Month: December 2010

Who would’ve thought that beer and sport could work together.I guess, those two contradict each other don’t you think. Sport makes you healthy, beer, well beer creates “beer belly”.

Well, that does not occur in the business world. Beer, in the sporting industry, is a huge thing.

There are two major brands that are involve in the sporting industry. Carlsberg and Heineken.

Both of them are hugely involved in the football (soccer) world. Heineken is one of the main sponsor of European Champions League, and Carlsberg, used to be the sponsor for one of the English Clubs, Liverpool FC.

They have dominated the sporting industry in such a way that it influences the people that sports are now enjoyed with an ice cold beer.

Obviously, by having that influence towards the society, Heineken and Carlsberg would not have any problem with their sales, since the sporting industry is now on its booming phase, a lot of people would watch sports weather it’s live or it’s on tv.

If there’s a, for instance, a champions league game, and for some reason you want to go to a pub. Instantaneously, you would order a pint of ice cold beer.

That’s the influence that heinken and carlsberg brought to today’s world.

On June 1 2009, a giant auto-mobile manufacturer declared for bankruptcy. And yes, the company is a 101 years old company that represent the “heart and soul” of the United States.

General Motors filed for chapter 11 (or a term that’s being used these days to declare that your company is bankrupt) because the company had some financial matters that were not dealt with poise.

GM was given a bailout (government intervention type of help) of billions of dollars to regain its prominence in the automotive industry.

Couple of months after GM paid all their debts to the U.S. Treasury and Canadian government with $4.7 billion and $1.1 billion dollars respectively, GM made the initial public offering (IPO). It is their first time in offering the company’s share to the public.

In my opinion, GM is currently making a wise financial decision as they will get more capital from offering stocks to the public. It means that GM has more capital to regain its distinction as one of the biggest auto-mobile manufacturers.

Now since GM has bigger capital it means that they will also have bigger stake in their hands. They should not get careless with the financial matters as they now currently holding on to the public’s money.

On the previous post, I mentioned that Jamie owns restaurants around the globe, two in United Kingdom, and one is in Amsterdam, Holland . All of the restaurants are named fifteen (I don’t know why he named both restaurants “fifteen”).

All of those restaurants were established by the Jamie Oliver Foundation. Those restaurants however, are different to any other conventional restaurant. Those restaurants are employed with chef that have no culinary background.

Then, what’s the point of hiring them?

Jamie Oliver wanted to help the young adults who live in the projects, unemployed, and have no stable income. By hiring them, it helps them to have job, a stable income, and so that they will have better standard of living.

Jamie and all his staff taught the kids who are from the projects the tricks of the trade of cooking. They also taught them the proper manners and attitudes on being a student and a chef.

Thus, according to my understanding, Jamie can be considered as a social entrepreneur. He is an entrepreneur who cares about his society and want the society to have a better life.

I guess what Jamie Oliver did with Fifteen is what corporate companies usually call it as CSR.

When the class had a discussion on entrepreneurship, the name Jamie Oliver came to mind.

In my opinion, Jamie Oliver can be an example of an entrepreneur, and a very successful one. He developed recipes that become cook books, and developed cook books that lead to his own TV show, and from having his own TV show into owning restaurants around the globe.

An entrepreneur – according to my understanding does not have to be a person who developed sophisticated ideas. An entrepreneur for me is a person that could make a lucrative business using simple and yet very attractive concept.

What made Jamie Oliver stood out from the other renown chef is his ability to create and meeting the current demand in the market. Somehow Jamie managed to turn dishes that are using day-to-day ingredients into a very distinguished dish.

He did not make dishes as sophisticated as Ferran Adria, but somehow he managed to attract a lot of customer into buying his products.

His ideas are very simple. He has become a very important in this modern society as the person who influence others on how easy cooking really is.

Jamie is a person that defines what entrepreneur is.

When I had to do my comm 101 presentation, I suddenly realized that I am going to elaborate stuff on endorsement, so might as well blog about it.

Take a look at Nike, for instance. This famous shoe manufacturer have endorsed tons of athletes around the world. For instance, Lebron James, Michael Jordan, Carmelo Anthony, you name the rest.

http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID8310/images/air-jordan.jpg

http://files.nireblog.com/blogs1/seven/files/kaka_adipure.jpg

And for adidas, you’d see Kaka, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, etc.

So do you know who they are?

Those are athletes that made endorsement deals with shoe manufacturer such as Nike and Adidas.

Why would they want to do that?

It is simply because they want us, the consumers to buy their products.

Companies such as Nike and Adidas paid millions of dollars just for those superstars to wear their shoes. It is simply because of percepetion

Those companies want those athletes to bring an excellent brand image to the consumers so the consumers will have the perception that those brands are the best, since athletes always get the best and wear the best shoes.

Hence, endorsement is also an example where marketing meets finance. It is because these deals require a huge amount of money.

Then again, endorsement as a marketing strategy has worked pretty much so far for those two companies,