My team chose Caffe Artigiano for our project. Throughout the term and with Assignments 1, 2 & 3, I got to know much more about the Vancouver-based local premium coffee house. I have learned about the company thoroughly by not only reading information but also doing analysis on it. For example, by looking how successful the company has become in recent years and the fact that Canada has the second highest coffee consumption per capita, we can conclude that it is one of the fundamental macroeconomic factor for Caffe Artigiano to succeed.

I enjoyed doing all the assignments because all of them provide opportunities for us to learn analyzing a company and its business environment, followed by a marketing aspect. During the production of assignment 3, I was fascinated by the fact that our team was able to find some critical and obvious recommendations on the marketing mix for such a successful company. For example, the company website reconstruction and public tasting events. I also enjoyed working with my team for all the assignments since I got very very nice teammates. The working environment was relaxing and productive for my team.

Although I am not going into the marketing option, by taking this course and doing all the assignments, I was taught how critical and important marketing is to any businesses. And marketing is certainly one of the more interesting aspect in the business world. I am content with this opportunity to learn fundamental business environment analysis and marketing such as the marketing mix – 4Ps.

http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2013/04/05/USDA-Names-Beef-Pork-040513.aspx#continue

This post is in response to the post above.

USDA recently approved the pork and beef industries to rename more than 350 different cuts of meats to make them more accessible for customers.

I think the idea is good as I do find myself in a lot of time could not figure the differences between different kinds of pork sold in the supermarket until I asked. The idea of renaming these meats to “porterhouse pork”, “ribeye chops” is to familiarize customers with the similar names they see on restaurants’ menus. Since a new packing will also come with the new naming to show which part of an animal’s body the meat comes from, it will also be more educational for customers when they are shopping for their meat. The decision is supported by a two-year study in which customers respond the confusion on meats when they are shopping.

I believe this event is a great example of showing how marketing can improve a society. By doing the marketing study/research and coming up with this conclusion/decision, meat-shopping would be more educational than ever before. Less customers are confused when buying meats, more are getting what they really want. Although “Bloomberg notes that other food industries have tried to rebrand their products before, but haven’t made it through successfully.”, I believe this time it will be different. I look forward when Canada follows this change then I can get the pork that I had last night at the restaurant.

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/pizza-hut-sketches-art-masterpieces-pizza-boxes-live-youtube-148379

This post is in response to the above post in adweek.com. Personally I found this marketing strategy to be really nice and creative. Instead of directly marketing/promoting the product that Pizza Hut sells – pizzas, it uses the packaging that comes with it for this marketing strategy.

Pizza Hut hosted a livestreaming event of an artist drawing different images that are suggested by internet users on the pizza box.

This strategy is very creative to me because it provides fresh and fun interactive opportunities for its potential customers by allowing them to “order” the drawings that they want on pizza box. I found this to be a very clever and effective strategy as well. The fact that there are so many competitors in the pizza market for Pizza Hut, it may not be the most beneficial for them to spend resources to further advertise their pizza since it can only differentiate to a certain extend from the competitors. However, by doing this advertising event, it can build its reputation while providing entertainments/joys that aren’t from their direct products, giving a fresh perspective of the company from its potential customers. The livestream lasted for seven and a half hours, if I were watching this livestream, I would certainly order some food from Pizza Hut and I believe many people had done that while watching the livestream. I strongly believe this has been a very successful advertising event!

Karen Young’s Real Authentic Marketing

First of all I would like to thank you Karen for posting such interesting blog. I wouldn’t have seen the video if not of the blog. I partly agree and partly disagree on Karen’s opinions on “Authentic Marketing”. In her blog, Karen stated that “For me, it all boils down to the entire purpose of marketing. The thing is, marketing isn’t ‘real’. The purpose of marketing is to showcase your brand in the best light so consumers see value in your product or service and are willing to pay the price for it.”, it is absolutely true that marketing is to display the product/brand in a way that would get its viewers to do whatever things that the marketer is wanting for. However, this does not mean marketing is not “real”. In fact, with the topic of “marketing ethnics” being discussed earlier this term, I strongly suggest every marketing has to be real.

If marketing is not “real”, then it is just a lie trying to trick its viewers into believing something that is not true. McDonald’s can’t advertise a burger that they will never sell realistically. If McDonald’s uses a bigger burger in their advertisements to persuade consumers to buy that burger only in a much smaller size, then that is not right. Because it is lie more than a way to showcase the product in the best light since the product never exist.

I would actually be much happier if companies can get their marketing strategy to be more and more authentic so that I won’t have to do trial and error to get the products that I want while wasting time and money. Marketing is to get targeted consumers to do what the marketers want, but the bottom line is, it has to stay true.

This is an advertisement at bus stops from Starbucks earlier this year.

I found it to be an interesting advertisement because it is very similar to the positioning statement method mentioned in class. Which is “For (your audience), (your product name) is a (category name) which provides (main benefit) unlike (primary competitor) which provides (competitor’s main benefit).” Although the statement from the ad is not a true positioning statement, it is very similar to it. As it says “For (Canadians), (Starbucks Blonde Roast) is a (Starbucks coffee) which allows (Canadians) to like (Starbucks coffee).” The statement implies this product would change the views on Starbucks coffee of Canadians who don’t think they like Starbucks coffee.

This is a product-focused advertisement that intends to inform people about this Starbucks Blonde Roast coffee and hence generates sales on this particular product, instead of promoting the Starbucks brand image as a whole. Personally I think this is a very well-designed and effective advertisement. Since the advertisement is targeted to Canadians that is not part of the Starbucks’ current market share, promoting the Starbucks coffee shops image would not have much effect as the image is already well-established and further promotion on it would not the consumers’ decisions of those Canadians. However, being an ad that only promotes a particular product that is said to be specifically designed to these targeted consumers, it would bring interests to those consumers and would be very persuasive in suggesting them to give it a try. I believe this ad did generate extra revenue from this product due to the good marketing.

5-Hour Energy, a high-selling energy drink from the company Living Essentials, is accused of false advertising under the review by the National Advertising Division. The review shows that the product resulted in a “moderately severe crash” in nearly 25 percent of users in a clinical trial run by the company.

Elaine Lutz, a spokeswoman for Living Essentials, said that a clarification “no crash means no sugar crash”had been added to address the concerns of the National Advertising Division.

While this is an incident of false advertising over the issue of “Crash” as a negative effect from energy drinks, there are many potential health concerns related to energy drinks such as 5-Hour Energy, Monster Energy, Red Bull and Rockstar as most of them are marketed to children and teens.

Here are a few possible health risks:

Caffeine Overload                               

Many energy drinks contain three times the amount of caffeine found in a regular cup of coffee, too much caffeine can cause agitation and sleep problems and potentially lead to the development of long-term anxiety issues.

Beware of Energy Drinks for Kids

Although many energy drinks are marketed towards children and teens with endorsements from cartoon characters and famous athletes, these young people need to be particularly careful with those drinks as their central nervous systems are not fully developed.

Do Not Mix: Energy Drinks And Alcohol

Some states, including New York, have banned drinks that combine alcohol and caffeine, but many people continue to mix them through Red Bull-vodka cocktails, among others. The reason behind the prohibition is because the presence of caffeine increases the absorption of alcohol, which can increase intoxication.

As more and more companies getting into the growing market of energy drinks, consumers must be aware of false claims and potential hazards from it. For 5-Hour Energy’s part, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said last fall that it had received reports of 13 deaths over the past four years in which the energy shot may have played a part.

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