Best Group Ever!

Throughout this course I have had the privilege of working with 5 of the best group members I have ever had. It was great working these guys, but that does leave me a little concerned. Usually in every group there is at least one slacker and if you cant point them out, that usually means its you. However, I really hope everyone agrees with me in stating, there really was no slacker in the group. The work was divided evenly and everyone got to contribute in fields that best suited their abilities. Although there were no internal conflicts with three assignments as did fairly well in them and they were all completed way before the due dates, we did have some technical difficulty with the camera (the quality for some of the scenes were not filmed in the proper definition) but those were easily sorted out.

Some minor issues were our schedules did not all mesh up, as we all had other commitments (For example I play on the football team so our meetings could not be during my practices), these issues were easily manageable by segmenting the work evenly and having many short meetings and separate smaller group meetings.

One reason I think this group ran so smoothly is because it was a marketing class and we were all learning to market ourselves to each other. For example our group was really organized a trait that was strongly emphasized in class. Furthermore, principles learned in class such as reciprocity came up many times, for example if someone helped me in a part portion of the assignment I felt obligated to look over their work as well and contribute in any way I could. In addition it is clear that everyone in our group was generally interested in building a relationship with each other that could span past the class and mutually benefit ourselves, this is a theme that was regularly discussed in class. This could be seen as by the end of the semester we had all been sitting together in class, I regularly walked home with members of my team and even had lunch once or twice with some members. The benefits of these relations has already started to show, one of my team members leant me an expensive SD reader the other day, which I need for a project in another class, which is a clear sign of the trust we had built over a semester of working together and a few of my team members have already reaped the benefits of me working at the campus bar.

I had a great time working with my team and I feel as though I have built a lot of strong connections. I know I would recommend every one of my team members to any employer I know and help them any way I could in the professional world in which we are all entering in the near future, and I really hope they would do the same.

 Me on set just having a blast 🙂

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-image-of-the-week/coca-colas-new-corporate-website-aims-to-refresh-the-world-through-storytelling/

The above link is to a Blog that describes how Coca-cola’s has reinvented its corporate website, titling their website “Coca-Cola Journey, Featuring content themed around pop culture, social media, brand history, marketing campaigns, recipes, career advice, and more the website is a far cry from the traditional corporate website.

The blog further comments on how the new site is so incredibly responsive to the customer. This is a statement I couldn’t agree more with Coke clearly did its homework, “In response to consumer feedback and site data, Coca-Cola made more than 60 tweaks to the site, including adding in sections related to food and music.” Coke is clearly willing to male many changes to its public image to satisfy the needs of the consumer, they are clearly willing to go the extra mile to respond to the consumers changing demand.

As consumers can post their own experiences with coke directly on the site Coke has greatly decreased the knowledge gap between them and the consumer. Which is great as the new site has received an incredible amount of public support and public, illustrating how by listening to the consumer Coke has greatly improved its product.

However after reading this blog I visited Coke’s website myself and found it not to be as customer centric as this post lead me to believe. Although the site was visually appealing it was really confusing to navigate. This is shocking to me because as we discussed in class, usually the customer’s willing to go the extra mile to discuss a product are those who have something negative to say about it. With such few negative comments about the product, I am lead to believe coke is filtering out much of its customer stories.

Furthermore, as I had difficulty navigating the site, I am sure older loyal coke drinkers are having the same issue. As this large segment of consumers are likely unheard and coke thinks they have been able to capture the responses of a majority of pop consumers, it is possible that coke is actually creating a larger knowledge gap between them and their elder more loyal consumers.

All in all this was a very interesting post, but it does overlook a few mistakes in consumer research coke is making.

After reading Eric’s post on Marshall Mathers,

Marshall Mathers: In Response to an External Marketing Blog

I completely agree with his statement that Eminem is a marketing genius. Although, I do not personally listen to his music, every time Eminem comes out with a new CD I know about. While I was originally surprised to hear that he was the number one selling artist of the 2000s, the shock subdued when I researched his marketing strategy.

The Album foreshadowed in Eric’s work, “The Marshall Mathers LP 2” came out earlier this month and immediately went platinum. According to a Forbes marketing blog:

(http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2013/11/15/eminems-marshall-mathers-lp-2-anatomy-of-a-chart-topper/)

This success was due to “a mix of a loyal fan base, clever marketing and smart partnerships.” While both loyal fans and smart partnerships do play a roll in his success, the driving force behind his record sales, which lead to these fans and partners, is his incredible marketing strategies.

Eric’s post does a great job in pointing out how Eminem markets his music as a differential product in comparison to the conventional music of today. For example, his lyrics are very controversial in addition he is a white rapper, which is kind of rare in today’s musical world. In my opinion however the cleverest marketing ploy used by Eminem is his “retirement” ploy. Eminem continues to retire, than come out of retirement only to release a single record, which always hits number one in the music charts. In my opinion this marketing ploy resembles the scarcity principle of consumer purchasing behaviour.

As consumers may believe that every album Eminem releases after he comes out of retirement could possible be his last, as he could go into permanent retirement in the next time he decides to take a step away from music, consumers, especially his biggest fans, perceive that his next album could be his last, thus not only could this be their last chance to experience last songs, but the album could potentially sell out, so they should rush to the store and buy it now.

Through these marketing exploits Eminem was able to net 10 million dollars last year! So don’t be surprised if you find out he retires next year only to come out with a new record at the age of 50.

Usually when I fly I have the misfortune of being seated next to either the oversized man who takes up his seat and half of mine or the first time mother who has not yet realized her baby doesn’t understand English, and that simply saying please stop crying for half an hour won’t actually stop the baby from crying.

So naturally this Saturday night when I was flying back from Calgary I was prepared for worst, but to my surprise not only was there a free seat in-between me and the next lady over, she was also really nice, not carrying a crying baby and a the west coast distract manager for Coach! Naturally I asked her every marketing question that came to mind because Coach has been brought up at least five times in class. Although though she was nice enough to answer all of my questions she pointed out that all her answers could be found online, so I asked her to tell me something that I couldn’t just simply Google.  She then told me about Coach’s new product plan, something the company called “The next chapter”. She described it as a transformation of the company’s brand, instead of focusing on leather handbags for women, the company would be expanding their product line and capturing a larger demographic by focusing more on leather apparel for men and women. When I asked her how much this apparel would cost, she side stepped the question and just told me that the apparel would be amazing quality and that it was “an affordable luxury product”. Later on she told me that a leather skirt would cost $800, clearly Coach hopes to achieve a competitive advantage in quality not in price.

When I asked her how Coach intended to market their new leather apparel line she told me how they intended to write articles in fashion magazines about the New York stories of three popular models. One model was Carly Clause from Victoria’s Secret, one was Lu Wen from China, and the third I don’t know much about because she said it was a guy and I zoned out for a bit. My new friend seemed very confident in Coach’s new direction, when I asked her why, she said she knew her company could handle it as change was nothing new for Coach, after all the company did start as a male’s leather luggage retailer before expanding into female hand bags. She was so confident in Coach’s new product line and marketing strategy it made me want to invest my own money into the company, but then I took a look at this semesters tuition bill… I guess I will just have to settle for flying Coach instead of owning part of it.

Today as I was walking to class I saw a little girl driving a Ferrari with pink rims. When I saw this 3 thing rushed through my mind. The first was, how many banks would I need to rob to be able to afford one and if the jail time was worth it. The second was, oh my god I hate this girl for ruining my dream car by putting pink rims on it. The third was, why is she driving a Ferrari? Her parents clearly bought it, I get that but why would she want one? Than I thought why do I want one so badly? It is then that I realized the Ferrier commercial played in class a few weeks ago was the very first direct advertisement for Ferrari I had ever seen.  It took some thinking but after examining the 4 Ps of the marketing mix, I finally discovered how they had had marketed their product to me in a very clever way that was so slight I didn’t even realize it. To begin with although outrageously priced, if I had all of Jay-Z’s money for a day, on of the first things I would do, between ending world hunger and renting out the playboy mansion, would be buying a Ferrari.  So clearly it is in the right price range for their exclusive target market. The product itself is unarguable along with other cars such as Lamborghinis Mercedes and Porsches at the top of the line in terms of luxury cars, plus they all look really, really cool. The placement of the product is not the greatest as there are no Ferrari dealers around me, however due to the magic of Google, I found a dealer willing to ship me a Ferrari today! And it would only cost me $670 000! The really impressive thing Ferrari has done is the promotion of their product. Although I hadn’t realized it, Ferrari had been promoting their product to me since I was a child without me even noticing. Just like a ghost in every scary movie, I hadn’t realized the advertisements until it was too late. This had been done through clever product placement in movies, TV shows, music videos and video games. I had never seen a Ferrari ad, poster or commercial before the one shown in class, but as a child I played need for speed where a Ferrari was one of the fastest cars, and I still remember the episode of That 70’s show I watched 7 years ago where Fes pretended to be an heir to the Ferrari fortune, I also remember watching Nelly pick up a bunch of girls in a Ferrari in one of his music videos, plus I remember the red Ferrari in the first Need for Speed movie. Similar to how McDonalds markets to kids through happy meals, Ferrari has grasped the desire of every child by exposing their product to them in popular media channels. Ferrari’s subtle advertisement to the youth is a great strategy because if any of the kids grow up and are anything like me plus 1-2 million dollars than they are sure to endorse the product.

When I was young, I thought you had to be incredibly stupid to buy a MacBook pro.  I couldn’t comprehend why anyone in their right minds would buy a $1400 Mac when they could just buy any other laptop, which does the same job, for less than half the price. In my first year of university I quickly found out that just because two products do the same job does not mean they have the same value. In first year I bought A Dell I was very pleased with it. It took my class notes and played movies, which is the only thing I used it for. I felt like a geniuses in comparison to my friend Andy, whom I mocked for spending $1400 for a Mac in comparison to the $ 650 I spent for my Dell that did the same job.

(Happy singer Adele)

My contentment lasted for about a week, I soon discovered my Dell’s battery could not last an entire class and I found myself fighting over plugs in class with other PC students, while the Mac students who had a much longer battery life enjoyed uninterrupted lectures. This resulted in Andy mocking me for my troubles in class due to my short battery life, but all hope was not lost as Andy’s mac crashed in the second week of school. He had to go into the Apple store to get it repaired, thus he was without a computer for two days. I had a good laugh at his expense until week 3 when my dell crashed and I had to ship it off for repairs, after a 2 hour conversation with a very annoying automated machine. The repair took 3 weeks and my dell never worked properly again.

(Sad singer Adele)

After a year of both hardware and software issues and annoying conversations with automated machines I decided to pack it in and get a Mac. After getting a mac my whole life changed. I discovered that the value of Apple’s products was actually worth the additional cost to me. This was due to Apple’s approach of relationship/value marketing instead of transaction based marketing. When I bought my Dell there was the transaction and very little communication between Dell and me, unless I was having technical difficulties. In contrast when I bought my Mac they continued to email me with new offers for not only their laptops but cellphones and music players as well.

Originally I didn’t pay much attention to these emails but when I started having issues with my Mac and took it into the Apple store I received such great customer service that a part of me felt as though I owed it to Apple to read their emails. My Apple geniuses Frank was really kind, fixed my laptop in a timely manner and when he was done asked me if I was interested in any of their offers sent to me via email. As a result of Frank’s excellent customer service, I read the email offers and am now a loyal Apple consumer. I am now a proud owner of a MacBook, iPhone, and iPod. Apple through their great customer service has created a value for me that matches the price and has turned me from an Apple heckler into a complete Apple consumer. 

(Figure1)

In modern day Canadian society, drinking beer has become quite the trend, weather they’re having a few beers with friends or drinking themselves under the table before a big night out, beer has become a staple good for the average Canuck’s night out.

Working at a bar has given me the privilege of meeting many proud Canadians, many who insists on primarily using Canadian goods. Some boast of only flying air Canada, or only driving Ford trucks, a man even admitted to buying only lulu lemon athletic wear once. I of course admired and congratulated these men on their triumphant as true Canadian business supporters and being the excellent salesman I am I persuaded them to purchase more of my product by suggesting they drink some Canadian beer. I offered them Granville Island Pale Ale, Stanly Park Amber Ales and some other local Canadian beers, all of which were refused. When I asked them what they wanted instead one man turned to me and said, “Do you have any Molson Canadian? It doesn’t taste as good but it is a true Canadian beer”. It broke my heart to explain to my patron that Molson Canadian was actually not a Canadian beer it used to be but now it was owned by the American beer company moors. His reply was, “No way they have a healthy beer the Canadian 67, no American company would make a healthy beer”.

I realized something that night, the first being that the myth my mother told me as a child of alcohol killing your brain cells and making you stupid may actually be true, and two Molson’s ads although brilliant were nothing more than half-truths told to the Canadian beer consumer in an unethical attempt to get them to purchase their products.

To begin with proven by my patron, an average 20 something year old Canadian male’s misplaced brand loyalty, Coors by keeping the name Molson Canadian after their purchase of the product from a originally Canadian owned beer company and through such ads as figure 1, has convinced the average consumer that that their product is a Canadian good which would help stimulate the Canadian economy if chosen over other beers. The truth of the matter is Molson Canadian is just a name and as the ad says its made from Canada not by Canada. In my opinion this is highly unethical because this tactic has simply tricked the average beer drinker into believing they are consuming a Canadian product and supporting Canadian beer by marketing their good in such a way that it would lead the average consumer to make the obvious assumption that a beer called Molson CANADIAN would be Canadian. In my opinion this is as ridiculous as casting a vote for a party called the Liberals in a federal election only to find out their views were completely conservative.

My second issue with this company is they try to promote their product “Molson 67” as a healthy alternative to beer. As mentioned in their commercials, posted below, they go as far as to refer to their beverage as part of a guyet (play on words of diet). However like so many soft drinks like coke zero does, just because the beverage claims to be part of a diet, does not make it any healthier for you or help you lose any weight. For example besides the obvious negative health factor of being a beer, Molson 67 may be only 67 calories but the drink is still 83% carbs and thus will still get you fat in addition it is only %3 alcohol which is about half the amount of alcohol content in a normal beer and thus people are more likely to drink more beer than they usually will.

In closing, I wish I could tell you that there was a beer you could purchase that would support the Canadian economy and help you lose 6 inches off your waste but unlike the Coors company I am not a completely unethical corporation creating false value to my target demographic through lies. Coors should stop marketing Molson as a Canadian beer and a healthy alternative to regular beer. Instead Coors should just rename their product to Molson instead of Molson Canadian and like Coca-Cola, which provides a healthy alternative to soft drinks with such products such as Dasani water it should provide a healthy alternative to beer such as Molson Virgin a great tasting non alcoholic fruit cocktail served in bars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kkOECUFXmI

(link to commercial)