Mark Sha's Blog

Mark J Miller of BrandChannel wrote an article called “Sony May Reap the Benefits of Microsoft’s Broad Xbox One Intentions,” which highlighted the rivalry within the console video game market between Sony and Microsoft that has been established over the last decade. While Nintendo and its Wii has taken a different value proposition and target consumer segment, the Xbox and PlayStation has still gone head to head with their newest products announced in the 2013 E3 Conference.

Miller points out a valid point about how the PS4 has seemingly been established as the market leader in an intensive market. As XBOX has recently been marketed as a home-entertainment console encompassing the entire living room experience, the PS4 has stuck to its heavy focus on gaming.

I believe that PS4 has already made itself the front runner because of this; buyers want the product for its games, there are more efficient products on the market such as Smart TVs for entertainment nowadays. Sony has priced the PS4 strategically cheaper than the Xbox One, which was not the case a few years back when the Xbox 360 had established higher value and popularity than the substantially higher-priced PS3. In addition, they were able to successfully run logistics and distribution one week ahead of the Xbox’s release date and henceforth took the news with their first mover advantage coming out of the first 24 hours with over 1 million consoles sold. Furthermore, Sony’s prime product has been able to maintain its limelight moments due to their better analysis of their consumers’ desires from their product and its intangible features. The Xbox removed backwards compatibility from its system and also initiated a new method of prevent game sharing or using a single game on multiple consoles, which was taken extremely poorly by the general audience when the PS4 had upgraded its PSNetwork features and overall smoothness of its interface and gameplay.

Alyssa Leung’s blog post “Now Accept Cash, Credit, and… Squats?” comments on an article from AdFreak that showed guerrilla marketing that the Moscow Olympic Committee launched that would allow people to do a certain number of squats in exchange for a subway ticket, promoting healthy lifestyle and proactivity to increase publicity for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Alyssa points out how it was very clever that they had integrated multiple aspects of social media, which two thirds of the world currently in some way or form take part in using, to make convenient ways of marketing the olympics. It appears that the Russians have taken a book out of their Western rivals in North America by creative such a campaign that is quite rare and untraditional.

Although this is such beneficial idea to society and helped established a more positive branding of Russia to prospective foreigners, many of which still possess very stereotypical war-like assumptions, I question to what extent this is actually legitimate. It is one thing to admire a great idea and a creative campaign, but how effective was this project? The concentration of people who use the subway in Moscow is quite high in density, it would be a very costly project in a time when they are hoping to bring in higher profit margins by marketing the hometown advantage of the olympics. The fact that they went with this initiative means that they must have a positive result when analyzing the cost-benefit and ultimately realizing that most people will likely continue with their busy days rather than spending the time to stop and do 30 squats to receive 30 rubles worth of value. Realistically I am assuming this is one of those things people will stop and stare, smile, and continue with their lives rather than actually taking the time to stop and take part.

“I can already feel the definition!” – Shake Weight 2013

Infamous infomercials have always been the greatest example of filtering in marketing. Shake Weight, which heavily promotes through above-the-line promotional advertising that cleverly plays on the fact that the motion necessary to use the product can be easily misinterpreted due to suggestive shaking.

They even use attractive women, which is evidently a very effective strategy with today’s short attention span, and contrasting individuals who need exercise to those who are already strong in the demonstrate of the product.

I think the sales pitch is quite persuasive because the product doesn’t target a certain consumer group, but rather an issue that affects most people: their physical image, laziness, and going to the gym to work out even though the product itself will in the end not provide the results that make it a valuable purchase.

Shake Weight states that the exercises are more efficient in reducing fat and increasing muscle mass than common exercises for the upper body. However the muscle groups of the experimented individuals did not exert the 60% voluntary isometric contraction necessary to increase muscle mass nor does the product provide the full range of motion to properly develop the results marketed (Yahoo, 2013).

I thought the product was promoted well due to the commercial going viral and consumer-oriented focus. The strategy focused on transactional orientation by pitching that the product is worth the money using various marketing ploys rather than developing brand loyalty and relations. I’ve also realized that this business model is ironically becoming a great example of the opposite of what academia teaches in terms of marketing concepts and ethics.

References:

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/study-shake-weights-really-173600546.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/shake-weights-dont-work-2013-10

One recent cultural trend has been the shift away from over-processed and unhealthy foods. Chipotle does a very good job in trying to differentiate themselves from other fast-food names such as McDonald’s and Burger King by stating their points of difference. Recently Chipotle released a new promotional piece, “Scarecrow,” that focused on visual animations to direct a message to viewers rather than mass communication channel.

I really enjoyed the video as it was not only creative and sent a message across without words, it established Chipotle’s stance against big companies and abusive use of animals in processing, positioned themselves as the smaller business with true intentions against the ‘big bad business;’ it justifies its own ethical stance and corporate social responsibility on some of the most controversial and alarming trends within the industry.

Chipotle further differentiates themselves from other competitors and substitutes that use promotional pieces such as celebrity endorsements especially on television through this creative strategy. This video they released on their social media channels not only saves them the costs of above-the-line promotions such as TV commercials, billboards, but it also plays on another popular trend in business, social media and viral content. This video has reached the 6 million views on YouTube and over 300,000 shares on Facebook and similar social media channels. I would say it is well on its way to be considered one of the top examples of marketing.

Through the video, Chipotle even indirectly positions themselves as the right alternative; their logo of a red pepper is used by the Scarecrow when the melancholy dark atmosphere turns bright just as the Scarecrow picks up the pepper and decides to start a new food business that just so happens to be similar foods served at Chipotle.

Lately I’ve been eating Kraft Dinner. KD is often considered an example of an inferior good in my Econ 101 lectures. However, my personally opinion is that it is amazing food for its price; I would buy it regardless if I was wealthier. Why is this recognition associated with KD? Why is KD often associated as a food for children? Because of branding.

 We talked about Marketing in class this year and many aspects of it considers the branding and value of a product based on the advertising and marketing. I realized that their marketing strategy has positioned their brand most likely using tools such as value proposition and brand positioning that we learned in class to establish their market segmentation focused towards both young children and immigrants (Chapman). Although this niche targeting strategy invests into advertisements geared towards these domestic groups, they have to clear the stigma of the brand recognition to stay profitable outside of Canada according to the New York Times article.

 Sources:

1. Chapman, Sasha (September 2012). “Manufacturing Taste”. The Walrus. Retrieved September 01, 2012. http://walrusmagazine.com/printerFriendly.php?ref=2012.09-food-manufacturing-taste.

2. Stuart, Elliot (May 26, 2010). “Kraft Hopes to Encourage Adults to Revert to a Childhood Favorite”. The New York Times. Retrieved 28 May 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/business/media/27adco.html?_r=0.

Earlier in this course, we discussed CSR. Corporate Social Responsibility underlines the business ethics and how firms contribute to society–whether they are impacting society or adding value. In the current business world there is clear evidence that proves that eco-friendly and socially responsible businesses have higher profitability ceilings due to consumer reaction. The Forbes article by Richard Levick indicates that:

“More than half the consumers surveyed by Havas want to reward responsible companies by buying their products. 53% would even pay a 10% premium for those products” (Forbes, 2).

This article also highlights the transition into established CSR programs such as green initiatives, health and anti-hunger plans, and sustainability are investments that somehow reach consumer needs due to the contribution firms are bringing to the world. To me, it appears that CSR is seemingly the act of companies being environmental and sustainable according to the Maclean’s article. However, CSR in “today’s model [is] based on impact,…value-creating,…[and to] provide the tools with which society can improve itself” (Forbes, 2). These quotations indicate that the success of Steve Jobs or even Nike+ is that their products are adding value and making our lives more efficient not necessarily their environmental contributions or cutting costs in a way that consumers support.

Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardlevick/2012/01/11/corporate-social-responsibility-for-profit/

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/06/09/better-business/

Throughout the second half of Comm 101, it was imminent that two main ideas that were constantly emphasized were business ethics and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is an interesting topic as it broadly covers an amalgamation of personal interests and business skills. From class, we have heard from Janice Cheam’s Energyaware, Tom Dobrzanski‘s Vertical Studios and band The Zolas, and the Urthecast space camera among businesses such as Lululemon that were all started due to self-interests and market opportunities.

As I continue on with my journey through Sauder, I believe that there will eventually be more and more stories of young undergraduate entrepreneurs, such as Brian Wong’s Kiip. I have enjoyed hearing these personal testimonies from individuals and I believe that for myself, I took from this experience the message to continue with my passions, to take advantage of my opportunities, and apply business knowledge.

One significant aspect of entrepreneurship that is seemingly overshadowed by the success and innovation of entrepreneurs is the amount of sweat equity and time they put into the research and development stages in the process of founding and starting up their company. For many of these ventures, start up costs are also a great issue.

Walmart has currently chosen to go digital before the big holiday shopping surge begins. Walmart, known for a strong supply-chain management, could potentially create more efficient inventory management and increase product selling capability regardless of distribution channels. In class, we classified supply chain management as the role of operations in a supply chain is: get the right product to the right place at the right time in the right amounts.

I believe this is an incredibly smart investment as competitive markets transition more into digital mobility. The most significant gain from this decision is that it makes their chain of distribution more efficient and inter-connected. This application helps their market research on consumer behavior and thus makes their forecasts more accurate. Furthermore, it even helps cut inventory costs due to less uncertainty and better use of Just In Time distribution. Walmart realized they had “140 million weekly shoppers in the US. That is Internet scale to the offline world” and found the market opportunity to use technology to their advantage (Sloan, CNet). This application helps consumers get what they want, while helping management quantize correctly to maximize profits, which defines effective supply chain operations and  management according to our Comm 101 class.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57548785-94/how-walmart-is-going-all-out-with-mobile/