buildingcharacter

Sauder Forum Booth was an event where my team of Bizzcomm execs and I had to market our club and its worth. In this scenario, the segments and targets were already given to us as prospective high school students came into the Sauder building to learn more about the faculty. Now, we, Bizzcomm had to position ourselves well enough to have prospective members for the future years to come.

What could we offer these prospective students? What would draw their attention so that they would spend their limited time to visit our booth?

Well, what I believe increases our club’s marketability is our vision to improve our communication skills by building upon our public speaking, resume building, and interview skills. These skills are essential towards success in business and arguably any field of work. One may have exceptional grades, but with a poorly structured resume and weak interview skills, they most likely will have a hard time selling themselves.  Overall, our club’s value lies in its ability to help people market their potentials and skills.

After reading Larissa’s post on using STP for her Campus Ambassador involvement, it led me to realize something.  For our everyday projects that involve some form of marketing or promoting, we are inevitably using many of the marketing strategies we have learned in class, even though we may not be thinking about it. For example, any marketing project requires the use of STP, whether or not the users distinguish the tactic as STP.

For a small business project that I did in high school, which required me to collect sponsors, and advertise the sponsors on calendars, I had to think about who target, and how to position my project. Although I was not formally educated in the STP process, it was necessary for me to think along those lines in order to have a successful project.

I knew that I had to target local companies who needed their names out to the public, and I had to position my project as one that allowed me to learn the foundations of business, and that the profit would go to charity.

Overall, what I want to get at is that many of us probably have gone through a few recognized marketing strategies ourselves without knowing it, no matter how successful/unsuccessful it was. So it’s really necessary to have these marketing strategies second nature so that next time we approach a marketing/promotional challenge, we know clearly how to approach the situation and what to do.

So when I was in grade 10 in high school, I decided to run a small marketing project for the purpose of immersing myself in business marketing as well as to understand what career to follow.

The basic outline of the project was to create calendars, collect money through sponsorships (the sponsors would have their logos/pictures on the calendars) and mass print a thousand of them and deliver them through the Vancouver Island communities.

The project was neither school nor community group related. It was all about my group and I- the four of us were the backbone of this whole “operation.” Acting as the Lead Marketer, my objective was to obtain as many sponsors as we could. We did not really have a realistic idea of how many sponsorships we could get. Business is an unpredictable field, and we thought, “What companies would donate 300 dollars to a bunch of high school students?”

Well, after we convinced many companies of our primary goal as initiative taking students trying to understand a field of marketing, we ended up with 10 sponsors who complimented our initiatives.

We raised a total net profit of $1000, which we donated to the Victoria Eldercare Foundation.

So what did I learn? Quite a bit I would say. I improved my multi-tasking skills, made myself into a harder work, and most importantly in my opinion, learning to stay calm under times of stress. This project had a high rate of failure, as success depended on how many sponsored our project, and from our point of view, it seemed unlikely to receive many. I learned that by acting calm in tense situations, I could differentiate the right decisions from the rash decisions.

The below is the final product of our calendar.

The Magic Bullet

Yes,  when we see that picture above, many of us will know what it is. For those unfortunate individuals who do not, check out this link below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtpKjgwi4Sc

From my experiences of talking about this beloved machine, I am certain that about 9/10 people know of the Magic Bullet. I always find it somewhat interesting why so many know of this infomercial. I can clearly state that I am not one to watch infomercials, and will never hesitate to change the channel once one comes on.

But why the Magic Bullet infomercial? What makes it so special? It is the only infomercial product that many of my friends seem to have.

I think we know about the Magic Bullet because of its repetitiveness to always be on television. Of all the infomercials, this one always seems to be on at least one of the channels. Thus, subconsciously, we want to check out what is so “awesome” about this product and what it can deliver. It uses an efficient marketing strategy to rather “force” the product into us through repetitive commercials playing daily.

As well as a strong marketing tactic, the product itself is useful as well. The infomercial displays the users using the Magic Bullet to no extent. It seems like one can use the Magic Bullet to make any meal. We believe this machine will make easier of our lives by making cooking seem a lot easier once this machine is in use.

And how can we forgot the deals? If you buy one, its 99.99 at a store but if you order through the infomercial you can get two of them with another convenient gadget as well as party cups for “all you and your friends to have a blast with!”

Really, how can we turn down this awesome multi-usable blender with all that it has to offer? Especially when we come across the infomercial numerous times while flipping through channels?

Lululemon, what words come into our minds when we think of this word? Most notable are healthy, high-achieving and eco-friendly. This is of course all due to Lululemon’s marketing campaign that deals with having a healthy life style. Life-style is the focus of Lululemon’s advertisements, and it is super effective.

We perceive Lululemon not as an “evil” product, but rather as a clothing line that is about a natural way of making clothing products. It definitely has taken the “nice” approach which makes it so popular.

As well, the prices of Lululemon products are very expensive. Yet it prides itself on this because it is telling the consumers that each and every product is made with finesse and tremendous amount of time.

Of course, those who wear such clothing are bound to express that they are also eco friendly and strive for a healthier lifestyle. So not only are these people getting the well made products, they are also given the perception that they are people who care about their physique and lifestyle.

So it seems like in the past couple years, we have all been using our computers to download movies. Probably the best case scenario for us as we are saving both money and time using this hi speed internet downloading method.

The downside of these turn of events are the negative effects for movie stores such as Blockbuster and Rogers video. With its consumers watching movies from free downloads, there is no way movie stores can keep up its business with the lack of consumers.

In this scenario, the catalyst is word of mouth and the betterment of our use in technology. As consumers, many of us will strive to attain our needs with as little work as we can. And programs and sites such as limewire and bittorent will satisfy these needs. Unfortunately, that is not the case for movie stores, which are estimated to be out of business in the newxt few years.

About a month ago, I came across watching a trailer for a movie called Catfish. This movie is a documentary style film where this man meets a family on facebook and starts to have an affair over facebook to the family’s daughter. The trailer nears end when the man and his friends (who are documenting the entire event) are going to drive up to meet the family.  As the man gets out of the car to see the family’s house, the screen goes black, stating how the next 45 minutes are “shocking” and will leave us “shivering for days”.

Well of course this really made me want to watch the movie. Who was the family? Was it a murder scheme or what? I thought it would be as the end of the trailer suggested frightening scenes and a thriller type movie atmosphere. I was “thrilled” to watch how the movie ended.

I won’t ruin the movie, but overall I was disappointed. Really disappointed. The ending is not “shocking” nor will it leave us “shivering for days”. The last 45 minutes are dry and prolongs the spoiler to come. If the ending was condensed into 5 minutes, it may have been better, but no. It was boring, bland the ultimately was the perfect recipe for a dry movie.

However, I will applaud its great marketing tactic or not showing viewers what the heart of the movie is about, so we will have to find out ourselves. The movie’s logo is very genius itself, as it is “don’t tell anyone”. It makes us viewers have to sit through an hour and fourty minutes of this boring movie, so it got what it wanted out of our own expense.

The trailer for the movie is here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFKe75Q6eVw

So every now and then, whether its for a business project or I so happen to randomly come across such date, I will frequently read about how much a company has invested into marketing its product.  Millions of dollars will go into promoting a certain product.

But now I think, is it really worth all that money?

Lets name a few examples of marketing, commercials for example.

When we watch commercials, rarely do we see one that amazes us and stands out. In my opinion, of a few hundred different commercials I watch, I will come across one where I will note the creativity of the commercial and recognize the product for it. But what about the “other” few hundred? As subjective as it is, it seems that so many companies will end up wasting so much time and money towards marketing failures.

So could it not be possible to use a lot of money towards a different marketing strategy? Something simpler yet effective enough to get its idea and product across?

IPhone 4 vs Galaxy S? Which is better? Which do we want?

Living in Canada for almost 13 years now, I have the privilege of living in the Apple generation. We have seen from the basic Apple Ipod to the more advanced IPhone 4. With so many new versions coming out for every Apple product, it is hard to keep up with the new available functions, let alone buying the latest model.

With the availability of the IPhone 4, it seems that it has lived up to hits hype.  Really, we have all seen the so many commercials showing us consumers of its functions. You can edit videos, have an application that constantly monitors your location without the use of a GPS, and so on. I probably listed 2 of the hundreds of thousands of application for the IPhone 4. From what I see on TV and what I hear from so many, there is probably no other device that can match the great IPhone 4!

WRONG!

The Galaxy S is a fierce competitor for the top handheld device. Its 4-inch super sharp screen is said by many to be better than that of the IPhone4. Its processor is deemed to be more superior. Of course there are things that the IPhone 4 may be superior at, but ultimately, it can be concluded that the IPhone 4 is not at a level of its own. It competes with the Galaxy S and other devices as well.

But it seems that Apple has beaten these other companies in marketing in North America at least. Many have never even heard of a Galaxy S. It seems that so many of us who are technologically slow are brainwashed into thinking that the IPhone 4 is the only handheld device we should buy. We are fed this non-stop information about that IPhone 4 that we believe we want to buy this gadget of our own accord when it is actually Apple’s effective marketing monopoly and strategy has gotten to us.

Many of us just want the IPhone 4 without even knowing why it is superior to another device. We just want it because it has become the “fad” to buy one. Apple has no doubt marketed its products effectively, as it makes us consumers think high of its products and less of others.