if my consumption choice will cause me to have inadequate rest.

In response to my classmates Darren and Benedicta‘s  discussion that a “fat tax” may be a good way to reduce consumption of unhealthy junk food in their posts, I wonder if a caffeine tax would be beneficial to consumers as well. Raising awareness about managing our caffeine intake would definitely help students who may turn to rely on coffee to get through more studying. I believe that a balanced sleep schedule is just as important for success.

I recommend everyone to try out this free app, Caffeine Zone!

Wish you all the best luck on your final exams~ 🙂

11/10/12

Unethical Marketing Strategy: Search Engine Oprtimization

Search engines are like online malls. Businesses rely on the search engine to provide selling grounds and bring consumer traffic; striving to be the biggest and most attractive store in the search engine “mall”.

The issue of unethical search engine marketing strategies is driven by companies’ aim to optimize a website, improve its search engine rankings, and appear in the first 10 listings which drives customer traffic and builds a significant online presence. The issue is exacerbated since it takes tremendous effort of search engine consultants and a long time frame to successfully improve and sustain the rankings.

Recently, retailer JCPenney’s website has been flagged by Google for using unethical marketing techniques for its search engine channel. As explained by an article regarding this dilemma, services to improve search engine rankings fall into two camps: white hats and black hats. The “white hats” essentially optimize a website by following rules laid out by search engines, while “black hats” propel a website’s rankings often using methods going against requirements of search engines. Google claimed that black-hat techniques were used to fool Google into thinking the JCPenney website was relevant for a large number of search terms.

Parties involved in this issue are search engine providers, retailers, their competitors, and most importantly consumers. Search engines are faced with the difficulty of maintaining the effectiveness of their service when companies such as JCPenney are rigging search engines in order to appear in the top 10 search results. This sabotages the purpose of the search tool and also negatively affects consumers of the search engine because they cannot find relevant products and information. Insufficient monitoring causes consumers of search engines to lose trust in them and may use the search engine less and look for alternatives. Competitors may get pushed down the list of search results, causing decreased website hits, a smaller online presence, thus results in less sales for the company.

In fact, I feel that “black hat” methods won’t truly help a retailer in the end. Even though “black hat” retailers may reap rewards from the paid links that increase exposure of their brand name, increased sales won’t be sustained if consumers are mislead and the product does not match truly the key words of their search. Consumers will be considerably dissatisfied and have negative feelings toward the company due with the amount of effort and time spent into searching for a product just to find out in the end it was not what they were looking for.

In JCPenney’s example, Google responded by completely wiping them off the first page of search results for most terms as penalization. This is a huge setback for the retailer and significantly ruins their company’s image. Because one of the main purposes of a search engine and retailers is to provide benefits to consumers, in guiding JCPenney’s approach to fixing the situation, the retailer must focus on reestablishing itself as a “white hat” by cooperating with rules laid out by search engines and third parties trusted by consumers could be used to closely monitor the procedures for consumers sake.