After taking this marketing course, I realize that my choice is right! I major in Economics. The regular Econ class doesn’t require much teamwork and is less interactive. This class is much much more interesting, and it broadens my perspective and horizon on marketing and even on my life.

Before I take this marketing course, I just think marketing is about selling. Now I find marketing is actually about everything. It is pervasive from designing a new product to communicating with customers; from marketing yourself in job interviews to how to build relationships with others. Marketing can be found anywhere in our daily life. In the future, I can use the marketing knowledge learned in class when I go shopping, watch TV and especially find job.

One of the most important chances that I get from this course is to know my great team members and work with them to finish our project. Everyone in our team was eager to contribute. We had meetings nearly before or after every class. Everyone was in attendance for all group meetings, and everyone was very committed and productive. We always had a good plan and everyone followed the timeline, so we always finished our work 3-5 days earlier. Good time management kept us away from rush work before the due date. For assignment 3, we went to the YVR to film the video, and we also film at school for two days. Everyone showed enthusiasm. Good cooperation makes the process going well. These group work assignments not only provide a good chance to let us apply what we learn in class, but also improve our planning, organizing, and collaboration skills by working in a team.  Overall our WestJet team did an awesome job!

Recently, I watched a popular Chinese TV series “Let’s Get Married”. One thing I noticed and found really interested to me is that there are so much “product placement” in it. Product placement is defined as a non-traditional advertising technique used by companies to subtly promote their products through appearances in film, television, or other media (by the BuinessDictionary.com).

Some watchful audiences counted there are over 49 “product placement” in the TV series. Each of the products are present in a different way, from the milk tea that are on the shelf to the cars that the actors drive, even the websites which the performers use to find jobs. Many people criticized the product placement online. Some people made jokes and said this TV series should be called “Let’s Advertise” instead; some others said it is the longest advertisement they have ever seen. However, in my opinion I think it is a quite effective and useful way for marketing.

In my point of view, I prefer the product placement through the TV series rather than the normal ads that in the middle of the TV series. If the product placement replaces the normal ads, audiences would save a lot of time to watch a TV program. It also follows the social trend of a time-poor society. Furthermore, when characters say something good about some products, the message will get into fans’ memory, and in the future the fans would easily recall the memory and are highly likely to buy the products. The product placement allows the products show in a close way to the audience which in a “real” life than the formal advertisement. It’s more vivid and feels closer to our lives than the several-minutes commercials. So without impacting the story of the TV series, the product placement is acceptable for me.

In Ryan’s Blog, he talked about Mercedes-Benz’s commercial for their new “Magic Body Control” suspension system. The commercial uses chicken’s ability to keep heads relatively stationary as they move their bodies to demonstrate the stability of the new system. After I know the ability of the chicken from his blog, I realize that’s pretty a good idea to use this creative way to show the feature of the new system.

Actually before I read Ryan’s blog, I watched this commercial. At that time, I just found this commercial was funny. I guessed it wanted to show the stability, but it makes more sense when I know the ability of chicken.

In the case of this commercial, for people who already has known the ability of chicken would directly find out what Benz wants to demonstrate and feel it’s smart; for people who don’t know the ability of chicken would feel funny and maybe would question why they use chicken. The commercial is successful, because no matter which kind of group people, this commercial will catch their eyes and provide information, even though the perception are different.Each commercial or other kinds of advertisement are watched by different groups of people. Depends on their education or background, audiences would have different understanding of what they watch. Marketers should make sure that the ads would convey correct image and understandable information to their target customers.

Barry Schwartz as an innovator of the Google Glass is deciding who he is going to invite to get the opportunity to purchase the Google Glass. In Barry’s Blog he talks about the new marketing strategy of the Google Glass —crowd-based marketing strategy. In my opinion it’s a wise and efficient way for diffusion of innovation.

Now, the product is in early adopter stage. In reference to Barry’s blog, people can inquire an invitation from Google, and after they get the invitation, they need to spend $1500 plus tax for an explorer version of Google Glass. Google has created an absolutely successful buzz with its Google Glass presentation and Glass videos. It is so effective. Even the Google Glass invitation is selling on eBay for $500.

So while Google inviting people to help them to test their glass, they are also trying a new way to fund and market a new high tech product. Google is handling this process extremely well. People are voluntarily signing up for the invitation, inviting their friends, sharing on their Facebook and posting it on Twitter. As they invite 8,000 people to join their explorer program, it will end up with millions earning to their revenue.

Google’s successful attempt in crowd funding shows how crowd funding can be done in large company. The potential opportunities of crowd-base marketing and funding is huge. The Google Glass explorer program could be seen as a giant experiment in crowd funding and crowd marketing.