Month: October 2012

Well, we all know that businesses, especially those in the food and beverage industry, need to heavily rely on research to understand their customers better. However it is important, that when the research is done and the results are implemented and put into action, the products meet the needs of the customers. For example, I’m Indian and I like my spice and the indian touch to my food. Therefore, when given the choice to me, between the Angus Third Pounder and the Chicken Maharaja-Mac I would choose the Chicken Maharaja. This shows that because of my heritage and who I am, I prefer something that matches and fulfils the “Indian qualities” in me. In order to meet these requirements, a lot of research has to be done. This will make sure that the customer base will gain brand loyalty and will feel a connection to the brand.

Therefore market research is very important to get the details about your products right.

A 27-year old woman was fired by the popular franchise Tim Hortons, after giving away a free timbit which cost about 16 cents at that point of time to a 11-month year old. The reason that was given to her for her being fired was that “it was against the policy to give away free items to customers”. The lost job cost her and her family money for their daily bread. Though she was re-hired later on, how ethically right is it to fire an employee for making their customers happy? Given what is taught and understood, a business earns its profits through customers. And customers only buy a business’ product if the customer is happy with the service provided. Such actions by one franchise creates a havoc and a reputation loss amongst customers. She was re-hired later in the same year by another franchise of Tim Hortons. Which is more important? Following rules? or being ethical? What does a business do when following rules makes it unethical?

– in response to Katie Chow’s blog post:

Advertising and Marketing are huge things for every organization. And every organization makes mistakes. Do these mistakes really deserve to be spoken about? How effectively do these advertisements manage to mislead their customers?

As we can see in this video : provided by Katie, we can see that another product has been used to video shoot the advertisement which was meant to be shot by the camera that is being advertised. So how much can customers actually trust and believe the product that is actually being advertised as compared to the one that actually is? This is a hard question as things in this generation can be easily hidden through the use of rapidly increasing and advancing technology. This can question the ethicalness and validity of these advertisements very effectively.

However, customers/consumers are known to accept what they are shown due to the sense of authority and sometimes when these “flaws” are unveiled such as the one that was by Nokia’s, things go ignored and the products are bought anyway due to product and brand loyalty. A concept such as brand loyalty ensures that in a way products sales are always high and therefore it can always change their reputation.

In response to Mikaela Wang’s blog entry .

Facebook seems to have gone more public than they already have. They’re putting forward what everyone already knows about Facebook. Facebook has released its first ever “agency-created” advertisement. What does it mean that they are doing this? It could either mean that they are now very effectively targeting markets that are not on Facebook to tell them about the things that facebook has to offer.

However, is that ethical to promote Facebook to a segment such as the younger generation? It is promoting posting information on to the social media and making themselves public. Shouldn’t precautions be taken to prevent such things to happen? However, at the same time, this advertisement will definitely increase Facebook’s popularity of their social networking website.

Their strategy of using images and media which according to Mikaela’s blog are “heart warming” and therefore many relate to this advertisement. I do too. This is a very good tactic that is used. It is very important to recognize a company’s target market in order to create an advertisement that relates to its audience.

Facebook has already reached heights is one of the most talked products of the century. This advertisement makes it even more well known.

Every employer wants to know how “happy” their employees are in the company. The new Employee Engagement takes care of how to understand employees.

This can be a hard task as employees might not always be happy with the company but might lie to keep their jobs. However, the point here is that should employees know about the company or the work that they do?

In these surveys it is possible that they might ask for questions that have nothing to do with their work. Question is, do the companies really care about whether or not their employees know about their companies and their history rather than be only excellent with their work. However it is in a way necessary to gain input from your employees as to what they think of how the company is treating their customers. However how relevant are these surveys? Do they actually give the information needed? And do they actually work on these feedbacks? These surveys don’t exactly tell you the experience that each employee goes through, and can therefore lead to different feedbacks on the same thing from different employees.

I think surveys are applicable to be up to date with situations only to an extent, and some just need one on one interviews.