Last year I took a pilot course called Comm 101 that was taught by professors Paul Cubbon and Jeff Kroeker. We covered a broad amount of business topics such as marketing, sustainability, finance, accounting, human recourses and entrepreneurship. It was one of my favorite commerce courses and it wasn’t just because it didn’t have a final exam. Paul Cubbon is an amazing marketing professor and kept classes interesting by drawing on events from our daily life to explain the concepts we were learning. He also made some funny jokes about his side kick Jeff Kroaker that kept the class paying attention. I was recently reading a blog post Paul wrote this past September about Comm 101 and the use of iclickers, blogs, and tweeting during class. I found these activities to be extremely beneficial for class participation and real life practice for the business world. The iclickers and group work kept us engaged in discussions and you didn’t want to be caught sleeping because you never knew when the class microphone would be sent your way. I give Paul and Jeff a great amount of credit for the job they did last year because many of the lessons they taught us often re-appear in my other commerce courses and in my everyday life. I now have a better understanding of business because I took Comm 101 in my first year and I am glad to hear it is now a required course.

I was reading my friend Kirsten’s blog today and found an entry about youtube sensation Keenan Cahill. I LOVE THAT KID TOO! He is hilarious. While cramming for midterms during one of the most stressful weeks of my life, my friend sent me a video of Keenan singing Katy Perry’s song Teenage Dream. I was instantly in a better mood from laughing so hard and I began to search other videos. Millions of people upload videos everyday and some of these people receive so many views that they become youtube sensations. As of the beginning of November, Justin Beiber’s video Baby had 374,403,983 views, making it the number one most watched video. Ironically, Beiber was made famous by posting himself singing on youtube in 2008. If you are interested in watching some of the most famous videos visit this site!! Enjoy.

As a nineteen year old girl I know what it is like to get attached to a certain product just to find out you can’t purchase it. SO DEPRESSING!! The other day I was trying to comfort my friend from one of the greatest rain boot fiascos she has ever gone through. For the last couple months she has been searching for black gloss hunter rain boots which can range up to $150. While living in Vancouver, trendy rain boots are a must have accessory for a girl in university. She visited stores all over downtown Vancouver and wherever she went they were sold out until 2011. She even resorted to shopping online then waited weeks for them to arrive just to find out that she had ordered the wrong size. It seemed as if things couldn’t have gotten worse until her best friend, who did not want the boots in the first place, got them as a present from her mother who had gone shopping in Seattle.

Bottom line. For a city as rainy as Vancouver and a company as popular as Hunters, more black gloss boots should be available. This could potentially be a big loss for Hunters because they lost a valuable customer who was willing to pay full price for the boots and now she is so frustrated with the brand that she may never shop there again. However, Hunters could be making these boots unavailable on purpose since the more people that wear them, the more the perceived value of the boots goes down. Whatever the case may be, my friend settled for another pair of boots and currently suffers buyers remorse from not purchasing the ones she originally wanted.

In yesterdays lecture we discussed brand equity and how companies add value to their products by providing a trustworthy brand name. Another way they can increase brand equity is by co branding with another well known brand. Co branding is when two companies join together to form an alliance and help add value to a product or service by bringing the loyal customers of each company together. Many brands have done this such as the Armani/Samsung Tv, Dairy Queen/Girl Scouts Blizzard, and the Vigin Mastercard. Ironically after learning about this in class I saw an add that evening on Tv advertising the Donald Trump Serta Mattress. Donald Trump is now trying to conquer the mattress industry by joining Serta to create “affordable luxury” for mattresses. They advertise on the Serta website that the Trump mattress allows you to “live and sleep richly without spending a fortune”. By teaming up, they are increasing Serta’s brand equity by targeting a wealthier upper class while also giving other customers the same luxury at an affordable price. This mattress provides similar features as Serta’s other mattresses but now that it has Donald Trumps name on it, it appears classier and more extravagant, which may be enticing to new customers.

To learn more about the Trump Mattress click here!

I was talking to my little sister yesterday about what her friends were for halloween and I wasn’t as surprised as I should have been to hear what these young girls were dressed as. Ironically, after hearing this I came across a blog that my classmate Shai wrote about “age compression”. Advertisements are targeting younger generations every year and the result is that impressionable preteens are thinking that they can act much older than they should be acting. Shai and I share a similar story where both of your sisters got cell phones in grade 8 when I did not receive mine until I was well into high school. Today you will see so many young children with not just any cell phone but Blackberrys and Iphones. It can become a very serious problem depending on what product children are being targeted for. Obviously the media is playing a tremendous role in children’s dress choices and the companies that put out scandalous advertisements should think twice about the impression they are going to make on younger generations.

I normally wouldn’t go to the drug store and buy Burt’s Bees Milk & Honey Body Lotion. Their products seem a little pricey, i find it silly they put a picture of a cow on the bottle and I usually like to buy Bath & Body Works products. However, when I was walking in downtown Vancouver last weekend a woman handed me a small sample of Burt’s Bees Lotion. After using up the free sample in less than a day I was compelled to seek out this lotion at the closest store. Handing out free samples is one of the greatest ways to recruit new customers. I might not have known how great it was until I tried a small amount but now I am hooked. It most likely did not cost the company a large amount to manufacture these small samples and by doing so they will make more profits in the future due to the new customers they attracted from the samples. Not only am I going to buy it but I’m going to tell my friends how well the lotion moisturizes my skin. The companies profits will most likely go up and their brand name will become stronger and more well known thanks to the 29.5 ml sample bottle.

Try it! You’ll love it!

The other day my friend and I were waiting at the cash register in Safeway. She reaches for a pack of gum, not just any gum, but Strides “Mystery” Flavor. She didn’t care that it was the most expensive, she just wanted to know what flavor it was. After studying marketing the last couple of weeks I recognized this extremely clever marketing strategy and saw a consumer, my friend, fall right for it. Stride was cunning when they decided to introduce a new flavor that kept people wondering what it taste like. New consumers were attracted to the gum because of its brightly colored case and were puzzled as to what they flavor could be. Of course they could just ask someone who has tried it before what it taste like if they did they would be attacked by ostriches… Take a look!

Dunkin Donuts joined Baskin Robins, Yum! Joined Pizza Hut, and now Cold Stone Creamery from Scottsdale, Arizona and Tim Horton’s from Oakville, Ontario have joined forces to offer the perfect balance of coffee and ice cream. The CEO’s of each company met at a restaurant industry gathering in Toronto in 2008 and just one year later they merged the two restaurants together. Just like any major decision they had to first conduct market research to make sure consumers were interested. After collecting data and analyzing the market the CEOs agreed to test out their idea in two Tim Horton’s in Providence, Rhode Island. The outcome was worth the risk and they exceeded their revenue targets.

This co branding strategy is estimated to increase Cold Stone revenues and since Tim Horton’s only has 500 locations in the U.S, the partnership should help them expand. They also figured out through market research that ice cream sales peaked around 4 pm. Due to the exploratory research they intend to offer more Tim Horton’s products in the morning and more Cold Stone at night. The chains intend to continue advertising separating however more research is being done to figure out how to advertise the co branded locations together. In order for any company to be successful they must conduct research in order to understand the market and what their consumers are demanding; that is exactly what these companies are trying to do.

How do you get over 400,000 people to join your Facebook fan page in just ONE day?! Ask Bing! Microsoft grew their fan page by five times its size when they offered Facebook users the chance to earn virtual currency towards Farmville in return for becoming a Bing fan. By putting a clickable Bing ad at the bottom of the Farmville landing page, they were able to get their name out there and attract more users. After Bing attracted 1.5% of Farmville users on Facebook in only 24 hours, they posted a status update saying “Any Farmville fans out there? Try using Bing to get the most out of your crops and animals.” They also provided a link to Bing search results about Farmville. Since Bing is a fairly new search engine that has to compete with Google, this market strategy was a great away to attract new users. Bing is the perfect example of successful marketing through social networking.

Its on. Two of the most popular brand names are joining forces to create the ultimate marketing campaign for one of the most watched sporting events in the world. The Super Bowl is known for airing some of the greatest commercials that are watched by audiences of around 106.5 million people. This year Doritos and Pepsi are “crashing” Super Bowl XLV by awarding three prizes for the best commercial. You have your pick of which brand you would like to advertise and first place wins $1,000,000. Since each brand is so strongly identified and are giving viewers the chance to be apart of the action they are sure to gain even more popularity. Jill Beraud, chief marketing officer and president of Pepsi said “we really believe empowering consumers is the future…that’s really the future of marketing, where the consumer is in control and they get to express their creativity”. Furthermore, as if this campaign isn’t popular enough they are bringing in Betty White, one of the most marketable celebrities today, to be their main spokesperson. This approach to marketing is sure to be a hit.

For more info on the campaign visit: http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/contest-info