Gabrielle Chung

In addition to my classmate’s blog on his insight on marketing automation, I found another interesting marketing technique.

The article I linked below really opened up my eyes to the types of advertising around me. Apparently, if you look at items on websites such as Zappos, Art, B&H Photo, eBags and much more, those items are going to pop up everywhere you go on the web. This is suppose to be “personalized remarketing or retargeting” and it is getting more persuasive as big companies such as Google and Microsoft have started doing it. Furthermore, this type of marketing is being hailed as the latest breakthrough because it tries to show consumers the right ad at the right time. How this works is that the cookies on your computer keep track of the item you were interested in, then the advertising system creates ads for that particular item on basically every website you go to.  The Advertising Age column have stated it as a “phenomenon” but, of courses, consumers feel uneasy. But for those who are unaware of this marketing scheme, it is a way for companies to subconsciously persuade the consumers to buy the products. There are many things wrong about this kind of marketing, an intrusion of privacy being one of them. But I think of it as just plain creepy.

Read more at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/get-the-feeling-that-web-ads-are-following-you-they-are/article1691072/print/

The cosmetic company, Dove, posted a video a couple of years called “Onslaught.” It was a Campaign for Real Beauty and the video centered around a little girl who was in danger of the cosmetic world, such as plastic surgery and diet pills. Their message was that their products were natural and that it would give you self-confidence without the drastic measures. A couple of weeks after the release of “Onslaught,” Greenpeace released a video called “Dove Onslaught(er).” It targeted Dove’s production and how it bought from companies in Indonesia that extracted palm oil from its rain forests. These companies were destroying homes for those who lived in and depended on the forests. In this video, there was a little girl from Indonesia who was suffering from the effects of the razed forests. The irony is that Unilever, the parent company of Dove, has received awards for sustainability and responsible business practices. Where is the justice in that?

Check out Dove’s Onslaughter

Here is Greenpeace’s “Dove Onslaught(er)”

A classmate’s blog on “The Cult of Apple” pointed out that the Apple brand has a cult like following. Not only are their products extremely popular but Apple is starting to grow into other business segments. Apple’s recently released Iphone 4S came out with an innovative program that can potentially shove big companies such Google aside.

As everyone knows, Google is the King of Search and has dominated US searches by two-thirds. While other brands such as Bing and Yahoo has declined as frequently used search engines, Google has increased in popularity by 2%.

While Google is winning the search game, a search evolution is coming that will change the way we search on the Web. Apple’s launch of iOS 5 supported Siri, an artificial intelligent voice search assistants that purposely work around Google to serve results. For local searches, such as stores and restaurants, Siri will use Yelp; for math and science problems, Siri will use Wolfram Alpha. As the absolute last resort, Siri will search Google – but only after trying all of Google’s competitors first. Apple is not just targeting traditional phones, iphones and computers anymore. They are targeting Google with the release of their iOS5 and Siri that can understand the human language much better than Google’s search box can. With the record-breaking demand for the iphone 4S and other Apple products, people will be using the traditional search engine less and less. The new iOS5 has even integrated Twitter to provide data for real-time social search that is far beyond Google.

Meet Siri

Read more here

Crash the Superbowl is a popular event that has gotten people taking about Doritos at the Super Bowl. Originating in 2008, it is going to be the fourth year that Doritos will be hosting this competition to allow consumers make their own Doritos commercials. While the 2008 finalists for the competition finished highly in ratings of commercials at the Super Bowl, the results weren’t nearly as impressive as the following year. In 2009, a commercial made by Joe and Dave Herbert was ranked first by the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter, earning the creators a cool US $1 million prize.

In 2010, the fan made commercial called “House Rules” was aired during the Super Bowl and won as the second best ad by ADBOWL.

In the most recent year, the ad called “Pug Attack” garnered the most votes as the #1 ad in 2011.

This year, the prizes can total up to $5 million! Doritos consumers have come up with some of the best ads. These fan-made ads are the best ways to interact with their customers while generating creativity. I will am definitely looking forward to this year’s set of Crash the Superbowl finalists.

Read a full review of the 2011 Top 10 finalists here

A brilliant marketing scheme was thought out by Boston Pizza during the Stanley Cup Playoffs about 4 months ago. While the restaurant chain’s website immediately made their change after the Boston Bruin’s won their series, the mastermind for this marketing move took place last year when there seemed like a chance that Boston would play against the Canucks at some point. In order to show their support for the city’s hockey team, Boston Pizza ordered rebranding materials for all of its 62 B.C. locations. The restaurants received banners to hang over their current sign and stickers to cover up the Boston Pizza logos on the pizza boxes. The staff was also required to answer the phone with “Hello, Vancouver Pizza.”

While all of this re-branding only costed $20 000 for all the locations in B.C., Boston Pizza reinforced their relationships with their customers within the province. Their use of customer relationship management is superb in that they were able to send the right message at the right time during the critical moment when the city was tense about the Stanley Cup Finals. They made the most about of this event by featuring special Canucks menus and chances to win a seat in the playoffs. Without costing an enormous amount in advertising and marketing, Boston Pizza was able to feed off the popularity of the Canucks by cleverly incorporating their support for the team into their brand.

Read more about this here

Cliche as it sounds, I learned my greatest lesson from my mother. She has been an inspiration to me as a little girl and I still look up to her to this day. The mentality she bestowed on me was that I can achieve anything in life, just as long as I work hard to achieve it. Although I didn’t totally understand it as a young kid, I’m starting to understand her as a university student. Everything you do in university reflects on your attitude and your commitment to your goal. There is no “free riding” in university because starting from grades, your lack of effort immediately reflects on that  40% midterm. Although there might be moments where you don’t want to study for a test because you don’t feel like it – this current mindset will have consequences in the future (like taking summer school in the summer). The present is the present, and then it will become the past. Just as long as you do your stuff and hang tight for that one exam or anything in life, you won’t ever regret that you pulled through. So a mindset I have acquired is to just do it, don’t prolong the inevitable.

My Comm 299 experience has been one of the most hands-on and practical one yet. Although some topics may seem like “common sense” but this course has really refined the techniques such as how to shake hands properly. I also appreciated how there were easy step-to-step guidelines for resumes, cover letters, and interviews. At first I was overwhelmed but when the powerpoint slides and my TA has really broken down the concepts for me to complete them. This course gives me a huge advantage over other students who haven’t taken Comm 299 because I have learned the actual process of getting a job.  However, in order to get that initial job, you would need to appropriately showcase your skills and what you have done during your university life. I’m very glad that I am taking this course and, overall, I have learned how to market myself in the best way possible.

A product manager quit Google to take a job at Facebook despite Google offering a large raise, a promotion, an opportunity to work in a different location, and even a chance to start his own company within the company. Google started in a scrappy garage just 12 years ago and it changed over the years into a slower moving bureaucracy in Silicon Valley. Recently, Google lost 142 of its best employees to Facebook whose processes and procedures are faster paced. While Google gives everyone 20% of their time at work for their own ideas and limits groups of engineers to 10, the groups usually swell to 20 or even 40 and the best ideas such as Gmail come from more than 20% of their time. At the same time, Google indirectly encourages employees to make improvements to existing products and less new ones. These restrictions frustrate employees because they believe their innovations and skills are not properly appreciated – so they go to newer  companies like Facebook. This scenario reminds me of an example in class about how IBM lost many of its innovative employees to Apple as soon as IBM professionalized its structure. Although its hard for Google to go to its old ways considering it has grown, it should continue to keep its core mission of being innovative.

Read more about it here.

Mark Hurd, the CEO of HP, was recently fired because of improper business conducts. He had filed false expense reports to hide his personal relationship with a contractor, who was hired  by Hurd himself. After doing further research (found here), I found Hurd’s love interest to be Jodie Fisher, a soft-core porn star. Fisher was one of the main reasons behind Hurd’s resignation and she happened to sue Hurd for sexual harassment. Furthermore, not only was his false expense reports a form of fraud but they were also bordering on embezzlement. As the leader of HP, Hurd’s actions were extremely unethical and unprofessional as the top leader of one of the most successful technology companies. He was basically committing an act of dishonesty for his own personal gains.

The part that left me confused was when Hurd received a $50 million severance package to exit the company – the money is on top of the $10 billion of market value that HP shareholders lost as a result of Hurd’s departure. Not only does HP negatively impact its image but the values within the company could crumble. CEO was a bad role model and his departure with $50 million can leave employees questioning their ethical behaviours within the company and relate negative actions to compensation.

While VANOC (Vancouver Olympic Committe) estimated its tier one sponsor to contribute only $20 million, Bell blew that figure out of the park as its bid totaled $200 million – ten times the initial value (credits for info: Conflicting Interests by Paul Cubbon).  The major question is whether Bell got the most out of that investment. During the Olympics, not only was Bell able to expand its market into Western Canada, but it receive recognition around the world! It was finally able to expand its communication infrastructure in Vancouver and Whistler when it initially had very small operations in British Columbia. One could say, “Why did Bell bid so high?” or “Why did Bell put all its egg in one basket?” From my analysis, I gathered that the Olympics was a key marketing aspect for Bell for 8 years. Although the Olympics is happening only in the course of two weeks, Bell had since 2004 to start marketing with the Olympics image. Furthermore, Bell advertised its services through the Olympics in which Bell could garner a high quality reputation because its ability to support the complex event. Last but not least, the financial statements prove the Olympics to be a good investment. They had a jump in 61% jump in quarterly profit right after the Olympics compare to the year-before quarter (read more here). Talk about a successful marketing strategy.

Read more about Bell’s sponsorship at:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/bell-beats-out-telus-to-sponsor-bcs-2010-olympics/article953570/