I agree that the marketing strategy used by Michael Kors is a very well thought one, raising a key social issue such as world hunger to contribute back to the society by donating $25 for every watch they sell seems like a good way of supporting such causes. But I personally think that doing so is unethical, as it looks like they are using the cause to boost their sale and position themselves as a company with good corporate citizenship. So the question that should be addressed is: Are customers buying the products to support a good cause or to satisfy their own needs? I feel like involving their customers in this kind of method of contribution might give them very mixed up feeling as it is hard to clearly see whether the company is trying to increase it’s sales or help out with the cause. On top of that, they also expect their customers to upload pictures on social medias such as Facebook but I don’t see how that is related to the cause, that has to do more with the company advertising through this cause. Also, they advertise the watches as a limited edition, which relates back to the scarcity principle that we learnt in class which says that what we can’t get is always better. The fact that this product is available in a limited number attracts even more people.Therefore this gives an advantage to the firm and makes it look like  it is related to the firm’s profit and less with the cause. I believe that tying donation to specific products could be seen negatively as it is hard to define the line between helping the casue and increasing the company profit. Instead to show that they are dedicated in good corporate citizenship they should tie their contribution to their own profit.

http://www.destinationkors.com/watch-hunger-st

Nescafé is a European brand coffee that has gained its market share worldwide over the years. They have made many commercials all over the world in order to sell their products. In many of their commercials, we notice that they value the cultural differences. But I am interested in looking at two commercials in particular; one that is made in Malaysia and another one in Canada. Both commercial cater to customers in the two different countries The Malaysian version focuses on emotional appeal to make it attractive to the customers. They emphasize in the perfect family setting and the perfect mother daughter relationship thus family values plays an important role in this commercial. Whereas the Canadian version portrays a young adult who lives by himself, thus it highlights the independent life of this adult rather than the family aspect of it. They are trying to target young people by showing the reality of a typical grown-up house and they also are making it more appealing to them as that they can easily relate to it. So knowing the values and the beliefs of the country helps the advertisers to market it better. Also, by using all these tactics, the company was able to advertise their product in different country just by altering the targeted group of customers and reaching out to them by identifying their specific values. This relates to the idea of country culture we studied in class, the company was able to identify the subtle aspect of culture which is most of the time the trickiest. By coming up with different commercials in Malaysia and North America, they were able to target customers across countries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb4pHAgMUqs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl7L8yxsZQM