My Idea My Opinion

When searching with Google, what we normally do is just type in the keyword and press the “Search” button, or hit the “enter”. But actually, there’s a “I’m feeling lucky” button to the right of the “Search”. When we press this button, it skips the page listing multiple search results and goes directly to the first ranked page. If we are feeling lucky enough that the first ranked page is what we want, or we are just searching for fun, this feature certainly adds fun and pleasure to our search. But the question is, how often do we actually click that button, and how much are internet users aware of this function.

According to an interview with Google’s cofounder Sergey Brin, about 1 percent of  Google users go through the “I’m feeling lucky” button. And that function leads to an annual $110 million lost in revenue since users go straight to the search result and bypass all the adds on the side of the search result page.  Therefore, is this button a nice strategy for Google to reach to customers and gain customer satisfaction at the end?

This feature adds fun to users’ searching experience and retains their existing customers by attracting them to come back and use their search function more often. The 1 percent usage of this button may seem low, and many people would think this feature is pretty obsolete. However, in the long run, Google will benefit from this unique feature. Other search engines, like Baidu and Bing, don’t have this kind of buttons that skip straight to the first ranked search result. Therefore, it differentiates Google from other competitors. Also, this feature don’t cost a lot to implement, thus in the long run, this will help Google build its brand equity and establish their leading role in search engines.

I’m feeling lucky, so how about you?

Try these tricks with “I’m feeling lucky”, discover the fun! =D

As a loyal Google fan, I ‘m following Google’s news all the time. Recently I went across this blog post in BrandChannel “Google Goes Gaga for Lady Gaga“, then I found this idea terrific — Lady Gaga using Google Youtube for promotion of her new album, while Google promoting its interactive Q&A format and building its brand image.

Here’s an video of Lady Gaga introducing this new interactive feature of YouTube:

For Google, partnering with Lady Gaga not only promotes its new interactive video that can take questions and for viewers to vote on, more importantly, it helps build Google’s innovative brand image.

Lady Gaga is regarded as one of the most social-savvy pop star who enjoys extremely high popularity. With 8.9 million Twitter followers and 31 million likes of her Facebook page, she is absolutely the Queen of All Social Media. Google is gaining extraordinary attention by Lady Gaga spreading the word. Moreover, Lady Gaga walks at the frontier of fashion, and her exotic and innovative ideas never fail to catch our eyes. Being highly technology-based, Google is valued for being innovative, dynamic and user-friendly. They never lack genius ideas for innovation, which corresponds to Lady Gaga’s characteristic. People following Lady Gaga feels trendy. By building the connection between Google and Gaga, Google makes their customers feel they are actually at the frontier of the trend, they are leading the trend, and they are leading the technology.

Google going Gaga, Google pursuing innovation, Google building brand equity.

With the prevailing use of product placements in the movies and TV shows, we are being more and more aware of those brands appearing countless times in a film. Nowadays, those Big Brands, like Sony,  however, are promoting their own products instead of other brands in their movies. For example, in Abe Sauer’s blog, Sony Masters Self-Product Placement, closeups of Sony Products(such as vaio) and Sony billboards are found in the film produced by Sony Pictures.

With multiple product lines, some companies are doing self-product placements to promote their products in the films, TV shows etc. produced by themselves. In this way, they are making efficient use of their marketing budget since communication between segments in the same company is usually more effective and time and money spent searching for the best brand to carry their product placements will be saved. As a result, Sony uses self-product placements in The Smurfs and The Priest, promoting their film, product and actress at the same time, and it looks like a perfect win-win strategy.

However, this really depends on the purpose of these product placements. Using self-product placements is targeting the brand’s current market, which is market penetration method for the growth strategies. Since the Sony products are already reaching the maturity of its product life cycle, they might considering developing new segments and markets to grab more market share and add diversification to their product assortment. Therefore, if the placement is in an effort to reach and develop new segments and new markets, it would be a better idea to do product placements with other renowned brands instead of promoting in their own films and shows.

On top of that, self-product placements may not be convincing enough as their brand would certainly say this is a perfect product for they are the producer themselves. It is the company’s own word.

All in all, the company just need to think twice before stepping into self-product placements since it may not the win-win strategy as it appeared.

After reading one of my classmate’s blog about Starbucks’ new logo, I got to think that packaging really does matters for a company’s brand image and recognition.

Image Link: http://www.polkadot.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/d90e4a46265b4a3f949382332ba907d0.jpeg

Starbucks, in particular, is changing its logos whenever it experiences some big changes within its company. This time, after 40 year anniversary, Starbucks changes to a more simple and modern style of the logo using only green and white color without even the brand name “Starbucks”. As shown in the image above, this is the first time Starbucks actually abandoned mentioning the name. I wondered if this is a wise decision for Starbucks as it is a company with a very long history, and this may be losing some its tradition. However, as pointed out by Yun Wang, this change of new logo will get people talking about Starbucks, thus leading to increased brand awareness. This might be a strategy for developing its new market, but I still prefer the old 1992 version design, as it seems more traditional, with a sense of history, mixed in multiple levels, just like Starbucks coffee.

When Steve Jobs stands on stage, excitedly announced the new generation of iPad — iPad2, all industry analysts, IT professionals,  and millions of Apple fans are all focusing on Steve, on this new iPad2.

Here’s a video about the long-awaited iPad2 by Apple:

This introduction of iPad2 has a great impact on the tablet industry as well as the e-book reader market. With the new generation of iPad, the price of the original iPad has fallen substantially, bringing in large direct effect in the tablet market in the short run. Since consumers are more and more prone to relative price performance of high-tech products, and iPad can do most of the job iPad 2 does with a much lower price, iPad is definitely a strong competitor to other tablets. In the long run, however, iPad2 and its successors will have a more profound influence on this market as innovation and renovation are highly valued in the high-tech IT industry.

As an indirect competitor, the market of e-book readers is also affected. Apple’s price for iPad is like a critical point for other tablets or portable devices, since anything below that price will suffer. For those e-book reader producers who cannot reap economies of scale, they are forced to lower the price, leading to losses. Therefore, the introduction of iPad2 drives down the prices of iPad, most likely causing the mass price reduction in the e-book reader market.

Recently I read my classmate Weiyi’s blog about H&M launching eco-friendly clothing line. I’m quite interested in this new line as H&M is using entirely sustainable material for the “Conscious Collection” of the Apparel for men, women and children.

This new clothing line is using all sustainable material such as organic cotton, organic linen and recycled polyester, being part of H&M’s efforts to only use sustainable cotton by 2020. Launching “The Conscious Collection” in April 14th, these 69 pieces of clothing will be priced from $10 to $60, according to their site .

Personally, first thing I would think of is how does it feel to wear these clothes made from sustainable material. Does it feel the same as the normal cotton? Or, are the fabrics super scratchy? As long as it is comfortable to wear, I would prefer the ones with sustainable material to make a difference to our environment. By creating this new line of eco-friendly clothing, H&M is differentiating themselves from other brands to make their customers feel they are contributing to the environment by buying their clothes. Also, this adds value to their brand equity for not only being trendy, but eco-conscious as well. Still, this new line offers fairly affordable prices from $10 to $60, so that everyone can check it out without worrying about their budget. I wondered since when people have the impression that eco-friendly products are some kind of luxuries, that only those celebrities and rich businesspeople can afford to claim their superiority. The Conscious Collection, however, are telling us a different story. By purchasing these eco-friendly clothes, everyone can make a difference!

After reading “Marketing tip#4: Better pay attention to mobile” on Drew’s Marketing Minute blog, the idea of attracting consumers through mobile again came to my mind. As there’s a trend of more people using smartphones, the mobile users segment will be larger and larger. If we say the past 20 years are all about the internet, then in the next decade, the mobile will take over, since smartphones are far more convenient and accessible, and like Drew said, mobile devices will be the primary tool for most people to access the web by 2020.

With the emergence of iPhone, Blackbery, and Android phones, with numerous mobile apps to choose from, with the convenience and efficiency of the smartphones valued in this time-poor society, we spend enormous amount of time going mobile to check social media, explore the websites, take advantage of the utilities, and carries this little do-it-all wherever we go, whatever we do. Through the mobile market, the customers are most reachable since most of us goes mobile 24/7. There is a large potential in this market that every company should consider expanding their marketing channel outside the traditional range into the contemporary communication means of mobile. It’s not just a battle place for companies to launch product-related apps, but for them to make better use of  it to promote their company and products. Take the first-mover advantage to create mobile advertisements or launch a mobile store, and surely they will benefit from the large audience. With the widespread use of smartphones, inevitably, the mobile market will be increasingly competitive and crucial.

Blog referred to: Marketing tip #4: Better pay attention to mobile (Drew’s Marketing Minute blog)

http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/2011/01/marketing-tip-pay-attention-to-mobile.html

As the CUS elections stirring up, all candidate are doing what whey can to attract votes. To market their election campaign, they often utilize different approaches including social media, posters, booths, and personal connections.

This reminds me of the factors influencing the consumer decision process, which in this case, are influencing voters’ decisions.

Psychological factor: When candidates run for a certain position, they will have a mission of how they will work successfully in that position if elected. If the voter perceived it to be insightful and beneficial to themselves, they would vote for this candidate. Different people may have different perceptions, so the candidates will always set up booths to give out small gifts and also for them to actually talk to different voters and convey their message.

Situational factor: Peer pressure plays a significant role as well. When I was using my laptop in the CA lounge yesterday, my friend actually came to me with a small gift and asked me to vote for one of the candidate. I was feeling awkward as he first told me to log onto vista and where to vote. He did tell me the reasons to vote for this candidate and why he is a good fit for this position and how many of my friends supported him. In this situation, I just wouldn’t say no since I really cannot find a reason to not vote for him under that circumstance. All of the information I acquired at that short moment told me the candidate is just perfect. In this situation, I quickly made the decision to vote for him.

Social factor: As a reference group, friends’ opinions wil more or less influence one’s decisions.  So, if most of your friends are supporting one candidate, you are much more likely to vote for him/her.

All in all, when running an election campaign, the candidate should take these factors into consideration and come up with the best strategy, although this just adds on to their win as his/her capability for the position is the most important part.

As I was reading the textbook about market research, the Air Canada’s “Win the World” contest immediately came to my mind.

When I received the e-mail about this contest in the winter break, I played this online game which says I could win one of over 2,500 instant prizes out of boredom. Then I found out that this game is really cool and I just want to play again as the visual effect is just fantastic and it’s like a virtual fight tour with Air Canada. In that game, I can choose different destinations and I was asked several questions about the flight. For example, I was asked what I would do on that flight I chose, given the choices of listening to the music, watching a movie, or sleeping. Once I clicked the button, the option I chose was played in the video, say, if I chose sleep, the lady in the video would just lie down and take a snap. It’s like a story I created and I feel I’m the one who made this video. While I played this online game, I actually got to know more about Air Canada, such as the online check-in system. Also, Air Canada learnt about my preferences as to what I will do on a plane and other things. This is certainly a successful market research and promotion to me. After I played this game, I get to know more about Air Canada, and I get an impression that a flight with Air Canada will be very comfortable and convenient.

Therefore, this leads to my thinking about games vs surveys. To most people, games are far more interesting than surveys, and people tend to avoid boring surveys. If marketers make a really fun and informative game instead of conducting a questionare survey, I believe they will acquire their desired feedbacks more easily and better promote their products or services. Even though it costs more, the game style survey stands to benefit.

Here are the links about Air Canada’s Win The World Contest:

Youtube video ad: Air Canada Win The World on YouTube

Contest link(closed for now though):  https://contest.aircanada.com/wintheworld/

When school starts, when course outlines are available, when we gather the book-lists to acquire our textbooks, we always want to get the textbooks at a lower price with acceptable condition in a short time.

Let’s take a look at the market of textbooks for UBC students. There’s UBC Bookstore, Discount Textbook, iBookUnion, online retailers like Amazon.com, and also personal connections. Different people choose different approaches considering their preferences and word of mouth. Personally, I would check saveonbook.com first, as sellers normally offer a cheap price and there’s a competitive price pressure for them. But for some others, buying online seems a little unreliable and many students just don’t know how to buy textbooks online. In this case, marketing plays an important role for online textbook dealers. Normally, students get to know about those websites from upper year students or friends. Therefore, word of the mouth should be where the online textbook dealers should pay attention to. Enhancing online marketing and getting the students to spread the words seems the right marketing strategy for them.

As students buy textbooks from different alternatives, less and less students line up at UBC Bookstore to get the expensive brand-new textbooks. To draw more students to the Bookstore, I noticed that UBC Bookstore is implementing a new “Rent and Save” strategy this year. For students, some textbooks become useless when the course ends. Thus the “Rent-and-Save” option will be preferred since they save money by paying less and it’s more easier and cheaper returning at the end of the term than doing “buy-back”s. Besides, we cannot be sure if the same textbooks will be used next term, or if they can be resold.

Textbooks are required for university students, and this is definitely a large market book dealers should pay attention to.