Recently according to Pando, Facebook has changed its News’s Feed Algorithm to make the costumers decide what news appears on their homepage. Apparently this contrasts one of their main competitors, Twitter, who costumers describe as being too algorithmically driven. At this point, Facebook focuses on giving the costumers what exactly what they want, so as to increase the strength of their value proposition and keep their users happy. Also this marks an important point of difference between one of their major competitors, which until recently, with the introduction of the Follow and Unfollow botons, was strikingly similar.

However, this new policy can backfire. Facebook is a webpage after all and its customers are not the ones who use it but the ones who advertise in it. One could say that this new development is aimed to the public not the costumers and as such demand for Facebook could fall. Firms advertising their products on Facebook may realize that for users, having updates on their friends rather than learning about their products.

In spite of this, my personal opinion is quite optimistic about Facebook. Advertising firms cannot afford to loose the opportunity to market their products in a firm so big it can call Big Brother an amateur in controlling people’s mind. Recently it has been established that 70% of the public pay more attention to online advertising than more traditional ones such as television or newspaper. At the end, as argued in the article, writers and marketers will just have to improve the quality of their articles and advertising in order to compete in the place of every user’s News’s Feed.

The article on Forbes magazine describes the fact that Starbucks has been “going through a transition in costumer segment and value proposition” in my fellow Sauder student, Emi Hirano’s words.  Since its establishment, Starbucks target audience have been middle aged baby boomers who regarded the coffee shop as an “affordable luxury “ where they could meet friends outside from home or work. A third place.

Recently however Starbucks have been attracting all kinds of costumers. Through diverse strengths such as a menu that has breakfast and light lunch items for costumers of every age. They have also taken advantage of the opportunity that a slow growing economy present: Starbucks is not an affordable luxury that can compete with more expensive and traditional coffee houses. As I mentioned earlier, this has attracted all kinds of costumers but the risk is that in the process, Starbucks could alienate its first target audience, the middle age.

While I agree with Emi’s opinion that Starbucks, as a retail giant, must continuously adapt an evolve to meet the costumer’s demand, I think that the built of a strong business plan while necessary is too vague of a solution. The article proposes separate rooms for middle-aged that seek a third place and the rest of costumers. While the idea is correct, my personal opinion is that that would greatly increase costs for the Coffee house.

I propose that Starbucks continue to sale itself as an affordable luxury for the aging baby boomers. Its stores are generally characterized by having many microenvironments. Young adults usually prefer to work silently either alone in one table or in groups in the couch section while baby boomers who may want to talk would do in another table. Most of the time there is hardly any problem due to the fact that people mind their own business. If Starbucks continue to market themselves in channels such as TV or social media, it will still attract all kind of costumers, while the baby-boomers, who are usually not driven by social media advertising would continue to go to Starbucks by mere tradition. In the end, Starbucks gets to keep all of its costumers.

Personally, I am fond of the Blackberry, especially due to its private messaging function, the Blackberry messenger. It even got me a girlfriend. However, I had to realize that in terms of technology the Apple and the Galaxy were much better choices and as such I am now using an IPhone 5. Like me, many costumers changed to better options and as such the Blackberry lost an important share of the market really quickly.

Now, the Blackberry has introduced a new model: the Blackberry Passport aimed solely at businessman, which was it original target market. Being targeted to businessman, the Blackberry technology I, as a costumer, complained about, has increased the hearing quality by 18 percent (as businessman still rely a lot on phone calls) and has widely increased its storage capability to 32 GB.

My fellow student Pei Ran in his blog has also noted this. However Dina Kasiri also mentioned the fact that it will be hard the business part of the market from other competitors. Despite both of them feeling optimistic about Blackberry’s new model, I think that the business market has already adapted to the Apple and Galaxy products. Apple products offer the ability to synchronize its products and since Mac seem to be a popular choice, especially in young businessmen, it is very likely that they just choose to remain with that company. Also, Galaxy offers a wider set of Apps, while the Software of Blackberry phones have always been an issue for them and they can only offer a narrow range of business-driven apps.

My personal opinion is that if Blackberry advertises the Passport well enough it might have a chance to regain part of the market but other firms already have their share and are not likely to let go.

Source:http://www.pcworld.com/article/2687271/square-shaped-blackberry-passport-launched-with-a-focus-on-business-pros.html

McDonald’s is perhaps the biggest fast-food chain in the world. If you have seen the documentary “Super-Size Me” you can tell… people confused Jesus with Bush but they did know the McDonald’s clown. Being so famous has its disadvantage however. The brand has become a synonym for unhealthy food and the fact that people are opting for a more balanced diet in their lives is one of the many reasons why the giant has reduced its profit by 30%.

To solve this, the clown is implementing marketing techniques rather than changes its recipes.  It has introduced customization so that customers can create their own burgers and they have openly invited customers to ask questions about their products.

While I definitely think that public image is the cause of the problem I am not sure if it is the most effective solution. Sure, if you have seen my other articles (link here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/juanjoseleehorna/2014/11/03/nikes-choosing-options-make-us-choose-nike/) Nike has successfully implemented this technique in order to dramatically increase its sales and McDonald’s is hoping to do the same. In spite of this, Steve Ells was quoted in the article saying: “people are realizing there are better alternatives to traditional fast food”. The quote further emphasizes what I mentioned at the start of the article: people are demanding a more balanced food.

My personal opinion is that the only way McDonald’s could adapt to the changes in the market is if it improves its menu to a healthier choice (even if it involves increasing costs of production) and making sure the public knows about it. Marketing techniques alone will only do so much but it would not be as effective as a change in menu.

Business is always looking for ways to make life easier. Vacuums were created to replace brooms, MP3 players were developed so that people don’t need to carry a whole stereo around and cellphones have incorporated maps, books, clocks, alarms and can even do your math homework for you (Believe me I’ve done it). In this field, Apple has gain recognition as a pioneering company that always tries to be ahead of their competitors.

This time Apple is introducing the “Apple pay” which allows the IPhone 6 users to make payments via a touch from their Apple products. The technology giant is later introducing this feature to the Apple Watch. The giant is probably the most likely candidate to succeed where Google has failed earlier. Brand loyalty and the promise of quality associated with Apple will make its over 10 million user of IPhones 6 most likely to adapt to the new technology. In the end Apple will remain ahead of the market.

Despite this, many firms have tried to make their users make their payments using their individual products. One of them is Google as we mentioned earlier. People will take longer to adapt to this new kind of technology than they would have with other innovative features. Also the promise of quality Apple is associated with had recently taken a blow by the Cloud being hacked, further increasing the reluctance of people to trust their money to their phones.

Source:http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2014/10/03/will-apple-pay-succeed/16535925/

One of the many, many advantages of being a huge company such as Nike is the economies of scale. The article though, talks about one specific type of economies of scale; innovation. This basically means that being such footwear giant, Nike can afford to experiment with their products and services in order to gain greater profit. This time they have increased the customization options available to costumers. Costumers are now given free decision over the color of their shoes. As a result of it, Nike’s online sales were 70% higher and its shares increased their value by 8%.

In my opinion there are many reasons why the increase in customizations options got such a positive outcome in the market. First of all it helps Nike supply what the costumer wants, as the costumer itself customizes its product and Nike simply provides it saving the time and effort of guessing the new trends in the market. Using this, the giant can boost sells while charging more for the value added to the ‘kicks’. It is also important to remember that there are hardly any additional costs by this.  Furthermore Nike’s inventory levels are also reduced as these customized products are on demand, they don’t need to be in storage as they are immediately sold.

Last but not least the customization of products has helped Nike expand its other existing markets such as the app download (which got 17 million downloads recently) and the woman’s market, owing much of the increase sales to them.