The rivalry between Adidas and Nike is nothing new. Nike owns about 18% share of the UK sports apparel market while Adidas follows closely behind at 15%. Competition will likely intensify this coming London 2012 Olympics as both sides compete for “gold”. At the heart of the depute are athletes on Team Great Britain, where existing binding contracts put certain athletes at an uneasy position. Adidas’s contract with Team Great Britain states that everyone on the team must wear Adidas apparel while moving about the Olympic Village and during medal ceremonies. Athletes can wear whatever brand of footwear they want during competition but it’s the rest of the time that is getting complicated. What about those who already have contracts with Nike? Nike insists that those too are binding and cannot be negotiated. What should athletes do? One option is to go on the podium bare foot and choose not to offend either sponsors. Another option is to wear a Nike shoe on one foot and an Adidas on another – but that would just be ludicrous.

It’s fascinating how the fight for a logo receives more media attention than the athletes themselves. The sad reality is that the audience are more likely to recognize the brands on the athletes than the athletes themselves.

As for now, we’ll just have to hold our breaths and see what UK sports stars will wear on the day we all eagerly await. May the best brand win.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/9071610/London-2012-Olympics-Nike-insists-its-footwear-contracts-are-legally-binding-as-podium-row-continues.html

Ever since the video Shit Girls Say went viral, a string of parodies have been made. From one of our own Sh*t UBC Says to Sh*t Americans Say to Canadians, fill in the blank Sh*t _____ Say(s) on Youtube and you are bound to find a video you can relate to. It’s interesting how viral videos only last for a cycle of a couple months max, after which they become irrelevant or simply “old news.” Riding on this ‘Sh*t Says” wave is a nonprofit organization in the UK call the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Their campaign, interestingly enough, is targeted towards children and those on the sideline who want to help. The video starts off with kids saying cute things that makes you warm inside a little. “All pigs are pink even boy ones!” Then it shocks you a little when there’s a girl giving her doll some vodka and then there’s the boy who doesn’t have bed time and says ‘he’s a mistake.’ When you realize how real these situations could be, there’s the punch line “It could be nothing, but it could be something. If you are worried and need advice don’t wait until you’re certain” and a number. There’s also a number and website so you can find out more.

I really like this campaign because I think it takes into what’s current and amplifies it into a cause. At first, not knowing what it was about, I thought it was cute, but as the video progresses, it made me almost mad that parents would do such things to kids. They definitely achieve what they wanted from this campaign.

To watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LagGSTiSnto

The CEO of Mobilicity imparted a lot of marketing wisdom in the recent Style and the City. One of his main points was that the power of brand loyalty lies not in your consumers loving your brand, but them desiring and being captivated by it. When he asked the audience how loyal or impressed they are by banks such as TD, RBC, and CIBC, their response were lukewarm at best. It was hard to tell the difference. The same is true of telecommunication companies such as Bell, Rogers, and Telus. It was hard to tell what these telecom giants stood for as a brand and in marketing, complicated message often drive consumers away rather than to your brand. It’s incredible how much money these big companies spend in marketing and yet consumers often do no understand or relate to these messages. Facebook spends close to nothing in Marketing and yet their popular is immense to say the least. Their power lies in word of mouth and their services speak for themselves. It’s time companies review their products, rather than simply dumping money into marketing that achieves little measurable results.

It’s encouraging to see companies still manage to invest in inventive products in tough economic times. Meet the Handpresso Auto – a bullet-shaped espresso machine designed to sit in a car’s cup holder and plug into its 12V cigarette lighter receptacle made by the French design company Handpresso. Simply add water, insert a coffee pot and with a touch of a button there you have it – fine italian expresso. Does the company every worry about spillage? Of course. Which is why they recommend drivers to pull over or create a cup before you hit the road. For $200, you can save your gas from tips to Starbucks and dealing with inefficient barista. Just make your own in the comfort of your car – genius!

It’s amazing how often we miss something right before our eyes on a day to day basis. How often do you notice the people and things around you? How often do you observe a restaurant and think about how to cut-cost or stream lines processes? How often do you sit in a class and wonder, how can this course improve? The power of observation is often overlooked – it is how companies become inventive and entrepreneurs come up with their million dollar ideas. It is how every business idea comes about, by looking around the world and finding a need to satisfy. One company that specializes in this field is IDEO, a global design firm that takes a design approach to help organizations improve on products and service and most of all to be creative and innovative. They believe that observation is king in challenging the status quo, in fact there’s a position int he company known as the Human Factor Specialist they look for passionate and curious people to analyse and observe a business problem in order to make a solution. One of the major activity they do is to spend time observing business processes, documenting everything they noticed and share about how people’s experiences there could be enhanced, and what resulting opportunities there might be for a viable market offering.

I am currently taking a class on Creativity and it’s hard not to think about just how important that is in marketing. If accuracy and efficiency is important in finance and accounting, then creativity is perhaps the number one ingredient to any marketing professional. I thought I’d do a post where I compile the creative marketing ideas that will hopefully get you guys thinking about the out of the box and raise the question of where marketing is headed. Enjoy.

Who did you sit next to the last time you flew on the plane? If it was a stranger who snored throughout or a crying baby ruined your flight, social media can help. KLM, the national airline of Netherlands, is looking to implement a service where you can use Facebook and Linkedin to see if your “friend” is on the same flight. Don’t worry about exposing your personal information. The service only works if both parties uses the service.

While the service is innovative, why wouldn’t you know if your friend’s flying on the same flight as you. You might just need to re-evaluate your “friend”ship.

Learn more:

In this day and age where anyone can post a video to the world through the power of YouTube, the ability to stand out is becoming increasingly difficult. Every minute, 48 hours of videos are being uploaded on YouTube, of that, only a very tiny percentage of videos makes it to the 1 million+ views. In a Ted Talk by Kevin Allocca, You Tube Trends Manager discusses the three ingredients needed for any video to make it big. First is tastemakers. The success of YouTube stars are often propelled by someone famous, otherwise known as tastemakers. For example, the day Jimmy Kimmel tweeted about the rainbow video by Yosemitebear Mountain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI), views of the video skyrocketed exponentially to its current 32 million views. The second ingredient is participation. No video makes it big without public viewing and engagement. Often time, this involvement comes in Facebook postings, Twitter and linkedin updates and remake of videos. Rebecca Black’s 200 million views came about through the public’s engagement. WIthin one week of the video release, there were already parodies for every day of the week. Finally, perhaps the most obvious one, is unexpectedness. Attention is a rare commodity in our busy and overloaded world and being unexpected gives you that much edge on other videos.

While these three ingredients are helpful, there is really no magic formula to getting viral. Sometimes, it just takes a bit of luck. Or a lot.

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BpxVIwCbBK0#!

I know I am not alone in my battle against e-mail spam. Even as an avid Marketing student who has extra tolerance and interest on how companies Marketing to consumers, my patience is slowly wearing off. AIr Canada, Gap, Sportcheck not to mention the endless UBC emails I get in my inbox. Informative? Yes. Relevant? 90% not. In an age where proximity to consumers is often the key to their heart – giving out your email and signing up for newsletter is becoming more like handing your number to the opposite sex and inviting them to text and call you where-ever you go. It is like opening your door to a sales representative and letting them come into your home and talk to you about how amazing their products are. Sure, you can slam the door shut before they even enter, but now that they know where you live, they can be more persistent than ever. Sure, Marketers try to address you by name and give you “customized” deals as if they know you, but does anyone really have time for these empty invitations? If there’s one suggestion other than the generic ones listed online, it would be that there should be a question on the newsletter signup where they as you when you would like to no longer be spammed. For example, when I went on exchange in Ireland, I flew a couple times with Aer Lingus, and hence were on their “deal of the week” list. Needless to say, after I got back to Canada, I no longer care about the deals or wish to receive the emails. If only there was an option to notice them when I am no longer interested in the relationship, I wouldn’t have to leave those once a week “letters” on my inbox and sever the relationship once and for all.

Standing in front of Times Square in New York, it’s hard not to be revelved by the sheer amount of advertising that makes the infamous block of street come to life. To think that millions and millions of marketing dollars invested into this small piece of real estate just blows my mind. As iconic as the tourist attraction is, what do people really go there for? A Kodak moment? An awe-inspiring experience? Simply to say “been there, done that”? It is always interesting for me to discover the power of marketing and it seems that the more places I visit, the more I understand the grip it has on us. Like every tourist, I knew what I was getting into after years of tv, movies, and news stories on what must be one of the most filmed location in the world. I expected the lights, people, business and ads. What I didn’t expect what just how much the ads made up the experience of Time Square. I was overwhelmed by the sheer size, magnitude and creativity of the ads, but I retrospect, what I didn’t realize was that that was all there was to Times Square – advertisements. The glitter, glamour, and excitement came from those marketing billboards, flashing tv screens and giant logos filling the entire block. Strip away it all and you get empty facades and dirty streets. Not quite the attraction it is today.