Month: November 2010

While listening in class and taking notes about distribution strategies, I heard Tamar talk about location, being at the right place at the right time…etc and then, she went on to talk about hours of operation.  This immediately made me think of TD bank and the commercial I keep seeing about TD extending their hours of operation.

TD is probably one of the only banks that operates until 8pm on weekdays.  Other banks such as BMO usually operate until 4pm and sometimes till 6pm, but never until 8pm.  Not only that but TD also provides “24-hour-a-day access to your accounts through Green Machine* ABMs, EasyLine™ telephone banking, EasyWeb™ Internet banking and Interac^¤ Direct Payment.”  Because TD is a bank and it offers services instead of products, it is important that they are able to create a good distribution strategy that is convenient for their customers.  Extending their hours of operation is a great way to enhance their service distribution because it gives their customers more flexibility in deciding when to go to the bank.  For example, this may be a big benefit for customers who work until late.

Extending their hours of operation is not the end of it too.  Recently, I heard from one of my friends who works at TD bank that they are even planning to start operating on SUNDAYS!  This is a big move as there are pretty much no banks that operate on a Sunday and some credit unions, that offer similar services, don’t even operate at all on the weekends!  Distribution strategy is such an important component in marketing because without it, no one would know anything about your product or service not matter how amazing it is.

Some companies like Koodo like to be very persistent with ads and make sure you see them everywhere you go, from buses to commercials – as explained by Kim’s marketing blog post.  Other companies simply use the internet -such as Facebook from Calvin’s blog.  All TD is doing is extending their available days/hours to make it more flexible and convenient for customers knowing that time value is big, current social trend.

Christmas season is probably the biggest and most profitable season for most retail companies.  Every year, right after Halloween, retailers bring out their reds, greens, whites, anything related to Christmas in anyway to start setting the mood for Christmas shopping!  You can walk through the mall and see decorations everywhere and as December approaches, you may even spot some Christmas trees and some -not so little- elves!

Even at my part-time job at Hollister, employees are given discounts for red coloured clothing and there are sign up sheets posted up to sign up for shifts to help out with the Christmas floor set.  During Christmas season, shopper’s decision processes are affected by the situation.  Also because Christmas is a tradition, families will buy gifts for other families, friends, etc.  Its very optimistic and it affects the mood of the consumers and usually ends up influencing them to buy and spend more for this special occasion.

It is a very good marketing plan to redecorate just for Christmas and repackage products to look Christmas like or to even offer gift wrapping.  It is not just clothing or toy stores that redecorate and market for Christmas, but coffee shops like Starbucks do too!

Starbucks redesigns their signature coffee cups and makes them red for Christmas and they also offer limited Holiday coffees such as Peppermint Mocha, Gingerbread Latte and all the other ones that put you in the mood for Christmas while making you feel warm in the cold. Currently they have even put in a promotion : from 2-5pm buy one get one free holiday drink!  What an awesome deal! For more detail about Starbucks Christmas promotions visit Julia Chiu’s blog

Social media – something that has grown incredibly during the last couple years.  As internet has become so important in daily life, social media has also become one of the easiest ways to reach hundreds, thousands of people easily with extremely low costs.  Of course, many businesses are markerters are using social media to promote their business by creating websites, blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter etc. to create an online presence. 

Michael Fleischner’s “The Marketing Blog” even has a post from Dillon McEvoy outlining How To Develop An Online Presence For Your Business in 4 Easy Steps which includes building up a website, Facebook page, Twitter and more.  The best thing about his 4 easy steps is that most of them are completely free! Please read more about it on his blog.

 An example of someone who has used social media to establish an online presence is Michelle Phan.  Michelle Phan is a girl who started off promoting with xanga and she has done many make up tutorials on Youtube and is basically a Youtube celebrity with tons of subscribers.  She uses Facebook, Twitter, and maybe more to connect with her large fan base.  She is also the spoesperson for Lancome.  This shows how advantageous it can be to use social media to promote and connect with people.  But, it is also important to remember that because social media can promote very quickly to a large amount of people, the actions one takes on the internet must be extremely careful because popularity can fall just as fast as it can rise.

Recently, I have come across a blog named “Michelle PHAIL” that is “dedicated to revealing make-up guru Michelle Phan in a different light.”  The blog talks about her personality and uses Michelle’s posts on Twitter and Youtube to “reveal” her true (not so good) personality.  The blog basically promotes all the “bad” points about Michelle Phan and it also accuses her for cyberbullying.  I personally don’t have an opinion on this matter, but it just shows how easy it can be for social media to destroy your or your business’ reputation if you’re not careful.

Halloween – the one time in the year where little kids -and some older ones- knock on doors from house to house to “Trick or treat” for free candy.  Many if not all candy/chocolate brands take advantage of this day to repackage their products just for Halloween.  Because most people prefer to buy large bags of small candies and chocolates to give out to as many kids as they can, these companies repackage their products so that they are much smaller and so they can sell a lot of them in a package for people who want to give out candy.  This is a great way to take advantage of a situation to sell much more than usual.

Also, I realized that when I used to go Trick or Treating, I would receive lots of candy that I don’t usually see in supermarkets, or anywhere at all.  I believe this is because companies only reproduce these products during Halloween perhaps because they do not sell very well by themselves usually, but during Halloween when they are all combined into one bundle, it creates a bigger assortment of candies and appeals to many people who want to give out candy.  Perhaps it could also be a good way to test a new product.  Marketing strategies like this can really boost revenues in a short time period with minimal costs.

The best thing about Halloween, is that after that one day passes, all these packages of candy are sold for a slight discount which induces even more consumers (ones who don’t give out candy) to buy their product.