I recently read Shawn Freeman‘s Small business forecast looks ‘cloudy’ with a chance of success blog. The cloud is big news for small businesses.  Empowered by the cloud, even the smallest business can be more competitive and more secure from the dangers of a volatile economy.  But the cloud is not without risks.  The key to using the cloud well is to do your research, plan, and partner with a cloud provider you can trust.

I think it is really hard to start up business and jump into competitive world. People who has small business should work harder than other people in order to success. What I think about start business is that people should have passion. Business will not turn out that you want, but it will bring you a great result if you enjoy your work. Try your best, live for present, and put your effort as much as you can then you will success in one day even though you didn’t have anything when you start business. Cloud doesn’t stay long people will see the sunshine after crucial moment.

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Reference

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https://www.google.ca/search?q=%EA%B5%AC%EB%A6%84+%EC%82%AC%EC%A7%84&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=fkOKUsO8LYKxiwK60oGIBw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=666#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=vZeircNUUkmPJM%3A%3Bc-Zlbt3HGozQwM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fblog.yonhapnews.co.kr%252F_File%252F1%252F120%252F2005%252F10%252F30%252F20051030214255.JPG%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fblog.yonhapnews.co.kr%252Fdklim71%252Fpost%252Fpage2%252F%3B1134%3B850

Blog

http://www.itbusiness.ca/blog/small-business-forecast-looks-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-success/44303

According to Ha Neul (Hannah) Chung’s Blog, commercials are significant channels that raise awareness of the firms’ products. The distinct and visually appealing cereal commercials are often peculiar as they seem to be targeting children instead of parents — the actual contributors to the firms’ revenue stream.

It is true that the most cereal commercials are focusing/targeting children but usually parents are going to get groceries and they are always think about nutrition. Let’s say their children like high-in-sugar cereal in terms of its character on the cereal. They might not buy it and feed their children something that is nutritious.

She mentioned that the commercials were effective in persuading parents to purchase their goods even if the commercials often were too focused on their points of differences (which were distinct shapes, colourfulness and flavours) while being reluctant to strongly emphasize on their nutrition and healthiness. Actually I have never thought about cereal commercial need to be focus on parents instead of children. I agree with her argument but what if their children are addicted to specific brand character let’s say Froot Loops which is high in sugar. Can they not buy this brand? I don’t think so. I think parents will buy this brand to make their kids happy.

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Check out Haneul’s blog : https://blogs.ubc.ca/haneulchung/

Picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Froot-Loops-Box-Small.jpg

Recently I read Yena Lee’s blog on Cadbury: Trademarking Purple what she wrote about is that Cadbury’s trade mark is purple which is color. I think color could be a trade mark, for example when I think about Coca-Cola I immediately think about color red. She said that in light of Cadbury’s uphill struggle with trademarking its iconic purple colour – the very shade that has been imprinted on all Dairy Milk wrappers since 1914 – it is worth noting a paramount marketing strategy that is often foregone by the pursuit of companies attempting to develop the most innovative, ingenious branding techniques. Not so many people think that color can be a branding technique but actually it does, Cadbury is the one of the company that branded the colour. I think Cadbury succeeded on that because in my mind, Cadbury=chocolate=purple is stick in my brain. At the end of her argument she also said that there is a simple yet effective beauty of using a memorable colour to establish and cement brand image. After all, consumers today commonly (and subliminally) associate brand with colour. I also agree with this comment because color is easy to memorize and actually a lot of company use the specific color as their marketing skill.

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Reference

Check out Yena’s blog here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/yenalee/

Read more about Cadbury: Trademarking Purple  http://www.canadianbusiness.com/companies-and-industries/who-owns-the-colour-purple/

Picture

http://www.google.ca/imgres?sa=X&biw=1366&bih=629&tbm=isch&tbnid=Xc9UUCzzHQc5aM:&imgrefurl=http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/snacks/cadbury-caramel-biscuits/&docid=Kdn6UlWrf5b4tM&imgurl=http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/7/7/7/7/777748.jpg&w=1668&h=1117&ei=CCaKUoXKBoSMiALG_YDIDg&zoom=1

Snapchat, a rapidly growing messaging service, recently spurned an all-cash acquisition offer from Facebook for close to $3 billion or more, according to people briefed on the matter. Chinese e-commerce giant Tencent HoldingsTCEHY had offered to lead an investment that would value two-year-old Snapchat at $4 billion. Snapchat specializes in ephemeral mobile messages, including text or photographs, that disappear after a few seconds. The service has not generated any revenue, but is especially popular among teenagers and young adults, who use the app to send messages to friends. Facebook had earlier offered to buy Snapchat for more than $1 billion, the people briefed on the matter said.

In my opinion, Snapchat made a good decision which is rejected Facebook’s offer because this company will worth more than $3 billion dollars. I think more companies will suggest higher price in the future and if they get more advertisement it will earn more $3 billion dollars because the idea of Snapchat is very unique and something that people never thought about before. I think they need to expand their business to all the ages because teenages are too limited to become a bigger company so they should seek for more people like people in 30’s and 40’s.

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References

Article

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-13/snapchats-3-billion-rejection-and-the-great-facebook-unbundling

Picture

https://www.google.ca/search?q=snapchat&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=xAGKUrT6JufJigLti4DYDg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=629#imgdii=_

WestJet was founded in 1996 as a discount airline that served cities in Western Canada. For years it religiously followed a pure low-cost model, but started to move away from the winning formula in the mid-2000s as rival Air Canada cut costs and offered more competitive domestic fares.

WestJet plans to dip its toes into the transatlantic travel market next spring with flights between St. John’s and Dublin, further ramping up competition with rival Air Canada. WestJet’s innovative foray into the European market represents a willingness to do what it takes to connect Canadians to the world while bringing the world to Canada.

We talked about WestJet in class in the beginning of the term. We discussed that whether WestJet need to expand their flight to other country to make more profit or not. By that time I thought WestJet shouldn’t expand their business because I thought that it is too risky since lots of airline companies are there. However, I kind of changed my mind after I read this article. If WestJet provide cheaper tickets to customers with less service, I think customers will buy their tickets. I found that not so many people care about how comfortable it is because planes are always uncomfortable in economy class.

The home advantage wasn’t enough to save Second Cup in the ’90s, when Seattle-based Starbucks wrested dominance of the Canadian premium-coffee sector away from the company on its own turf. But now the coffee chain has a plan to expand into territory where Starbucks will have trouble following. This is especially true in Pakistan, where North American coffee culture is gaining popularity, but anti-American sentiment runs high. Second Cup has already tapped the Middle East for growth, with franchises in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and others. Tea has long been the traditional drink in South Asia, but coffee consumption is rapidly growing among young people in Pakistan, creating a market for premium coffee shops.

I think Second Cup got a really good opportunity. It is easier to expand their business with less competitors. Especially with no Starbucks. If Second Cup don’t emphasize that it is American product ,since there is anti-American sentiment runs, and fits into Pakistan people’s life smoothly. It will definitely success because Second Cup is not only expanding their business in Pakistan, they also expanding their business in middle east area. It also might be a risky somehow but if they make strategy efficiently like sell tea-based drink or give out free sample coffee on the street, I believe that they will success.

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Photo and article

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/companies-and-industries/a-second-chance-for-second-cup/

I have been an enthusiastic and vocal supporter of Penney’s “no sale” strategy for almost a year now, sticking with the brand even as its marketing fell on deaf ears with consumers and investors. The stock was up last month and its website was reportedly a favorite visit during the holidays, but there’s every reason to expect it will report dismal fourth quarter results (expertly obfuscated with stats on eyeballs, awareness, and whatever). I now believe the company is doomed. We should stop holding our collective breath waiting for success, and start looking for lessons to learn from its failure.

I think no sale strategy is not a very good idea to increase their profit because consumers are usually waiting for sale season to get something that they want. They want more sales and they are willing to buy the products with lower price. They want to feel that they earned profit after they buy products. Let’s say JCPenny and other company are selling same product but the other company is on sale but JCPenny is not, who wants to buy the same product with higher price? What I think is JCPenny need to change their tactic if they want to survive in this competitive market.

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References

picture

http://smartcanucks.ca/jc-penney-now-9dollar-shipping-to-canada/

Article

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2013/01/02/lessons-from-j-c-penneys-doomed-marketing-makeover/

At noon in Beijing today, Starbucks’ first store in China served its last drink. China’s harsh real-estate landscape might make it hard for Starbucks to keep its pledge to have 1,000 stores in China by the end of the year. Most of its stores now are in major cities like Beijing, where authorities are paying less attention to bringing down commercial property prices. Commercial property in Beijing grew 23% in May, compared to 15.2% in residential real estate. Regardless of where Starbucks moves in Beijing, it might have trouble making rent.

China’s Starbucks chain has been driving forward without a stop in the Chinese market. However, it has started to slow down due to labor cost and renting fees. In June 21, 2013, the first Starbucks China closed because they could not afford high rent fees. Even with the financial support from Starbucks China. I believe that without long term financial stability, the stores will fail to succeed and thus discontinue. I think Starbucks need to open in smaller cities where costs are slightly lower because the coffee consumption in China is growing rapidly so they have enough supplier to sell their products in other cities too.

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Article and picture

http://qz.com/96882/why-the-first-starbucks-in-china-closed-today/

Coca-Cola has cancelled a Canadian promotion that paired randomly generated English and French words inside bottle caps after an Edmonton woman got one that said “You Retard.” To cancelling the campaign, Denny said the company will destroy all of the caps with words printed on them. She said Coca-Cola was still deciding how to deal with the printed caps that are already on bottles.

In my opinion, I think Coca-Cola assume that people are willing to buy more vitamin water to make funny sentence by collecting lids but they failed it. Some people got offended and complained it to Coca-Cola. Why didn’t they put beautiful words instead of bad words? If I were them I would put positive words that make people happy and cheer them up. The consumer might buy this specific vitamin water instead of other brands because when I see the positive words in wash room that positive words influences me, it makes me feel better when I was in bad mood. I think most people wouldn’t buy something that says to me “You Retard”. Why didn’t they make funny words without using bad words? I hope Coca-Cola don’t make this kind of mistake in the future.

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Article and picture

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/offensive-phrases-on-bottle-caps-prompt-coca-cola-to-cancel-canadian-promotion/article14427173/

Nike faced child labor issues in 1990s, since then, they have been concerned about labor and human right issues which are ongoing ethical concerns in order to be among the top companies in the world. However, they solved these problems through regular monitoring of its affiliated supply chains.

“In evaluating where our targets fell short, we saw a consistent pattern: a focus on auditing against a set of criteria sometimes results in on-the-ground improvements for workers, but it rarely produces systemic change in the area of concern,” Nike says. “On further reflection, we realized that, if we want to make sustainable improvements for workers, we need to significantly change the way we engage and interact with our supply chain as a whole.”

Nike has a strong brand name despite the criticisms such as labor issues; which will not significantly affect it. They do not want to take risk which they experienced in 1990s. In order to be a top company in the world, Nike is always seeking for problems and systematically solving in order to keep its clientele.

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References :

Article

http://business-ethics.com/2010/01/24/2154-nike-corporate-responsibility-at-a-tipping-point/

Picture

http://www.google.ca/search?q=nike&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.52164340,d.cGE,pv.xjs.s.en_US.CQsooEYev9Y.O&biw=1366&bih=667&dpr=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=ko&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=NCwyUuuLGaiPigLokYDYCw#hl=ko&q=nike+labron&tbm=isch&um=1&facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=-Hcvr-YzxmT2jM%3A%3Bj-66SYqsCL22tM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fosneaker.com%252Fmedia%252Fcatalog%252Fproduct%252Fcache%252F1%252Fimage%252Fa81424c3ed573805494c0ad65ecc5b67%252Fn%252Fi%252Fnike-lebron-x-10-cutting-jade-01.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fosneaker.com%252Fnike-lebron-x-cutting-jade.html%3B648%3B648