Our team decided to study Groupon company for our group project in Marketing Class.
Trough this project we had first to lead a situation analysis and a SWOT, then we made a STP (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning), and finally we realized a Marketing Mix Analysis and developed a marketing strategy that we incorporated in a video.

I sincerely believe our team was a functional and efficient team. We managed to use everybody strengths to realize the best project we could. This is why we easily split the tasks between us, and everyone did its tasks perfectly. Moreover, we were listening to each other ideas, and paying importance to everything said. To me this one of the main reasons why we were a a cohesive group and why we managed to be creative in the realization of the video.
It is also important to put forward that we were efficient in the way we met regularly, we established smart goals – like the fact to always meet the deadlines by having finished and reviewed all together our work many days before it.

I also want to point out this project was really interesting for me in the way it allowed to apply concepts and theories we discovered in class. It really interested me, and allowed me to understand in a deeper way many marketing concepts, and also to realize marketing is something I really enjoy and probably would like to work in.

Last but not least, I want to conclude by putting forward that realizing this video was really fun and useful. It is different from what we are used to do, it helps us encourage our creativity, and gives us a big pleasure using this new format. Moreover, it permits us to get new skills by knowing how to realize a video.

In a nutshell, I only have positive feedbacks on this project, and encourage everybody to take COMM296 as soon as possible because they will love this class.

I commented on James Munson’s post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/jamesmunson/2013/09/30/dunkin-donuts-went-black-and-now-theyre-going-back/#comment-206

On her blog Kristen Chase writes an article explaining Toys ‘R’ Us decided to stop gender marketing in their stores in UK.
Usually, in each store there was a specific part of the store dedicated only for boys with boys-toys, and another part of the store dedicated for girls with girls-toys. On ads, boys were playing with toys labelled for boys and girls with toys labelled for girls. This is called gender marketing: we target only boys for some toys and only girls for some others.
However in the UK, she puts forward that they stopped practising gender marketing after “Let Toys be Toys” campaign. This campaign claimed that each toy should be for boys and girls.

Kristen Chase puts forward this is a really good thing that Toys ‘R’ Us in UK changed their marketing strategy, and we can easily guess she is confident in the fact consumers will enjoy it.
First, to me in a way she is right, we can say Toys ‘R Us made a good thing with this marketing campaign, given they expand each toy to more consumers. Indeed, girls will buy toys they would have never bought, and boys will do the same. Moreover, by this change in its marketing strategy, Toys ‘R’ Us wants to show they listen and pays attention to societal debate, and the company is ready to adapt to meet the social improvement in our societies to satisfy the consumer.

However it may be badly seen by many consumers who will put forward Toys ‘R’ Us takes sides in a controversial debate, and wants to pay attention to a minority of people fighting against gender marketing. Thus in my opinion some consumers might prefer going to another shop to resist to what they would qualify of a political action through marketing.

http://blogs.babycenter.com/mom_stories/toys-r-us-in-the-uk-gets-rid-of-gender-marketing-yes/

Since its foundation in Seattle in 1971, Starbuck expanded in all the world, becoming one of the world leaders in coffee shop market. And Starbuck pays attention to maintain this leadership. This is why Starbuck tries to be innovative and at the same time to reach new markets. This is why on the 21st of November Starbuck will open a new store in a train.

People were used in the trains to find a little snack store. It was usually impersonal and from an unknown company, what didn’t attract so much people. However, with the opening of a store in the train Starbuck is becoming a leader on this market. The company uses a market development strategy, given it reaches new markets with an existing marketing offering. Thanks to its brand name, Starbuck knows people will be attracted to come to its store to buy its products. Indeed, consumers know the quality of Starbuck products, which was not the case with the actual stores in most of the trains.
Moreover, Starbuck gets innovative by creating a true coffee shop in the train. Consumers can just stop at the take-away as it is common in actual stores in trains, but Starbuck also creates a true cafe where people can sit, chat, relax, in a nice, cosy and friendly environment. It goes without saying Starbucks tries to answer to consumers’ needs, and to what they have been waiting for in trains. They are trying to make consumer’s trips more comfortable and enjoyable, and in a way travellers will feel valuable for Starbuck and will be thankful for that.

What Starbuck did is a really powerful strategy in the way they are certain to reach perfectly this new market, but they also increase the fidelity of their actual consumers.

http://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-on-train-switzerland-2013-11

One of the most popular meals for children at McDonalds, is the Happy Meal. Children love it because they usually get a toy with it. However Mc Donalds is usually criticized to have a too aggressive marketing plan with children, and Happy Meal are usually seen by parents as too fatty. To counter this image, Mc Donalds decided to offer during two weeks in November 2013, some books with the Happy Meals, instead of toys. According to McDonalds, those attractive books for children aim at providing children nutrition training

To me, it seems to be clear that with this marketing campaign Mc Donalds’ objective is to counter critics on Happy Meal – and thus to improve their image with parents who have children. If they started this campaign, this means that children are an important target market to them and they did not manage to reach in the best way they could before. Thus Mc Donalds tries to show the importance they give to nutrition for children. And this action is reinforced by their previous campaigns offering fruits in their Happy Meals. Moreover, this marketing is strong in the way that Mc donalds brings some ethics by offering 100,000 books to needless children. To this way, Mc donalds really wants to improve its image with parents, so as to attract more and more children.
However this marketing strategy can be critized in the way that children reading the books offered by Mc Donalds can easily associate Mc donalds and nutrition – while it has been proved Fast Foods can lead to obesity. Moreover, parents may have reasons to believe that this marketing campaign is just a way to attract children by promoting a message they don’t respect themselves, given the relation between Fast Foods and Obesity. It may be reasons for why parents could find this campaign ironical and hypocritical, and restrain them from going to Mc Donalds. As a result, this can explain why Mc Donalds France decided not to offer books dealing with nutrition.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-11/mcbooks-mcdonalds-adds-books-to-its-happy-meals#r=nav-f-story

Pampers is a brand specializing in baby products, and especially in diapers. Marketed by Procter&Gamble, it is worldwide known, and is present in most of countries. It takes part into ethic actions so as helping children and families in difficulties in the world. To this way, in 2006, Pampers launched a campaign aiming at making people be sensitive to tetanus, and at trying to eradicate it in the world.

Realizing that each 4 minutes a baby dies because of tetanus, Pampers decided to form a partnership with UNICEF, by giving them one tetanus vaccine for each pack bought by consumers.

According to me, Pampers made here a strong marketing action. Nowadays, people are really concern by the difficult living conditions of people in difficulties, especially in the Third World. Thus on the culture and demographic points, pampers marketers were really good because they will attract many new consumers sensitive to this cause, and reinforce their relationship with loyal customers. To this way, they will be in a better position than their competitors, and people will more easily buy Pampers’ products without paying attention to the price – they will be glad to accomplish a good action by buying pampers’ packs. Their most privileged consumers must be mothers, because they are the one who buy products for their babies first. Secondly, as they are more sensitive and own a strong protective instinct especially when the vaccines are used to save mothers and children.
Moreover, by having a partnership with UNICEF, their brand will have a strong relay in the medias (like on UNICEF website, on TV…) and will touch more people while giving a true credibility to Pampers.

In a nutshell, with this marketing campaign, Pampers decided to act in an ethic way. Thus with this  action on large scale, they chose to be ethically responsible, contrary to some other firms which are not at all, or which pretend to but which only act on a small scale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxcf408qVs : Nice spot on TV.

http://news.pampers.com/fact-sheet/about-one-pack-one-vaccine