Our topic focuses on Lululemon Athelitica. We search the videos from online sources and make the poster which list our major points about the marketing mix and film it. We put the videos we search online and videos we film by ourselves togother to convey that from the public perspective. If we could have a second chance, I would recommend to film the whole project all by ourselves because the online video sources occupy a lot in our video project. We would improve our editting skills because some parts in our video seem like slides, which may not run smoothly.  If we could have a chance to improve, I think we could show up in the video instead of showing the poster. This will be more attractive to audience. We may need to go to the Lululemon store to film in order to show profession and we could ask a sales or manager in Lululemon store to do a survey in attempt to support our analysis on the marketing mix. Overall, our temwork is good and everyone is responsible for the assignment.

In “Domino’s Proves You Can Simultaneously Have Great Advertising And Bad Marketing,” Rohit Bhargava criticizes that Domino’s Pizza has a poor performance on marketing campaign. He claims that Domino’s does not have a great social media network to introduce their pizza and I agree with this because when I search for Domino’s Pizza, there are only videos showing how they make pizza.

He states that Domino’s website seems just for customers to order pizza. I also think Domino should use more media method to introduce their pizza to more people, such as TV commercials and flyers. But some advantages do exist. This is shown in the video “Small Business Marketing Strategy- The Marketing Strategy Used by Domino’s Pizza”, customers’ biggest concern is to wait for the arrival of their ordered pizza. Domino’s pizza maximizes customers’ values by not letting them wait. They claim that “30 minutes or less or its free.”

In the competitive market, other pizza companies may create a variety of pizza flavors to attract customer but they may need a lot of time on making pizza. As we all know, Domino’s Pizza is faster than Pizza Hut and Fresh Slice, also, its flavour is good. We can always see the sliver car which has label of Domino’s Pizza drive around and deliver pizza. Furthermore, it also provides more products other than pizza, such as, brownies and soda. Customers can have drinks along with pizza and enjoy a desert after eating salty pizza. Although there are disadvantages of the marketing strategies of Domino’s Pizza, they try to improve and maximize their customers’ value

Citation:

Bhargava, Rohit. Domino’s Proves You Can Simultaneously Have Great Advertising And Bad Marketing (2013).

http://www.rohitbhargava.com/2013/07/dominos-proves-you-can-simultaneously-have-great-advertising-and-bad-marketing.html

Video Link:

Small Business Marketing Strategy – The Marketing Strategy Used By Dominos Pizza (2013).

In Dale Buss’s blog,” Brew This: Kraft Plans to Test Packaged Coffee with McDonald’s, he states that McDonald’s and Kraft will sell “packaged versions of its McCafe coffee line in US supermarket” (Buss 2013). I would support this decision because the opportunity for McDonald’s to conquer external competitors is to produce new product. Starbucks, as McDonald’s biggest competitor, has already introduced packaged coffee with Green Mountain Coffee Roaster into the market, therefore, McDonald’s needs to think up better strategy to satisfy more customers. In the blog, Buss claims that “McDonald’s got a big boost from its introduction of McCafe beverage (Buss 2013).” I think the reason why McDonald’s can have a high sales amount is that they produce fresh and cheap coffee. Compared to Starbucks, McDonald’s has already have its own strength which is the cheap price and some loyal customers. By producing the packaged coffee, consumers can enjoy the McCafe beverage at home and they do not need to come to the store and wait in line. Also, McDonald’s spokesperson says that they are expanding the options of McCafe beverages to grocery stores and other retail locations (Buss 2013). This is more convenient to consumers. If the plan is implemented, consumers can have easier access to buy the packaged coffee. I think by implementing this packaged coffee, McDonald’s will make consumers more satisfied with the products.

Citation:

Buss, Dale. Brew This: Kraft Plans to Test Packaged Coffee with McDonald’s

http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2013/11/01/McDonalds-Kraft-Coffee-110113.aspx#continue

Video Link:

McDonald’s McCafe Coffee Is Coming To Grocery Shelves In 2014

In Tim’s blog, he argues that advertising through fears should not be allowed. He states that fear advertisements may force people to make political decisions and scare audience and thus, this marketing method involves ethical issues. For my opinion, I support the fear advertisement. As the example Tim brings out says, the man will become fish people due to global warming, which Tim believes it is misleading and scary to young children. But I think this fear advertisement will increase people’s awareness to protect environment. Putting pressure on people by stating they will be deformed if they do not protect environment will force people to be concerned with the “Recycle, Reuse, Reduce” rules, protection of plants and usage of paper. I think fear advertisement acts like rules which can regulate people’s behaviors. Also, Tim writes about another cigarette advertisement which is also considered as fear advertisement which he thinks is not ethical. He states the advertisement lists lots of related health issues which scare off buyers. I would argue this shows the advantage of fear advertisement. Smoking can cause lung cancer and over 37000 people in Canada die each year because of smoking (Health Canada 2008). If people are all aware of the fear advertisement about the bad outcomes of smoking, there would definitely be a decreasing amount of people dead. Tim also states that fear advertising may not influence one’s personal opinion but I would say it can alert people’s awareness and thus prevent them to do dangerous things. Also, I think fear advertisement is ethical because it shows its care towards environment and people’ health ( the two examples I talked about) by putting pressures on audience.

Reference: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/tobac-tabac/youth-jeunes/scoop-primeur/index-eng.php
https://blogs.ubc.ca/timburke/

Different countries have different cultures which are defined as macro environmental factors and thus different marketing strategies need to be conducted. I will discuss how Chinese culture and American culture influence the luxury marketing strategies. We all know that China had been a developing country for a long time and there is a huge gap between wealthy people an poor people. That is, the traditional value of Chinese is that the more luxuries you own, the richer you are and the higher status you position. Whereas in North America, people do not judge your status by how you look. The appearance just shows one’s taste about clothing but not the wealth. Therefore, there is an increasing trend in Chinese luxury market. As data shows, “Chinese consumers become the world’s largest consumer group of luxury goods and they spent RMB 306 billion in the world in 2012” (Albany 1). Although the U.S has large luxury goods market in the world, they show a completely different purpose of buying luxuries goods (Doran 1). Since the U.S is a developed country, most people are highly educated. So, they pursue a high quality of life. As my opinion, there are still a lot of space in Chinese luxury market because there are no luxury shop in some relative small cities. The customers in those cities may own more purchasing power than customers in large cities, like Hongkong or Shanghai.

CITATION:
Doran, Sophie, Renewed Optimism in the U.S. Luxury Market.
http://luxurysociety.com/articles/2013/07/renewed-optimism-in-the-us-luxury-market
Albany, NY, China Luxury Apparel and Accessories Market Report till 2015 – Industry Share,Growth,Analysis,Trends,Size and Forecast Research Report
http://www.prweb.com/releases/China-Luxury-Apparel/and-Accessories-Market/prweb10968302.htm

Ethical Issues in Marketing

Marketing ethics involve ethics to deal with moral principles behind the operation and regulation of marketing (1). In the video “Marketing’s Top 5 Ethics Issues”, James Coplin lists five factors which makes marketing ethical (2). Honesty, fairness, social responsibility, transparency, and respect. In order to earn more profit, companies show irresponsibility on producing and selling products. Products may contain illegal and toxic ingredients, unclear labels of nutrition facts and incorrect net weight. In China, milk powder(brand name: San Lu) contain banned chemicals and this leads to kidney stones in infants (3). Many children died because of tainted milk powder. Why does this company put illegal ingredients in milk powder and make children sick? I think money is the biggest reason. This company makes up the nutrition fact label which makes parents believe the milk powder contain protein. Also, they sell their products at cheap prices, which makes customers buy a lot. Therefore, the company uses the cheapest ingredients to produce milk powder and sell it at low price, which in return gives the company huge amount of profit. In attempt to earn profit, the company does not care about the bottom line of marketing. That is, the irresponsibility and dishonesty cause many Chinese infants dead or hurt. Another example of dishonesty is ” Unethical Advertising”(4). The advertisement states that 3G iphone is fast but in fact, it is slow. Sometimes the advertisement makes dramatic effects and makes customers believe the effects are true. The reason probably is to sell their products and earn more money. Failures in achieving ethical factors threaten consumers’ life and money and lead to corruption of the relationship between customers and producers. Therefore, being honest and responsible can establish long term relationship with customers and makes more profit.

1. (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_ethics).
2. (Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH-VK3t45UI).
3. (Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePB-kp3cotU).
4. (Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRNvhGND7Kc).

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