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. 

After learning about Zappos in class, I pondered over what made a company a great place to work. Zappos ranked 11th under FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2012, but I was unsure about the criteria–how the Great Place to Work Institution collect the data to make this list? Did they send people in to observe how happy everyone was with their vats of popcorn and model car races?

Coincidentally, a couple days later, I received the answer to my questions. I was asked to fill out a survey by the Great Place to Work Institution on my workplace–Starbucks. They had chosen me randomly, and I had to complete an eight page survey on various aspects of the company, from workplace equality, to benefits, to my satisfaction regarding my pay.

This survey really augmented my understanding of what made a company a “great place to work”. For example, I hadn’t realized how the level of respect I was given affected my productivity, or how small things like recognition or praise affected my mood, therefore improved my customer service. The survey shed light on how the cooperate culture of a workplace seeps from its employees to its target market. This just further emphasizes the importance of a strong, positive cooperate culture–it’s a very infectious aspect of the company.

After watching the video about Save on Meats in class, I realized that I had been a member of Vancity Credit Union for almost eight years with no real knowledge of what they did and what kind of initiatives they funded (potentially with my money).

Today, I took a closer look. More specifically, I examined what Vancity was doing in terms of helping small businesses and social ventures like Save on Meats. It turns out that Vancity has assisted more than 800 BC entrepreneurs with over $13 million in small business and start-up financing. The difference between them and other banks though, is that they approve loans based on “entrepreneurial drive, the strength of the idea and the potential of your business plan, instead of just your credit history and collateral”.

As for social ventures, they started a program called Resilient Capital in 2011. On there missions page, President and CEO Faye Wightman perfectly sums up the allure of social enterprise:

“There are many philanthropists who want to go beyond simply donating money to good things. The idea that they can now support local projects — with high social and environmental impact — while also making a return on their investment, is a perfect way to help them expand their support of the community.” 

This research brings everything I’ve learned in class today into a much more personal territory and just goes to show how easily people can get involved in social change–sometimes without even knowing it.

I’m glad I’ve been banking with Vancity.

Brady Murphy blogs on CMA.com about how big an impact mobile phones have on consumer choices, and I absolutely agree with him. I think in this new age with the “Internet on steroids”, what marketers need to focus is making their sites easily accessible through phones and having a strong presence on the web. What this means is developing their virtual storefronts to make good impressions, providing platforms on which the customers can navigate easily, and being quick to adapt to new Internet trends.

Quoting Murphy: “Before cash, credit or debit cards are pulled from their pockets, consumers are pulling out their phone:

• One in three shoppers use their smartphone to search for store locations
• 20% use their mobile device to comparison shop, look for coupons or deals or research product features
• 17% use their phone to check product availability or make shopping lists”

I had to comment on this article because I do all three. I read reviews and check out store site before actually visiting, and I have decided to not make purchases because of what I found on Google. First impressions are all too crucial in attracting a consumer, and I think to succeed, a company must be prepared to spend more money and effort on making itself phone-accessible.

According to this article, Facebook spent $80 million in May to buy Karma, a gift buying start up. Now we know why.

You will soon be able to send actual, physical gifts to your friends through Facebook. Your friends’ personal info will let you know when there’s a birthday or a wedding, and Facebook will provide the option of sending them a gift. All you do is pay, and your friend will receive a notification which lets them fill out the shipping info, or even choose options for their gifts, such as colour or size.

Considering that gifts are a hundred-billion dollar industry, I think this is going to be big. It may not be popular right away, but I suspect it’s going to be too convenient to ignore. As the article says, we already do everything on Facebook–would it be so difficult to pay for gifts through Facebook as well? Especially if you were planning on  getting your friend something through the Internet anyway. This way, there will be fewer shipping address mishaps and incorrect colour preference speculations.

This new development also opens up an opportunity for advertising, as companies will want to invest more into advertising on Facebook so that their products are considered when users buy gifts, which may ultimately help the Facebook stock prices. I think acquiring Karma was a good move.

This is a commercial by Intel Japan promoting the Ultrabook, a sleek, light laptop with the Intel processor inside. The first marketing lecture made me reflect on my most recent big purchase: the HP Envy Spectre XT Ultrabook. Research about Ultrabooks led me to dozens of ads, and interestingly, this was the one I remembered the most clearly and the one I showed to other people.

This ad says nothing about the Ultrabook’s points of parity (fast Intel processor, good screen resolution, basic computing functions) nor its points of difference (ultra-portable at 3-4 pounds, 20 second start-up speed, long battery life), but somehow, this ad kept running in my head during my research period. Is it the awkward but lovable tiger? Or the catchy repetition of “urutorabook”? Whatever it was, it worked as the perfect hook to make me research the Ultrabook more thoroughly. Nevertheless, not all the people who saw this felt that way. Many hated it–said it was unfocused, random, confusing.

I see this as all-or-nothing marketing. Either the consumer will be intrigued enough to look into the product, or be completely turned off from the get-go. This may be very effective marketing in Japan because of the culture, but Intel should be careful–with the deterioration of international boundaries through the Internet, localized commercials may affect consumer choices all over the world.

Cost-benefit analyses are helpful in getting the most bang out of a buck—but what really constitutes “cost” and “benefit”? When looked at from an ethical perspective, are businesses really doing enough when calculating costs?

Toyota issued a recall in 2010 for certain models. Allegations arose claiming that Toyota knew of the sticky gas pedals back in 2007 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/03/25/us-toyota-recalls-idUSTRE62O3HL20100325), or as early as 2003 (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2010/08/toyota_lawsuit.html).

Toyota received thousands of complaints before starting recalls. It’s not hard to guess why: to issue a recall of millions of vehicles would cost much more than paying for a couple of accidents, so they didn’t. The cost of a recall early on would be not worth the benefit.

And here lies the main ethical issue: how do companies include the unquantifiable in their cost-benefit analyses? Do they assign monetary value to lives and emotions? Should they always value life over money, no matter the amount? Both suggestions will cause problems to arise for both the consumers and the company. Assigning monetary value to lives and emotions wouldn’t be morally acceptable, and no amount would seem enough to a victim’s family. If life is always valued over money, the company would have a lot more to lose, thereby driving up the prices, which will also make consumers unhappy.

It’s a rock and a hard place.