In this article, “Restauranteur adopts ‘pizza box of 21st century’ “, the owner of Ali Baba Pizza has innovated the pizza box that is not only made from recycled cardboard, but also solves the problem of eliminating the “need for disposable plates as well as plastic wraps”. This new design for this box offers customers who purchase Ali Baba’s pizza to utilize the box for plates, because the top of the box “breaks down into plates while the bottom folds into a convenient storage container for leftovers”.

This packaging used by Ali Baba is very sustainable and appeals to customers who care for the environment and along with that the company is capturing this segment of consumers. This innovative design for the new box allows Ali Baba to establish a point of difference and although at the beginning the cost may be higher, in the long term the pizza company will be successful; this is true because it will be providing customers with additional benefits from the actual packaging. No other pizza place is currently doing this because they believe it adds more cost, however the benefit exceeds the cost for the customers and the overall value is higher in the end. This is a sustainable competitive advantage especially if it is patented.

I am responding to Robby Gill’s post “COMM 296 Ethics in Marketing: Inflated MPG Numbers”. To start off, this post was very interesting. I would like to bring the aspect of brand image and customer loyalty into attention. Robby Gill stated that Huyndai and Kia will have to adjust their marketing strategy in order to solidify brand image; in fact at the moment Kia and Hyundai definitely need to reacquire customer trust in order to gain customer loyalty in the long run. Offering credit to whom they did wrong to may be one way as stated in the post, however they need to develop a key marketing strategy to change up how consumers are currently viewing the Kia and Hyundai brand.

Offering credit would just be a short-term solution however these brands need to consider a new approach and developing a new marketing strategy that would be sustainable and would give the companies a long term competitive advantage over competitors. It will be difficult because they have not established themselves in the automobile market, however if the money is spent in the right places while using a strong long term marketing strategy, then the company may be able to see success in the future. As for now, they need to regain customers’ trust and a quick fix will only last for so long…

For many years, Tiger Woods was not only a reigning champion in golf, but he was a highly regarded figure in the golf community and many golf enthsiasts thought of him as an associative figure. An associative figure/group “is a group with which the individual would like to be associated or identified”. Tiger Woods was a very prominent figure and many customers of Nike, EA Sports, etc liked to be associated with Woods and would purchase merchandise by using him as a reference group. However, after Tiger Woods scandal in the year 2009 many customers then wanted to dissociative themselves from Tiger Woods, a man who was once a model figure; this is known as a dissociative reference group, where “group is characterized by attitudes, values, or behaviors inconsistent with those held by an individual [and] the individual wants to distance him or herself from this group”.

Major companies viewed this as a threat and believed that not only would their sales take a hit, but more importantly they would be promoting their brand, idea, and products through a dissociative reference individual. So, companies like AT&T, Gatorade, Gillette, Tag Heuer, and more dropped Tiger Woods from their company and ended all endorsement contracts. 

Companies do not want to associate with a dissociative reference group and in some extreme cases they even pay individuals to stay away from the company’s products. For example, “teen apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co. [offered] to pay Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino not to wear its merchandise”.

The new generation iPad mini and iPad Air have been unveiled  and a lot of the customers may be facing an uncomfortable and unsettled feeling after purchasing the Apple products. This feeling of uncertainty in context with value is also known as post purchase cognitive dissonance. Post purchase cognitive dissonance can be defined as “the psychologically uncomfortable state produced by an inconsistency between beliefs and behaviours that in turn evokes a motivation to reduce the dissonance; buyers remorse”. As stated in Rich Trenholm’s article “iPad Air, mini are ‘overpriced boringness’ say CNET readers” , consumers believe that these products are overpriced and do not offer enough value to them. In other words, the potential customers are saying that they would be giving up more than they are receiving if they buy the iPad mini or iPad Air.

Apple is faced with a problem here that could result in a loss of a large amount of customers. Apple should be concerned regarding this issue and should come up with a solution that minimizes post purchase cognitive dissonance because they can lose customer loyalty and can result in weakening of the Apple brand image gradually. Customers are the ‘KING’ in todays market and negative word of mouth could potentially be very harmful for Apple’s future sales; a lot of the customers who were loyal to the brand may be so upset that they may not buy an Apple product ever again. Once again, Apple should take this important issue into consideration because it will affect them negatively in the long run.

Monopolistic businesses and firms are price setters and are generally the only option for consumers because there is no competition and limited substitutes available. At times, these monopolistic businesses abuse their power and force certain elements and changes upon consumers; this can be viewed as being unethical. A prime example of this was when BC Hydro was placing smart meters outside of every BC residents’ home without allowing the consumers to opt-out. BC Hydro was essentially taking full advantage of its power in the marketplace as a monopoly. This can be viewed as being unethical because BC Hydro was aware that consumers do not have any other source or alternative and eventually would end up giving in to the smart meter program. There wasn’t too much protest against these smart meters, however because consumers were not well aware of the capabilities of smart meters, as they were not exposed by BC Hydro.

These smart meters are extremely technically advanced and are capable to record conversations undertaken in families’ homes. Why didn’t BC Hydro inform the consumer base that these smart meters do have very high capabilities to record and store personal information? Even if they would have exposed this, the consumers would have no choice but to have a smart meter installed outside their home because this is a need for them and no one else is legally allowed to provide the service that BC Hydro does.

After the entrepreneurship class that consisted of two extremely successful guest speakers, for the first time I had an idea of what type of career I wanted to pursue. Being an entrepreneur is all about innovation; building something that is not there. I have always wanted to stand out of the crowd and wanted to accomplish creating or developing something which sets me apart from every other businessman, being an entrepreneur does just that. Erik Carlson, a real estate developer, is the head of Anthem Properties and has really inspired me to become an entrepreneur and get involved in the world of property development.

Mr. Carlson encountered a lot of obstacles en route to becoming an extremely successful entrepreneur, but in the end he came out strong. I really admired everything he had to say and really took a lot of valuable lessons from that lecture. Mr. Carlson stressed the value of creativity and how important it is to be prosperous in life. Being an entrepreneur is not a job occupation, rather it revolves around being creative and building empires through strategical vision. At the end of the day who would not love to be their own boss, with entrepreneurship this can be accomplished.

Save-On-Meats has been serving customers in the downtown Hastings area since 1957 and employing thousands of workers in need of a job. “Save-on-Meats distinguished itself as the source for cheap yet high-quality meat in the inner city core of Vancouver” and has made itself iconic in Vancouver. This restaurant hires workers who are incapable of holding a stable job and gives them an opportunity to make a living for themselves. This restaurant brings the community together and has a strong point of difference that allows it to be successful.

I believe that this restaurant is beneficial to the whole community and sets an example for the community to follow up on. Providing jobs to individuals most business would look as “unemployable” is extremely sincere. This is an inspiring business that can really create a strong community in which everyone has an opportunity to be employed no matter what “size or shape”. The restaurant provides a welcoming atmosphere and serves top notch meats at cheap prices. Even though Save-On-Meats is not a non-profit business, I would consider this to be somewhat of a social enterprise because it employs individuals who are considered “unemployable” and provides the best prices to customers.

Walmart is a very successful company that thrives of its dominant culture, which was developed by Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. “At Walmart, we are proud of our unique corporate culture”. A culture that revolves around three major beliefs, which include Respect for the Individual, Service to our Customers, and lastly Striving for Excellence. These beliefs are implemented into an individual through rituals and repetitive training methods. Walmart strongly  believes that employees are the base of the company and to provide the best customer service, the employees must be “programmed” to serve customers to the best of their ability.

http://youtu.be/MCdsX0R8rDo

Now, it seems as though Walmart is losing its  employees’ trust and loyalty. With the busiest shopping day, Black Friday, fast approaching, Walmart employees have other plans. They have started protesting and threaten to continue to protest “at nearly two dozen Walmart and Walmart Supercenter locations throughout the D.C. metro area” on Black Friday. The major contributing factors of the protest include “pay, worker intimidation and retaliation and scheduling issues”.

Walmart really needs to regain employees trust because the future of the company depends on it. Walmart forces the training and culture upon the employees and does not allow the employees to be creative. The employees are essentially like robots and work under the company’s commands. Walmart needs to have a more flexible training procedure and should introduce some sort of employee benefit package in order to increase employee job satisfaction. Ultimately, this is vital in order for Walmart to maximize customer satisfaction and keep the sales up.

I am responding to Gianluca Camerin’s blog Mitt Romney: Please Do Not Vote For This Man, in which Camerin talks about the flip flops in Mitt Romney’s views and statements. Camerin has included a video that highlights the “flip flops” of the views of  Governor Romney. Romney is contradicting his earlier statements as shown in the video, which is causing mass confusions among Americans. Romney is being conservative and liberal at the same time, this is what is going to cause the decline in votes for Governor Romney. He is going to loose his conservative voters and end up being blown out in this election. This is all being cause by a flip flop in Romney’s perspectives. Romney is essentially a “two-faced chameleon”  who no one should vote for, “not even Romney”.  In fact, I am in favour of this because an individual who cannot stick by his own principles and views will not stick by the country’s  values.

Mitt Romney’s sudden changes in perspectives are going to work against him come election time because the voters are now being able to determine that Governor Romney is not a man of his word; the voters do not trust him

BC Hydro is now sparking debates through out BC over the new smart meters. BC Hydro is a crown corporation that was formed in 1961 and has been supplying electricity to BC since. They are now introducing a new system to monitor consumption of electricity within households and businesses. This new system uses smart meters and BC Hydro claims that these new meters helps in saving money and makes it easy to manage electrical consumption.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thxd5Bo6OnM&sns=em

However, these new smart meters collect a lot of personal information and BC Hydro assures BC residents that “all customer information collected by [the] new meter will be handled in accordance with B.C.’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act” and “this Act prohibits BC Hydro from selling or disclosing personal information to third parties, unless authorized to do so by law.” With all this being said, there are still major uncertainties among the residents of BC and many are refusing the installation of these meters for their homes.

As stated in the video above, these smart meters use radiation to monitor hourly consumption of electricity and that radiation could potentially be cancerous. BC residents and businesses do not have a choice because there is no other substitute for this powerful corporation. BC Hydro is neglecting the the views of costumers and is forcing these smart meters upon everyone. Is this the start of “Big Brother”?