I have heard a lot about the first Nations communities since my arrival in Vancouver, and have grown to appreciate the culture and people for being and letting us be with them on their lands and home. Courses like Anthropology have allowed me to learn a lot about their lives, but a recent lecture in Comm 101 gave me the opportunity to reflect upon my actions.

Miss Amie Wolf gave us an interesting lecture that enlightened me in ways I can contribute to the First Nations community from a business perspective. She displayed some qualities and norms of the local tribes that encourage us to be more ethical, such as reciprocity, holism and gratitude.

I was led to do some research that inclined me to being more supportive towards local communities and one project in particular would be to save their home and land. This article presents a good overview on the situations faced by the First Nations tribes and ways we as BCom students and potential entrepreneurs can make more ethical decisions and reduce our impact on the environment and their lives.

After reading the article on MEC, I was really inspired by their new strategy on approach on their business. Not only have they re-branded themselves by introducing a new logo and campaign but by further and better segmenting their market and targeting their customers. The idea is to let customers pus themselves instead of being pushed.

I am personally impressed at their approach on the market, by segmenting their stores the way they segment their market. They do this by classifying each product in a way that would speak to the customers directly by encouraging their motivations. In my opinion this not only tells me they understand their market bu also that they care about their customers. As yourself now ‘what if multiple businesses approached this strategy?’ wouldn’t customers actually be buying what they want rather than getting unwanted goods, saving the company the hassle to haggle consumers to buy it as well.

However, I wasn’t entirely sure if their change of the logo to MEC was a good move. This is also suggested against by Ries and Trout as they believe it is a No-Name Trap.

Reading Madison’s blog post recently made me think about how we constantly position brands that advertise themselves in the music videos that we see today. It is something that I’ve discussed in a class before but from a psychological perspective and how consumers are secretly targeted by being shown a single image for a few seconds. When looked at from a business perspective, I agree with Madison’s view when she talks about the music industry generating revenues by allowing ads to place themselves in the music videos.

One particular brand that has been doing this for years now is Beats by Dr. Dre. and this link provides an insight into a few of the many videos that the brand has debuted itself in. I see this as an effective strategy by the company whereby they repeatedly position themselves in the consumers minds as one of or rather the best headphones/pioneers in speakers in the industry, by constantly appearing in multiple music videos. They did displayed this skill during this years World Cup by releasing a video consisting of many football players experiencing The Game Before The Game with Beats.

After reading Tanner’s blog, I did some research on Nike’s release of there most expensive shoes yet and the customer’s reaction to it. He asked “Is there a limit to how much people will pay?” and answered NO. However, I would like to contradict this view by highlighting some of the customer’s reactions and my view on Nike’s strategy.

Many customer’s are enraged by the idea of buying a $315 pair of sneakers when unemployment is considerably in effect. The discussion is that if consumers keep supporting such prices there is nothing that will stop Nike from increasing prices for future products as well. Thus the counter measures employed are to exploit the power of social media by spreading the word about such appalling prices and encouraging them to not purchase the product.

Tanner said that consumers would continue buying the product despite the prices since they have positioned themselves as a global leader. However, I feel that Nike in this case is not targeting the mass of consumers but rather a niche such as athletes and professionals. Thus Nike’s reason for releasing a separate pair that does not include the intended technology, making it more affordable to the mass.