Athena Szabo wrote two articles called Sell Yourself! talking about self marketing. I took the same two courses that she was comparing in the posts, COMM 296 and COMM 202. I find these two courses are quite related, and are the two most helpful and practical courses I have taken at Sauder. I think it will be quite interesting to discuss more about self selling using marketing concepts here.

Referring to the Sauder Career Success Cycle above, every step requires self marketing strategies. For the first two steps, “Assessing self” and “Researching Options”, they are more like SWOT analysis in marketing. Before getting started the career, we should firstly get to know ourselves better, find out our “strengths” and “weaknesses”. Also we should have an overview of the outside world or industries, that means we should uncover the “opportunities” and be aware of the “threatens” from competitors. We could gather information for the self marketing research from  professionals’ suggestions or friends’ recommendations. Because industry professionals are like our potential clients who will hire us someday, they will help us to set long-term goals and develop certain skills. Friends or colleagues are like current customers, their feedback or evaluation will help us to improve. A comprehensive and detailed analysis of ourselves and the targeting industry will definitely help us to develop competitive advantages for the career.

Another marketing strategy that could be applied into career success is always thinking from the “customers” side. Here, the customers will be our employers. I think this is one of the most important things I learned at Sauder, always think about what you could give, then you will receive what you want. Employers are hiring you and paying you the wage (price) just because they value your input for the company. So, while selling ourselves, instead of keeping talking about ourselves, why not to think about what are the company’s needs? Only if we understand the target market or firm well, could we make efficient use of our marketing resources (mainly time, energy and money) and build a premium brand for ourselves.

Marketing is always interesting but harder than it seems to be. I understand that not only through the marketing group project, but also from the whole job application process in COMM 202 class. And the most difficult part is, marketing is a life-long process, it requires persistency. For most of people, self marketing is an individual work and whether we aware of this or not, we are marketing ourselves everyday, through group work, assignments, conversations and even body languages. Let’s start to build our brands today, good luck to us all!

Last month when I walked into Trek Express and wanted to buy a coffee at Tim Hortons, an ice cream machine caught my eyes. It was new, fancy, and standing close to the Tim Hortons counters, where large volume of potential customers would walk by everyday. There were small bags of candies and chocolates placed near the machine. I was very interested in it and bought a cup of ice cream at a price of over $5 and blended it with Oreo using the machine. The process was quite interesting although its taste was very similar to McFlurry at McDonald’s. Compare its size and price with McFlurry, which is one of its substitutes and direct competitors, this self-serve ice cream product charged a premium price on the customers through offering the unique customer experience.

In today’s market, firms are trying to create value and add benefits to satisfy the changing needs of the customers through innovation. Self-serve products are usually successful when the target customers are seeking for enjoyment and involvement from making the products. From this video, Yo Crazy Frozen Yogurt store is trying to promote its fun image targeting children, students and families.

Another video is about DIY chocolate on Valentine’s Day in China. The store offered ingredients and recipes to customers for personalizing the chocolate under the instruction from the in-store salespeople.Customers value this fun, unique and romantic way for hand-making a present for their lovers. Although sometimes they fail to design or make a ideal one, they still satisfied with the whole interesting self-serving process.

Many self-serve ice cream, frozen yogurt or other DIY products charge a premium price over the same finished products. I think it is reasonable because firstly those stores need to provide more relaxing atmosphere for customers to enjoy themselves in making the products instead of getting impatient or annoyed, also some self-serve stores need instructors to facilitate the producing process. The higher pricing could cover part of those costs. Besides, I think self-serve or DIY products are quite trendy, which means that it could quickly catch the market’s attention but also can quickly lose it. It is hard to build customer loyalty because most of the customers are buying for the exciting and the innovative ideas of the self-serve products. Those firms may make efforts to reach as many potential customers as they can instead of try to convince the current customers to buy more. The firm should be aware of the changing taste and needs of their customers, be prepared for the seasonal sales fluctuation and promote differently through the time of adoption of the products.

     The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 was released on November 16, as a romantic movie lover, I went to watch the movie this Friday with my friends. The movie was great, but when I walked out of the cinema, I remembered so clearly about the big red JanSport bag carried by Bella’s little daughter, Renesmee Cullen, through the entire Vampire War scene. The big red bag was particularly eye-catching and could be easily stood out because it totally did not match the dominant screen colors, which were black and white.

     Here are some related snapshots of Renesmee wearing the bag:

(Sources from: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/renesmee%20cullen?before=1353333665)

I find it is quite interesting to spot some product logos in movies and link them with product replacement learned in marketing class. Because whether it is obvious or not, whether it is related to the plots or not, companies pay large amount of money for it and hope to catch audience’s attention somehow. As an audience, I have seen a lot of poorly-done product replacement promotions, and sometimes I really get confused or even annoyed with them. Sometimes it seems so irrelevant to put the products with characters into the story, or even inappropriate to show something commercial in a romantic, exciting or other beautiful movie moments. I feel that finding a movie that suits for the product is like candidates searching for a best job. The movie and the product must fit each other, they should share the similar image, theme and core value. Otherwise, an awkward move of product placement would ruin both. It is hard but important for movie producers and the company cooperating closely to create an idea of product placement, which not only convey the right message to the audience, but in a graceful way.

  The iPad Mini was launched last month, although it is still called “iPad” and just looks like a smaller version of iPad, it is a totally new Apple product and indicating that Apple is entering small tablet market.

   Apple is pursuing a diversification growth strategy through the creation of iPad mini. Because it shares the same distribution resources, use the same information system and provide same application downloads, this is a related diversification opportunity.

   Its strategy is based on the fact of the shrinking PC market and the growing tablet market, and is led by the ongoing “bring-your-own-device” (BYOD) trend. Apple is considering pursuing new market segments of small tablet users. In education market, educators and students who prefer tablets to notebooks or PCs, will be targeted. And women, who may be more appreciated about its practical and convenient features and would be more interested in carrying this ultra-mobile “computer” in handbag and enjoying great personal entertaining experience everywhere. Tim Cook also described Chinese market as an “extremely exciting” one, which currently makes up 26% of Apple’s revenue. Research shows that Asian consumers love miniaturization and those small technical products are more popular in Asia. As a Chinese customer, I experienced the strong branding influence that Apple had on Chinese market. It gains great popularity and good word of mouth through its premium pricing, excellent design and innovative culture. In China, Apple is now definitely a premium brand that labels good quality and good taste. For most of the Apple fans, they will be the advocates to help promote the iPad mini to their family members, or buy it as a gift to them. For other customers who have not bought an Apple product before, they may like to try this newest Apple product at a lower cost and show themselves as fashionable and trendy people. As Oppenheimer said, the profit margin of iPad mini is far below the company average, it implicitly shows that Apple wants to target and eventually dominate the small tablet market.