Monthly Archives: March 2013

March 31, 2013 · 10:42 am

Reflective Post on Assignment III

(source: http://lukekenny.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/174/)

After one month of hard work on our Marketing video, it is finally finished and will be presented in front of the class. The assignment is a rewarding practice for all Marketing students, because not only our marketing knowledge was testified in planning, filming and editing for the video, team bonding was also greatly enhanced.

To begin, our group sat down at a meeting room in Canaccord Learning Commons to plan the video, and we decided that we’ll be capturing the busyness of Vancouver to portray the place and promotion strategies for Zara. Also we’ll go into Zara to conduct a store tour to demonstrate Zara environment, price and product.

Few days after, we borrowed a HD Handycam from CLC and headed down to Robson Street and Pacific Centre. After few hours of shooting, we obtained a lot of raw videos about Vancouver’s skyscrapers, office towers and commercial district for our voiceover’s background, the Zara store, and interviews of pedestrians who just walked out from Zara for their opinions about Zara.

After the filming was done, we edited the video using iMovie. None of us knew how to operate the iMovie program, but after we watched Youtube tutorials and used Google to find blog posts about iMovie together, we coped with all technical difficulties and produced this video. My team worked diligently to assure video quality and we always consult each other before making a decision.

This assignment is an important lesson for our team to apply our marketing knowledge, to put together a marketing portfolio, and to play around with video making. Both I and my team learnt a lot in this process and we strengthened the relationship with each other, and I’m glad that the time we spent in DML and video shooting paid off!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

March 20, 2013 · 10:24 pm

Social Media: Your Recruiters are Watching You

 

(source: arhhra.com)

Do you remember what you typed for your blog, twitter or Facebook last time? Each of these actions could easily allow others who are either familiar or strange to you to know what you did in the past and how you live your life. On the positive side, social media allows people to know more about you to help you expand your human network and enrich your relationship with friends. However, if you are recently looking for jobs, you might want to think more carefully before you press that “Enter Key”. Social media is an open platform where people have the rights to talk freely and share openly through the thin air.  If you posted or are tagged on Twitter doing something that’s inappropriate in recruiters’ eyes, recruiters who paid attention to these could pass on you for the job offer when they are evaluating your candidacy. This can be explained by the halo effect in marketing, and it states that if you have a bad first sight for someone or something, you may carry this negative attitude to your later interactions with this person. As well, the emergence of social networks for professionals such as Linkedin has given many people a chance to be recognized professionally more cheaply . The problem with this is that a lot of the times int would present yourself differently to different employers for different job requirements, and having a Linkedin could cause recruiters discrepancies about you if the way you present yourself in the interview is different from your online profile or how others commented about you. Hence, it’s important that you are aware that recruiters are paying close attentions to your behaviors online, and make sure that you always present yourself in a positive way even online.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Social Media

March 14, 2013 · 12:14 am

Does Brick and Mortar Retail have a future?

 

(source: vigcapital.com)

We used to go to nearby Blockbusters to rent the latest movies, now we can watch just the same content with Netflix online. This is just one example of how technology has reshaped our lives. Despite of E-Commerce’s emergence, The Shelf Edge recently blogged about the opportunities for brick and mortar retails. Like many X and Y generations, the author is also someone who often purchases electronics online for a bargain. Because the author wanted to get the product immediately for his mother-in-law, he ended up going to Best Buy for a computer. During his visit, he received important information and great services from a Best Buy sales representative who inspired him to come up with this idea that traditional retail can still prosper and compete with online shops.

I agree with the author. Yes, computer does save us time going to a store and provides us with a wider range of shopping selections. However, traditional distribution channels do have competitive advantages that are defending themselves from their digital competitors, especially for service-oriented companies like Best Buy. For instance, an important step in providing good service is to know what the customers want, even though surveys can be conducted to reduce the knowledge gap between marketers and customers, important signals from buyers like their body languages and facial expressions can only be sensed by experienced humans, not computers. As well, traditional retails can bridge the communication gap between the sales people and the consumers. For example, when you look at the descriptions of a computer online, a lot of people don’t know what the specifications would do. If you are at Best Buy, you can access their computer experts before sales and after sales to make sure you made a well-informed purchase, and it’s more likely that you will have a better user experience with your purchase. Therefore, I believe that brick and mortar retails will still exist for many years to deliver their best values to customers.

4 Comments

Filed under Retail