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Marketing this term was truly behind my expectations. I thought we would go over different types of marketing research and advertisement techniques. However, I was prove wrong and those topics were only a portion of this course. We learned a lot from marketing mix to segmentation to ethics. Complement by Tamar’s enthusiasm, I (and I’m sure many others) enjoyed this course very much!

The main takeaway for me was the fact marketing is as Tamar described ubiquitous. Although I won’t be majoring in marketing, I do believe that we are constantly marketing. I think one of the most practical promotional technique is “personal selling and marketing strategy”, which highlights the one-on-one nature of a sale. I see myself engaging in this all the time when I communicate to my friends, my peers at school, professors and employers as most of time, it will be a one-on-one conversation. We must behavior in certain way in order to convey certain messages consciously or unconsciously.

Any ways, it is time to say good bye. It has been a pleasure taking this course and (I know this course is mandatory but) I would definitely recommend it to everyone! Cheers!

If you had McDonald‘s burgers in the past, the chances are you have seen the slogan “Made with 100% Beef”. And you ever believed a single word from that phrase, I’m afraid you have just been a victim of deceptive marketing.

Not too long ago, I spoke to a friend who worked at McDonald’s. Who better to ask than an insider. My friend told me that McDonald’s beef is NOT 100%, and their patty is in fact a mixture of various ingredients. The phrase “Made with 100% Beef”,  he added, refers to the fact that they import their beef patties from a company called “100% Beef”.

Interesting…So are they lying? Well, not really. It is (somewhat) grammatically correct to say the beef is made with another company. But it is undoubtedly deceptive to customers. Upon seeing this phrase, people may decided to purchase a burger because they think they are getting genuine beef for $3 while a sirloin piece of beef costs over $10.  I think they should stop lying to consumers and creating a false sense of value for the product immediately!

I will check back next week to see if they have changed this slogan! In the meantime, please feel free to write to the company and complain.

I used to think PR is the easiest thing in the world. I mean how hard is it to answer an investors’ phone call? or read off a script at a press release. However, after our marketing class, I began to look more into this topic.

Photo from naturallyadvanced.wordpress.com

Little did I know PR includes a wide range of things: media relations, sponsorship, corporate communications and special events. This subject is so important, New York University (one of the most well known schools in the world) offers a Master of Science in Public Relations and Corporate Communication. When I saw this, I began to think of examples of when PR was crucial to a company.

One of the most well known (and notorious)  incident recently have been the BP oil spill, the largest oil spill in the history of all oil spills. During the peak of oil spill accident, BP  CEO Tony Haywood appeared to worldwide audience via TV. He said these words: “We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back.” People found the fact that the CEO wanted his “life back” amidst of the horrendous damage absurd. In fact, the article that included this quote is titled:  “Top 15 Dumbest Quotes About the Gulf Oil Spill”. BP made a mistake by not having the proper safety and oil-spill-prevention equipments. However, Haywood added oil to the fire with his mindless and selfish comment. You would think that someone with an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from University of Edinburgh would know how to manage relationships between a firm and the media.

This incidence exemplifies the fact that not only is PR important to a firm’s future prospects, it is often overlooked. I would look forward to a PR when Sauder starts to offer one!

Obama/Biden campaign made history in 2008. By now, we should all know the results. Although at this point in time some of us expected more from Obama, we all voted (or would’ve wanted if we were Americans) for him.

Obama/Biden Campaign

Obama’s campaign was brilliant. He definitely understood the Promotion component of the 4P’s like the back of his hand. First, he chose to segment both the older and politically savvy population and younger population, who aren’t the most up-to-date on their politics. His ideals aligned with those of the older and die-hard politic followers, because he promoted various changes. Also, he won the hearts of younger adults through his GQ type charisma and flawless rhetorical skills. With both teams backing him up, he probably foreshadowed his victory.

Second, he was at right place at the right time. In 2008, major banks fell like dominoes and managers shredded numerous jobs. US experienced the worst economic during the Great Depression. Then, outcomes someone who was different and belonged to a different campaign than that which was in charge up until the crisis. Clearly all Obama had to say was “yes we can”, yes we can change that is.

Photo from Snapme.ca

Third, using American’s symbolic colours of blue, red and white as his campaign colours, he displayed a great deal of patriotism and love for his own country and the people within. Inevitably, this connected to all the people who needed some warmth and something else to concentration on other than looking for jobs.

Obama mastered the Promotion technique was able to win the presidential elections of the most influencing country of the world. Looks like marketing could be an interesting major…

I hope the first thing that comes to your mind when you saw the title of this post is not “why” is my brand equity worth $9342.56, but “how” in the world did I come up with that number. Well,  randomly pressing some Num keys on my keyboard didn’t too long for me. However, a well-known brand may just put in more effort in trying to compute the amount of their “brand equity”.

Brand equity is defined as “added valued in a product from a well-known, respected brand name” in class. Sure, consumers may see a highly valued good to possess a great deal of brand equity, but that’s somewhat psychological. Such value may be very arbitrary and may change over time and in different environments.

Because consumers are willing to pay additional prices for brand equity, as value lies the eye of the beholder, people may assume that consumers decide on the price of brand equity and not the suppliers. Well, they need to think again.

Photo from expressionforum.org

Ferrari, a car known for its decency, is one of the many companies out there that violates the rule “value lies in the eye of the beholder”. Why? because the company sets that value for consumers.

Balance sheet from Ferrari’s 2007 annual report.

I dug up a 2007 financial statement from the Ferrari company. Ferrari claims its Goodwill to be 2.7 bn euros, while the value of the total non-current assets is only 22 bn euros. This means that 12.3% of its long term assets are Goodwill. Goodwill in accounting term is “any excess of the cost over the fair value” and in marketing, the same definition can be translated to “brand equity”. The company seems to be suggesting that every time consumers purchase Ferrari’s, they will need to pay at least 12.3% more than the vehicle without the brand.

Interesting to think about. It may sound like a rip off, but I think I’ll go head and purchase one anyways.

After scanning through the “Recommended Readings” on COMM 296 Blog website, I came across an article: How Advertising Saved Art, Pixar And (Maybe) Creativity on Influential Marketing Blog. The articles addresses the fact that advertisements in marketing act as a vehicle for projection of art work. Pixar was near bankrupcy not too long ago. Near bankrupcy, it started to ads for other companies. Eventually, as people started to recogize Pixar’s work, the company started pursuing its ambition at full steam. The site also featured an award-winning Sony BRAVIA advertisement that looks like a piece of artwork.

I believe that art work and advertisements work in harmony and build off of each other. Taking Pixar as an example, as the company is specialied in the art of 3D graphics, it was able to showcase and express its art to the general public thanks to Tropicana and Listerine–the firms that hired Pixar to create ads. In this sense, an piece of advertisement promotes the product that is being sold, the company selling the product, as well as the company that produces the artwork. On the other hand, SonyBRAVIA’s advertisement exemplifies how artwork can enhance ads. Son’y “Balls” ad won an award thanks to its creativity and authencity. As a result, the ad becomes more prestigious and popular, attracting more audience. Once consumers take in the ad, the images and colours may stay in viewers’ minds. The Ad along with the lame musis certainity are stuck in my head! It is interesting to see how advertisements, an instrument of profit generation, work closely with artwork, an expression of emotions.

I thought Stephanie Shuen’s blog on All You Can Eat business in Vancouver is interesting. It’s informative, fun and has a taste of personal touch. She mentioned that “6 out of the top 10 buffet restaurants in Vancouver are AYCE Japanese restaurants.” Anyone who has lived in Vancouver for a couple of years will know that we have tons of AYCE Japanese restaurants.

The restaurant industry evidently is a fully matured industry. In Vancouver, all the restaurants are competing over a set number of population. As a result, restaurants fight with one another through intense price wars. Most restaurants, especially that of the same category, charge the same. For example, pho restaurants across the city charge between $6 to 9 per bowl of soup, while AYCE restaurants charge around $20 on a weekend night. In this competitive landscape, the only way for restaurants to survive is to steal each others market share and customers.

The restaurant business also manifest other characteristics of matured business. These companies employ massive promotions over TV and newspaper around the city they operate. What’s really tough about restaurants is that they must compete vigorous to attract customers while maintaining their existing customers. This is difficult because as business grow rapidly, their customer services tend to decline at almost the same rate.

It will take more than just cheaper prices and aggressive promotion to win the hearts of diners!

If you were asked what electric cars do you know, you would probably say Toyota Prius or Nissan Leaf. Well, there is a new kid on the block by the name of Tesla. The Tesla Roster produced by Tesla Motors runs on electricity. Like all other electrical cars, their valuation proposition is zero-emission. However, what’s unique about Tesla is that it breaks the that typical attitude people have on electric cars, such as slow, timid and too green to care about style. Tesla Roadster is fast and stylish.

Tesla Roadster reachs 0 to 100km in 3.7 seconds. To put this into perspective, even the new SL65 sport cars by Mercedes Benz takes 4 seconds to hit the 100km mark. Need proof on its style and design? Well, just look below:

Tesla

The body style resembles that of an elite brand name car–Lotus Elise, which provides certain body parts to Tesla. This mixture of speed, style and sustainability has never been seen before. Thus, the Tesla sits right in the Introduction stage of the Product Life Cycle.

Currently, it does not have a lot of competitors (other than Leaf and Prius) at this point. However, because Tesla is introducing a new concept, it needs to educate people about its products and appeal to the cognitive portion of consumers’ minds.

Photo from treehugger.com

As we can see, it heavily promotes the electrical component of the car and how it achieves Tesla’ theme of sustainability. Through positioning itself as an eco-friendly vehicle in consumer’s minds, Tesla aims to push up demands for its products. However, because it is new, the company needs to “test out” the Roadster in the market first, and cap the demand in case of potential problems. For reason, the price of the vehicle is high as well, in fact it is at an astonishing $125,000. This reminds me of the old days, when PS3 sold for 10x it’s value today and when iPhone cost $1000! Once new entrants enter, the car may be more affordable. In the mean time, I would recommend normal people who has a budget constraint to look at other alternatives to stay sustainable!

On April 20 2010, the largest oil spill in history occurred in the Gulf of Mexico thanks to BP. Due to a weak and flawed safety and risk management, one of BP’s deep sea rigs exploded, sending tremendous amount of oil into the open sea. It’s not too hard imagine how BP’s reputation from a petroleum production powerhouse to one of the most hated companies on the planet overnight.So how has this affect BP’s promotional campaign? Let’s explore.

Image from twistedsifter.com

BP release this promotion ad over a decade ago: Old BP Advertisement. As you can see, this ad focuses on BP’s mass operations and testing of oil in many industries such as automobile, aircraft, undersea and etc. From BP’s boastful campaign, the company seems to live in a Marketing Era. BP suggests that it makes oil for different consumers, and is working hard to satisfying their needs. The company simply produces oil to meet demands of various industries.

However, BP’s strategy has took a different turn after its notorious oil spill: BP’s New Advertisement . Now, BP shifted its gears to focus on Value Marketing of the new era. In the new promotion, BP heavily highlights it’s ability to efforts to move away from “dirty” oil to “clean” energy such as biofuel, natural gas, wind energy and solar energy. Through clean energy, BP wants to appeal to customer who care about the environment and also redeem the reckless oil drilling perception upon the company by adding value to these promotional targets.

Through BP’s example, we can recognize that a company shift its promotional strategy (from sales to marketing to value-based) based not only on current trends from other competitors but also by special events. In this sense, company are flexible and adaptable in their campaigns and will change accordingly and timely!

Today we went over family characters along with their role in making a purchasing decision. These roles include: initiator, influencer, decider, buyer, user. A peer in the class raised an interesting fact about her family’s recent decision on buying a new car. In her example, the initiator was the mother. The influencer included the mother. The decider, buy and user all in fact included the mother. Noticing that the mother played a significant role (more than that of a father and the children) in essentially every role I find this instance particularly interesting and realistic at the same time.

Most of the time, decisions on whether to buy groceries (such as milk) or new TV’s, cars or even houses, my mother play a vital role in my family, and I believe they do in most families. I believe this discovery should be valuable to corporations that employ intensive marketing campaigns. Firms need to realize that despite how much they target teens or father figures, the initiating and ultimate decision making choices are still dictated by the mother.

I have been thinking about this phenomenon. One of the reasons I think is that teens or children of the families don’t generate enough income to shop for themselves, while the father often works full time to support the family.

Therefore, the most logical method should be for firms to target their marketing towards and aim to create some value for mothers. Products and services from BabyCarrots to cereals to new BMW to children’s haircuts, need to appeal not only to their immediate consumers which may be the father or the teen in the family) but to mothers. The chances are if the mothers is convinced that the product satisfies their families’ needs, then the goods will be sold.