Excited for Skyfall, I googled some reviews and feedback from fans. What I didn’t expect was tweets like “Product placement aplenty and Adele hasn’t even sung yet” and “My Skyfall highlight was the obscene amount of product placement and Bond themed ads”. The kicker for most fans was when Bond picked up a Heineken instead of his usual martini, in the name of Heineken’s $45 million endorsement. 

(Picture credit to dailymail.uk.co)

Maybe James Bond did sell out. Maybe a couple of purist fans will be disappointed. But will this stop anyone from going to see Skyfall? I don’t think so. The movie itself is still going to be a huge hit, thanks to its extensive legacy. Therefore, although some fans are unhappy with the product placement, I think that the companies investing in Skyfall are making a smart move, and that the movie producers are right to accept these endorsements. With a budget of $200 million, Skyfall definitely needs the funding.

There’s such thing as bad publicity. Even if some fans feel that advertising is being shoved down their throats during the movie, others are curious about the product placement and are searching things up on google regarding the companies that endorsed Skyfall. Looking at popular google searches, I have to say that Heineken did a good job at creating exposure.

After the engaging lesson with James Tansey, I poked around the internet and found a gem of a green business blog at www.green.blogs.nytimes.com, under which there is a business section. This blog emphasizes all that James talked about in class, as each and every article highlights some innovation, discovery, or decision that enterprises are making to increase the environmental sustainability of their business.

One particular blog post on the afterlife of the electric car battery caught my attention. ABB and GM are partnering up to turn the spent batteries of the Chevy Volt into power storage devices for homes. The goal is “providing a market for past-their-prime batteries, giving them a resale value that will lower their cost of ownership, and providing distributed storage that could [. . .] absorb energy from intermittent sources like solar panels and wind machines”.

This post addressed my major concern with hybrid cars: I had previously read that hybrids weren’t as green as people believed, due to the pollution caused by its manufacture and the disposal of its batteries. Therefore, what GM is experimenting with is a prime example of turning “green to gold”. They are reacting to consumer concerns and investing in sustainable innovation that will definitely benefit them in the long run.

Eli’s post on the potentially positive effect of Hurricane Sandy on Canada’s lumber industry ends with “such is the way of life and the world of business”. This brought me back to class 3: business ethics. Upon googling other “positive effects” of Hurricane Sandy, I found out that the automobile industry is also benefiting because of all the victims forced into buying new cars.

It’s difficult to accept that these “positive economic impacts” because it feels morally wrong for me to say that the destruction caused by Sandy can result in financial gain for some industries. My first reaction to Eli’s post and to the Wall Street Journal blog was “no wonder people say corporations are heartless”. However, upon further contemplation, I realized this isn’t just “the way of business”.

In every study of the world–financial, scientific, anthropological–terrible things happen, and there are always people who benefit. When organisms die, bacteria and fungi benefit–but do we call microorganisms heartless? I think Eli’s post simply highlights the fact that business is a system of inputs and outputs that react to one another naturally, much like an ecological system. Therefore, I disagree that “such is the way of business”. Rather, such is the way of any dynamic system in life.

The day after Halloween, drinks came in red Christmas cups at Starbucks. Bath and Body Works had tinsel and stocking stuffers all ready to go. Many stores simply exploded with Christmas overnight.

Considering that the retail industry’s sales boom before Christmas, it’s not surprising that these stores are trying to ride the Christmas wave for as long as possible. In fact, I’ve seen the effects of this marketing technique. Starbucks Chritmas blend coffee beans have been wildly popular. Gift cards are being bought in stacks. The holiday drinks are ordered endlessly.

However, this marketing practice seems to push one important ethical issue to the side: Remembrance Day. While many embrace the jump from Halloween to Christmas, others are horrified that Remembrance Day isn’t honoured solemnly before the Christmas lights are up.  Even though it’s effective marketing, should companies withhold the carols until after Remembrance Day, simply out of respect?

Many voices on the Internet have declared corporations simply disrespectful for not having cheery music and Christmas trees up on the 11th, and I agree. I think that it is ethically wrong for companies to be capitalizing on Christmas products during the period we should be honouring our veterans and soldiers for their sacrifices. However, things will likely not change, simply because the Christmas-themed marketing is too profitable to put off for two weeks.