It’s not very rare to see people in Vancouver carry a luxury bag or wear a luxury outfit. However lately I have found out luxury brand has become more and more popular and the sense of scarcity and luxury is fading away. Luxury brand are supposed to emphasize social status of rich people. Understating the brand position of rich class will lead luxury brands to dead ends for sure.
I agree with the point stated in Jim’s blog: the luxury brands cannot believe that staying where they are currently without repositioning and renovating their brands can lead to their success or even survival. Due to the fact that the next generation is highly-educated and will have different values towards luxury, Luxury brands need to catch up with consumers taste changes or even value change. How can luxury brands persuade the next generation that luxury brand is not just about showing off is going to be extremely important. My opinion is that luxury brand should create a image of art piece rather than a practice of money worship. Brands that can be able to link their product towards other perception rather than pure expensive image will have add to their point of difference. An example of incorporating art elements into production is Hermes scarves production. Hermes designs its scarf like a piece of art. Every graphic pattern on the scarf is like a painting. In deed, many consumers purchase Hermes scarves for its graphic design combined with the luxury value it holds.

Having more than half of my closet filled with Zara’s clothes, the class of the supply chain management with Zara as an example immediately caught my attention. I remember back in high school, most of my classmates wore the similar styles of clothes. It was awkward to find everyone else in the class in the same dress. After I started shopping at Zara’s, I found it rare to see anyone else in my class that wears the same outfit. Now I understand that it’s under Zara’s unique strategy to maintain high variability of its clothes. I didn’t know how could having so many styles of design help Zara earn more profits. Now I come to see that Zara tries to create a scarcity by limiting the amounts of each design. And this is why I go to Zara almost every month to check out if there are new items that are available. With no doubt, I always can find some new items that attractive me. And as a result, I keep contributing money to Zara each time I go to their store.
However this strategy would not be successful if Zara doesn’t keep the high turnover rate of its products. In order to obtain the first hand information from markets, it is so smart of Zara to predict trend by actively listening to what customers like and dislike. Recalling from my experience, if a line is selling well, Zara will re-launch it in a different color that has been selling well in other lines. Zara always takes good care of fresh customer opinions and preferences. Unlike other fashion chains that predict the trends all ahead and thus have a higher risk of failing, Zara gets all the fresh feedbacks from its stores and immediately work toward these feedbacks. This customer-to-production strategy will be an inevitable trend for fashion producers.

Links for further reading:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19749074
http://thesoundingsgroup.com/zara-a-global-success-story-november-1-2011/

In the blog “BlackBerry by choice is bad marketing by choice” on Canadian Business, it talks about a funny borderline immature stance in BlackBerry’s marketing. When many of BlackBerry users are ashamed of their outdated devices, BlackBerry responses to the complaints by pointing out that the only reason people still use BlackBerrys is because their employer forces them to through its new slogan “BlackBerry by choice”. I agree with most of the points in this blog. A company should never point out its own products’ shortcomings in its advertising, When the competitors of BlackBerry are all being very innovative and at the same time very influential to bring up the power of the products, it is an irony for BlackBerry to promote its products as a cellphone by choice. In reality, it totally disappoints those of who are forced to use BlackBerry. The BlackBerry case raises a series of questions about how a once powerful company can use marketing to help it survive? How can advertisements help them remind consumers of its strengths? How should the company create a new image to catch up with the main trend? “BlackBerry by choice” obviously has none of the effect on catching consumer’s attentions or creating abpositive image for the company.

Links for further reading:
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/tech/104855–blackberry-by-choice-is-bad-marketing-by-choice

While scanning through all the different blog posts, the question in one of Jenny Ling’s blog titles immediately drew my attention. Although giving free samples of baby formula could be seen as an endorsement, it does not raise a business ethical issue here.
First of all, there are no food safety problems with the baby formula samples that are given out. Secondly, giving free sample away has historically been an acceptable way of advertisement. If it is fine for a chips company to give out free sample in supermarkets, what is wrong with baby formula companies to give out free samples of the same product? The argument that giving free sample of baby formula will affect women’s decisions on whether or not to breast feed does seem to have a strong reason. This argument is just like the argument that giving out free chips in supermarkets will promote junk food.
It is always good for consumers to have more information, not less. In this case, women are open to more choice of reliable baby formula enable them to choose a better product for their babies if they decide to breast feed. If mothers don’t want to choose feed their babies with baby formula, the advertisement will have no effect on them. The situation is just like advertising of cigarettes will have no effect on non-smokers. Indeed this advertising strategy focuses on the specific group of consumers- mothers that who don’t want to breast feed. It facilitates the promotion process and brings consumers benefits at the same time.

Only after releasing for a week, the iPhone 5 has become the most popular phone ever in history, racking up 5 million units sold during its first three days of availability. The new phone not only brings massive revenue to Apple, but also to millions of IOS developers. Surely, the iPhone 5 has improved a lot from its iPhone 4s with 4G LTE, a longer and larger screen, and a faster processer. However critiques about iPhone 5’s downsides have been dramatically fervent too. So why would iPhone 5 still be so popular in spite of its weakness that people all have been talking about? I think the reason has so do with Apple’s smart marketing strategy. The week before the iPhone 5 was announced, apple already sent out invitations to media, bloggers, and influencers for an in San Francisco in which they hinted strongly the would be unveiling the iPhone 5. In its introduction video, Apple doesn’t go on and on about its complicated technology and hard drive, which people won’t understand. Instead, Apple chooses to use a more personal and thoughtful approach. They talk about how their customers’ lives would be better and easier with the iPhone 5. Apple always advertises its product in a way that is less technical but more personal, which is a good way that can be adapted by technical companies.

Sources:

iPhone 5 Popularity Causing An App Store Boom [Report]

After Apple has launched its most valuable product- iPhone 5 on September 12, the other smart phone giant Samsung quickly responded to the battle by jabbing a feisty Ad. Although Samsung didn’t mention Apple or iPhone in the Ad, the ad takes shot of apple fanboys waiting outside the store that has similar design of the apple store. The iPhone fans talk about the new features of the iPhone5. But random Samsung Galaxy S3 users weave in and out of the line comparing attractive feathers of Samsung with those of iphone5, indicating that Apple is only introducing a larger screen.
The marketing strategy Samsung uses here is similar to the one used in “cola wars”. By directly taking an aim at its competitors, Samsung is able to attract more consumers from its direct competitor- Apple. Although the strategy seems too bold, the ad did receive immediate attention from the public. As Apple has dominated smart phone market for a long time, Samsung’s Ad aims at redirecting consumers to think about smart phone feathers and to change minds of consumers who are “brainwashed” by Apple’s products. However, critiques might arise against Samsung’s strategy for being unethical and hostile.

Sources:
http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-most-viral-brand-in-video-ads-2012-9

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409935,00.asp

According to US federal regulators, Google is now mired in legal proceedings over alleged abuses of its large Internet search engine and the online advertising markets. The federal regulators doubts that Google’s strong market power will lead to high prices or other forms of wrongdoing on consumers.

However, since the establishment of the company, Goggle has always followed its slogan of “Don’t be evil” by constantly providing better free services to customers. If Google ceases to innovate and produce high quality goods that consumers crave, it will disappear even after having been the dominant player. In my opinion, the success of Google is mainly due to its clear business strategy. After Goggle has built its strong brand name, it didn’t stop innovating new products facing the threats of new entrants such as Bing and Blekko. Google kept expanding its service lines such as g-mail, Google map and the android mobile operating system. On top of super convenient information Google provides, its other products gradually gains loyalty from consumers too. G-mail has now become as competitive as Hotmail and yahoo mail. Android stands in market as a strong competitor of Apple’s IOS operating system. The success of Google has to thank to its both expanding production lines and improving existing product line.

Sources:

http://www.digitalspy.ca/tech/news/a326578/google-facing-probe-over-web-dominance.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/google-facing-force-of-aggressive-eu-regulators/2012/07/22/gJQAPSX02W_story.html

In 2008, the serious safety accident of the Sanlu formula milk powder for infants caused severe harm to over 300,000 sicken babies,many developing kidney from drinking milk made with toxic powder. What was more terrifying was that six of the babes died from drinking Sanlu milk.

The milk powder, produced by Chinese diary giant Sanlu Group, was contaminated with melamine, a common chemical used in coatings and laminates,wood adhesive and fabric coating. Melamine was illegally added to the products to boost their apparent protein content. By adding Melamine, nitrogen could be present at normal levels so the milk is passed as good at a fairly low cost.

When i first read the news, I was totally shocked by the fact that a food production company would add toxic to their production for the sake of higher profits. I felt so furious about Sanlu’s irresponsibilities for its consumers’ safety and for its own reputation as a legal milk company. Although all business’s goal is to seek ways to minimize their costs of the products in order to maximize the profits, they should never do so by cheating the inculpable consumers who trust the company and choose to buy their products. As a food production company, the most basic rule is to produce safe food no matter what tempts are there. If this basic rule is broken, the company is not only involved with an ethical issue, but also big trouble that could exterminate the company.

For more information about this issue, please refer to the news:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7845545.stm