This blog post is a responce to Adrian Capobianco’s blog on the Cultural Differences, posted on the Canadian Marketing Blog website http://www.canadianmarketingblog.com/archives/2011/11/marketing_lesson_culture_count_1.html.
In his post, Adrian talks about the two cooks who have shaped their dishes based on their two distinct cultures (Jamiacan and First Nation’s). The Jamaican competitor named his dish “Grab & Yum, Jamaican Fish Pie,” which, despite its strange name, fully represented the Jamaican culture and cuisine. Similarly, the “Savoury Bannock Pie” was a great representation of the First Nation’s culture. The judges had a really tough time choosing the winner as they loved both dishes,
To be honest, I never thought that there is anything special in Jamaican nor in First Nation’s cuisines, and that both cooks would prefer making european type food. But nevetheless, both of the cooks prepared their ethnical dishes, both of which were ranked really high by the greatly respected judges. In my opinion, both cooks created good promotion campaigns for their ethnical cuisines, as a result of which there will be a growing interest in visiting those ethnical restaurants.

I decided to write a blog reflection on Conrad Chan’s blog post on “Zara’s marketing strategy” because I was really amused at how innovative their strategy is. Most of the companies that I know (i.e. Nike, Addidas, and Gap and etc.) spend millions of dollars advertising their brands in order to make the consumer aware of their brand. But Zara, on the other hand, does the opposite – it spends only about 0.3% of their revenue in promotion! Unlike the other companies, Zara is providing the consumer with the the great variety of the high-quality goods at a very reasonable price, and thus their promotion is solely depended on the customer satisfaction, which results in the word-to-mouth advertisement.
With great number of companies trying to invest money in advertisement campaigns, Zara’s marketing strategy of doing the opposite and trying to sell the consumer the real high valued product instead of an overvalued good, is very innovative. I never heard of the Zara company before, but now I think I will buy one of their products in the near future just because I got really interested in this company.

This is a responce to the blog post by Katie Dergousoff about the “Real Men” Campaign (https://blogs.ubc.ca/kdergousmarketing/2011/09/25/real-men/)
The campaign is aimed at reducing the domestic abuse of women by showing the pictures of sports celebrities wearing the “I’m a real man” T-shirt and selling those (T-shirts) to the people who want to help to reduce the abuse of women. Personally, I believe that it is a good cause, but I don’t think that it is a good way to do that. First of all, in the pictures that Katie included in her blog post, all of the men look as if they were homosexuals. Being Russian, I know that only a small group of people in any of the Slavic countries would dare to wear such t-shirts because they make the men look homosexual. Solely this fact would decrease the number of sales dramatically (for example in Russia it is not a social norm to show off one’s homosexuality in public or even let a large number of people know about it). If the design of the t-shirt was changed to look more “manly”, a lot more people would be buying such clothes.
But on the other hand, in sme cultures (I will be talking about Russian culture ones again because I know a lot about it), it is normal for husband and wife to fight against each other. In Russia, there is even an expression which states that “If your husband beats you up, this means that he loves you”. I do not always agree with this statement, but the fact that it exists suggests that it is happening regularly that a husband beats up his wife and vice versa (yes, and this does also happen a lot!). Therefore, the physcical contact (during a fight) between the husband and wife is considered normal, and such social norm would be really hard to change since it is in the culture.
This is solely my opinion, and I look at the problem and the marketing strategy from the perspective of a regular Slavic man.

Why is Microsoft the most popular operation system in Russia? The answer to it is the marketing strategy that Microsoft used in the 1990’s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the borders of Russia became open to new businesses. As the computers started spreading into Russia, Microsoft found a great opportunity to increase its market share and make a profitable long-term investment. The company started supplying its operation system – Windows 3.1 and later Windows 95 at a really low and affordable price. But the main idea of Microsoft’s marketing strategy was to close their eyes on the illegal activities that were done with the operation system, such as making illegal or pirated copies of it. Knowing Russian culture and understanding that Russians like “halyava” (free stuff), Microsoft used this successful marketing strategy, and soon saw its results –Windows was installed on 97% computers in Russia in a few years after the beginning of the campaign. And then Microsoft started harvesting the crops which it had planted earlier – as the computers improved and required new operation systems (i.e. Windows 98), Microsoft started charging significantly more for its products; pirated versions were no longer valid as the same operation system could not have been run on 2 or more computers. Thus, the users in Russia that have been working only with Microsoft, were left with the only option of paying for the legal copy of the program, as almost none wanted to or even knew about other operation systems that were already on the western market (i.e. Apple).
Thus, through the use of an innovative marketing strategy, Microsoft acquired a large portion of the market share and made a long term investment that continues to pay off today.

What I have learned from Comm 299? I think that I learned a lot from this course!!! I got a chance to improve on my resume/cover letter writing techniques, and received several valuable advices regarding the interpersonal communication with an interviewer or employer…
Originally I wrote significantly more in the blog post, but the first version which I wrote somehow got deleted, and now I am rewriting it again. In the first version, I talked a lot more about what I learned from the course, but now I have no more emotions to list everything since I put all of them in the first one. But one thing that I want to say once again is thank you to Philippe and all of the TAs (Pia Gosh in particular) for being such wonderful instructors and for sharing your valuable experience with all of us!

Back in grade 9, we had a math test where I got 95% instead of the 100% that I expected. Before I continue, I must state that we had two people teaching the same class, each teaching every second day. The test which I completed was completely correct, but the method of solving one of the questions was significantly more advanced than the one which was taught by the teachers. The exam did not state the method which I had to use to solve the question, and so I decided to do it in the way that I did, but the marker (one of the teachers) gave me a zero because she said that I was supposed to solve it in the way that she taught us!!! I talked to her about it, but she refused to change the mark which she had given me. As a result I got very angry at her (I wanted to get 100% at the end of the year in math, not 98 or 99%), and my first desire was to go to the principle and tell her about the situation, but after thinking for a couple of days I decided not to do that as it would lead to a scandal in the school, and all teachers would view me as a traitor, which would influence all of m marks. Two weeks later, I asked my other math teacher to look at the exam, and she said that I am absolutely correct and correcterd my mark to 100%. As a result, I got what I wanted without any scandals, and left a good impression on all of the teachers.

Morale: do not do anythig as a result of an emotional blast, as it, most certainly, will hurt you later. Wait for your emotions to pass, and do whatever you have to do with a clear head and a plan of actions.

Medvedev becomes Russia’s leader

In May of 2008, Dmitriy Anatolievich Medvedev became the President of Russian Federation. The previous President – Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who was in power of 8 years, became the Prime Minister of Russia. According to Russian law, President stands above Prime Minister, but in reality it was opposite – Putin was (and is) still in power. In Russia, Medvedev is viewed as Putin’s puppet that follows his orders. Because a President in Russia cannot serve for more than 8 years in a row, Putin stepped back and became a president, announcing his successor to be Dmintriy Medvedev. And even before the elections, entire Russia knew who would win them (in Russia people always know who will win the elections even before they happen). Medvedev was chosen by Putin for several reasons. One of them is that both of them have been friends for a long period of time, and Putin knew that he would be able to stay in power even after Medvedev will become president. The second reason is that Putin had to find a person who is shorter than him in order to show the country that he still has power – Putin’s height is 170cm, while Medvedev’s height is only 163cm!

So, after Medvedev’s term as a President will end, Putin will become the new President for another 8 years (and the entire country already knows this), and once again will be officially viewed as the leader of Russia.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7386940.stm

Russia to host World Cup in 2018

Several days ago, Russia was chosen to be the host country for the Football (Soccer) World Cup in 2018. This is a great event for Russia and for all of Eastern Europe since it is the first time when the World Cup will be played in Eastern Europe. In Russia, soccer has always been the most popular sport. Even during such tough times, as the Great Patriotic War, where 27 million of Russians were killed, soccer matches were held. Soccer is a part of Russian lifestyle, and hosting such a significant international event means a lot for all Russians.

Russia has a very long and rich culture, and by hosting World Cup Russia will be able to reveal it to the thousands of international tourists and fans from all over the world. Ticket holders will receive a Visa-free entrance into Russia, and will be able to travel without extra charge among the host cities. This is a great opportunity for international visitors to get a feel of Russian culture, see Russian nature, try Russian food and drinks, and experience Russian hospitality. As for Russia, it is a great opportunity to increase tourism and service industry in the country, as well as construct new buildings and objects which will benefit the society.

Word Count:181

http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101202/fifa-worldcup-2018-2022-hosts-announcement-101202/20101202/?hub=EdmontonHome

2014 Winter Olympics: Sochi troubles

The 2014 Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi, Russia. Even though Russia is viewed by many as a very cold country, thus suitable for such games, the city which was chosen for the 2014 Olympiad has a mild climate, and rarely gets any snow. Because of this, Sochi will face a similar problem as Vancouver did in 2010 – it will have to “make” or transport snow from the nearby mountains. Another problem is that a significant amount of the money, which was invested into building new stadiums, ice arenas, and other Olympiad-related objects, was spent on bribes and did not go to the initial cause. As a result, the construction is going on slowly, and the workers from neighbouring countries (such as Tadzhikistan), which are a cheap source of labour, do not get paid at all and live in very poor and unsanitary conditions. This unethical method of exploiting human labour began several controversies in Russia, but they were closed fairly soon after the pressure of the upper politicians, who received their cut from the investment to the infrastructure of the city.

But despite all of these negative aspects of the 2014 Olympics, I can assure you that they will be organized at a really high standard because if Russians begin organizing such international event, they will make it one of the most memorable moments of the lives of those who viewed it, at all costs.

Word Count: 237

http://sport.moldova.org/news/2014-winter-olympics-sochi-troubles-207280-eng.html

I mistaken the following ubc blog page (https://blogs.ubc.ca/members/deniszhekhovskiy/activity/just-me/) for the actual blog, where I am posting right now, and inserted my blog postson the wrong page… So neither the TAs nor the professors would have seen them on the first due date. But all of them were completed on time (you can check it by looking at the “date posted” part), and now are copied to the actual blog page. I am really sorry about this.

Denis Z