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Co-branding is when two brands come together to create a NEW product.  In order for co branding to work, the two bands must be almost or very close to being equal.
Co-branding however is not co-marketing where brands decide to promote together without creating a new brand, such as Monopoly and McDonalds.

Recently, I came across a co-branding product that really caught my attention on youtube.
Two of my favourite youtube channels collaborated and created a video that relates to each of their channels.  The first channel: Huskystarcraft is a channel in which Husky, a Starcraft 2 commentator uploads videos/replays of SC2 games and casts them and discusses strategies.

The second channel: Kurthugoschneider is a music channel where Kurt and some of his friends produces covers of popular songs etc. I love his channel because he recreates a song with his own music and sometimes alters and changes it and create mashups etc.

Last week, I was surprised to see what came up on my subscriptions list on youtube.  It was a collaboration between Husky and Kurt doing a song about SC2!!  Basically, they took Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and did a SC parody with Kurt producing the music and Kurt and Husky singing the song.  The song was completely about Starcraft and it was was really funny because I understood the whole song as I play SC myself.  The best thing was that I had no idea they even knew each other and suddenly, 2 of my favourite youtube channels come together and create this video.

I think it is a great way of co-branding because it introduces Kurts music to starcraft players, and it introduces Husky starcraft to people who enjoy music. For example, I have a group of friends who love SC and a group who loves Kurt and after that video it connected the two groups together because they both had something in common to share.  For example, after this video, my brother has started listening to Kurt’s channel.

I really hope they continue co-branding and make more videos together!

Anyway, check out the video:

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.

Recently, I read about a friends message related to McDonald’s delivery service in Hong Kong.  This made me wonder why McDonald’s here does not offer a delivery service also like how Pizza places do.  Because there are so many McDonald’s restaurants here, it seems like delivery would not be hard compared to having employees in Honk Kong bike to various apartments to deliver food.

Later I realized that the reason why McDonald’s does not offer a delivery service is probably because they have drive thrus here instead.  Instead of using up tons of gas to deliver food at each house, people here can easily drive to the closest McDonald’s and go to the drive through if they are too lazy to get out of their car.  In Hong Kong, this would never work because restaurants are usually in between many other shops or inside malls so there is no way of creating a drive thru.

McDonald’s delivery and drive thru services should how they deliver their service differently in different market segments.  In Canada, because majority of the people drive regularly and there are many McDonald’s nearby, having a drive thru system is more cost effective for the McDonalds yet still convenient for the consumer.  In Hong Kong, majority of people are walking or taking public transportation and because restaurants are so small, having a drive thru is extremely difficult.  Having a delivery service is more convenient.

In the recent years Facebook has frown to become one of the biggest social network ever and millions of people especially youth, spend tons and tons of time on Facebook. Of course because this trend is becoming so popular and large, many people/firms are using Facebook to advertise, sell products, promote products and events, and many other things by creating fan pages for people to “like” or creating groups etc. Today, when I check my own Facebook, I found the weirdest friend request:

For those who don’t know, Rilakkuma is not a person, it is just a Japanese fictional character.  When I clicked on it, I found out that it was a group of people who created a Facebook page for this character and uses this page to sell Rilakkuma and other San-X (Rilakkuma’s company) cartoon products like stuffed animals, pencil cases, etc.  Basically they put photos up of all their products and they give out information about where to meet (within Richmond) to purchase these products from them.
I think the reason they promote this way through Facebook is because they can save costs of opening an actual store or perhaps they don’t have enough funding to open their own store.  I’ve also seen similar people sell asian accessories and nail polish that are usually hard to find in Vancouver through Facebook. It is such an effective way to create a Facebook profile because loyal customers can become “friends” with the page and this would spread to the customers other friends.  Also, it tells you how many mutual friends you have with the page, so it shows you how all these friends you have are actually purchasing their products -in this case, it seems like 2 of my friends buy stuff there.

I think using Facebook is a great way to promote new products especially if one if thinking of starting a business.

A couple months ago, my friend showed me a really inspirational video promoting National Entrepreneurs Day.

The video was very simple but it gave a really strong message in a really creative way with carefully chosen music that enhances the video and makes it feel even more inspirational.  It was such a great way to promote Nation Entrepreneurs Day because it has pretty much no cost except for the time used to create the video, it was uploaded onto Youtube where it is exposed to millions of people, and it doesn’t cost any price for a viewer too watch it and share it with others.  What I also realized was that it also had another “international version” for viewers outside of the United States and that reminded me of how marketers are always looking at different segments to target at.

It also made me think back to the Baby carrots promotion during the beginning of September where there were 3 versions of promotional videos that were dedicated to different market segments/ audiences.

Here’s Entrepreneurs can change the world:
(the video is slightly cut off here..but its okay when its full screen)

Its the the time of the year again when everyone breaks their healthy eating habits -or maybe just me- to buy McDonalds to collect those little monopoly pieces for chances to win prizes!  Basically each time you buy large fries or a large drink etc, you get 2 monopoly states or instant win chances which you stick onto a little monopoly board you can get at any McDonalds.  I think it is such a great marketing strategy because pretty much everyone (from kids to adults) has played Monopoly before and it just attracts you to want to buy McDonalds instead of other fast food choices to collect these pieces.  Its just like Tim Horton’s Roll up the Rim cups, but Monopoly is much more well known and it happens at around the same time every year.

Two days ago, my friend showed me a picture she found on Twitter:

This is how Alberta and British Columbia McDonald’s Stores decided to start off their Monopoly promotion.  On October 6th and 7th, you can go to any McDonalds Store and trade any amount of MONOPOLY money for 1 free large fries!! WOW. And with a free large fries, it also means you get 2 Monopoly states or instant win chances for free!

I was so surprised because basically anyone who has monopoly can go to as many McDonalds they want to trade in cheap monopoly money for free food and those states.  Or if you had 10 friends and you all go to one store for 10 large fries, you can get 20 states right there!  Wouldn’t their profits drop from giving away so much free food?  But then I guess because its only for 2 days, they would rather give out free food and have many people get started with collecting monopoly pieces, hoping they would have a greater chance of buying food later in the month.

I was wondering if this promotion was real, but yesterday I got my free fries so its valid! 😛

yumm…

Today I was looking through the marketing textbook and catching up on my readings when I read about habitual decision making.  The textbook says habitual decision making requires little conscious effort because consumers have a habit of buying the same products every time without even considering the other choices.  I thought this was really interesting because it is definitely true and when I looked at the pictures, I thought “wow, thats what I buy!”  What I saw was this:

I have Tropicana orange juice in my fridge 24/7 since I was young.  Every time I go the supermarket to buy drinks, I immediately go for the Tropicana orange juice with pulp.  Not only me, but my mom also does the same thing with this drink.  We don’t even think of other drinks because we have habit of just buying Tropicana orange juice.  I guess this is also because of the social influence that affect decision making because my whole family loves orange juice and I’ve been drinking it since I was young.  Also, Tropicana’s orange juice always tastes good so I guess I just never thought of other choices.