Marketing analysis and planning are significant activities for the majority of firms. The purpose of our marketing plan assignments is to apply the concepts we learn in our coursework to marketing analysis and planning for a real good or service for the chosen company. Our marketing group has 6 people and the company we concentrated on is Starbucks.

First assignment is marketing environment analysis and SWOT. And the second assignment is the STP outline which defines segmentation, targeting, and positioning that form the foundation for a Starbucks’ entire marketing plan. Because of group members’ effort, we got great marks in these two assignments.

Priority among priorities, I want to say something about our third assignment here. This is a marketing mix analysis video project. Our video did not just record people speaking in the camera as usual, we made a cartoon and then dubbed for it. We think this is a special way to produce a unique video. The story in it is happen in a family who has a little son. Here is a part of the video: At the beginning of the story, the little son says he does not like the stuff in Starbucks. Then the consulting group recommends that Starbucks should consider increasing the depth of its non-coffee beverages and food product lines as younger customers do not usually drink coffee on a regular basis. Even though it is the most time consuming assignment among our entire marketing plan and we met 5 times in total to complete this video assignment; we find the good in it.

Through this experience, I find the cohesion plays an important role in group working. As we know that many hands make light work, I am glad to see that our group members are all very helpful and diligent.

Recently, I read the blogs written by my classmate Junqi Liu and found some meaningful perspectives. Here I want to comment on her blog called “Social Tools in Promotion”. Since I also wrote a blog about Internet marketers, I think “Social Tools in Promotion” is another sight from Internet business and worth for me to study and refer to.

In Junqi Liu’s “Social Tools in Promotion”, she comments that many social network tools such as Weibo and Facebook play a key role in the market for both consumers and suppliers. I am really agree with this opinion, since we are all from China, we know that Weibo is an important and popular network business tool among some newly-developing Chinese business.

How do these network tools play roles in promotion? Junqi Liu describes it very well. Some newly-developing business people set up an account on Weibo for the shop and keep update the Weibo account by posting different kinds of goods and the link of homepage in order to attract more people. These actions may raise customers’ concern on their products. The following step to promote is to update a status on Weibo to tell people that if they forward the ads, they will have a chance to win some prizes or discounts. It seems that customers pick up something cheap just by forwarding ads. So lots of customers will forward that ads and their friends on Weibo will see their status. These network business people could enhance the product reputation by spread these ads.

Thousands of online shop sellers are using social network tools to promote their product because they saw the great result and good effect of it. I believe network promotion would become more and more popular because there are lots of benefits behind it.

Link: Junqi Liu’s blog https://blogs.ubc.ca/junqiliu/2013/10/13/social-tools-in-promotion/

I read the blogs on The Big Decision and found that the blog named How to succeed in business in Canada – give customers great value written by Joanne Nemeroff is very valuable for thinking deeply and writing comments on.

Canada is a country with a lot of opportunities to operate the business. However, the opportunities may lead to competitions. To find the most effective way to operate business in Canada is important for business people. Joanne’s blog analyses the elements associated with the success and the ways to succeed in business.

At the beginning of the blog, Joanne asks the question of “what are the most important qualities necessary when those retailers select a vendor”. In my opinion, merchandise’s cost of conversion must be considered carefully. Joanne also claims that manufacturing costs may be lower outside of Canada, however the speed of delivery can be faster inside Canada. If you see value in goods being produced, so will the customer. Ultimately the business owner must decide what is more important – the lower cost to produce or the speed to deliver.

The social changes a lot, it is not difficult to find that few products are made in Canada today as we are no longer a manufacturing society. Because of this special situation, Joanne advices that find your comfort niche and get a return for the money invested.

I strongly agree with her and also I find the extra four steps to be successful in business: 1. Get a grip on your emotions and decide on your goals. 2. Make sure you understand what cash flow is and where it’s going to come from. 3. Recognize the sales mentality before it’s too late. 4. Learn to anticipate and recognize the changes in your business.

Links:

Joanne Nemeroff‘s article

http://www.howtosucceedbroadway.com/

http://www.inc.com/magazine/19950701/2329.html

There were only paper newspaper at past. Nevertheless, because of the development of the advanced technology, there are online newspapers nowadays. Some people even just read the news through their phone’s app instead of reading the paper newspaper. Apps for news which updated frequently let people who take public transportation to go to work feel it is convenient for them to read the news on their way to work; because they only need a phone on hand. Different forms of the newspaper lead to the change of people’s opinion on it.

We know that there are free newspaper in Canada which people can get beside the street or in some public place. By contrast, some countries like China does not offer free newspaper for the public which means that people must pay for the reading of the news. Would you prefer to buy the paper newspaper, or read the newspaper online by free?

Newspaper only survive on buyers ranging from 30 to 80 year old nowadays. Younger ones tend to not buy newspaper and would rather read news off websites. This is what causes to the great decline in the market of newspaper. Young people may read newspapers online. The Internet is a great access for them to get any kind of information they want to know. So the further of the newspaper industry is a worrying one for us to consider about. Would newspaper decline? If newspaper companies were to stop publishing due to low demand, unemployment rate would increase a lot. When unemployment rate increases, the economy will eventually go in a downward trend. So the decline of the newspaper will cause the new social problems.

Links:

http://www.economist.com/node/7830218

http://cleeng.com/blog/trends-in-paywall/

I believe that most international students would meet a problem that it is very inconvenient for them to buy things which are produced in their home country. Recently, I found a Chinese company called “Dotdotbuy” was very popular among Chinese international students; and I find its marketing strategies are really special.

Dotdotbuy acts as a purchasing agent and provides the overseas purchasing service for the Chinese all over the world. There are many advantages of this kind of company, Dotdotbuy provides the convenient for the Chinese who live in foreign country. Here are three features which I find the most representative successful marketing strategies of this company:

• The payment can be completed with foreign currency. Dotdotbuy accepts various kinds of payment methods which means it is convenient and safe for the financial performance.
• The goods would be packaged concentrated. Dotdotbuy could buy things online or in store for the overseas Chinese people and package these goods together to send to them with one package.
• The carriage can be saved with discounts. Dotdotbuy operates strategic cooperation with many famous shipping and logistics groups. The cost of overseas shipping even begins with 12 RMB (2 CAD). And it also has discount for students so this is a benefit for international students. So It is really popular among the international students.

What’s more, the shipping speed is also Dotdotbuy’s advantage. Consumers can receive their overseas purchasing goods as fastest in 7 working days. Consumers also can achieve guarantee of sales return from Dotdotbuy’s perfect relevant system. Dotdotbuy also provides professional consumer-service group to communicate and solve problems which consumers meet when they are shopping.

Nowadays, there are various kinds of marketing strategies. Some companies post their commercials on the buses and skytrains because the public transportations exist among people’s daily life; and some companies advertise their products online. Whatever kinds of marketing strategies are acceptable to me because marketing are unlimited to its strategies. Nevertheless, some unethical merchants hire Internet marketers to marketing their products perniciously and disloyally.

In the knowledge economy era, networks exist in nature and society widely and we are becoming cannot be separated from network. We join the social networks to connect with people who have common interests with us. Some merchants look with favor in this benefit of the social network; they hire many internet marketers to play the roles of consumers and post various “probation experience” with pictures on the social networks. People have the same interests will reprint these status one by one then a twenty pass hundreds spread. Tens of thousands of reproduced status will create false impression that their products was really useful, however, maybe their products are useless indeed. This behavior is really unethical in my opinion.

For instance, a merchant who sells whitening mask want to let their product widely knows. He will let a model to take a photo before putting on makeup, and then he will take a photo of her after putting on makeup. He would say the second photo is the effect after using his mask (In fact, the beauty is makeup’s effect). Then he will put these two contrastive photos together to ask the Internet marketers to promote it on the social Internet. Consumers will be cheated by the tens of thousands of reproduced status which is just the result of Internet marketers’ unethical strategy. This way of exaggerating the effects of the whitening mask is really unethical.

It is frequently hear that people are taking about Samsung and Apple. Why people pays such much attentions on the comparsion of Samsung and Apple? Oh, maybe it is time for them to replace a new phone… Which brand is better in the end? I believe everyone has his/her own opinion.

Just according to Emily Yu’s Blog, The article with title All you hear about in this continent is Apple  talks about the comparsion with Samsung and Apple. It was really general to see that everyone had an iphone in the hand while playing “Angry Birds” in the past one or two years. However, there are more and more people using Samsung nowadays. Emily’s article says that even though iphone has been appeared on the market nowadays, Samsung made the claim that they had more than 150 different phone models in the U.S. alone. How strong the competitive power is! Apple usually sells one phone per year. Neverthless, it is said that Apple decides to come out with iphone5s in the following few month. Will Apple break the rule of “one phone per year”? We may wait and see what happens.

I am using Samsung Galaxy note now. Upon my soul and honour, I find I use Galaxy note seems more comfortably because of its big wonderful HD screen. Whatever, different strokes for different folks. Ifit suits you most, then it is the best.

Links:

Emily Yu’s blog

http://www.technobuffalo.com

Our human beings are using a large amount of energy. Substainabilty is a significant idea which has been considered and tanken into practiceby experts. Business also can devote to sustainable development.

There are a lot of washrooms in UBC and it is easy to find that the lights in washrooms is truning on days and nights. This situations is a big waste of the energy and this might not fit with sustainability . So I think it can be improved by replacing with electornic senor lights in washrooms to save energy and develop sustainable. Here is a picture of electronic senor light:

It is obviously that this kind of light is small and exquisite. The most important advantage is it saves energy. When you walk into the washroom, it will turn on automatically and when you walk out the washroom, it will turn off by itself.

Why I say that business can help sustainability? Because that I think if UBC decide to replace with the electronic senor light, it must be a large amount of demand. Business part of UBC can make projects to cooperate with the electronic senor light company so that the corporation can help UBC save money in purchse. UBC will save money in electric charge to a great extent. Most importantly, UBC will save energy to devote in sustainability development.

Links:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/energy-and-sustainability

http://www.bljc.com/en/services/energy_sustainability/

http://www.livingmadeeasy.org.uk/telecare/automatic-lighting;-internal-2387-p/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Electronic-Light-Sensor/

The case of Zappos which I read this weekend is a good example of organizational culture. I read the article and found that Zappos is a shoes company which sales many kind of brands shoes.

Organization culture is an important factor that decides one company’s success. Zappos is a successful comply which utilize the organizational culture well.

In my opinion,Zappos succeed in shoes industry because it deals the relationship between the company and consumers well.For instance, it shifts the public transaction into the comfort and prividing of customers living rooms; Zappos has a policy that consumers can return the shoes which he does not like in 365 days; Zappos also displays a toll-free customers-service phone number.

Zappos does well in develop its organizational culture as well which means it treats its employees well. First of all, it has the recruitment and selection process. Secondly, it has free vats of popcorn, nuts and trail max. Thirdly, it organizes employees undergo 160 hours of customer loyalty training. The last but not the least, employees who wants to advance to manager positions have to take tribal leadership classes. These behaviors is good for employees’ development and also the comply’s improvement.

Social enterprises are businesses operated by non-profits with the dual purpose of generating income by selling a product or service in the marketplace and creating a social, environmental or cultural value.Social enterprise is different from traditional chaity in many ways.

Social enterprise is a kind of origanization that pays more attention on changing the social situation.Neverthless, traditional charity may only make donations to help those people who needs life supplys to support their life. Social enterprise can help people improve their life in a significant way. Such that social enterprise may offer jobs for jobless people and also teach them techniques.

Here is an example of social enterprise called ” Save On Meats” we talked in the class. “Save On Meats” employs people with barries, feeds people, also operate investment in the community and food incubator.

It can be seen from the meun that the price is really low. “Save On Meats” really helps many people. Having the butcher shop as part of the building helps keep the costs down on the restaurant side so you can have a filling home cooked meal and it won’t break the bank and also lets the neighborhood residents get benefit of being able to get quality affordable meat and baked goods on a limited budget.

Links:

http://seansadventuresinflavortown.com/2011/07/20/save-on-meats-diner-pigs-can-fly/

http://www.megaphonemagazine.com/legacy/content/save_save_on_iconic_meat_shop_may_close_down_spring.html