Everyone’s heard of America’s ‘Black Fridays’. It is the day after Thanksgiving where many retails have holiday sales that start at 4AM in the morning and lasts till some time over the weekends. Statistic shows that 70% of Canadians recognize the term, Black Friday and that many take this chance to cross borders to join such tradition in the United States. In Canada, however, sales don’t start till December 23, known as ‘Boxing Day’.

This year, Walmart Canada has started calling their sales ‘Black Friday’ which would last throughout the weekend. Since many other retailers are also joining the ‘Black Friday’ tradition, we could assume that these retailers are trying to achieve a higher turnover rate by moving the flow of their inventory. However, it is indicated in this article here, that even if Canada decides to have holiday sales, prices won’t compare to the prices of the U.S. A survey conducted through Bank of Montreal (BMO) has shown that 18% would still cross borders to enjoy the prices U.S. retailers have to offer. Nevertheless, this is only the beginning of a tradition in Canada. Hopefully in the long run, local retailers are able to be comparable to those in the U.S.

In Seth Godin’s blog on the “The Unreasonable Customer” really caught my attention on what businesses should do to deal with complaining customers. In his blog, he writes that the reasons to tolerate the customers with unreasonable demands. Reasons he listed can be read on this blog linked here.

It got me thinking that I remember reading somewhere that you want customers to complain.  With complaining customers, they are the consumers you can further meet their wants and needs. Once they are satisfied with your service, the return rates of consumers are higher. This coheres with Seth Gordin’s reason to tolerate unreasonable customers because they “[help the business] raise [their] game and [their] word of mouth is very powerful” and that’s probably the most effective marketing strategy.

This is my blog response to Angus Todd’s blog “Who needs a good product, all you need is good marketing”.

I do agree to the statement that if a company has a good marketing strategy, quality can be overlooked. It all comes down to what the business’ brand image is portrayed as. There are four possible categories a brand can fall under: A premium brand (high quality high price), economy brand (low quality low price), bargain brand (high quality low price) or cowboy brand (low quality high price).

In the example, Angus provided in his blog about the Lamborghini, if the product wasn’t of high quality and yet still priced very high, the brand would be a cowboy brand. However this is only because Lamborghini’s have built a premium brand image to have the ability to charge at a premium price.

Another example is Apple products.  They also have the ability to charge a premium price as well even if their products are similar to other competitors of the industry. However, their loyal consumer base is lured by the image it portrays and, therefore, justifies its high prices when turning something ordinary into something innovative.

These are brands that have achieved brand loyalty through strong marketing teams.

The recent outage across Europe, Middle East, North and South America, has caused rage in consumers as they have lost their trust towards RIM.  Another reason why people have lost their trust towards RIM is that for a very long time, RIM has neither found nor announced the reasons of their outages. This further displays that the business in unreliable and hasn’t been taking initiative to solve their issues.

Therefore, in an attempt to regain their trust, RIM has put together a “SWAT Team” to discover the reasons of such lengthy outages that occurred internationally (details found in article here). This can be seen through statistics of RIM’s shares as it has decreased at least 3.5%. These outages have led people to question their loyalty with RIM because it has impacted the people who’ve relied on their Blackberry for work and communication. The question every Blackberry smartphone user is asking is, “Should I switch to Apple’s iPhone?” The question was also raised because during their time of outage, Apple’s iPhone 4S launched and, therefore, has probably drawn some of RIM’s disgruntled users.

The outages have impacted RIM as a whole as more people realize the brand image it portrays—reliable and innovative– is false and has jeopardized their brand position. RIM now has to restructure their business strategy to regain their customer base.

The definition of an “entrepreneur” is defined as a “start-up business”.  In many cases, most of them do fail to withstand against the competition of their market; however, businesses that do succeed would then be able to expand. In this case, I consider 3M as an entrepreneurial company. This business was found in 1902 starting off producing sandpaper and scotch tape. Since then, the business has expanded and now provides over 55,000 products and services, which include Healthcare (18.6% of sales), Industrial and Transportation (30.8% of sales), Consumer and Office (15% of sales), Display and Graphics (13.5% of sales), Electronic and Communications (9.8% of sales), Safety and Security (13.8% of sales) (http://solutions.3m.com/en_US/Products/).

3M is not only well known within North America, it is also eminent internationally. By 2009, 63% of its total revenue was generated outside of America. In 2010, 3M’s total revenue derived was $6.87 and finally, in 2011, total revenue generated adds up to $7.53 billion. This amount and speed of wealth creation exceeds a “small business” would ever generate.

This entrepreneurial company has definitely demonstrated its constant growth throughout the years to be considered one of the many innovative businesses in the industry along with Apple, Google, GE, P&G, Samsung, etc.

Since the death of Steve Jobs’, analysts predicted for the gap between Apple and its competitors to narrow. In this case, Acer’s launch of the Aspire S3 has challenged the MacBook Pro as it claims the title of being “ultra thin”. With a similar design to MacBooks, Acer Aspire S3 runs on Windows’ operating system and is supposedly a worthy contender as shares are predicted to “contribute up to 20% of [Acer’s] notebook sale revenue” . Read article here.

As of now, Acer has presented itself to hold the record of the thinnest and most lightweight laptop. Being first of its market and being able to set the price lower than Apple’s MacBook Pro could possibly reposition their brand image as it now has the unique selling point. Having the advantage, the Aspire S3 could become the substitute of MacBook Pros for many cost-conscious consumers. In comparison with Apple, is Apple’s brand name strong enough to withhold such brand positioning?

“Building a brand and reputation is no easy task, but protecting these assets can be even more difficult.” says Mia Person. From the article, “Abercrombie and Fitch creates a brand ‘situation’”, Abercrombie & Fitch implemented a decision to protect their brand image, which then backfired as their stocks decreased by 10%. This was the result of their decision to pay off Jersey Shore actor, Michael Sorrentino, not to sport their clothing in public.

Abercombie & Fitch is a market leader in the retail industry and therefore means it has brand positioning of a leader. According to Ries and Trout, the success of a brand is not it’s marketing acumens but by being first in the market. On the other hand, Abercrombie & Fitch’s effort to refrain Sorrentino from wearing their merchandise not only didn’t help its brand image and positioning and in fact, negatively impacted it. In the article, it mentions that the stock decreased because it “alienated its target demographic”, revealing that celebrity endorsement plays a portion of their sales.

October 5, 2011 marked the death of a legend of our generation. Steve Jobs passed due to his long battle with pancreatic cancer leading many in shock. Even before his death, his resignation of both Apple and Walt Disney has led shares to drop conspicuous by his absence.

From an article from The Globe and Mail, “Without Jobs, Apple’s gap with rivals could narrow”, most analysts believe that with Jobs gone, this could really impact the company’s market standing as Jobs was always behind the designs of the Apple products and the marketing campaigns. With reputation of being the market leader amongst its competitors, it could be a real set back for Apple if their market standing were to shift.  This could perhaps reposition the brand image for many consumers, as Jobs’ footsteps are quite hard to follow. In addition, Apple’s top competitors include RIM, Amazon, Google and Sony may then finally catch up with Apple’s smartphones, computers and laptops, therefore, narrowing the gap between Apple and its rivals. However, although I believe that Apple’s brand name will be strong enough to withstand repositioning, future can only tell whether or not it can resist it.

In 2006, Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, sold her company to the large French cosmetic enterprise called L’Oréal. What used to be a firm that was lauded for advocating animal rights is now being questioned of their corporate culture as L’Oréal’s business ethics operate on a different spectrum. By acquiring The Body Shop, L’Oréal wished for it to rebrand the firm socially and environmentally with The Body Shop’s cruelty-free image. (The Body Shop: Smart Move or Sell Out?) However, although L’Oréal claims to have stopped animal testing, its recent news and history of recurring animal tested products has left the public skeptical as to whether or not they’ve completely stopped their unethical practices. (Behind the Brand: L’Oreal) Not only has this sale affected L’Oreal, The Body Shop lost it’s popularity as well as it has abandoned it’s core values by gaining sales to fund an animal testing business. (The Body Shop popularity plunges after L’Oreal sale)

This main ethical issue is now that The Body Shop, once rated highly by global ethical rating group — Ethical Consumer, is owned by an unethical company, would the core values of The Body Shop’s be compromised? In addition, this controversial situation raises the question of whether the “no animal testing” label on any product (not only produced by L’Oréal but other animal rights advocating firms as well) is used simply just to window-dress their brand image just as L’Oréal had done?

In this case, L’Oréal’s false advertising of non-animal tested products may lead consumers to purchase their product without realizing their contribution in support of future animal tests. Undoubtedly, manipulating the consumers’ in gaining their trust is unethical and therefore, considered socially irresponsible by most.