Category: Comm101

Recently, EU banned drink producers from claiming that water could prevent dehydration. It is now illegal for bottled water manufacturers to make such a claim; they face jail time if they are to defy the EU.

The oddity of this ruling aside, this could impact drink manufacturers greatly.

Without this simple, widely accepted point of parity to market, producers of bottled water must now find other ways to promote their product. They may have to rely on their established brand image, or other special points of differentiation. However, there is a fundamental problem with this: water is a commodity product that is, in all respect, more or less the same thing regardless of who produces it. Without being able to advertise it’s ability to prevent dehydration, the main reason for consumers to purchase water, they are left with very little to work with. If they cannot claim the most basic function of bottled water, what is there left to market?

Creativity is therefore crucial to overcoming this barrier. Existing companies may find it easier to build upon their existing brand image, but new entrants could find it difficult to establish themselves without this point of parity.

The importance of the Internet today is unmistakable. With the widespread use of social media, information is transferred from user to user incredibly fast. This, of course, means that businesses also have to keep a close eye on what people are saying about their company online, as a bad reputation could spread very fast, and it will, in turn, show dramatically in the sales.

As mentioned in the blog Veribatim, Internet  is able to give a company an immense amount of exposure over a short period of time, whether good or bad. With the world observing companies with scrutiny on the web, firms are finding that there is more and more pressure to make ethical choices that boost the company’s image. As beneficial it is to have publicity on the Internet (ex. viral marketing), there’s no denying the damage negative exposure does. A brand’s position and image, carefully established, could fall to ruin in an instant if things slip online. Take the example of Brian King from the blog above, for example. Unsatisfied customers could sabotage your brand’s careful facade, and online, users tend to believe first-hand accounts more so than what the company puts out.

Is this a vegetable? Congress thinks it is.

Congress recently ruled that pizza could be classified as a vegetable due to the amount of tomato sauce used in the food, despite the lack of nutritional value the sauce contains. Apparently, this is a way of cutting costs for the US government, as they do not have to spend as much on healthier  food in school lunches.

What could this mean for parents and businesses, though?

Parents concerned for the health of their children could shift towards purchasing healthier food for their children as they realize the lack of nutrition in school lunches, but producers of frozen pizza and industries associated from this will benefit regardless. Schools are likely to shift towards pizza and purchase it more heavily, as the popular food now satisfies the new health regulations.

As good as this is for the pizza industry and current government budgets, encouraging food like this will promote unhealthy lifestyles for the children in the long run, defeating the purpose of health regulations.  It’s a sacrifice of short term and long term goals, and also a sacrifice of ethical choices for a money-driven decision.

There’s no denying the impact the Internet has on the world. With the emergence of popular networking sites, a large portion of a business’ marketing efforts are being focused towards the Internet. However, these methods get repetitive, and users quickly get desensitized by the flood of advertisements online. Creativity and innovation are now required to capture the attention of consumers. With the ease of information sharing online, news of a popular advertisement will quickly spread and snowball, generating an immense amount of publicity.

Take Dane’s post on the Old Spice guy. The commercial’s fresh humour generated massive publicity, doubling their sales and gaining them an international audience. Clearly, viral marketing is highly successful, but it is also a “hit or miss” venture. Too often, viral marketing attempts make the company look like they’re trying too hard, and it is always difficult to predict how consumers will respond.

Another option is hiring already-popular Internet idols to market their ideas, using their fame to boost their popularity. This is much less riskier, while also guaranteeing some degree of success. Companies like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola have already taken advantage of this by hiring Youtube stars MysteryGuitarMan and RhettandLink for their commercials. (below)

source: deviantart.com

Founded in 2000, DeviantART is the largest online art community. The website allows artists to share, promote, and comment on artwork that they have created. By building on the concept of social networking that had just started to expand in 2000 and innovating it to incorporate a specific, common interest for users (that is, art), DeviantART has attracted millions of artists and art enthusiasts to their website. The community attracts “over 100,000 daily uploads of original art works ranging from traditional media…to digital art, pixel art, films…”

DeviantART has expanded rapidly ever since its creation 11 years ago. Boasting over 19 million registered members (or “deviants,” as they are called), DeviantART has an estimated net worth of several million, generated from advertising, membership and merchandise. In recent years, the company has embraced a variety of changes to their website to keep it up-to-date and innovative. The ability to imbed twitter, share on Facebook, submit multiple artwork together, create online portfolios, and critique other deviants’ artwork is just some of the fresh new additions to the website. The way DeviantART is tailored to meet the interests of artists is one of the main reasons that make the website so attractive, and in turn, successful.

Above: Pictures after the earthquake and after six months of clean up efforts.

Japan suffered huge damages to its  infrastructure after the eathquake and tsunami hit back in March. The nuclear crisis has also left the country crippled, and the instability of Japan’s condition has turned away many visitors to the country. However, as Ranbor mentioned here on his blog, tourism is seeing a lift, giving light to Japan’s quick recovery.

Although I concur with Ranbor in that Japan will still face many challenges, I must disagree with his thoughts on the degree of damage inflicted on the economy. True, factors such as an aging workforce and the social welfare system are important issues in Japan, but they are nonetheless already existing issues. I think the earthquake actually helped this ailing economy.

Personally, I think that the disaster in Japan has actually created more jobs; just think, how is Japan going to repair its infrastructure now? Maybe they will take this chance to update their roads and buildings. I think that the earthquake will aid, rather than harm, the Japanese economy in the long run.

3M has recently developed a new film that is able to convert windows into transparent solar panels. The film, which converts only 20% of the electricity that would be generated from a regular solar panel, is relatively easy to install. Although the film is not as efficient, the price is expected to be only about half as much as the traditional solar panels. The product is expected to be on the market as soon as next year.

Nowadays, as people become more and more aware about environmental issues, alternative energy sources, such as solar power, are quickly becoming popular. The newly developed film could prove to be very successful. Not only does it cater towards a growing market, but it is also one of the first power generators that allows for visibility in addition to power.

Despite the fact that it is not as efficient as traditional solar panels, it has all the points of parity an alternate power source has (it generates energy with relatively little emissions). What sets it aside is that fact that the film does not take up space or obstruct visibility, and is also relatively cheap and easy to install.

As food consumption steadily increases around the world, so does world obesity rates. The health risks that obesity poses are what probably caused the Danish government to impose a “fat tax” on food high in saturated fat. Food containing more than 2.3% saturated fat are subject to a large tax at the expense of the Danish people.

Although the Danish government is acting out of goodwill to their people, the heavy tax only caused the Danish to hoard what they can and to possibly turn to alternate suppliers abroad, greatly hurting local businesses.

As with the Russian vodka problem, government intervention is not necessarily the most beneficial solution. By attempting to limit the population’s intake of these goods, they not only damage the local economy, but the people’s favour as well.

The choice to purchase “bad” food or not is entirely up to the consumer. Instead of merely raising prices to discourage people from purchasing items that have already become an essential part of their lifestyles, the Danish government should focus their efforts instead on health awareness campaigns.

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Valve, the video game company that created the popular Portal series, recently launched a campaign promoting Portal as an educational tool in classrooms. The game features portals that allow players to travel through each stage and solve a series of puzzles. As part of the promotion, Portal was available for free on PC and Mac for a short period of time.

However, in order to play Portal, users must be part of Valve’s Steam platform. Although Steam itself is free, users must pay to play most of the games on Steam. By downloading Steam to play Portal, Valve may be able to gain more users to purchase their other games.

In addition, by promoting Portal as an educational game, Valve gives parents and educators a positive view towards their game, not to mention that classrooms purchase in larger quantities than individuals.

Portal, released in 2007, was immensely popular, gaining a sequel, Portal 2, which was released earlier this year. Although Valve may lose some sales in Portal, the excitement generated from this short promotion will travel. I believe that as interest for the Portal series grows, so will sales of Portal 2.

After the devastating BP oil spill and the horrifying effects it had on the environment became ever so evident, offshore drilling has been heavily scrutinized by officials. Recently, several companies focussed their attentions in the oil available in Canadian Arctic waters and held a conference in Inuvik, a small town in the Northwest Territories located in an area that could possibly be affected by the drilling.

source: theglobeandmail.com

Representatives from several oil companies reassured both the locals and officials from the National Energy Board that they would prevent and take care of any accidents. However, the local area agreements are unclear on the degree of liability they are able to hold these companies under.

Despite their promises to take responsibility for any incidents that may occur, oil companies such as Imperial Oil Ltd. are against giving any financial guarantee for spill-related costs.

Should oil companies take responsibility for the risks the industry poses to the environment and the surrounding communities? Especially after the BP spill, oil companies must weigh the importance of both money and environment before any decisions are made.

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