Source: http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/4/49/Star_Wars_The_Force_Awakens.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150504052358

“Star-Wars: The Force Awakens” is coming out this December 18, and the hype that Disney has made towards the unveiling of the new chapter for this legendary franchise is unstoppable. Based on a CNBC.com article, the Star-Wars brand would skyrocket the shares for Hasbro from “‘neutral’ to ‘overweight'”, as they put it. This would obviously be expected due to the consumer base for Star-Wars-related product by Hasbro will not be just children, but even adults for the sake of reminiscing childhood.

Source: http://www.tfcon.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/hasbro-logo3.jpg

The franchise would have one of the largest impact ever experienced by the toys industry based on the article and they have not even started yet. The company will expect much more media coverage until the unveiling of the movie, the premiere, and obviously after the the movie release as well. Hasbro is targeting three focused customer segments which are collectors, dads/men, and kids. The franchise made this so easy for Hasbro with introducing the new BB-8 droid which would appeal more towards kids, as well as the interesting twist in Kylo Ren’s new lightsaber would totally appeal to their target customers. With a brand recognition like Star-Wars the possibilities for Hasbro and the toy industry is boundless.

Source: http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/styles/tout_image_612x380/public/i/2015/04/17/bb-8.jpg?itok=KD1DrV-c

Source: http://scene7.targetimg1.com/is/image/Target/16879690?wid=480&hei=480

Source:

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/02/the-big-business-of-star-wars.html

This post will be based on an economist.com article regarding tourism in Jakarta, Indonesia. The city of Jakarta used to be called Batavia when it was still under the Dutch colonization. A fraction of the city is left untouched of its Dutch roots and that particular area is now known as the Old Batavia for tourists, but Indonesians call it “Kota Tua” and it translates to “Old City”. The area is known for its tourism sites such museums, old Dutch housings and many historic heritage. However the guides and people living around the area in order to support the economy of the place could not do so well due to the lack of funds and emphasis from the government for the area to be known and utilized as a tourism site as what it potentially could.

Indonesia with its recently elected president, Joko Widodo, would like to encourage more tourists to come in to the country. Their target is to reach 20 million tourists by the year 2020. The shift of emphasis towards tourism from trading is mainly caused by the decline in trades of commodities in the region. The administration has been doing major steps in getting towards their goal, such as granting exemption for another 45 countries from visa requirements, which had had a pretty good impact looking at the 15% increase in the number of tourists for the 30 out of the 45 countries based on an article by The Jakarta Post. 

Source:

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21678281-indonesia-wants-your-dollars-they-wish-you-were-here?zid=306&ah=1b164dbd43b0cb27ba0d4c3b12a5e227

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/09/15/visa-free-entry-indonesia-90-countries-yearend.html

Rachel’s blog post regarding Moziah Bridges-Mo’s bowtie business really captured my attention. I would like to emphasize my post on how Moziah portrayed the perfect example of an entrepreneur. A 9 year-old Moziah unlike me when I was 9, understood the concept of pains and gains to a problem that he himself acknowledges, which is that there were not real bowties for kids. Moziah did just the one thing that would end the problem, sell bowties for kids. Not only that, 9-year old Moziah is also a SOCIAL entrepreneur since he donates 100% of his profit for charity.

Based on the traits of a successful entrepreneur on yourstory.com, Moziah conforms to be business focused, proven by how he had developed his business t0 be worth more than $200,000 by now. He is obviously confident, looking at how he swept away people’s hearts when he was on SharkTank. He is a creative thinker, by proposing the idea of having real bowties for kids instead of clip-ons. He is determined, especially how he is using the business in order to raise money to support the children in Memphis. He is a lot more than just your average kid, and is an inspiration to any of us who aspires to be an entrepreneur.

Source: http://mosbowsmemphis.com

Source:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/rachehui/2015/11/18/one-bowtie-at-a-time/

http://www.bet.com/news/national/2015/04/18/13-year-old-ceo-moziah-bridges-builds-200-000-business.html

http://yourstory.com/2014/12/10-qualities-successful-entrepreneur-strengths/

In looking at how SoleRebels benefits socially as opposed to Toms Shoes, my position would lean significantly towards SoleRebels than to Toms.

The ‘one for one’ business model does impose a threat to local businesses such as stated in fastcoexist.com, “As Time recently noted, an increasing number of foreign aid practitioners and agencies are recognizing that charitable gifts from abroad can distort developing markets and undermine local businesses by creating an entirely unsustainable aid-based economy.”, which clearly indicate the irony in the business model. It could not be denied that the ‘one for one’ business model still is a really effective marketing strategy for Toms’ sale. However in the social cause side of it, the underlying irony of the strategy does impose the effectivity in terms of its social benefits.

On the other hand, SoleRebels has been around the shoe market since 2004, promoting its value as a Fairtrade-certified company, as well as their social cause in helping the local economy of Ethiopia. SoleRebels provides job opportunities for the local population, promotes the Ethiopian culture, supports the supplier by being FairTrade-certified, which significantly shows how SoleRebels is really in it for the social cause. They explicitly state that the purpose of their business plan is to support trade in Africa and Ethiopia, “Africa and Ethiopia in particular desperately needs more trade and not aid or charity.“. This statement in a way criticizes the ‘one for one’ business plan.

In conclusion, SoleRebels’ business plan is more effective in terms of creating social impact as opposed to Toms’ ‘one for one’ business plan which could lead to unintended consequences.

Source:

http://www.solerebels.com/pages/solerebels-101

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/one-one-business-model-social-impact-avoiding-unintended-consequences/

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679628/the-broken-buy-one-give-one-model-three-ways-to-save-toms-shoes

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0%2C8599%2C1987628%2C00.html

First of all I would like to give a hand to Audrey for the title, “Nike: They’re Doing It“, which I think is really clever. So this post will be based on Audrey’s post regarding Nike’s domination in the marketing world, regardless the market.

I would have to agree to Audrey where she said, “When thinking of companies who have dominated the marketing world, one obvious company comes to mind for me: Nike.”, and I think that would also come in the minds of a whole lot of other people. Nike is one of the strongest brand in the world (Forbes.com), and no one can doubt that. Agreeing with Audrey’s argument that one of the measures to prove that is the success of Nike+ being a tech products by Nike, which is to an extent a diversification strategy made by Nike in order to grow internally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike,_Inc.#/media/File:Logo_NIKE.svg

In my post regarding diversification, I had stated that the success of a diversification strategy would have to heavily depend on the company’s brand image to ensure credibility of the new product(s). Nike ensured credibility based on their brand but a part of why the Nike+ was so successful is I think because Nike integrated the technologies they created with the shoes their manufacturing. This made both the Nike+ products and Nike shoes’ sales sky-rocketed. Nike is definitely a great example and inspiration when it comes to bold and meaningful marketing stunts. To finish off my post, I would like to end just the way Audrey did, with a video of a Nike commercial. This is one of my favourites.

Source:

Audrey Popa’s Blog–https://blogs.ubc.ca/audreypopa/2015/10/04/nike-theyre-doing-it/

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/fjle45ldkk/no-9-tie-nike/

https://blogs.ubc.ca/garrysbedi/2015/10/04/diversification/

http://fortune.com/2012/02/13/nikes-new-marketing-mojo/

Guy Kawasaki wrote a blog post specially dedicated in showing how you should launch your startup business.

He reviewed the concept of scale, which refers to the concept that there are processes in place that are fast, cheap, and repeatable because there will soon be millions of customers who generate billions of dollars of revenue.

The concept basically outlines that a startup would test every single product that they’re trying to sell in order to ensure that the product would work and sell. However Guy argues that if that had been done, most giant businesses such as eBay, Salesforce.com, and Hot or Not may have not been very successful. It is interesting how he established three key points when you’re starting up a business which are:

You should

1. Get the word out
2. Make people to be willing to use your product
3. Make people to be willing to pay for your product

These three things would be the main goals of any businesses whose objectives is to get as much profit as possible. Getting the word out means you are enlarging your customer base. People would be willing to use your product for a number of different things, whether it would be because of its high-quality, or even because your product have established a new trend, which has been very common these days as well. Lastly, in order to make profit, you have to market your product in a way that appeals your customer in being willing to pay for your product at your given price.

Guy Kawasaki is a marketing executive, he popularized the word ‘evangelist’, he is the author of The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and ten other books that are business-related.

Source: http://guykawasaki.com/guy-kawasaki/

Source: http://guykawasaki.com/how-to-launch-and-why-scaling-doesnt-matter/

Based on the discussion on Porter’s Generic Strategies, it is interesting how there are numbers of different strategies that could be followed by businesses in order to have market growth. Based on my own research, I stumbled upon the Ansoff Matrix, a business tool that could help develop a business strategy and it stood out because of its outline that is simple as well as vey comprehensible. However this post will only discuss its diversification strategy due to word limit as well as personal interest.

The Ansoff Matrix looks like the following.

Ansoff Matrix Source: http://dachpian2b.saschina.wikispaces.net/1.7.8+-+Ansoff+Matrix

Diversification refers to the high risk growth strategy that involves a business marketing new products in new markets. It is usually done in order to spread the risks of the business, in a way that if a product is not doing so well in the market, the other product could hopefully compensate the underperformance of the first product. It is also possible for business that have reached a plateau phase and would like to seek out new opportunities in new markets. However, as stated before, it is a high risk strategy because there’s always the possibility of that the business may not be familiar with the market they are entering. Diversification stood out for me due to the high risk it imposes. This strategy heavily depends on how the business could utilize its brand image in order to ensure the credibility of their new product.

Factors that count in when considering diversification are the company’s financial health, the cost of entering the market, the resource of work force from the company, and the access to distribution channels in the new market, and the regulatory issues regarding the decision (Reference for Business).

Brands such as *Starbucks have successfully diversify its products, however brands such as *Krispy Kreme may have not been so successful at it.

P.S. Apparently there is an article by the Harvard Business Review that has a more in-depth analysis on this matter, and it also has a similar title.

*=Links to articles regarding the brands I mentioned

Source:

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/small/Di-Eq/Diversification.html

In response to the discussion we had in the last COMM 101 class regarding Volkswagen, this blog post will focus on the recent issue faced by the company and analyze its recent strategy of changing its CEO. In short, Volkswagen have been facing an issue regarding the company being admitted cheating emissions tests in the United States.

A CNN.com article thoroughly discussed the consequences that the company will likely to face. Volkswagen’s brand image is now in its worst condition, and now the company has to find way to reestablish its brand image as well as regaining their customers’ trust and loyalty. In pursuing this, Volkswagen have appointed a new CEO, Matthias Mueller, who was the head of Porsche before he took on the position of being the new CEO of Volkswagen. Mueller came in with great confidence saying that Volkswagen could even emerge from this crisis with an even better image before the scandal had spread.

Source: http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article6517275.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/Matthias-Mueller.jpg

A new CEO as a new face of the company could help Volkswagen in regaining the trust of their stakeholders, however it could also just emphasize their unprofessionalism regarding the matter at hand. The decision could be beneficial in a way that it sends off a message that Volkswagen is trying their best in restructuring their company due to their unethical methods in conducting their business activity. On the other hand, if the position would have been still filled with Martin Winterkorn, the former CEO, it could have also sent a message that the company would like to sincerely change its ways of conducting their business. The change of CEO could just be interpreted as the approval by the company that it did deliberately cheat in their emissions tests.

Volkswagen would be facing lawsuits from their consumers as well as car dealers due to decrease in value of their cars. Volkswagen now would have to find a way in order to gain credibility in the market to reestablish its brand image.

Source:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/24/news/companies/volkswagen-emission-scandal-ceo/index.html?iid=SF_LN

It is unarguable that a business should not lose sight on ethics while running its business activities. The interplay within a business and its stakeholders are so delicate, that slightest ethical misjudgement done by a business may cause harm towards its stakeholders, both internally and externally. The act of advertising is essential in the marketing activity of a business, however, due to the increasing transparency of the media, a business could advertise its product to an unintentional market segment.

This could be a good thing, for it expands the market segment, on the other hand it could also be harmful if unintentionally reaches a market segment that is not appropriate for your brand. The issue of advertising and its effects on children has long being argued due to the some of the harmful effects that could arise such as disrupting children’s brain development. Nevertheless, it is arguable from businesses’ point of view that they have no control of whom could view their advertisements due to the high accessibility of the media in this generation. Knowing the fact that there is a lack of control in the media distribution, businesses should consider this while producing its advertisements in order to be ethically responsible for the well-being of children. Businesses could benefit by being ethically responsible from experiencing enhanced brand image in the society. However the extent of how advertisements should be produced in regards of being ethically responsible for the children’s well-being is still open for discussion due to the lack of research on children’s brain activity.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/sep/16/how-far-is-too-far-when-it-comes-to-advertising-to-children