Month: September 2010

Facebook is a way of interconnecting people around the world. However, the Facebook corporation has been more interested in making money than helping people connect with friends. Instead of traditional advertising on the television and newspapers, Facebook is a new and effective way for companies to market their brand. Even if people do not buy the products or services immediately, the brand is subconsciously put into the Facebook user’s mind. To add to this, Facebook has been using key words in a person’s Facebook status to link ads that relate to it. For example, if your status is changed to “Excited for my wedding,” a wedding planner ad could show up on the side of your page. Also, when your friends on Facebook click on the “like” button of a certain ad, it can migrate into your own news feed and this is called “earned media” since it is free. Facebook is being used to promote products and services by word of mouth, especially since your friends are the ones that you know and trust. They become the greatest advertisement solution for these companies.

Facebook has many interconnections as youth these days have around 500 friends on average. If you then consider all the friends these people have, you can reach a large market rapidly. This goes along with the article we read in Class 8 “Community Relations 2.0.” The article demonstrates the capacity of social media and how businesses have become aware of using it.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_40/b4197064860826.htm

Coca Cola has recently come out with a new vending machine that offers 106 different drink combinations. This is unique from other drink dispenser’s that only provide 10 or less different drinks. They use marketing skills by promoting the user-friendly touch screen technology so that consumers can easily pick the combinations of their drink. Coca Cola already has lots of brands of drinks such as Fanta, Minute Maid, Dasani, Powerade, Sprite, and others. This machine includes all the brands but also new additional flavours for these brands.

The new technology allows Coca Cola to do market analysis to look at customer preference to determine what consumers want. The drinks selected are automatically sent back to headquarters via a network connection. In this way they can easily do research and development without having to go through customer surveys. It is an efficient way to determine what is popular and what is not, and also inventory management is made simpler.

Coca Cola is already the leading brand of soft drinks, and this new machine could lead them into an even higher profit margin. With flat sales in soft drinks over the years, this machine may revitalize the soft drink market. This machine is piloted in Atlanta, California, and Ohio. This is one of Coca Cola’s strategies to furthermore differentiate itself from other brands of soft drinks, and to raise the barrier of entry.

http://blog.souplantation.com/772/

http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/presscenter/presskit_freestyle.html

When one thinks of a business, one may associate this with employees wanting to make as much money as possible. However, this is not the case with all businesses. Take, for example, Free the Children, a non-proft organization dedicated to changing the world around us. They mainly target youth to get the new generation to “be the change” and “educate, engage, and empower.”

Free the Children was founded by Marc Kielburger when he was only eleven years old. One morning he was flipping through the newspaper to find comics when he stumbled upon the article “Battled Child Labour, Boy, 12, Murdered” that caught his eye. A young boy in South Asia named Iqbal Masiah had been a slave since the age of 4,  and was murdered trying to defend children’s rights. Marc Kielburger knew something wasn’t right and started a group at his school that has since become one of the largest non-profit organizations with children helping children. Free the Children has built over 650 schools around the world and reached out to millions of youth. One of the main things that Free the Children  implements is Adopt a Village which is made up of four pillars to try to overcome poverty: education, alternative income, , health care, and water and sanitation. Me to We, a partnership of Free the Children, also does trips overseas to places such as Kenya, Ecuador, and India. Last summer I participated in a trip, and travelled to Kenya for three and a half weeks to help build a library and immerse myself in the culture.

Free the Children taught me that business does not always have to mean doing things to get rich, but rather using the skills to direct it towards your passion.

Ethical or Unethical?

Businesses strive to be ethical for many reasons. Yet what does “business ethics” really mean? It could refer to avoiding lawsuits, avoiding actions that could harm the businesses image, and avoiding breaking the law.

Dov Charney, founder of American Apparel, has a company known to be ethically”sweat shop” friendly where all clothes are made in Los Angeles. However, Charney goes against one main business ethic- he crosses the line with inappropriate employee, employer relationships. Dov Charney believes that “it’s a First Amendment right to pursue one’s affection for another human being.” He believes there are no restrictions and has been involved in consensual sexual relationships with staff members. To make matters worse, he has been charged three times for sexual harassment by former female employees. Seven other women have spoken to Business Week revealing stories about multiple stories where higher ranked employees had sexual relationships with lower ranked employees that were rewarded with promotions.

It is hard to judge Charney, as he hires workers from overseas and pays them twice minimum wage, and provides lunches and English lessons. I believe that Charney is unprofessional because he creates situations that can be uncomfortable for employees and detrimental to the workplace. He is ethical in this sense, yet he is not ethical in his relationships.

Links: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/American+Apparel+hipster+darling+more+bankruptcy+looms/3422463/story.html

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_26/b3939108_mz017.htm