Elling's iDeas

I think Captain Morgan’s has some of the best commercials. They clearly target a certain group of consumers, which is men who want to be a little bit rough and like to have a good time. Another aspect they do well on is their timing and placing of adds on TV’s – usually during football or hockey games. I’m not the biggest hard alcohol person, but I would be willing to try a captain morgans with coke every now and then. Check this commercial out:

Although not many Canadians actually care about football, I think we should be aware of what’s going on. On Saturday the Montreal Alouettes stole the grey cup out from the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ feet. It was a good game though. I wasn’t sure if Montreal was going to take it two years consecutively.

It was kind of funny though because even though I was watching the Grey Cup, I was more interested in the NFL game that was on at the same time between San Diego and Indianapolis – Peyton Manning was getting destroyed all game.

Anyways, check out this little clip that was to promote the Grey Cup last weekend in Edmonton:

What can it mean for your product or company makes it onto the show Dragons Den? From reading articles of people who make it on, most of them (assuming their product isn’t complete bogus) experience times of extreme growth after their appearance. For many Dragons Den applicants, the opportunity to make it onto the show may not even be because they want funding from the venture capitalists, but rather so they can have the opportunity to market the product to the world.

I must admit some of the ideas people bring to the table are quite ridiculous. But on the other hand, some of the ideas are amazing, check this out:

Definitely want one of these!

Research in Motion announced yesterday their new competition for the iPad. It’s called the Playbook. Check it out:

Here’s the specs for it:

• 7-inch LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
• BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
• 1 GHz dual-core processor
• 1 GB RAM
• Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
• Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
• Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
• HDMI video output
• Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
• Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
• Ultra thin and portable:
• Measures 5.1″x7.6″x0.4″ (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
• Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
• RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.

What do you think about this? Does it match the iPad or beat it?

Have you ever thought about starting a business while in school? I sure have.

What does it take?

What type of business do you want to start? There are only so many possibilities while you’re in school – perhaps starting an online business that offers a service, or even creating an investment portfolio sort of like a mutual fund where you pool other investors money together and invest in what you think is good.

Those are just a couple of ideas I had when looking into starting something.

Some advice I got from other blogs is:

• It is easy to promote your business while in school because you can get your friends to help promote your company
• It is easier to take risks while in school since we can always fall back on something. You should not be scared of making mistakes since you will always learn from them.
• There are lots of opportunities to try something innovative in school. The environment we live in at UBC is quite innovative and ideas are widely accepted.
• It is FUN! While we’re in school we can treat it sort of like a game without too much loss if we fail.

We need to try new things while in school. Many of the largest companies (eg – Microsoft, Facebook) were started while in school. What is holding us back? If you don’t try anything you won’t learn anything.

If you have an innovative idea and want someone to review it/get involved with it feel free to contact me.

Also check out some of the other links I’ve found:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2203266_start-business-school.html

http://www.essortment.com/career/startsmallbusi_sbss.htm

http://www.businessschooljournal.com/32-businesses-you-can-start-while-in-business-school-a-guide-for-student-entrepreneurs/

Just watch them…..

.. or just check out their website:  http://theweakshop.com/

In an effort to find something to write about, I came across a blog that really I had some feelings toward. Connor Radil wrote an article on Mac’s vs. PC’s.

Personally, when I bought my first laptop in grade 10 (which is the same laptop I use today… this thing is unbelievable) there was no real movement towards Mac from PC. Nowadays in Universities students are blinded by the marketers and peer influencer’s of Mac. I think they are a far inferior good compared to PC’s. Think about if you were to buy a PC that costs the price as a Mac – you would be buying a SUPER-computer. Mac’s are far over valued for their price.

I am a PC advocate that will never switch to Mac.

I guess now that I’m done this rant I can say that I do admire the battery life of Mac’s..

Water is a resource many of us take for granted. Take a quick look at this video to check out what others are saying about the water crisis:

I have some mixed thoughts about html emails. Do they actually cause people to read them more than plain text emails? How about thinking in terms of business people – lots of companies set up email so they can only read emails in plain text. Of course, students like myself at University have the ability to receive very high tech looking html emails, but that doesn’t mean everyone around the world prefers or has the ability to receive these emails. When you don’t have html reading abilities the html emails show up as html codes – Lame-o! Check out this link to read up a bit more on html email campaigns.

Personally, I don’t really know what I prefer – html or plain text. I find if the email is straight to the point and doesn’t have a whole bunch of paragraphs I will read them. What do you think or prefer? See what this persons blog has to say about it.

If you are unfamiliar with html emails, take a look at this html email tutorial:

After last weeks blog post I decided to do a little bit more research into what causes consumer’s to buy the more expensive alternative between two products. The term can be called “masstige”, which have the following characteristics “(1) They are considered luxury or premium products and (2) They have price points that fill the gap between mid-market and super premium.” I guess we can think about these type of products not only as items you would buy at the grocery store, but almost any product available. Think about the jeans you are wearing, the food you eat etc.

Here’s some more info about it from another blog:

“Why is this trend important to senior marketers?

Democratization of brands is strongly associated with higher market share and margins. It drives value and makes brands more resilient. Plotting your brand in the continuum of Masstige hierarchies can reveal new insights on how to optimize brand value and strengthen pricing strategies.”