maggielo

Taking Marketing Management taught by Professor Rui Silva has been life changing. Not only did I gain a different perspective of marketing other than promotion and advertisements, but I also learned the importance of understanding every situation and scenario into its own perspective that is very applicable to everyday life. Through many real-life stories and actively analyzing a company’s marketing strategies throughout the term, I realize that I am also actively thinking more critical to understand companies at a deeper level. Although the entire course will be very memorable, one big contributor would be the people, especially the ones in my WestJet Project team.

Group projects were always daunting for me because the amount of coordination and effort required, but I was always looking forward to this team’s meeting. After the first few meetings, it didn’t feel like a “team meeting” any more as it felt more like 6 friends catching up—of course catching up on our WestJet project. Because our team worked so well together, I had developed a strong attachment and dedication to the team. We started to have lunches and dinner together as our “team-meetings” for the sake of simply meeting up!

Our team is definitely the best team that I’ve ever worked with. I cannot count how many times we had team meetings, but it was practically before and after every lecture. Though it may seem counterproductive and inefficient, we had the opportunity to develop strong relationships with each other. Because we are all from different faculties and background, every member contributed equally with our different expertise, which allowed us to work productively. All of us were extremely motivated to contribute ideas and were all prepared at every stage of our project that allowed us to complete our projects days before the deadline. The one aspect I think we slightly lacked and definitely struggled with was the artsy-outside-the-box sort of person whom would’ve helped us spike more creativity.

The first and second assignments were the most challenging parts for me because I did not understand the whole “marketing” thing. Though there were some challenges on assignment 3 as well, our project nearly took off on its own after the initial decision-making sessions. As I was coming in with a bit video production experience, it was easy for me to visualize the importance of each production process: storyboarding, scripting, detailed scheduling for each scene and location, filming and editing processes. However, I had struggled with the ability to clearly communicating my thought process to my team. In this situation, I should have communicated in a different method to explain myself more clearly.

Through this amazing marketing journey with my 5 new friends, I have learned some key team success factors: develop strong relationships within the team that fosters team motivation and dedication, clear communication and frequent follow-ups so that we can identify issues early, and stay organized to meet timelines that eliminates stress!

Randall Grahm, founder of Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz California, has revolutionized the wine industry since its startup in 1983. Pearlyn Lim of COMM 465 Marketing Management Blog writes that he “single-handedly deconstructed the ‘pretentious’ and complicated image of wine consumption”.

Grahm had a philosophy of high value of inexpensive wine that embraces the idea that great wine is a product of all natural environments, including the soil, climate, weather and of course, the grape quality. He is an innovator, in which he transformed his philosophy and values into a new product that made his business a success.

He did not follow the conventional US varietal wine products, which was what North Americans actually preferred. Although there was demand for varietal wines, he challenged consumers preferences and created an unsought product of wine blends that had a mix of variety of “ugly duckling grape varietals”.

Of course, without the marketing strategies, the wine would fail remarkably. Because the perception of wine drinking in 1980s were viewed as a product for the wealthy, Pearlyn mentioned that Grahm invented “creative and humorous wine labels…[that] made wine more approachable and accessible to the average everyday American”. Grahm sought a segment in the market that was not yet targeted. He used his strengths and expertise in wine knowledge to capitalize on the opportunity of creating accessibility, for an average income earner, to experience high-value wine at affordable prices.

In comparison with Bonny Doon’s Website and Mission Hill Family Estate Winery, Bonny Doon has fun and creative  drawing-like artwork, which demonstrates the company’s fun and innovative cultural values. The webpage is focused more of their creativity and wine selections, as well as the accessibility of wine through dinner/tour events and their club. Mission Hill Family Estate, on the other hand, is more people oriented as they have individual biographies of the executives.

The comparison illustrates how Bonny Doon Vineyard uses marketing strategy to differentiate itself from traditional wineries. As a result of Grahm’s values and philosophy, he has created demand for inexpensive wine that consumers had never tried to seek for and positioned himself cleverly to remove the pretentiousness of wine drinking and resulted in the fastest growing wineries in 1990s.

PANDORA is a unique jewellery brand that allows customers, mainly women, to design their own bracelet. It had started as a jewellery importing company to manufacturing, designing and distributing its products globally!

PANDORA is approaching new markets by firstly expanding their existing retail outlets in well established markets. This way, they could focus more on increasing sales through franchises and directly operated retails stores. Secondly, they intend to use internet to promote and retain customers through channels of PANDORA Club and Facebook page. Lastly, they plan to develop an online sales platform to further maximize consumer reach and generate sales. All of these marketing strategies will increase brand awareness and hope to create brand loyalty.

The industry of jewellery making has been quite saturated, which has provided the opportunity to change the purpose of wearing jewellery. PANDORA certainly stands by their vision and mission statements since 1982, which has guided them in their success to produce affordable luxury value and high quality jewellery to become the world’s most recognized jewellery brand. Today, PANDORA is present in over 70 countries.

From a business perspective, it is successful in that they could mass produce their collections and products, and pushes the customization down to the consumer. This way, it breaks down the entire value of the bracelet accessory value into smaller segments that are personalized and individualized. PANDORA is very successful in fostering and marketing with self-expression as well as allowing women to build a story of their experiences through jewellery.

The current Essence Collection markets to your inner values and how you choose to express yourself. The bracelet and charms captivates self-expression with jewellery to a different level. The charms are named after characteristics of human being — Love, Courage, Hope, Faith, Honesty, Wellness, Joy..etc. These charms strives to capture the inner value of the individual and not one bracelet would look the same as each woman is unique. The concept of this collection is for women to “Express the essence of you”.

Reference:

http://pandoragroup.com/About-Pandora/Business-Strategy

The traditional method of marketing through campaigns and product promotion are becoming less influential to consumers buying behaviour. Michael Brenner on B2B Marketing Insider blog suggests content marketing will be crucial for effective marketing strategies at lower costs.

Content marketing is the collection of speakers from both consumers and employees of the company. These individuals could create blogs to represent the company by telling stories to engage the audience. The article content could speak directly to a targeted audience by sharing, informing and educating them on useful information. Marketing should become more customer-centric which focuses on analyzing customer’s behavior, rather than product-centric that focuses on the features of the product. Customer-centric methods provides greater opportunities to have a clear and concise targeted consumer that contains the possibilities to build loyalty programs, trust and develop offers tailored to each customer, which ultimately influences the sales of the company.

Canadian consumers are changing the way their purchase decisions are made. Andres Markwart on Vancitybuzz states that almost 50% of consumers would conduct an online search before purchasing, and 75% would be influenced by online ratings and reviews. The ease of accessibility to online content has made consumers to turn towards other consumers prior to making a purchase than towards a sales associate/expert of the product. The internet and the mobile devices are great tools for companies to develop user-friendly mobile applications, websites and write short daily articles that shares useful information, which will all lead to value-added experiences for the potential consumers.

To illustrate, Yyoga has differentiated themselves from many other yoga studios with their user-friendly, simple yet has many practical functions on their mobile website. Users could easily check schedules for locations, make reservations, purchase memberships and read their weekly blogs posts. All of these functions allow customers to be fully informed of the products and services offered and there are no hidden surprises that customers would face. The blog posts does not directly sell you their products, but they provide ideas and guidance to building confidence in your yoga practice, as well as how you can make your daily life a bit more balanced. The presence of Yyoga creates through their websites and mobile platforms, has created a large value to customers and the business itself; not only in terms of sales and profits, but also the community that motivates individuals through yoga challenges (30-day Challenge) and guides them on how to feel and think positively about themselves.

There is a growing trend of pre-sale condos in 2013. The speed and volume of developments around False Creek are almost irrational! Not only are urban developments are growing in Vancouver, it is expanding into Surrey, Coquitlam, Port Moody, as well as Burnaby.

These condos are highly attractive to many young adults between mid 20’s to late 30’s as they begin to have a bit more savings as they begin to work. Many pre-sale condos emphasize that you are not only buying a home, but also a lifestyle. The selling point of the majority of the condos are the future community development, in which differentiates one location over another. For example, Station Square in Burnaby has development plans for the next 10 years that include 5 towers ranging from 35 – 57 stories (Chow, 2012). The first 2 floors will be for commercial and retails space and are predicting that there will be at least one grocery store, many restaurants, cafes and shops along McKay and Silver Avenue. Public transportation is also very accessible, and the entire area will be very lively thanks to the popular Metropolis at Metrotown. If a potential buyer values this kind of community environment, they would much more likely prefer this than to a condo in the suburbs.

I think using community lifestyle to market these condos is very successful in that it not only offers lifestyle convenience, but also the sense of belonging to a growing and connected community.

Interested consumers would sign up for their mailing list, attend the pre-sale showrooms and speak with sales agent and all would enhance their decision purchasing now or in the future. Sales agents would suggest the consumer to speak with their designated financial representatives to view the options of mortgage rates and financing. The consumers who actually take the time to go through these actions are more likely to be committed to the purchase.

When I visited the showroom for the second time, the sales agent told me the first phase of Station Square sold out in a couple of days. The scarcity of these condo units and the perception that condo prices might rise, makes me feel ever more eager to know about the launch of the second phase! Sadly, I am financially incapable of even putting down a small portion of the down payment.

Reference
Chow, Wanda. (2012, October 18) Burnaby’s Station Square begins major transformation. Burnaby Newsleader. Retreived from http://www.burnabynewsleader.com/news/175297501.html

What defines a person as cool and attractive? A&F only targets their clothing to the cool and popular teenagers in school that have great attitude and lots of friends. Apparently, Mike Jeffries’, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, definition of cool and good-looking does not include XL or XXL sizes for women, but they do exist for men due to their potential muscular body structure. Jeffries admitted at an interview in 2006 with Salon that they are exclusionary to attractive-good-looking consumers and does not want other types of market wearing their brand.

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

This commercial demonstrates the kind of lifestyle that defines you as “cool and popular”, including activities such as beaches, YOLO (You Only Live Once), parties and having lots of similar types of friends.

Ultimately, as a customer of A&F, one should have this kind of lifestyle in order to wear this brand since the products are designed to fit for only this category of people as well as the activities they participate in. Indeed, A&F has a very clear targeted audience to market their brand; however, it is a very narrow audience that many consumers are turning away from their products because of their brand image. Not only are the sales of A&F declining, but they are also projecting a negative perception of their image because of the limited diversity it offers, such as clothing sizes and diversity of their models. Their marketing strategy is unethical because it is deceives and hurts the self-esteem of other adolescents who don’t necessarily identify themselves with the models that A&F portrays. It is like telling kids that they aren’t beautiful enough.

Jeffries told the Business Insider that “He doesn’t want his core customers to see people who aren’t as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they’re one of the ‘cool kids.'” The idea of whose hot and whose cool is a very subjective measure that is dependent of beholder, not Jeffries. It is unfair for A&F to classify individuals, then further exclude the types of people who should be allowed to wear the brand.