Jiayu's Blog

https://blogs.ubc.ca/seandales/2012/03/07/music-and-marketing/

Sean had carried out very intersting relationships between “music and marketing”. The idea of positioning of music had once came to me as well. Like Sean said, you can tell who’s playing just by the characteristic tone at times. And when you can do that regarding a certain singer or band, it is called loyalty.

But funny thing is, sometimes, even though you don’t know the player well or concern about him or her, you are still aware of him/her like from nowhere. Want an example? How about Lady Gaga? I am sure everybody who knows how to blog here correctly knows about Lady Gaga. But not everyone of us actually learned about her on purpose. How is that happening?

That is a successful example of positioning in music industry. Am I right?

On one aspect, Lady Gaga’s songs are quite remarkable. However, comparing to herself, her music seems to be just the most boring thing about her. Her appearance could grab everyone’s attention almost every single time and always breathtaking, which could be both a good way or a bad way depending on different people’s perception.

Disregard judgements on Gaga, she made herself very well known by positioning herself as brave, innovative and how can we deny, CRAZY. 

I kinda like her a lot. She is willing to any way of performance as long as it express her music well. People may think her of weird, but she realized her dream and promotioned herself in a very unique way. I think most of us, are far away from her braveness. That’s why she is the unique one.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/keyili/2012/02/08/few-thoughts-on-brand-perception/#content

Vivian has some interesting opinions on brand perception, she did her research and concluded that the concept “Brand perception” shows that ” not all well-known brands are good brands regarding their products/services (ex. McDonald’s), but people are more willing to learn more about those brands that have good brand perception regardless of their products/services (ex. Apple). ” This makes me think of Android, who is very successful at “implanting” perceptions to costomers.

Why did I say that? Because I have noticed some interesting facts.

First, Android have made many customers believe that only hardware breakthrough counts as product updating. Many users have complained about Apple still using Dual-core processor on ipad when Android has already tried using Quadcore on phones long time ago. This opinion on hardware is actually not that correct. Android, iOS and WP7 are three different operating systems and each of them requires different stantard of hardware to operate their own systems. iOS and WP7 believes that enough is perfect , unlike Android who loves to throw some breathtaking parameters at users.

Secondly, Android makes users believe that strong hardware represents fluent operation, which sure is the case for Android. But not for all smartphones.  Android’s software system predestine itself to require high standard hardwares. However, the other two system could fit their software system quite well with current hardwares. And what’s more, Iphone and Windows Phone can actually provide better user experiences than some of Android’s phone with high standard hardwares. And we all know that user experience is literally the most important thing when it comes to smartphones, NOT hardware.

What I am trying to say is, although sometimes it is not the case, Android has successfully made customers to believe in those opinions about hardware. I think it is because of Android’s successful brand positioning as well as “brand perception”. Customers would like to believe in Android because Android is a good brand as well as a well known one. And also Android has very diverse products, which would make users think Android as a fast developing and innovative brand.

Although I was all talking about Android misleading customers, Android still sure is a very great brand and has giant impacts on smartphone industry. It’s just, users may want to view other systems without wearing Android’s glass on.

As stated in the textbook, marketing is managing profitable customer relationships. The Ritz-Carlton hotel example from the textbook gives an excellent model of building customer relationship. As an important process of marketing, customer relationship management plays an essential role in customer acquirement and retention. A Hotpot restaurant in China named HaiDiLao, which considers providing incredible customer services as their competitive advantage, has caused a sensation and gained huge success. “Nothing can prevent HaiDiLao to make you feel like God” has even become a catchword among all young adults.

The motto in HaiDiLao is “service first, customer first”. Employees are told to pay attention to customers’ unexpressed wishes and needs. This has brought their customers continuous delight and surprise. In waiting area, waitresses will continuously give customers free drinks and fruits. They even offer free nail service to help you kill the boring time while you are waiting to be seated. Once seated, hot towels are provided and changed every 15 minutes. When waitresses hear a customer is sneezing, they will offer him a fresh ginger soup without request. Toothbrushes and toothpastes are provided in the washroom for free. When customers bring young kids or babies, employees will help you babysit and feed. I also heard that a customer received a new ipod after losing his old one during dining.

Instead of making efforts in offering excellent food and comfortable dining environment to retain its customers, HaiDiLao considers delivering superior customer experiences as a stepping-stone to success in the competitive restaurant industry. In order to maximize customer satisfaction, HaiDiLao’s marketing department works closely with the HR department. They work together on designing a customer-oriented marketing plan and program. They develop well-designed training system to maximize employees’ initiative and satisfaction, so that employees can better create customer satisfaction. The effective coordination between departments has made the superior service delivery possible.

The personalized and humanized serving program has brought HaiDiLao a large loyal customer base and has helped it gain an increasing share of business. The HaiDiLao case has helped me gain a better understanding on marketing concepts like customer relationship management and partner relationship management.

After today’s lecture, I made some connections between marketing concepts and my dad’s business. It’s kinda practical.

My father is a reseller of a factory of furniture. He has a very large store that is full of the productions of the supplier. My father is a very smart businessman and my mother is a very qualified seller. So the sales volume of their store is really remarkable. However, there has been a problem. The supplier, ie,the factory, sometimes cannot match the productivity with sales. I can always hear my father talking with the sales manager of the factory over the phone about the problems of inventory.

My father is a very responsible and reliable man and he takes his promises to costomers very seriously. He schedules delivery of orders everyday carefully so when the factory calls and says that they can’t finish some of the products on time, he gets cranky.

Let’s put it this way. Even though my father only owns a store, he still has to do marketing and has marketing environments. In this case, the problem comes from microenvironment, to be specific, supply. When there is a shortage of supply, the cost in short run is sales. When customer get delay on their delivery of orders, they can turn very unsatisfied. In the long run, that hurts the brand’s reputation and customer loyalty. Meanwhile, shortage of supply can also be taken advantage by competitors. They might say something like don’t buy their product unless you have half a year to wait…

All in all, I think it’s very obvious that marketing can be influenced by marketing environment very much. Some aspects may be more sensitive and some are less. Hope to get more ideas of macroenvironment next time.

I am taking this course COMM296 and I would like to make a little introduction about myself in order to make sure my professor Ms.Burke and my fellow classmates can get a better idea of who I am.

My name is Jiayu Li and all my friends call me Lilas(it’s actually a French name, with a silent “s”). I am a second year student in Sauder.I am from China and I came to UBC about one and half years ago,which was the time I first came to Canada. Living in Vancouver, I am having a great time, except for the raining of course.

 I dont have a lot of hobbies, however, I LOVE photography! I like to capture details of life and beauty of the world. Although I havent got a DLSR yet, I love to study the frame of pictures and I am studying photoshop skills myself. And… I also like swimming.I often go swimming at the Aquatics centre of UBC. It feels good after doing sports.

 I am taking this course not only because of the BCom program requirement, but also the amazing power of marketing. I have read that above half of the budget of a company can be uesd on marketing. And great marketing skills do work amazingly. It’s like magical, only that you can see how the magic works are happening through marketing strategies. For example, using social-networking, ads can spread so fast that it could be seen by 200,000 people in 5days or some thing like that. Although not every ad can do that amazing job, some of them can really be very effective.I myself have some experiences working in marketing department of our club but it’s more like technology skills related such as making posters. I am willing to learn more about marketing strategies. I think this should be fun.

Hope that we will have fun together this term! And of course I would wish for good-looking marks.O(∩_∩)O

P.s.That’s me in the picture!

I have truly learnt a lot of things from Comm299, such as interview skills, resume and cover letter writing skills, different kinds of skills. One of the most important things I have learnt and from which,I have already been benefited, is “Following-up”.

I applied for a volunteer position of 2011 orientation in January and I was informed by email that I have got the position in the beginning of March. There was a survey link in the email which due March 7^th and I have to finish the survey by the deadline in order to keep my position and in order to get the chance to attend the training session on March 26^th. Anyway, the truth is that I haven’t received any more information about the training session. I wait until March 26^th and there was still nothing. I was upset. Sitting outside Irving, I found out the email they sent me and wrote a email to them to show my disappointment and my interest in the orientation. They told me it was because that I haven’t finished my survey so they replaced me. Well, I believe that I forgot to fill out the survey for some reason. Then I sent back a email and stated again that I am really interested in the position. Guess what, I just got the email yesterday. I got my Position! And, they thanked for my following-up!

Yep. Thanks to the Following-up! Thanks to Comm299!

Last summer,I co-organized a magazine publishing.It was a journal edited by the members of our school BBS.I was an associate editor.We called for manuscripts and got a lot of works.When we took our results to the publishinghouse,we realised that we had a financial problem.So we started raising money.We went to different bazaars to see if they wanted to put advertisements in our magazine.One of them agreed but they gave so little money that we had to refuse.Meanwhile,I was having my IELTS training at GlobalIELTS ant got great marks so I went to see the headmaster,wishing she would support us.We talked for a long time.I tried to persuade her,she was quite hard though.Finally,she still told me that the GlobalIELTS didn’t have the plan to advertise at that time but my speech really moved her so she would consider us as soon as they began to advertise.She also said that I had the talent to negotiate and she thought I should consider to develop it. The greatest thing I learnt here is that no matter how impossible it seems, just try your best to do it. You will always ultimately get something, even though something unexpected. Anyway,we ended up to get support from school and the student union and our magazine got big success finally.We hope next time we can do better.

Sweatshop accusations invariably get attention. Especially when it happens to a big company like Disney, whose name represents almost every child’s dream. I recently read an article about Disney when I was searching Christmas information about Disneyland which really shocked me. Working at Disney is not a fairy tale!

It said that it was found out that in some Disney factories children are forced to work 9 to 10 hours a day, seven days a week, earning as little as six cents an hour. Oh my God! The charges against Disney were made last August by an activist group called the National Labor Committee, which said the company’s suppliers employed child labor under dangerous conditions.

For years, ironically, Disney was one of the most active members in UNICEF, an organization dedicated to the protection of children’s rights including protection from sexual exploitation and child labor, specifically. Disney is well aware of all the violations and conditions of all their factories. However, although according to one of the executive director of Disney “Disney and the factories absolutely took the issue seriously”, same unethical things are still going on. The US Government cannot take significant action because these operations are not on their soil.

Can you imagine? There are thousands of children who doesn’t have chance to study, making toys and other stuffs which could make other children smile. Isn’t it sad?

This news made me so upset.  Maybe it’s time for us to care more about the Business ethics!

Recently, Adidas AG is expanding its business in China in an attempt to overtake rivals that have gained market share in recent years.

It is said in an article that Adidas plans to open 500 new stores in China by next year. The company is eager to reach China’s more sophisticated shoppers, who live in cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Tricky thing, in a classical Chinese perspective, I’d like to say that people who live in these cities as well as other cities, actually, favor Adidas’s biggest global competitor, Nike Inc. It is true and it happens like a bias that most Chinese people label Nike the No.1 brand of sport products including outerwear, sportswear, footwear and related accessories. Adidas is always the second best. Always!

So, repositioning is a tough but necessary strategy for Adidas to increase its market share in China. Let alone there is still another rival for Adidas—Li Ning Co., China’s leading sports-apparel maker. In 2009, Nike had 10.2% of China’s 93 billion yuan ($14 billion) sportswear market, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan. Li Ning held 10% of the market, while Adidas had 9.6%.

Basically, it is like:  Nike is the first choice for upscale consumption and Li Ning is the first choice for salariat. Adidas is between the two levels, so it’s kind of awkward.

Anyway, the dream of overtaking the two rivals for Adidas may not be very realistic, but having a good brand awareness, expanding market in China hopefully will be a good idea.

A news article on Wall Street Journal says that Starbucks is planning to triple its store count in China and meanwhile it is also going to sale more products in supermarkets. We can see that financial crisis has given a big impact to this company. It is trying new strategies to increasing its profit.

Actually, I once wondered why there isn’t many Starbucks in China. It frustrated me that there isn’t even one Starbucks store in my hometown which is a provincial capital city. I guess it is because that the consumption level of Chinese people when Starbucks came into Chinese market was much lower than it is now. However, statistics suggest that, the total volume of retail sales had reached 16000 billion dollars, which is over 15 times of the one in the 1990s. The consumption level of China has been growing by a huge amount. It’s fair enough for Starbucks to extend the market in China.

In the meantime, for a company, it’s a lot of hard work to build a brand, to build trust and to create new behavior. Although Starbucks has been doing well in these aspects, there might still be risk to rush in China so fast.

Anyway, good luck, Starbucks. China is waiting.

http://cn.wsj.com/gb/20100414/VID112528.asp?source=article