Felicia Firdaus's Blog

Last week, I just found out that we can order take out from Whitespot by placing the order online. I thought it was pretty cool and decided to give it a try.

The website was very clear; it carries varieties of menu just like the restaurant menu did. What I like about the online service is it allows us to personalize our food. I could easily click on the add on that I would like to add to my order and eliminate the extra condiment that I do not want, in this case I order a burger with extra BBQ sauce and no tomato. The placement order also guided step by step as the first one you choose the food then they will offer you whether you want beverage or not. In addition, through the website, I could see what promotion is currently going on. Overall, I was satisfied with the online service.

I was a bit disappointed when I got to the store as all the servers are busy and I would have to wait to give me my order and they seems in a rush so can’t serve me better.

The advantages of using online services compared to dine in are the sentences on the website are very clear and friendly, you could see the promotions that are going on and details, you do not need to wait for a server to take your order, and your order has less chance of error as it is computerized.

I know that the real service that is provided by dining in the restaurant could not be replaced with the online service in this situation. But then the point that I want to bring out is online service could also be a competitive advantage in this business.

images source : whitespot.com

This week we will have our last COMM 299 class. I feel happy yet a little bit sad. I feel happy because means this semester will end soon but sad because I will miss this interesting class. Unlike the other classes which are based on lectures and readings from the books, this class is very practical and based on people experiences. We learn how to write a good resume, how to ace the interview, how to build connection and networks. For instance, we learn that body language such as eye contact and hand gestures is a very important matter in the interview. Our little actions are constantly being interpreted by the interviewer to get a sense of our personality. I am really glad I have taken this class because it has taught me a lot especially about job searching. For all business students, I strongly recommend to take this class because it teaches us how to be more competitive in the market and help us to get the job that we wanted.

This week post is about Google. I read Winda Fung’s blog post titled “Parisian Love”. She commented the Google video ads with the same title and praised how the advertising is so simple yet meaningful. The video conveys that Google can help you find anything, it is very easy to use and it is fast. This is one example where Google try to create a message toward consumer to make them realize that Google has been a part of their lives.

Nowadays, many people use Google to find things in internet. The term “Google” itself has become a verb and recognized worldwide.  I also use Google to find everything that I need starting from sources from my assignment, housing listing to recent updates from my favourites artists. You may say that I have been successfully captured by Google promotional strategy, but I have reasons why I still prefer using Google other than the other search engines. I have tried using several other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing but in the end I always come back and using Google. When Bing by Microsoft was launched, I was curious to try it to see if it is better than Google. I like how they design their layout with nice wallpaper and have these fancy features such as visual search. However, those things that actually the one that draws me back to Google. It is true that these features is new and cool but it makes them lose the main purpose of using the search engines itself which is to find things in internet fast, easy and relevant. Google uses white background makes it faster to load and easier to navigate throughout the page and the visual search is confusing to use. The practicality and simplicity of Google website are the reasons that make the customer loves Google.

In addition with lots of innovation such as launching Android phones, Google docs, Google TV and good reputations such as the best workplace, Google image has become more positive and thus create stronger brand image which appeal the customer to use more of its product.

image source : googlesystem.blogspot.com

This post is for comm 299 assignment :

Today I want to share a little story with you. It is about the greatest lesson that I learned from someone else. Actually, it is not gotten directly by talking to the person himself but through watching a movie which based on his life story. The movie that is “The Gifted Hands”. It tells the story of Dr Ben Carson, a brilliant American neurosurgeon and the Director of Pediatrics Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

When Dr. Carson was young, he suffered low self-esteem because of his failing grades at school. .He believed that he was stupid and did not have any talents. In addition, he was also depreciated because he is black. However, his loving mother encouragement made him to never give up, studied hard and finally become successful.

Watching the movie, I am inspired as I could relate my experience with him. I frequently thought I did not have any talents and I also always compared myself with other people which then lowered my self-esteem. However, after watching his life story, I realized that dissatisfaction with one’s self brings disappointment. Failure is indeed a part of life and we do not have to regret that. Every successful person also has their failure but then they got back up and study from its mistake. What I learned from him is to put my best effort and be thankful for whatever results that I got. We have to trust in ourselves, and be committed to everything that you do.

Here’s a youtube interview video with Dr Carson. After watching the video, you can tell he is indeed a great person.

In this week post, I want to talk about my favorite TV show, Glee. Yes, I’m a Gleek (Nickname for Glee fans). It’s not been so long since I watch this show but I totally love it. The storyline is light and simple, unlike the other American drama TV shows that I know and it’s funny too.

The show narrates about the journey of a bunch of high school students in the glee club who are trying to become accepted by other students who keep mocking them by pursuing their passion which is singing, a light drama mixed with friendship and love story.

With average of 9.77 million viewers in the season 1 and more for season 2, the show has currently become a phenomenon. Last January, this show even wins the title of best television series at the 68^th Golden Globe Award.

So what’s the secret behind this success? The answer is an intensive and smart marketing promotion.

It turns out that the marketing team from Fox TV has started a very intensive promotion even before the show aired. With target audience mainly young adult and teenagers, they advertise through the right media. Glee has a website, a Facebook page, a twitter page, and a blog, all media that are very popular among this target audience.  These channels has create a community where people can share their thoughts about the shows and also as media to give updates for its customer  to keep them engage with the shows. In addition, Glee also creates YouTube account, posting songs from the shows and also interviews with the Glee casts so that the audience may know the actors and actresses from the show better. Furthermore, they also carefully put the show’s trailer on the right times such as in front of the latest Harry Potter film

In conclusion, Glee has done a good promotion which contributes to its success.

image source : fox.com, blog.taricani.com

This week blog is inspired by my classmate Mackenzie’s Bowen post, “Go Green”. In her blog, she talked about the trend of how nowadays businesses are going green and there are many benefits.  This marketing strategy is not only intended to help the environment itself, but mainly to attract environmentally conscious customers and to cut the companies’ costs in the long run.

On this blog post, I would like to tell you about Coca Cola smart brand extension.  Their “go green” action has successfully earned them not only the three benefits mentioned above, but also a chance to make some extra profit.

Made out of the recycled plastic cokes bottle, coca cola are making apparels and accessories likes t-shirts, caps and chairs to be sold in the coca cola online store. Most of the apparels such as t-shirt carries encouraging message for people to recycle.

Personally, I’d really like the idea of eco apparel made by coca cola. I think this is an innovative brand extension and a very good application of “go green” marketing strategy.  The designs are also very nice and simple which makes very appealing to buy.

If you are interested in learning more about what Coca cola do for recycling or just to learn recycling in general, go visit the coca cola website. They have many educational video about recycling process such as how separating materials for recycling process.

image sources : thegreenworkplace.com, greenr.ca

How fast could you type these sentences in your mobile phone?

“Old McDonald had a farm, Ei, ei, oh! And on this farm he had a champ. W/a txtr here, and BFF there. Here a text, there a text, erywhere a text-text!”

If you could do it less than 60 seconds, I’m suggesting you to join the LG National Texting Championship. Yes that’s right a texting championship. This competition was started by LG back in 2007.

Brianna Hendrickson, a 13 years old girl from Brooklyn, New York won the 4^th US national texting championship last year by typing those sentences without errors in 60 seconds. She received $50,000 and an opportunity to play in the international championship against 15 other winners from across the world to win $100,000.

Watch Brianna’s performance in the international championship

I think this is an excellent marketing strategy by LG. As the contestants were using LG phones during the competition, various media who cover this competition will automatically advertise LG phones. In addition, potential contestants of this competition will buy LG phones to practice themselves to text fast.

However, personally I don’t fully support this competition. The downside of this competition is it entices people to text more. I don’t think it is ethical to encourage these people especially teenagers to adapt them with this addictive habits. Furthermore, there have been numerous articles pointing the negative effect of texting such as rude social behavior and trigger arthritis.

So what are your opinions the championship?

image source : concreteloop.com, lgmobilephones.com

Today in our marketing class we talk about branding. A brand is an asset of a company. It’s what distinguishes a company from its competitors and signifies the quality that the company promises to bring in their product or service.

In the class, we discussed about some popular global brand and one of them is McDonald. Most of the students have negative impression toward this brand, remembering that they are selling unhealthy junk food. However, our instructor told us that recently McDonald added their brand value in by using green marketing effort. Unfortunately, this marketing strategy hasn’t received much attention from its customers. In fact, I just knew it today when she told us and I was surprised to found out that this company really does pay attention to the environment.

Here are some examples of actions that McDonald does to preserve the environment:

1. They provide recycling bins in their stores. I know it is very common but then it’s the very basic stuffs that you need to have to show that you concern about the environment. More importantly; they educate the customers by putting signs of which trash goes to which bin.
2. Recycling their waste. Every year, the US Restaurants’ recycled approximately 13,000 pounds of cooking oil. Used cooking oils are turned to biodiesels which used for fuel for their logistic fleets. In addition, they also recycle their cardboards.
3. Environmental friendly packaging. Most of their packaging is made using recyclable material. About 80 percent of Europe’s McDonald packaging is made using recycled materials.
4. Energy efficient. McDonald uses low energy light bulbs and their stoves are installed with sonic alerts to remind staffs to put it back in energy saving mode when they are not using them.
5. Green Restaurant Designs. McDonalds successfully reduced the energy consumption in the restaurant by promoting natural lighting and enhancing the indoor air quality in their green restaurants.  As reported by UK Times Online, the green McDonald restaurant in Chicago uses 25 percent less energy than similar location.

Here is a video that you could watch to see more what McDonald has done in sustainability

So, do you have a better impression for McDonald now?

data and image sources : http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/, http://www.mcdonalds.com/us

Who doesn’t love Disney? Hearing Disney name sure could bring up all your Disney a.k.a. beautiful memories.  I just finish reading an article “Let Out the Kid in you” written by Jessie Zheng, my marketing classmate. She talks about how Disney marketing strategy has successfully position its brand. They are able to differentiate their other “products” such as ESPN and Marvel Studios by giving different brand name instead of carrying it out in the same name Disney brand in order to maintain the family friendly brand image that they have built throughout these years.

But, Disney has another secret that make them success. They have successfully created multi product segments that the customer could follow up into as they grow up. By age as segmentation base, Disney is nurturing its customer. My marketing professor said when marketing your product, you should see the customer as a long time commitment consumer. For instance you are selling a $10 dollar product and let’s say you have Emma as your customer. Don’t think Emma as a $10 customer but instead see her as a $520 customer because she is going to buy your product for one year each week.

Disney has all types of product for people and different ages. Starting from babies and toddler, Disney offers Disney Baby products such as stroller and baby walkers. When they grow up as kids, Disney has the cartoon and animation movies, toys, and all the safe but fun attraction in Disneyland. For teenagers, they offer TV shows such as Hannah Montana, the T shirts and the more thrilling ride at Disneyland. And as the customer enters adulthood, they could still watch shows such as Lion King to bring back their kids’ memories and also adult T shirt, bath robe etc. And recently, Disney launched Disney Bridal, targeted to women who have been growing up Disney Princesses Fairytales and still wanting a Disney touch in their wedding.

Using this strategy, Disney is retaining its customer loyalty. When they grew up, they would still use Disney products and based on their satisfaction of Disney product, they will definitely pick Disney product again for their children too and the cycles goes on and on.

image taken from : bestorlandovacationpackages.com

For this week’s post, I picked an article that I found at brandchannel.com.

The article is pretty interesting and yet also raises some controversial issues.  So the article talks about Walmart who is going to launch a new line of cosmetic products called Geo Girls which targeting 8 to 12 years old girls.

Geo Girls consist of 69 makeup products for girls such as blush, mascara, lipstick and also anti aging cream packaged in recyclable containers.  The products are going to roll in the market this upcoming March with price range from $3.99 to $5.99.

The controversial issue is do you think is it appropriate to sell make up to young girls?

We all know that girls like to play dress up and trying their mom’s make up but it does not mean that they are ready to wear makeup. I believe that it is very important to educate children starting from young age how to appreciate themselves just the way they are and building their self esteem.

The purpose of makeup it selves is not appropriate for young girls. The reason why women wears make up is to look attractive, to look younger for mature women or to look more mature if they are teenagers.

The long term effect of introducing these young tweens to the world of make up is makeup could lead up to an addiction as children try to pursue perfection of beauty. It will establish a perception in these young children of how important outside appearance is in the real world and it could erode their self esteem.

I believe this case is similar to the case of McDonald’s Happy Meal. Kids were the victim of advertisement as businesses see the potential of making profit in them. Parents sued McDonald because they toys that are offered in Happy Meal attract children to eat junk food and thus the children become obese. According to worldhealth.net, currently one third US children are in the risk of being obese or in obesity.

So what are your opinions about this issue?

images taken from : – geogirl

–  mybrownbaby.blogspot.com