If anything the video project has taught me it was the importance of actual implementation of all the marketing techniques and analysis into real life projects. True that this is only an assignment, but it is as close to a marketing report as it can get. Of course there are still many differences between what we are doing in class and how actual consulting firms do their write ups, it is close enough to say this experience is quite close to what we can expect to do in the future (if we are going to marketing).

It is one thing learning all the concepts and theories coming up with papers and another actually using these theories into real life situations. Definitely for an active learner like myself  feel I’ve gained much more from the implementation of theories than memorization. It really opened my eyes to see how all the knowledge in possession can be used in these real life situations, and the brilliance and diligence of our group members made me realize the importance of team work. I was not in charge of making nor planning the video, and my contribution was solely writing out and recording down certain parts and final editing. The final work was quite brilliant, and I can’t express my gratitude enough for having such reliable team mates.

Towards the end of this course and this blog post, I would just like to express how the past 3 months changed my views on marketing. I used to think marketing would be quite intuitive, common-sense to most on how the technique works and all that. However I was proven wrong, as it seemed a lot more complicated than I thought. The final project just further serves to prove that, how convoluted a real life report can actually get.

Recent look up of a blog post by Mr. Drew McLellan (http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/2013/02/selling-shouldnt-equal-annoying.html)  revealed a factor about marketing I’ve always hated: many stores put you in a very akward situation so that either decision of buying or not buying will adversely affect your mood for the rest of your day. He mentioned while shopping at a local convenience store he was asked by the cashier if he wanted to make  a donation to some charity organization with the entire line-up listening onto the conversation. Sure that sounds harmless, but the potential pressure it exerts on the customer is perhaps something most stores have never thought of. If a customer is unwilling to part with his money, he feels guilty for being so insensitive to all the poor souls the foundation is designed to help, yet he doesn’t just want to donate his hard-earned money on every occasion he is asked to donate.

As a matter of fact this can be felt almost everyday in marketing. Countless times I have encountered situations where an absolutely zealous salesperson passionately introducing to me his latest product and urging me to give it a try. I must say that more often than not I have no interest at all in what he has to sell me, but out of courtesy I still stay and listen. But the hardest part is never while he is demonstrating but what comes after the demonstration. Although the salesman consistently claims it is optional to buy the product, could I really have just walked off without showing at least some signs of interest? Dilemmas like these sometimes can ruin my entire day’s shopping experience, especially given I am very sensitive about other peoples’ feelings yet so rational at the same time. Buying makes me feel bad because I don’t really need the product, but not buying seems equally malicious. Really, what these stores and people ought to do in the future, is perhaps asking first if customers would be interested before bluntly going in for the sale. People get more annoyed over that!

Images Courtesy of

http://cdn0.hark.com/images/000/003/260/3260/original.jpg

http://blog.pointclear.com/Portals/61796/images/istock_000017352190small.jpg

https://blogs.ubc.ca/reefchiu1/2013/01/20/whoa-look-at-the-pretty-ladies/

Recently an interesting visit to a fellow friend Reef Chiu’s blog about all the pretty ladies and fancy gadgets appearing on magazine covers and TV ads really got me thinking about just what kind of trickeries firms nowadays are doing to expand their businesses. Is school always full of flamboyant football players, whose domineering presence on the field is equally matched by their unrivalled vigour in parties? Or is it of the peculiar geniuses, who behind their nerdy appearances are in fact masterminds? Seems nowadays this is how social media portrays college students, either as die-hard party goers or the next Bill Gates, and all this attention paid to these youth in their late teens for what purpose? To sell products. To appeal to a group of people already in short demand of cash. To broadcast images of how “you should behave” to people in the most important part of their value-formation years.

No doubt this isn’t wrong. Advertising to students is just like advertising to everybody else, part of segment targeting. What is wrong however, is the misleading message that these companies are sending through their advertisements. Not all students are athletic, fit and handsome geniuses who draw attention of all the girls/guys where ever they go. Most students are just the average kind who everyday learn, eat and play. They don’t have the looks of the super models nor the brains of the crazy geniuses, but just regular folks in their late teens and early twenties trying to graduate and find jobs. And if ninety-five percent of the people who are like that aren’t represented in all the commercials, what population groups are the manufacturers trying to appeal to?

Of course the rant comes from my own recognition of myself belonging to that ninety-five percent, but still, as a customer of the ninety-five what reasons do I have to purchase a product not representing me? I am not going to change who I am to buy what’s being promoted in the papers, and maybe its time companies realize there are quite some number of us out there.

Images Courtesy of

http://www.coolwallpapershd.net/Picture/allimg/c100409/12FPH63a960-L0A.jpg

http://www.themagazine.ca/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Dexters-Lab-2.jpg

If anything has changed in the business world in the last century, it is the shift of the market from seller based to buyer based. The sentence itself doesn’t mean much of course, because the question most consumers wonder is, what does that mean? What is meant by seller based or buyer based? To answer that, I will provide a little personal anecdote, of a recent experience shopping at a LV store. Louis Vuitton today is one of the most well-known luxury goods manufacturers. It offers products anywhere from female hand bags to male handkerchiefs, and sometimes even children items. For all its fame and splendour however, I personally do not find the goods themselves to be that outstanding.

           To think it charges $3500 for a jewelry box that without the LV sign I wouldn’t even consider buying for $35, LV did a very good job over the past 100 years promoting its brand from a simple, leather goods shop to the global visionary of luxury it is today. What amazes me even more is that even though I am fully aware that its products aren’t worth nearly as much as in terms of the quality, I am still willing to pay for them. This is the power of value-based marketing. Compared to 100 years ago LV today understands what its customers want. It understands that as a luxury brand its products’ values aren’t really in the products themselves but the brand. People purchase LV not for the qualities but its association with elegance and finesse, and so LV focuses just on that. An aura of classiness permeates every corner of an LV store, creating an atmosphere that elevates every item LV has to put on the shelf making every otherwise insignificant object suddenly all having its own personas. And as for the type of customers who do visit the shop, that’s exactly how they like it. A lesson learned from LV’s success story? Offer what the customers perceive as the greatest in value, even if it’s abstract as something like atmosphere.

Image Courtesy of

http://supamade09.deviantart.com/art/Iphone-4-LV-640×960-178802106

and myself

“Congratulations! You’ve won a trip to the Bahamas for two for seven nights! All you have to do is to fill the the survey.” “Congratulations on finishing your survey, you are now eligible to complete our online survey to win a trip for two to the Bahamas! We thank you for your participation!”

I don’t think I’m the only one who has received a call like this, and I also don’t think I’m the only one foolish enough (or curious depending on interpretation) to have completed it. The temptation of winning a free trip to the Bahamas is more than just appealing, especially given I’ve done absolutely nothing to win it. Unfortunately, that is precisely how these scammers are out to get you. When you first receive the phone call, you tend to think that even if its just a possibility to win a cruise, what do I have to lose? That train of thought continues on as you are flooded with more and more questions, eventually reaching the point where you are asked to provide your credit card information. Now some maybe wondering, well its an obvious scam since you are asked to give personal information to a complete stranger, how can anyone actually fall for that? How? After almost an hour of badgering, most people tend to simply give up! Some may even start packing for the cruise already, all to only find out weeks later that somebody overcharged their credit cards in a Mexican resort (presumably got there with a legitimate travel agency).

Yes, these kind of tricks are played everywhere in the world, but for any one survey that is a scam, there are at least five that actually want to gather user information for one purpose of the other. These however small amounts of fake surveys destroyed the entire society’s confidence in phone surveying, and myself once involved in the business, I absolutely despise such an act.

Images courtesy of:

http://www.abbotsfordtoday.ca/whats-up-with-that-whos-paying-for-the-phone-survey-and-why-is-it-being-done/

http://www.travelperch.ca/tag/cruise-travel/

Advertising has long been a key determinant in the performance of a company. Although much public attention has been placed on the qualities of the products (services) many firms manufacture (provide), little have been focused on the marketing aspects of these products and services. Yet, it is often these overlooked factors that present the greatest of dilemmas in the business world. Comparison marketing, the act of directly placing your products (services) against your competitors’, is just one of the many marketing dilemmas we as consumers face on a daily basis.

Ryanair, the low cost airline that for the past 10 years has been putting other European carriers out of business one by one, has also been linked with various lawsuits regarding its highly aggressive, almost predatory marketing style. What’s especially offensive about Ryanair’s ads, however, is that instead of targeting the generic industry like other firms (e.g, a statement dictating it is cheaper than most other competitors), it picks specific airlines and assails (the use of the term completely justified in this situation). To rub salt to wounds, many of Ryanair’s attacks are directed simply at the airlines themselves as opposed to the practices of those airlines. According to Ryanair, such absolutely abhorrent marketing practice in fact attributed to its success, appealing to potential customers as being “humorous”.

Whether such marketing practice should be allowed or not depends on the respective government’s decisions, but from an ethics point of view i that should be banned unanimously across the globe. When a person applies for a job, he may statet he is in fact better than average, but in no way shape or form will he claim he is in particular better than candidate XYZ. Why shouldn’t the same standard be applied to industry then?

Reference:

http://career-advice.monster.com/in-the-office/workplace-issues/ethics-in-marketing/article.aspx

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3456423.stm

http://www.moreniche.com/guidance/support-articles/comparison-marketing

Image Courtesy of:

http://visual.ly/road-online-marketing-success-comparison-between-seo-and-yellow-pages

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ryanair_B737_Altenburg-Nobitz_02.JPG

If asked, just about anyone will give a resounding, unequivocal answer of, yes. Absolutely, when education holds the key to success, what better weapon can one arm himself than with knowledge. Schooling seems like the best choice, as afterall, it combines learning and practical application perfectly in a risk free environment. But it would appear that as time moves on, post-secondary educational institutes have become more student-catering, grand-scale day cares then places of learning and culture. Student seeking a more “liberal” education are increasingly learning less about subjects that pertain to practical uses and increasingly on vague, general knowledge that can be learnt simply from reading books (or by just breathing and living). Afterall, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg never finished their schooling, and succeeded precisely because they dropped out.

How true is this notion? Complete fallacy. The fact that subjects in schools seem to become increasingly easier do not mean indicate the drop in the quality of post-secondary education, but rather the inceased quality of the student universities are receiving. Back when a research essay required students to browse tediously through the library, of course the quality could not be matched against today’s when students can access just about every available source just about anytime, anywhere. People like Steve Jobs could succeed regardless of dropping out or not, but for the many million of others, their university degrees built the foundation for their success.

Images courtesy of http://www.grad.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/imagecache/promotion/front_page_promotions/yourfuture-applynow.jpg and http://images.psxextreme.com/wallpapers/ps3/ultimate_technology_1110.jpg, in order of precedence.

Link:https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

While I certainly agree with Mr. Todd on the point that marketing is in indeed a valid strategy that more or less fools the eyes of the general consumers, I tend to question the notion that the quality of that marketed product itself sometimes isn’t always better. For one, if Lamborghini didn’t establish a name for itself as a manufacturer of high quality, luxury cars, then no matter how flamboyant its advertisements are, its products would fail miserably. Precisely because Lamborghini’s delicate position as a producer of top-end, sporting vehicles, its products would meet the niche demands regardless of quality.

In addition, the wine-tasting methodology of enforcing the point that the difference between two products is often only advertisement fails to take into the account of the experts’ opinions. To an ordinary person, who neither has knowledge or is trained in the art, a bottle of $20 cheap local wine probably doesn’t differ much in taste from a Bordeaux Chateau Margaux. However, any half-decent wine connoisseur will give an in-depth explanation of why the Chateau Margaux is much better. Is the difference worth the extra $580? Maybe not, but it certainly goes to show that it is not just marketing that separates the two products.

Images courtesy of http://www.thesupercars.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/lamborghini-reventon-on-the-road.jpg, and http://winery.synthasite.com/resources/chateau_margaux.jpg?timestamp=1287413352880, in order of precedence.

Link: http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/11/britain-and-eu-0

The British, according to the post, is back to actively seeking core European allies using the euro in the hopes of re-establishing itself as a credible European member, and seeks to engage more actively in European affairs despite its traditional stance as, more or less, a nation on its own.

While given the current financial crisis in Europe, the opportunities and concerns British investors saw no doubt prompted Prime Minister Cameron to embrace Brussels with a warmer attitude, just how sincere are the British? For a nation that has always wondered on its own, separated from the rest by the North Sea, it has long been thought that the UK’s opinion towards the euro is as cold as water that separates it from Europe. But will this attitude change amidst the financial turmoil on the main continent?

For now, the UK isn’t too worried, or at least shouldn’t be. Its own currency, the pound sterling, is still quite stable, and British banks didn’t invest as much into Greek and Italian bonds as their French counterparts. However, as a member of the EU, the ever worsening situation would certainly one day drag Great Britain down, along with its splendid isolation, if the British remain nonchalant in the times to come.

Images courtesy of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/New_British_Coinage_2008.jpg  and http://amhist.ist.unomaha.edu/module_files/Isolationism.JPG, in order of precedence.

When it comes to video gaming, few have not heard of Blizzard Entertainment. In particular regards to the fantasy genre, Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft” practically revolutionized the industry. And just like in any game where the player would battle monsters in order to grow, Blizzard, too, grew from a little known company in the silicon valley to the goliath it is today.

In 1991, Michael Morhaime, along with his two close friends, joined up to form the Silicon and Synapse, a small firm making game ports for other companies. The small company struggled for survival, and did not make a name for itself until a whole three years after, when the company’s Warcraft: Orcs vs Humans, became a great hit. From then on, Blizzard would keep on releasing other world renowed titles, inclduing Starcraft, Diablo, and of course, World of Warcraft.

What made the company so successful? Its unconventional ideology. Back in the era when the very term “Orc” was associated with viciousness and savagery, Blizzard would come to devote an entire series dedicated to its leader, and portraying the humans as the inhumane brutes. This approach not only offered diversity to the many players, but also would lay the path for future games where playing the bad guys became the norm.

Images courtesy of http://www.savingcontent.com/wp-content/uploads/blizzard-entertainment-logo-2.jpg and http://wallpapers.free-review.net/18__Blood_Elves.htm, in order of precedence.