Marketing

You have to click previous after the last post “Trash the dress” to read my first post.  Thanks =D

After taking a course, I always ask myself what I have learned throughout this whole course.  Since this would be my last Marketing blog, I have decided that it might be a good idea to talk about what I have like about this course.

What is marketing? “Creating, capturing, communicating, and delivering value to customers.” I had no idea what it means at the beginning of the course.  Before I thought marketing is only based on promoting a product to consumers.  Fortunately, I understand that the 4P’s (not just promotion) work together in order to deliver “value” to the customers.

Product strategy Baby carrot campaign: Second day of class, we talked about the Baby Carrot campaign.  This campaign really caught my attention because the product is innovative, fun and creative.  The most valuable lesson from this campaign was the term “sustainable competitive advantage”.  Sustainable competitive advantage became one of my favourite term that I have frequently use in Case Competitions.


Teamwork in Marketing: In my school years, many unhappy past experience had made me hate group projects. However, my marketing team this year seems to be an exception compared to my previous “bad” groups. One of the most important aspects that I learned in team marketing project is to know your teammates strength and weakness.  Our group had one person that would work on research, writing, editing and formatting.  Also, we allocate the work evenly and everyone did their equal share.  I would like to say thank you to my group members (Yulia, Shann, Stephanie and Rita) for all your help in the market project.

The 4 P’s + Global Marketing
Product Branding: “Branding is the promise you make” “Brand=Trust.  I have never thought about a product brand this way before.  This gives me a new view on the powerful effect that a brand of a company has on consumer’s purchasing behaviour.

Place: Distribution Channel “Business is Blooming: The International Floral Industry” I have never realized that some flowers would have to go through many intermediaries and channel members before reaching to the hands of the consumer.
Price: The price that a consumer pays is the amount he or she is willing to sacrifice for the product.  Before this class, I always assume that price is only associated to a monetary value.
Promotion: Global Marketing, I found this to be one of the most interesting topic in the course.  I wish we had more time to talk about the many ideas that company come out with in different environment.  Personally, I like the Kit-Kat mail idea (Co-branding with the post offices) in Japan, it is creative and innovative which make it successful.

Overall I enjoyed the course because I can apply many marketing concepts I learned to real life situation.  Anyway I wish everyone good luck on their exams!

Are you unmotivated to do anything? If you admit that you are please continue reading… if you aren’t still read it please.

Since we are on the Advertising section, I think it is best for me to share some of my favourite advertisements.  Basically, I watched the weak store commercials while loading my YouTube videos.  Anyhow before I continue, here are two of my favourite commercials (very funny).

Chair pants

Food lift

The first reaction that I got after watching the video was: is the product real?  The commercial definitely advertise the message in a creative way.  That is why I decided to find more information on this topic (http://www.funnycommercialsworld.com/bc-dairy-foundation-the-weak-shop-and-chair-pants-commercial-2622.html).  In my research, I found that the Weak Store belongs to a non-profit group, BC Dairy Foundation.  Primarily the advertisements were made target to teenagers to tell them the consequences of not drinking milk.  “Not drinking milk would make you weak and not able to do anything”.  To relate this back to marketing, there is a type of advertising called public service advertising (PSA).  This advertisement is a type of PSA because it focuses on public issues sponsored by non-profit organization.  I personally think this is innovative and an effective way to get the message across to teenager.  The reason is because teenagers (like myself) that spent hours searching the video on YouTube would encounter that advertisement.  That advertisement connects with me personally because I feel that sometime I am unmotivated to do anything.

For those of you that have creative ideas that for lazy people, you can go to www.theweakshop.com and share your idea.  The winner will get a Mac Book Pro.  Before I conclude I just want to let everyone know that it is POSSIBLE to buy the chair pant and food lifter.  They are actual products that can be order online.  All the products earned from selling the product would be donated to KidSportBC.

This week I was inspired by Shaan’s Heart ATTACK Grill post (https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct).  Basically, the Heart Attack Grill is a fast food hamburger restaurant that advertises high-calorie menu items with controversial names.  The store also have “uncertified” nurses and doctors serving the customers.  Since we are talking about the “place”, I realized that it is appropriate to talk about an alternative way of store design.  Unlike the traditional style of marketing, Heart Attack Grill clearly states the negative connotations associated with coming to the store.

Promotion Techniques

Magnetic Cafe waitresses

The store has nurses (revealing clothing) and doctors to attract customers.  As a matter of fact many café in restaurant also adapt to this trend, Magnetic Café in Richmond.  Magnetic Café has a daily theme with waitress dress as princess, French maids and nurses.  Does this increase the image of the market? Well it depends, I know that many of my friends enjoy the atmosphere and mood of the café.  In my opinion, sometimes the atmosphere of a restaurant is more important than the quality of the food.

Another innovative technique that Heart Attack Grill uses is the promotion of their unhealthy products.  Unlike most restaurants, Heart Attack Grill put strong emphasis on their unhealthy choices in their menu.  While fast food restaurant like McDonald is always trying to promote new healthier products.  This clearly shows how the location affects the style of promoting the service.  Personally, I highly doubt that this store would be able to survive in Vancouver (healthy conscious community).  However, since this store is located in AMERICA, I think that it would have its own market judging from the size of the people that live there.

Overall, the restaurant seems to be able to create a distinct image from other fast food chain.  I hope that one day I would be able to try it out!

Daniel Kong’s post “The 5 E’s: The new 4P’s” http://www.xn--6rvs3i2wa.com/ got me thinking more about the product mixes and value based marketing.  In his post, Daniel stated that the 4 P’s plus the 5 E’s (Engagement, essence, exchange and emotion/experience) are the necessary criteria to make a brand shine.  Personally, I agree with what Daniel had said, well established marketing brands are the ones that has the 4 E’s characteristics.

I will use a brand that has the 4P’s along with the 5 E’s: Apple
Last year, I found that my Iphone was giving a no sim message.  I tired resetting my phone but it didn’t work so I decided to go to the Apple store.

Engagement: When I described my Iphone problem to them, the Apple employees said that they had encountered this type of problem before (establish a connection).

Essence: The employees were friendly and helpful

Exchange: Since the employee did not know how to fix this problem, they gave me a brand new Iphone 3GS

Emotion/Experience: I was satisfied with the results and my next computer will be… A MAC

Ultimately, the 5 E’s is a method of keeping a sustainable competitive advantage.  The 4 E’s are all customer service related method that store use to create a higher brand value.  In today value based market, only a brand with the 5 E’s and 4 P’s will be truly successful.

While reading my marketing textbook, I noticed a product called TiVo, a digital video recorder that allow consumers to be in control of what television to watch. In fact, TiVo was the first product that would be allows a consumer to choose the shows that they would like to watch. To relate this back to what we have learned in marketing, I remember that Tamar had said the first product created is not necessary to be the most successful ones.  TiVo was the pioneer and the dominant brand in the market before, it created this innovative idea that no one has ever done before.  In 1999, digital video recorder (DVR) has been created; it was an improved version of TiVo.  Personally, I think that the DVR industry is in the growth stage because the product has been introduced and accepted by the consumers for many years.  Facing the fierce competitor of DVR, TiVo is struggling to maintain its market share.  TiVo would need to find a way to create a sustainable competitive advantage in order to avoid being eliminated.  TiVo plans to provide better customer services and special distribution to specific retailers.  In my opinion, I think it would is difficult for TiVo to survive in the market.  The reason is because the company lacks the resources to compete with the large companies that make the DVR.   It is unfortunate to see how the first company that create the innovative product is being eliminated by the imitator product.  Perhaps the elimination of TiVo shows us how cruel the real world can be.

Marketers are bad at customer service.  I admit that I was surprised when I read the first line to the http://www.rohitbhargava.com/ blog (October 19, 2010).  As a matter of fact, the blogger suggests that marketers are the terrible at customer service.  As I was reading the article, it remind me of the core aspect of this course, value marketing.  Value marketing era is when marketers create products that are cost efficient and create a value for the customer.  For some reason, I assume that value marketing era require firms to have excellent customer service.  Presently many firms know that customer service can enhance their sells but this may not be the primary concern of a marketer.

Consumer behaviour, survey, market analyze and product developments are factors that marketers would be concern.  The primary objective for marketer is to sell the product to the customer.  On the other hand, customer service put more emphasis on their manners toward their customers. I realized that good customer service does not necessary lead to a good product and a good product does not always have good customer service.  Successful firms such as lululemon have excellent customer service and product design.  Lululemon shows the accomplishments that could be made when customer service and marketing team work together.

The author suggests that marketers could focus on resolution, bring in experts, and have more empathy.  Marketers need to look at the situation that focus on the resolution, bring in expert to help and exert more care to the customers.  Ultimately, I think this is what firms should be doing right now.  A true sustainable competitive advantage requires good customer service and product.  While designing the products, marketers should also consider ways that they could provide help to the customer.  Personally, I think that companies should follow this formula: Sustainable comparative advantage = Customer care+ Product usage (my own formula).

ANYWAY HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

So far in all my blogs I have talked about how the product changes in the kid industry, wedding industry and food industry.  Over the past few years, one social networking site stands out more than any other social networking sites.  I think most people would know that the site is Facebook. Facebook has become an addiction for many people because it is easy to use.  For this reason, many major companies create fan pages as a mean to advertise to their consumer.

In this generation, I think that Facebook has made it easier and more cost efficient for companies to create an advertisement. A company such as Lululmeon relies on social network website to advertise their products.  Lululemon’s Facebook fan page http://www.facebook.com/lululemon show many products to appeal customers.  In my opinion the marketing trends of relying Social Networking could be extremely effective when targeting young adults.  As a young adult, I know that many of my friends would just spend hours on Facebook instead of watching T.V or studying for the Marketing midterm.  The longer an individual stays on Facebook the more likely he or she is to be exposed to new information from a company.

One of the most “powerful” marketing features of Facebook should be the “like” or “share” function.  Nowadays, everyone likes to share everything on their Facebook status.  The “share” function would increase the likeliness for someone to share information of a company that they like.  Personally, I like to use the Facebook liking function for shops that I like such as Nike, Puma… this function can let other know more about me AND it’s actually directly promoting the company to my friends that might not have heard of the company.

Marketers should take advantage of the social networking giant, Facebook in their promotion scheme.  In the 21^st century, the use of new technology and marketing can create an advantage over competitors.

Most people I know dislike McDonalds for two reasons: (1) The unhealthy image associated with the company’s food (2) The boring menu.  Personally, I think it would be hard for McDonalds to change its unhealthy image (especially for the people that had watched Supersize me).  On the other hand, the McDonald should include more selections in their menus to keep their advantage in the market.

For example:

Shake Shake Fries available in HK, basically you shake your seasonings with your fries (so good)

Sausage and EGG Twisty Pasta

Banana Pie

Personally, I don’t know what is limiting Canadian McDonalds to add in new selection to their menu.   But I think that new and innovative food ideas from around the world that can attract more customers.