Category: Uncategorized

I recently came across to the Canadian Marketing Association website and found one of their blogs very interesting. The author is a female and she talked about her views towards people targeting golf mainly towards men only. Being a girl, I can easily relate to this situation (although I’m not a big fan of golf). There are so many things out that are using the demographics to target to consumers. However, I find that when marketers do so, they are limiting their revenue because genders don’t represent all. I extremely agree on the fact that the author suggested using interest-based marketing. Rather than focusing on whether the product users are majority men or women, focus on the segment that are interested in the products and who would even pay attention in the first place. Not all men play golf and not all women do yoga. Of course, choosing a segment highly depends on the product itself but there are lots of examples out there that are using demographics as a segment base such as 2-1 shampoo and body wash, or even buying a race car. “Women account for the most powerful consumer group” says the author, and by seeing that women have the purchase power, Dads don’t have to be the only one who decides on buying a car or a house.

Here’s Ashley Van Dyke test driving a race car.
Source:  http://thegreenloopblog.com/coco-eco-da-tesla-three-days-in-la/829

If you were to ask me what are the greatest marketing tools, Youtube is definitely one of the top choices. It’s free, it’s easy to access, and most importantly, it adds sounds and moving images to the message encoded by the video maker. I got addicted to watching makeup videos since a year ago when I started watching Michelle Phan’s makeup tutorials on youtube. Not only does she demonstrate how to use makeup products such as eye shadow palettes and brushes, but she’s also advertising for the well known makeup brand, Lancome. Here’s one of my favourite videos of hers:

Although makeup counters are available in every department stores for consumers to check out and try on their products, it often doesn’t increase their willingness to buy until they really see the effects of the products applied on skin. Here, Michelle is introducing Lancome’s their new makeup products (a year ago) to create a Valentine’s theme. Watching her applying the makeup step by step may easily educate consumers how to use the products as well as increase the awareness of the brand. Looking at the video views and the comments of the video, Lancome and Michelle may analyze consumers’ feedback to the products as well as the response to this marketing tool. As attractive as all the printed ads and commercials out there,  I still believe the power of photoshop plays a huge role in exaggerating the effects of products. But Michelle’s videos shows the whole process of makeup application from zero makeup to a transformed beauty.

I personally don’t like having a salesperson following me around the store asking whether I need help and trying to sell me stuff that I don’t even need. Watching videos on youtube at home already educated AND demonstrated how each product works while I’m anywhere with internet access. So I only have to go in the store, pick out the products I want and pay. With this marketing tool, who would want to just risk buying makeup products that “looks” like they’ll work well on them?

The greatest lesson I’ve learned in 299 is to get to know myself in a way to better present myself. I don’t need to exaggerate on my strengths and experiences in order to stand out; but outlining my personality will already bring out my uniqueness to the world. Through strengthquest, I learned to use my strengths to represent myself in a way that no one else could be similar to myself. The resume and cover letter assignment really proved that I’ve done so from achieving less than 10% sensitivity report. The precision and professional representation of myself have built my confidence to the next level. The mock interview was also a helpful practice for me to experience how it’s like to present myself face-to-face to a person I have not met before. These practices are very helpful in a personal way which is the key point of this course because I could not have learnt this only through books and self studying. Interacting with others and presenting myself in the market could me improved through opportunities to practice which this course offers. Overall, I thought this course was relevant and I learnt something that I could not have learnt anywhere else.

Just recently I dyed my hair and I was looking for colour-treated hair products to keep my hair vibrant and nourished. As I was looking through a whole wall of hair products of different brands in London Drugs, I got fairly frustrated by all the different brands, products, packaging, size.. and in the end I came down to purely looking at the prices. Just then, a point of purchase display caught my eye. It had an Aveeno Living Color Hair Care shampoo and conditioner on sale for $5.99 each!!

I’ve always heard of good comments of Aveeno from others of this brand so I decided to give it a try! I had no idea that they even had a hair product line. After using this product for a couple of weeks I’ve noticed that not only has my hair color not faded much but it has also kept my hair soft and nourished. This was when I searched up the Aveeno website to browse around. I noticed that they’re offering a free sample for the products I’m using!! In order to get a free sample of their hair products line, I only had to fill in a little information of my own for them to recognize which of their products would best suit my hair type and my personal information for them to send me the samples and future promotions.

For once, I did not refuse to give out my information online for an exchange of a chance of a company bombarding my email inbox/mailbox of their promotions and advertisements!! Hahaha 😀 Such a promotional strategy was such effective! In fact, that reminds me of the AIDA model that I recently learned in Marketing class. First catching consumers’ attention(awareness), let them TRY your products first(interest+desire), and follow them up with coupons(action). Now i’m quite excited to try more of their products! 🙂

For the majority of the girls, shopping doesn’t necessarily mean we’re looking for something in particular, we just like to browse around, check out on new stuff and have fun! Whereas, for guys, they usually only walk into the malls when they’re dragged in them by their Moms, girlfriends, or when they really, need to buy something. They just think speding time walking around and browsing stores are a waste of time!

Although I don’t understand why they don’t enjoy shopping as much as girls do, companies have improved on their channels of marketing and promotions towards the group that are lazy to come into the stores. Other than making their stores stand out to attract people to come in, companies nowadays want to bring shopping more of a convenient, fun experience.

Channels such as online websites are really popular because not only can they browse around the products but they can also make shopping a convenience for consumers to compare products and order products online. One disadvange of online selling is that it lacks the presence of sales representatives which are really important for the companies to aid consumers to find their perfect products and aid in the decision process.

For the extremely lazy shoppers, subscribing to their websites will get latest trends in emails and mail which are forms of direct marketing. In the increasing popularity of smart phones, some companies are making apps for smart phone users to download for a convenience usage. For example, CIBC and TD banks have apps for consumers to check their balances and do online banking through their phones.

Now that we’re in the value based era of marketing, firms are really working their way to bring shopping closer to consumers, rather than waiting for the consumers to come to their stores in order to check out their products or experience their services.

The greatest lesson I’ve learnt from someone else is…

When I joined the Financial Literacy for Youth team last year, I was in a group of inspiring, brilliant individuals who all came together hoping to make a memorable conference for high school students teaching them about Time Value of Money. I personally went to this conference when I was in grade 12 and I decided to join the team in year 1 because of the impact it has made on me. I wanted to be part of this group to make changes in other students’ lives because I feel that no matter what field of study/career people go into, personal finance is something everyone needs to go through. From this team, not only did I learn the importance of saving up, but I also experienced the feeling of contributing to a group to make a change. Through going to this conference and joining their team, I found my interest in the business field while taking on the leadership role to inspire others. During the whole year, we met up every week setting our mission, brainstorming and executing our plan to make the conference happen. I learnt to take initiatives, take responsibilities and work in groups. Because of this experience, I have learnt something that couldn’t be taught in classes. Being a part of this team has allowed me to grow as a whole to take care of my personal finance while passing on the message to others around me.

Speaking of Promotions in Marketing class, I’ve been receiving some postcards in the mail from retail stores informing me about their new spring collection and inviting me for private sales events. Such companies are using all types of marketing strategies to get their customers’ attention from all the distractions, meaning all their competitors out there. By giving them my email address, they keep me updated with their new collections and sales events. Websites are an extremely powerful promotional tool because many of us spend massive time on the net and shopping online makes things so much more fun and convenient sometimes because we get to play around with mix and match with “see the look” icons when we don’t have to fight for the racks and wait in line for the fitting room..saves soo much time!!

Companies such as Guess and Coach often email and mail me their postcards making it more personal and exclusive. By joining their loyalty program, I’m getting notified and reminded with their new products while they are building on their brand awareness. This clearly shows their advertising plan is successful because not only are they generating more sales this way  by capturing our attention also giving the benefits consumers search for.

Here’s a GUESS by Marciano Fall 2010 campaign:

By doing such campaigns, companies are using emotional appeals to attract customers. It involves no words or brand name, but rather just a black and white video featuring a lady wearing the latest Marciano collection doing a photo shoot.

As we have recently heard on the news, Japan’s earthquake and tsunami have caused the country in a disastrous stage. Due to the nuclear bomb explosion, people are really aware of the radiation spread across the world. Instead of praying and helping Japan, some people are rather concerned about their Japanese product consumption and anything that would prevent radiation poisoning. Once the news announced the effects of the nuclear bomb explosion, immediately, we find crowds of customers purchasing sea salt, Japanese food products such as seaweed and Japanese udon from the supermarket.

As we learned in Marketing class, price is the willingness to sacrifice and the biggest determinant to buy. Despite the high prices bidding online for sea salt, people are still buying disregarding the incredible high prices. In Hong Kong, people are bidding for a bag of salt from $1 hkd to $50 hkd. I found this really ridiculous and just had to blog about it right away. This is a perfect real-life example of price elasticity of demand. Salt is normally a convenience good that people tend to buy when prices are low, but because of the rumors of the radiation, people are becoming less price sensitive (inelastic).

Here’s a picture of people fighting of sea salt in the supermarket in Asia:

Picture taken from: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01851/panic_1851303c.jpg

I’ve always been an “anti-apple” person, and by that I mean, I’ve always hated apple. Their products and systems just don’t match to my needs and their prices are way beyond what I’m willing to pay for. However, after the iphone4 came out since September, I see everyone around me starting to convert their cell phones to this phone. My friends have complemented this product so much that they can’t even live without it anymore. Just during this reading break, I finally walked into the apple store to play around their products to see WHAT is really getting my friends so addicted. Just then, I got caught into it.

I’ve been having the itouch4 on my mind for a while now and finally got it recently. I cannot help but keep it with me all the time!! I myself is a blackberry user, I wouldn’t have given up my berry for the new iphone 4, so I thought if I wanted all the features an iphone has but still keep my phone, the itouch would be my best choice. Just like Cheryl Chan said in her most recent blog, “”This changes everything. Again”…Everything? really? If you say so!”, she talked about her opinion with apple’s pricing. She thinks their products should keep with their current prices because Apple is customer oriented. Yes, I do agree that Apple has a good strategy. When I walked into the apple store, I was so caught onto trying out all their products just because they had so many out on the counters. I didn’t even have to ask for help and I got the experience right away. This trialability strategy is very unique to get awareness because they don’t have to have specific questions or purpose to check out their products, but rather just have them all out on counters for people to play with and browse around whenever they feel like walking in.

I’m a very tech-conservative person but I guess I gave in this time and agreed that the itouch was really worth the money 🙂 FACETIME!!

I recently read on Katie Fang’s first blog post “Starbucks goes TITLE less” and I was quite shocked that starbucks is doing such a change to its logo so I searched up for more information and found that this idea is actually legit. Over the years since Starbucks was developped in 1971, the logo have been changed 3 times to the logo we have today at all Starbucks Cafes. In March 2011, they plan to drop the Starbucks name around the logo, leaving just the mermaid itself. The chairman and CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, explains that this “embraces and respects our heritage” as well as more suitable for the company’s future. The removal of the “Starbucks” name, brings out the mermaid more in the logo, making Starbucks going beyond just coffee. I agree with what Katie said in her blog, that removing the name could create a sense that the company is selling the Starbucks experience instead of just a cup of Starbucks coffee. Perhaps the new logo is a great idea but I find this a little risky when they’re not just changing the colour of the logo like when they first dropped the brown and went for the green, but they’re also dropping the name of the company. Here’s Howard Schultz’s explanation to the new Starbucks logo:

Besides from the change in the logo, Starbucks apparently also plans to make surprising changes to its menu this March. Instead of just coffee and healthy snacks, Starbucks will be introducing beer and wine in their experience. Is this what Howard Schultz mean, that they are going beyond coffee, because they want to sell beer and wine as well? If thats what it is then I think the whole new idea that Starbucks is seeing as their future is completely ridiculous. Starbucks, the growing company had great marketing strategy to get where they are today. Whether they are planning to add alcoholic drinks in their menu, they are messing up with their STP analysis. Who are they planning to target to in their new market? Will their customers still remain loyal when they have such drastic changes in a coffee shop that they just run in and out just to get some on-the-go coffee? If they really are making such plans realistic, I know I will be the first to band Starbucks off my list of drinks. What about you?