This video project was a really interesting learning experience. I learnt a lot about the brand Coca Cola and the soft drink industry in general. I also was exposed to video making, which I have never done before.
We picked Coca Cola because it is something everyone knows and it does not have a wide range of products under its name. However after some research was done, we realized that we were totally wrong. Being one of the most known brand in the world, Coca Cola has hundreds of brand producing all kinds of soft drinks. Unlike different sports wear or various cosmetic products, different soft drinks target to very different consumer groups. We understood the difficulty of our project through in-dept research and decided to focuses only on one product line-Coke.
Since the company has a huge audience, it was hard for us to structure the assignments and delegate the work. We ended up with doing the project in smaller groups of two for the first two assignments. It was interesting to work with different people. My teammates all have different strong skills. I learnt how to improve my research skill from working with one, and writing skill working with another. My team leader, who automatically became the leader after the first meeting, shows me how important a clear structure is to writing.
I realized that I need to improve myself to match up with other team members. One of the skills that I would like to learn is video editing. It was very important for our final submission, but I could not help because of my lack in experience. I learnt the importance of video making from the presentation given by learning technology and I am hoping that I can have more opportunity to learn about it.
This project required lots of effort, but I believe that the effort that I put in was definitely worth it.
Air New Zealand always have something different for people in terms of advertising. Its new marketing series on The Hobbit emphasizes on providing a new fictional experience to the costumers. This series improves people’s view of New Zealand and generates more demand for Air New Zealand’s services.
Beside advertisements, Air New Zealand also produces safety briefing that align with the same theme. This provides consistency by referring New Zealand as the Meddle earth. Consumers do not like changes, even though this may be seasonal, Air New Zealand may be known as “that air line with The Hobbit theme”.
Advertisement for Air New Zealand
Advertisements are getting more and more interesting and stand out these days. It was definitely entertaining to watch the advertisements by Air New Zealand because they always produces things that are unexpected. It’s past series of Rico was eye-catchy. It uses many sexual references to make it more than just another advertisement. Through these consistent advertisements, Rico was given a stand-out personality and this information is encoded to consumers’ perception of the airline company.
Rico’s ad. Happy Hours
Air New Zealand is successful in marketing since it uses the unique facts of New Zealand to attract consumer’s attention and uses popular themes to call for action.
Jonathan Hu’s blog “333-0 *Rogers has sent an attachment*” introduced a new advertising method launching by Rogers. This method allows marketer to send advertisements to its nearby subscribers through one to one text messaging. Though this new program, Rogers hopes to help its users to get in touch with their consumers in a more intimate way and thereby increase store visits.
Since this is a new program, there are many uncertainties and many aspects are somewhat debatable. As one of many questions that Jonathan asked in his blog, a main concern about this new program is how many people will actually be using it. The article suggests that subscribers are given a choice to receive texts or not. Even though research shows that more than half of the subscribers are willing to receive these texts and nearly half of them are willing to visit the stores, it is questionable that how many of these people will actually do what they state. It is not always the case that when a person pass by the store, they have time to go visit. When these people who receive the messages are not free(not unwilling) to visit, these advertising messages become a disturbance.
Research shows that advertising messages with high relevance are more likely to attract people’s attention and create a better brand image. Consumers develop a better view on brands in the advertisement that they can spontaneously recall, but what happens to the brands that consumers are indifferent and unaware off? Will these advertisements result in negative effects on them considering the disturbance that the texts generates?
I believe that these messages will work, but only with careful research and targeting. Sorting of message may be useful to reduce annoyance that consumers feel.
Sources:
Related blog by Jonathan Hu: 333-0 *Rogers has sent an attachment*
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/rogers-to-offer-promotional-ads-by-text/article14646004/
http://www.dcmarketingpro.com/blog/bid/325178/Learn-Why-An-Effective-Advertising-Message-Requires-Focus
http://search.proquest.com/docview/236968494
As technology rapidly evolving, consumer’s life is changing in various aspects. Shops not only have to change their promotion strategy, they should also take a look into their product and distribution strategies. More and more consumers choose to shop on-line and the physically existing showrooms are loosing their consumers.
Popular internet shopping mall such as Amazon, Zappos, and eBay are gaining their popularity and rapidly taking over the market. A study shows 82% of of British consumers, 79% of Danish and Sweden consumers, and 77% of German consumers shop online regularly. The growing online shopping population is not only seen in EU, around 35% of Chinese consumers, 55% of Japanese consumers, and 60% of Korean consumers shop online regularly. This trend shows the opportunities for online stores but also the treat to the physically existing showrooms. The increase in online purchases has a negative relationship with in store purchases. The increase in e-Commerce result in decrease in sale in stores and leaving the costly showrooms less revenue generating. Internet these days provides an overall, informative, and cheap way to research which leads the consumers away from showrooms and stores. Statistics shows that 81% of consumers do their research online.
Technology innovations are generated by ideas, and ideas could be used to improve showroom performance too. Target’s new model of showroom plus online shopping provides a new showroom experience. It connected showroom with online shopping website to enrich the research experience while letting the consumers to enjoy the ease of shopping online. Even though this is just an experiment, the idea of driving the online shopping consumers back to the store through wi-fi coverage in store and in-store pick-up may actually improve showrooms’ performances.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2463951/The-online-shopping-frenzy-Web-retailers-fastest-sales-growth-13-years.html#ixzz2iOADOQAq
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
http://www.mastercard.com/us/company/en/insights/pdfs/2008/Asia_Pacific_Online_Shop.pdf
http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/oct/19/new-target-market-retailer-trains-the-bulls-eye-on/
http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/retailers-will-seek-rent-reductions-to-battle-online-shopping-29672731.html
Marketing e-mail has it’s advantage over most of other marketing method because of its low cost and rich content. Moreover, companies can decide who the e-mail is sent to instead of passively waiting for people to notice their advertisements. Consumers’ other information is always gathered together with their e-mail and companies can make use of those information to decide who do they target to and what do they advertise. Marketing e-mail becomes more useful in the past decade along with the launching of smart phone and mobile internet. These e-mails, act similar as marketing texts, are pushed to every potential consumer no matter where they are and during what time of the day. As a large proportion of the millennials uses mobile internet, companies can push more of their trendy and hi tec product through e-mails. The millenniasl tend to be less considerate while making purchase decisions, and usually have high demand on non-necessity goods.
However, marketing e-mails do not have a great image to consumers as they do to the firms. Most marketing e-mails seem annoying and are marked as junk by the consumers. The real purpose of sending out marketing e-mails is lost and not only the costs are not recoverable, there might be extra fine on these e-mails if they appear overly annoying.
Companies need to figure out ways that their e-mail can actually attract people’s attention such as more attractive and straightforward headings. Here are some tips for sending effective marketing emails:
Tips to Email Marketing
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2298008/tips-for-targeting-millennials-with-mobile-email-marketing-for-the-holidays
http://www.bizreport.com/2013/10/australian-firm-pays-a-high-price-for-spam-emails.html
Speaking about marketing ethic, I have to mention the popular fast food industry. Despite the fact that McDonald’s law suit happened years ago, its impact is still strong enough to create discussion up to date. People’s addiction to fast food shows the great success that fast food industry made in marketing, but is it ethical to only advertise the positive aspects of its products?
Children are the most vulnerable and influential consumer group in the market. McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants are keen in make use of them in increasing their sell. McDonald’s is the world’s largest distributor of toys, with one included in 20% of all sales(Source: QSR via Motley Fool). Its mascot, Mr. McDonald, appears friendly, helpful, and cheerful on the commercials. All these successful marketing scheme effectively attracts 68 million customers per day for McDonald’s, that’s about 1 percent of the world’s population(Source: Societe General via Dominic Chu). However, these also form one of the factors creating the increasing trend of world’s obesity.
Japanese McDonalds SpongeBob Comercial
It is definite that these fast food business are not lying about their product, but they are not telling all the information to the customers. We see no warning of high calories on the TV commercials, neither the trans-fat or LDL cholesterol contains information on the package. The absence of this information leads to more consumption of harmful diet and health issues.
Fast food industry is just one examples of advertisement of this kind. Many industries contains marketing schemes which affects the customers’ daily choices, and even values. Do the companies really have the right to control individual’s decision? It is hard to prove and judge. The only precaution we can make as customers is to understand the motive behind those fancy commercials and think critically while evaluation the true stories behind it.
Economic developments brings more and more environmental concerns these days. It is the role of the decision makers to ensure that things are solved in the best way. Obama now faces a complex situation, in which, he has to decide between the easily achievable economic growth and a healthy environment. Keystone XL pipeline will bring new employments into the economy, and this will solve one of the biggest problems existing in the country. However the environment threat that the pipelines may produce raises people’s concern.
This conflict is more complex than the others because it also involves political issues. The opponents to the project emphasized on the relationship of the decision and Obama’s responsibility as a President. If Obama ignores the protest, he will go against his stand in the election on environmental protection. However, if he ignores the positive effect that the plan will give to the economy, he may create negative image in the public’s eyes. The plan also have a great impact as it holds concern of two countries, both USA and Canada. The solution to this problem should be acceptable to both the countries.
Even though the plan will create jobs and energy independence, as Kessler said, these jobs are not sustainable. It would be better to find other ways to create more sustainable jobs than creating temporary job through plan that will give harm to the environment. Whether to be hated by the future generation or secure the president position through creating jobs now is Obama’s own choice.
Sources:
http://www.transcanada.com/keystone.html
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/20/why-romneys-energy-czar-once-lobbied-to-block-keystone-xl/
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/resurrecting-keystone-xl-concerns-activists-rally-in-washington-d-c-1.1043046
McDonald’s now occupies 18% of the market share in North India and operates 250 stores across India. Its ambition’s greater – 1000 store by 2020. With the fast growing fast food market in India (25-30% annually, 17% from franchises), it is not hard for McDonald’s to achieve its goal. However, will veggie McDonald’s effectively help its growth?
Localization is especially important in a traditional country like India. However, in my opinion, a fully localized McDonald’s is just going too far. Fully localized McDonald’s does holds better point of parity, but it loses its point of difference at the same time. Why would people go to a foreign restaurant to get local food? By completely localizing, McDonald’s is putting itself into a greater competition with all local restaurants.
Also, full localization makes the brand exclusive. Being a big fan of Indian KFC, I prefer the more international taste of KFC in comparison to McDonald’s. McDonald’s is aiming to locate it’s veggie stores in the tourism places. The consumer group will be more international. Veggie McDonald’s does not fully matched the demand, either traditional Indian or international. The name McDonald’s keep away the demand for traditional Indian food, and the veggie options also keep way another.
Source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19479013
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13142703/Marketing-MixMcdonalds-India
http://export.gov/india/build/groups/public/@eg_in/documents/webcontent/eg_in_049379.pdf
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-08-28/news/29935857_1_kafeccino-kfc-s-krushers-colonel-sanders
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-05/mcdonald-s-plans-first-vegetarian-outlets-in-india
Introduction to UrtheCast
Technology changes ever day to make people’s life easier. UrtheCast is one of those companies that observe the changes, find opportunities, and eventually lead the changes. It saw the niche in the market and created a platform combining the utility of Youtube, Google map, and social networks all in one by uploading life videos. It allows sharing, not only in picture format, but also as videos.
The cost of this plan is high. The company needs to hire skilled technicians, build return camps, buying licence from Russian satellite company, etc. However the business will earn profit, the founder guaranteed. Where does the money come from? It’s founded by private shares. It has received $4.5million from the latest round of fiance. Also, its revenue model includes:
- Earth Observation Data sale
- Media Content Sale
- Application Platform Sale
- Web Advertising
These money helps the company to set up the operations, and gain revenue continuously once the operators are set up.
There are some questions toward the life camera, especially, privacy. However, people should understand that the camera will not resolute every single person that is covers. Farther more, only information that is already been published will be shared by UrtheCast.
Sources:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/8/prweb9807289.htm
http://www.urthecast.com/
Source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/wine-gaining-ground-with-canadian-drinkers-report-suggests-1.1016819
Report suggests that Wine consumption has increased in the past years. This creates great opportunity for the existing and potential wine producers. On the other hand, the beer producers are threatened by this change in taste.
The main reason for this change seems to be the increase in age of the population. Due to the improvement on medication and technology, people live longer. Also, the younger generations are likely to have less kids. These two factors increase the age of Canadian population. Wine, as contrast to beer, is more liked by the elders.
The increase in age of the population is an opportunity for the current existing wine producing companies. It creates more room for growth. The market is also open to new businesses to increase the production of wine. The wine businesses should get hold of this opportunity and gain greater market share.
Change in taste of costumers is not always as threat to the beer producers. The beer producing companies should work to attract the consumers’ attention in a different way. They should make their product more associated with higher standard of living, and less towards the general young, energetic, and risk-taking image of beers.
