Month: November 2010

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.