Eungwan's "Marketing is everywhere"

As we have learned, Nike has successfully advertised that when consumers think about sport goods, Nike belongs to the retrieval sets. In order to do so, Nike had innovatively worked with Michael Jordan to promote their products. Back then, paying such a humongous incentive to a single athlete was rather shocking news. Anyhow, they have successfully delivered the value of their products that many consumers consider their products first when thinking about buying any sport goods.

           Since then, the sport good manufacturers started to pay great amount of money to star athletes so that they would wear their products wherever and whenever they show up in front of the public. When dividing the market geographically, they tend to hire an eminent figure of that specific area. In case of Korea, Nike pays various star athletes, and among those, the one that stands out the most is Jisung Park. It is estimated that 80% of the Nike items sold in Korea are related to Jisung Park. When I first heard that he’s getting sponsored 10 million dollars by Nike, I was very shocked. But after reading articles related to Jisung Park’s marketing effects not only in Korea but throughout Asia, the amount of money that he gets sponsored sounds somewhat justifiable.

As I was reading this post from Kit’s marketing blog (https://blogs.ubc.ca/tszkitng/2010/10/21/post-5-costco-in-ubc/), I realized that it would be fabulous idea that Costco open a branch in UBC campus. Most of the students here are trying to be frugal, at least when they eat in their residence. Although Save on foods and Safeway located in and near UBC do provide relatively low price of groceries, I wouldn’t hesitate to become a loyal customer of Costco if they establish a branch near UBC campus. I personally think that Costco can easily attract consumers in UBC since it normally delivers 3 of the 4 P’s that consumers value the most: produce, price, and place (in case it opens a branch in UBC). I definitely agree with Kit’s opinion that they maybe should open a branch here in UBC.

Last month, I’ve mentioned that The Gap have changed from its traditional logo to a new one that eliminated the blue background and put a small blue box on top of letter P instead. This created many controversies among consumers, and many argued that they don’t feel the same amiable feeling when viewing The Gap’s new logo. After experiencing many controversies, The Gap finally decided to stick with the traditional logo and keep it unchanged. The Canadian Marketing Association viewed this incident very interesting. I think they viewed this incident particularly more interesting than others because now the Lululemon has very similar logo as The Gap’s old logo. Although The Gap had reverted back to its original logo after listening to consumer’s reactions, whether Lululemon’s action is ethical or unethical remains unchanged.

Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) blog:

http://www.canadianmarketingblog.com/archives/2010/10/lemons_the_lulu_kind_1.html

I once read in the book that in order to succeed, a firm needs to control and decide the marketing mix in a way that would maximize the value to the consumers. When I first saw that supply chain was included in one of the marketing mix (place), I didn’t understand clearly why a firm needs to have a good control of its supply chain. However, after reading a blog post by Verena Facundo: https://blogs.ubc.ca/verenafacundo/2010/10/23/china-milk-scare-and-the-supply-chain/, my uncertainty concerning about it disappeared. Yili, a Chinese milk company, has been negatively affected by a competitor’s negative advertisement about Yili’s products. This did not only affect the firm itself, but every single individual in the supply chain were also affected. As their revenue declined, everyone in the supply chain suffered.

Thinking a bit differently, if a member of the supply chain wouldn’t have done its job efficiently, then there’s no way the company would provide the maximum value to the consumers. For a marketer, providing a good value to the consumers is very crucial, and in order to do so, the marketer needs to carefully choose the marketing mix and understand the importance of the supply chain.

Firms try to deliver the value that the consumers perceive as valuable and price accordingly. Some value-based marketing firms try to deliver more than necessary to attract consumers to buy their products. One example of this value-based marketing is the way Whistler sells season passes to different segments of the market. For those who place a greater interest on skiing/snowboarding, Whistler charges more heavily than to other segments. However, it does not forget to offer them a special offer for them only. Whistler charges more money on adults than it does to seniors and students. This type of pricing can be both value-based and profit maximizing pricing. The reason for this is because for those who buy the expensive season pass, Whistler allows them to ski/snowboard on 24^th, 25^th, whereas university students are not allowed to ski/snowboard on those specific dates. Doing so, Whistler delivers more value to those who buy the adult season pass than to those who buy the student pass. While part of Whistler’s pricing strategy is value based, other part is profit maximizing pricing. Whistler complements both strategies by delivering good values and pricing differently to different segments.

Customer satisfaction may act more positively than advertising. As customers who use a particular company’s product get satisfied, the customer may spread a positive word to the society. And the society, in turn, might get interested on its product and eventually purchase it. On the other hand, a negative spread of word can be very deleterious for the firm, and is considered as one of the attitudes that firms must avoid in order to succeed in the market.

           The way Stella & Chewy’s is handling with its complaints is becoming an issue. It carefully examines any complaints related to their products and tries to deliver greatest value as possible.

Link: http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/23/smallbusiness/profiting_from_customer_complaints.fsb/index.htm

Consumers purchase goods or services when they perceive that the money that they are paying for is an appropriate amount for the value that they get from the goods or services.  In some cases, the firm tries to identify the value that the customer puts on their products or services and charges the customers accordingly. For example, some customers might attribute a high value on staying at Hyatt Hotel because it provides high levels of service, and convenience. When Hyatt Hotel finds out that the customers are putting a high value on the services and products that they provide, Hyatt might charge them a reasonable price.

As I was looking on the choices I have for my winter break, the value-related readings of marketing course came to my mind. Checking the prices of hotels in Whistler and Cancun, I was left in a humungous dilemma. The prices that I had to pay for a night in those places exceeded what I was expecting, in other words, many individuals were placing a higher value on staying at those hotels located in Whistler and Cancun than what I did. Looking at those prices, I was surprised that all the contents that we learned in marketing course were valid and that “Marketing is everywhere”.

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A company’s logo can be used as a positioning tool. Nowadays, symbol became very important factor for both potential buyers and the company itself. Logo helps consumers to easily identify the manufacturer of the product, and it also might give the buyers some sense of pride by using that particular item. The symbols also help to “create a position for the brand that distinguishes it from its competition” (Grewal and Levy 160). There have been many companies that changed their logo, and changing the company’s logo is often viewed as gambling. It can ameliorate company’s image perceived by the customers or it can deteriorate its image. The Gap updated its 20-year old logo to a simpler logo in which it has a smaller blue box on top of “p” in Gap. This sudden change in its logo caused many discrepancies among The Gap’s consumers. While some advocated this new change, some others even stated that “if this logo is brought into the clothing [store] I will no long[er] be shopping with the Gap. Really a bummer because 90% of my clothing has been purchased there in the last 15+ years.” To pacify the disappointment of the customers, Gap immediately responded to the arguments and asked for feedbacks.

From this example, we can easily denote how logos play crucial role in a company’s positioning strategy.

Link: http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/08/news/companies/gap_logo/index.htm

Bibliography

Grewal and Levy. Marketing. 2nd. McGraw-Hill, 2009. 160

Normally, when people think about marketing, one simple and eminent notion comes to their mind, “marketing is simply selling values to the public”. However, marketing involves more complex and costly activities. Those activities are data collection, observation, in-depth interview, and surveys, just to name a few. Since marketing is primarily focused on consumer’s needs, much of the data collections are also focused on consumers.  Due to this fact, marketers always have to pay very close attention when doing market research because in some way the marketers might harm consumers by collecting data unethically. The most recently well-known marketing scandal was selling customer information to a third party.

Videotaping customers raises another question of whether observing customers’ actions for marketing use is ethical or unethical. Doing such observation of customers’ actions might help to better understand how consumers’ tastes differ according to their age, sex, etc. “In some cases, researchers obtain consent from the consumers they are watching and videotaping; in other cases, they do not. The ethical dilemma for marketing researchers centers around whether using observational techniques in which the subjects are not informed that they are being studied, like viewing customers in a mall or a retail store, violates the rule of fair treatment. Observing uninformed consumers very well may lead to important insights that would not otherwise be discovered” (Grewal and Levy 175).  Although many customers wouldn’t care whether they are being videotaped or not, some might actually care that they are being watched by someone. Do you believe that this type of marketing is ethical?

Bibliography

Grewal and Levy. Marketing. 2nd. McGraw-Hill, 2009. 175

Environmental concern had been hot potato for the latest decade. We can clearly see that not only did multinational companies show response to this concern, but everyone did. In the center of this issue were the companies. Companies competed against each other in producing and inventing greener product than others. New technologies that were more energy-efficient and eco-friendly were embedded in every product that emerged into the market. High competency between the companies made possible such rapid inventions and relieved pain that Earth suffered. Toyota had been a hot issue among car buyers when Prius was first introduced to the market. The hybrid car brought sensations in the market. When I first heard the word “hybrid”, the word sounded somewhat unfamiliar to me. Anyway, the energy-efficient and eco-friendly car had attracted millions of consumers who eventually brought the sensational product to their garage. The competition among carmakers became hotter than ever. The competition made companies to invest more on technology and innovation of the product. The continuous investment on new technology and innovation enabled GM to proudly present electric-only car, Volt, to the public.

Once charged, Volt can “drive up to 40 miles on electric power before a gasoline engine turns on to generate electricity for over 300 miles of driving driving.” Although some critics argue Volt to be a “less environmentally sensitive solution because it still has a gasoline engine”, it will surely bring positive changes to the environment by significantly reducing the carbon dioxide emitted.

Link: http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/20/autos/ev_volt/index.htm