Joshua Wu's blog

As we can all see, many firms have marketing strategies designated just for women, isolating out around half the population, yet their company can be successful and very profitable. Why is this the case?

Although we might know that women often purchase products out of a sudden urge or large change in emotions. Yet, taking this out of consideration, there are still many reason why the market for women are a lot more attractive than the market of men. On average, around 80% of women would probably choose to spend their day at shopping mall even though they have nothing in particular to buy. Especially teenage women would buy something just because of its physical attractiveness. But the most importantly, female products are often used very frequently and change the fastest, this meaning that women would very likely change their current make-up products, cloths and health-care products to the most trendy and new styles. Women also are comparatively more prone to peer influences, purchasing products purely because friends recommended it to them, sometimes not even knowing how useful or how the product is used. Even mothers and senior women that purchase products for their family would most likely buy their products after asking the opinion of their friends and family, making word of mouth play a very important role in marketing.

Relatively, men spends most of their time working, they mostly do not care as much about keeping up with trends, but rather purchase products for its usefulness, usually the late majority when purchasing products. This results in women controlling 85% of all brand purchases, estimated at around 7 trillion dollars.

As we all know, consumer interaction is very important when consumers choose what product they wish to purchase. One after another, firms have been coming up with various ways in order to enhance consumer interaction with their product to increase sales. Firstly came the Nintendo Wii, which was probably one of the first hit gaming consoles that used motion sensing devices. Nintendo not only gave their market something new and creative to work with, but also mixed in sports and fitness into gaming that allowed them to reach out to other segments.

They have successfully matched their product with the current needs of the population which is wanting to excercise and be healthy while having fun within their own home. Following this, came the PS3 motion controllers and Xbox body sensing device that doesn’t even require you to have a controller at all. Another new technology worth mentioning would be the introduction of E-books and E-readers to satisfy the demand of those that do not want to read directly off the book, yet want to study or know the contents of the book, which is a very innovative idea.

As we all know, there has always been a huge following of apple devices in China like the iphone and ipad. With the current introduction of the ipad 2, the 16GB version can be resold in china for around 6000 RMB when it is only being sold in the States for a mere 2400 RMB (rounded after exchange rates applied).This lead to a high rate of illegal transfers of ipads and iphones by travelers when they were first introduced.

From these occurrences, we can see that the Chinese population has a high interest in American and global trends. Apple and other high end global brands should take advantage of this market, as it does promise a large amount of turnover, being aware that there might be lot of big local firms arising. It has always been said in china that people think that western culture is of a higher class and higher quality. Adding to the fact that international firms can control the amount supplied into China in order to increase the demand of the product within the country.

One fact that firms should be very careful with is the problem of not being to price discriminate due to travelers from other countries constantly smuggling that product to resell. One method the firms can use for the electronic industry is the lock programs that apple iphones were using, not being able to use that product outside of the region that you have purchased it in.

Another blog that I have recently found interesting was from Yani Zhang’s blog [https://blogs.ubc.ca/yanizhang/]. It was about how creative ideas, like putting a keyboard on the stairs would lead to the increased interest of the people going up and down the stairs. Not only does this idea encourage the healthy behavior of walking the stairs instead of taking the elevator, it also shows us that consumers are willing to execute practises that they are not used to doing given that it is creative and innovative.

Firms should learn from this video, like the invention of KitKat mail in japan, consumers are easily attracted to products that they weren’t too aware of before after a good packaging. So, firms could think of marketing strategies that involve repackaging or repositioning some products that were previously invented in order to match the current trends of the population. Here, if they are able to use this product and establish a permanent position in the heart of the consumers and guarantee a steady amount of long term sales.

Recently, i came across an interesting pot made by Vivian Leung [https://blogs.ubc.ca/vivianwl/] that talked about relating to the consumer’s psychological factors to influence their behaviors. In it she also added an example of how McDonalds introduced its buttermilk biscuit by allowing customers to try free samples of it and following it up with coupons and special deals in order to attract new customers, turning them into regular customers.

I must say however, these tactics may only be effective in the short run, as customers see only the benefits of a free product/sample as there are no costs involved. But in the long run, if the product’s quality is not very high, the product will eventually fade off the market along with its limited time specials. An example of this, still using the Mcdonald’s buttermilk biscuit, as Vivian has mentioned in her post, the quality of the product is not very high, therefore, even though a lot of advertising and money has been put into promoting the product, it will not be a long lasting product.

So, in the case of these promotions, although these strategies are very effective, they can only have a long lasting effect for good quality products. A good example of this would be UFC pay per view in mexico, where they offered free viewing of all fights and then switched over to pay per view after getting a certain high amount of followers, and the strategy turned into a big success.

Here’s a funny comic strip that i have recently seen posted by my MIS professor:

4779492703301

In my opinion, what the comic strip demonstrated was the failure of communications between the different channels of production and how products are advertised and marketed aren’t how they actually are when used in reality.
Firstly, we see that in every stage of the design process, everyone put their own creative view of the project to transform it into something totally different from what was required from the customer. Although sometimes it would give consumers a product that’s even better than what they wanted, it usually isn’t the case. As we can see, from the project leader to how the operations were installed, the project has been constantly decaying to the point that the swing wasn’t even seen anymore.
Another problem that can be seen from the comic strip is the over-exaggeration of the product from the marketing campaigns and business consultants. In common practices, usually for expensive products like an ipad or iphone, most of the costs are not from the creation or the development, but rather from the marketing and advertising. Therefore, the only reason the consumers are being billed the price of a theme park would be because of costs irrelevant to production and functionality of the product itself.

Personally, i would hope that the firms put more effort into designing and the actual functions of the product, and the product will most likely sell itself.

Ever since the start of this year, whenever you ask someone for a marketing idea, one of the most common answers would be to put it online as a smart phone app. Although i admit, smart phone apps are very convenient and very popular, is everything suitable to be on a phone? Some successful apps, mostly games and sports broadcasting sites, are all based on the pure value of entertainment, and in my opinion, most people have forgotten the core aspects of why people use these apps are because of their convenience and entertainment values. Especially retailers, how do they expect to use these smart phone apps to your advantage? Giving them constant updates about your products are nothing but an update and a waste of memory if users are not interested. What about delivery? If i were a consumer, and the app was for a grocery store, why would i not want to go to the store myself and pick the products i want instead of looking at the picture.

Mobile e commerce is not always the best way to market your product, especially when you have a decent website. Most of the time, firms forget that smartphones can also browse their website through the internet, therefore, making the app for the phone would indeed be a waste of time. The only exception for this would probably be firms will well established brands and dominate the market, and the app would only be an online catalog of their products and coupons to increase sales. Although this technology is very popular during this time, firms should always consider their environmental factors and how practical the app is before thinking of marketing in this area.

While many of us think that the most popular restaurants and stores are the ones that sell the best product, in my opinion, the key of maintaining loyal customers and attracting new consumers is customer service. The fact is, most stores think that in order to have good sales, they must convince their customers that they need their product. But throughout my entire shopping life with my parents and friends, i find that most people leave stores not because the product is too expensive or the product has poor quality, but rather that they didn’t like the service or the attention they wanted from the service staff.

So, how much difference does customer service actually make? Well I’d give you an example right now, my parents have been bringing me to the same Chinese restaurant ever since I went back for high school, reason why? Well yea… they know the staff there, think they are friendly, and the food comes out fast. Although the food quality is probably the same as any other random restaurant on the street, it is the relationship between the restaurant and my family that counts. Sometimes the key to success isn’t how much time or money you spend on creating an excellent product, but the way you treat your customers, or at least how they feel they are treated when they’re in your store. You may not realize it, but that’s usually why they come again.

Although many firms presently think that mediocre or poor service is enough if they have a good product, think again. During my first year in Vancouver my friends brought me to a restaurant (which i will not name) that sold probably the most delicious chicken rice I have ever tasted. Even with an outstanding product, the atmosphere in the store was very poor, the staff didn’t seem to care what you thought of them, they throw your food at you, and give you grins when you ask for more tea. Well, that just didn’t cut it for me. Until the beginning of this year, when my friends told me their attitudes became alright, did i start going back to that store again.

When firms compare customer service to quality of the product, sometimes employers can overlook this and cause major problems to the firm. Although it may be costly, hiring and training your employees to provide good customer service is something that must be done in order to maintain good customer relationships and a sustainable advantage in your market.

Ever Since I ever started using my first computer, i have always been very fond of using windows, not only because windows is a lot more user friendly for gamers like myself, but i actually find that before coming to university, there aren’t many people that use Macs. But is the difference between the two products really that great? What about the marketing of the two brands? What is the difference that makes up for the large difference in market share.

Let’s start off with a question to all you consumers walking through electronic stores, what operating system do all computers use? Yes, you’re right, windows, so it’s probably safe to say that windows probably has fairly good partnership with most retail stores, where you can buy your computer along with the operating system for a bundled price. On the other hand, the Macintosh system comes with…. right… only Macs. Honestly, when there’s so many more windows PCs out in the market being offered ( probably 20 windows PCs to 1 Mac in common retail stores) how can you expect your market share to go up?

Even if Macs have the cool factor for teenagers like us, with its sleek cuts and beautiful desktop designs, this only covers 1 consumer group which is probably not that big of a portion. Where windows on the other hand has altered its systems to cover specific needs of consumers, like windows professional and home, where consumers can choose an OS specific to their needs. In this area, windows is also a lot more considerate of needs of their consumers which increases their consumer group greatly.

What won it for windows isn’t any great design or cool factor, it was how they brillantly adjusted and marketed their product along with good retail partners that help advertise and bundle their product with sales.

Have you ever been forced to look at pop-ups while you were in the middle of browsing through something important? Or searching on google only to find that the top relevant results were sponsored by random companies that only provide useless information?

Although the internet is probably approached by numerous consumers on a daily basis, is it actually effective marketing for firms to be advertising online? Honestly, if consumers wanted to find information on products they wanted to buy, would they really want to find it through pop-up ads, banners or sponsored results, i think not. The problem with these online forms of advertising is that not only are annoying to see, as they are usually come at the wrong place at the wrong time, they are also not trustworthy as most consumers know that companies have probably paid a lot for their ads. If consumers want to find information, they would probably find it on professional or community review sites that actually compare products with each other and not ads that spam your screen with rainbow colored pictures.

Another fact that online advertisers must consider is if consumers want advertising while they are surfing in the first place. Have you noticed that usually ads that can be skipped or closed immediately are almost ignored and online sources that provide free video content have forced their commercials on their viewers before they can browse the video? Yes, they all know that consumers hate ads online. So I sometimes wonder, instead of spending all that money on something that is only used to annoy online consumers, why not spend it somewhere useful, maybe the company will actually get something out of it.