This post is a response of Mingchi Choo’s post: From Bad Publicity to Boycotts: Barilla’s Blunder

As I read through my classmate’s post, I began to ponder the same questions that she had brought up during the discussion of Guido Barilla’s statements – Just to recall, the CEO of the world’s largest pasta company openly stated that his product was intended for a ‘traditional’ Italian family rather than a homosexual one-.

Since Guido Barrilla is not the only CEO that has publicly ‘excluded’ several audiences from their company’s intended market (Abercrombie’s and Lululemon’s CEO’s both fit this criterion) I felt like giving my own opinion on what Mingchi asked in her own blog; “Is it more important for a company to stay true to its own values […], or should they focus on gaining the approval of the general public?”

I personally think that CEO’s, as well as any individual, should avoid making comments that can be seen as offensive as well as unethical. The reason behind my argument is not that his or her claims may affect the view of general public on the company, but the belief that people should remain respectful to others despite what they might believe. However, The role of a CEO is in fact different than of an ordinary individual since many of their remarks may escalate due to their public importance. This only increases the need for an ethical behavior and respect towards the others.

Guido Barilla should feel ashamed of his statements, not because of the impact this may have on his company or his image, but because of his unethical attitude as a person.

As of mid-October, I have partnered up with my cousin and a good friend in an attempt to make an old entrepreneurial dream of mine come true. The last push that made me finally put an old idea into practice was the class discussion we had with the owner of Great Dane’s Coffee, Andrew Mckee, a Sauder graduate that encouraged students to put whatever entrepreneurial idea they had into practice.

For a while I have thought about creating T-shirts with a design focused on the football rivalry existent in my hometown, Rio de Janeiro. After the discussion with Andrew I went straight to my cousin, who is a graphic designer, and began to explain my thoughts and come up with ideas of how we could make things work.

Although 296 was influential in encouraging me to get my start up going, it was also extremely important in shaping the way I thought about important aspects of a product. When we first began to talk about the pricing, for example, I would always refer back to the learning’s from my class to claim that in order to penetrate the market and attract new customers in the early stages of our company we must set a low price in order to lure them in. It was also really important to figure out what was our target market in order to be able to channel our distribution and increase its accuracy, and these concepts only became important to me after we covered in class and went over the need of these aspects.

My start up project was a great way to apply the concepts I learned in 296 into real life. It enforced the fact that the knowledge we are gaining is fundamental for a business to work.

As a result of extremely inefficient management over the past 2 decades, most of Brazil’s biggest clubs  are currently suffering from enormous debts that don’t seem to go away. When combining the three clubs with the highest debt (Flamengo, Botafogo and Fluminense) we get an astonishing figure of over 760 million dollars owed to the Brazilian Government. Although the economic boom of Brazil in the past five years has brought some beneficial investment into the major clubs in forms of advertisement and TV rights, it is not enough to fulfill the current hole in the clubs accounts. The new managements of the clubs through the use of the new football stadiums built for the 2014 world cup are attempting to create a new source of income into the club, customer loyalty.

The new arenas built for next years event provide the opportunity for the clubs to invest into building customer relations and developing membership programs. Since the new stadiums provide more comfort and recreational options to the public, the clubs are attempting to build the relationship between club and fan as a way of increasing their income.

What interest me the most about this situation in Brazil was the way in which the clubs are trying to encourage fans to become members.

In the upcoming game for the Brazilian cup final between Flamengo x Atletico-PR, the minimum price a customer will be able to pay is about U$ 105 which for the Brazilian society is extremely high, considering that it represents about 1/3 of the minimum wage. However, fans with memberships with the club, that are up to date with their monthly payments will be given the opportunity to pay U$ 32 for their tickets.

Although at first glance this may seem like a bad call for the clubs (since they are not gaining as much per match if the number of members grow), the fact that in order to be a member you must pay monthly fees, the club will be able to create a stable source of income and decrease the horrendous debt they currently have.

Source Pic: http://www.caughtoffside.com/2011/11/14/gremio-2-2-palmeiras-campeonato-brasileiro-highlights-video/