Addressing the present, looking to the future.

Its funny how some products and services delivered have become marketed so intensely that they literally are considered as necessities nowadays. My example of this is a very simple one, insurance! Without insurance, and being an international student here in UBC, i’d have to pay 15000 a night if i were to be hospitalized, which is  obviously ridiculous, and so there is insurance, MSP is currently 57$ per month and pretty much mandatory for me in the event that something would happen overseas. So with the help of the $15000 imposed without insurance, and the uncertainty of whether or not u will be need the hospital, you pay 57$ in my case to insurance. Now it would be interesting to find out how they calculated the amount!

I always found it interesting that in Save on Foods, not sure about the other supermarkets, the bulk area that you can buy goods without the packaging, such as spices and chocolate and such items. The reason being that in europe or asia, and even africa i have never seen such an isle in a supermarket before, not being from Canada. And so i find it very effective to give the option to the customers to buy non packaged goods but I wonder sometimes if they do make enough profit from those goods as they are in fact considerably less priced than with the package.

I often looked at the four P’s and wondered, how does promotion in terms of packaging come into play, and i only realized the power of packaging once i bought something just because of its packaging, something i never thought was possible before, i mean the packaging influences, but i didnt realize just how great of an influence it can be. The item in particular that i bought just for the packaging was the chewing gum known as “5”, in the end chewing gum is chewing gum, and the flavors don’t vary from what has already been done with all the other competing chewing gum companies, instead, they invested in their packaging to make it look cool and interesting. And so i came to conclude that  products that tend to be luxury goods, as well as low priced goods, packaging will in turn greatly effect its sales. The fact of the matter is i would of never bought the gum if it wasnt for the packaging.

Marketing through series / movies

Marketing occurs in many different mediums, one of which is the television. Television orientated marketing occurs in commercials but also in the more interesting marketing medium, series or movies. Products are everywhere,  so how do we decide which products to display on our shows? Certain products are prohibited from being shown without a payment made to the series, but other products, classified as necessities, have their brand hidden, so obviously the more interesting of  the two is the brands that pay to be shown on tv. I just find its ethical aspects interesting, such as which company pays the most to be seen daily by consumers, and is it right to market these products while the consumer is psychologically unaware! Also note that marketing is pretty much a cost driver for the shows! So it would be interesting to find out how much of the show’s/movie’s budget comes from business’ marketing.

As the title and the image suggests, my post is about what happens when large corporations such as RITZ diversify. The reason as to why i decided to post about this is because a factor that could affect Ritz chips’ sales for example, is the fact that they have crackers already; whenever a consumer, myself in particular, sees a company who’s being focusing on a product so long suddenly diversify, i generally feel a disinterest to the product. For example i use Axe shower gels but thats the only product i use of the brand for that particular need, i dont buy all products from the same brand because i feel too drawn into ONE brand and it makes me uncomfortable. Interestingly, when i buy my food, this whole thought process dissipates and i can easily buy food from the same company, such as Kraft packaged dinners. The fact is, i realized that consumers feel the need to consume from multiple companies, not because they care but because otherwise they feel like they belong to the company. Of course there are consumers to love to buy from only one company, but then again even large companies like Unilever keeps their subproducts under different names, many people for instance don’t know that Axe is under Unilever, they just see it as Axe, would this be because they are aware of the effect it could have on people? That would be interesting to find out!

The Starbucks Mug

I went to Starbucks the other day to meet up with someone when i caught a glance at someone holding one of the Starbucks mug; now i don’t usually pay attention but today i particularly realized how Starbucks uses these mugs to market their brand. When you think about it, without the mugs, Starbucks would be lacking in a vital marketing tool that does so many things. The mug with the brand name written on the side, lets everyone know where you get your coffee, it looks “cool”, it gives the consumer a sense of belonging, and the whole fact that as you order your coffee you use YOUR mug, it desensitizes the whole transaction process and makes it seem like more a NECESSITY than a want, which it is, because at 10 bucks a coffee every day, you’d be saving a lot of money not going to Starbucks! So yeah, i thought it was pretty ingenious that that mug had such a profound marketing effect on Starbucks consumers. Although of course i could proceed to actual surveys to figure out whether all this is true, but thats outside my time table X)

I didnt post last week, which is a funny story, I COULDNT FIGURE HOW TO, then i found the dashboard this week when i gave it a second try and voila! And so this is my second post this week to compensate

HERSHEY’S

Last week i bought a big packaged box of snacks composed of Reeses and Oh Henry! which are both Hershey brands, and the reason i’m writing about this box is what brought me to buy it. I was at Save on Foods and i had gotten a card which allows me to collect points and save some cash as well with the sales i make, every sale has a different amount of cash saved, and so i saw this HERSHEY’S box and at first glance i noticed the snack bars on it, all of which i thought were naively large due to the advertizing on the box, on top of this they advertized that it would give you 1500 points! just so you get a picture of how much that is, i spend 50 bucks there before and got 140 points from it all, so it seems like a very interesting deal! So i took the box based on those two things, and i was dissapointed on BOTH levels! As i got to the cashier she put the box through and there i stood shocked, i only gained 100 points again that day, i didnt argue about the sign i saw posted up because i was afraid i was wrong and secondly because i wanted the box anyways now that it was on the table. Then when i went home and open the box, the snack bars were MUCH smaller than i had anticipated! and they didnt even full to the top! it was only 3/4 full! so i was severely dissapointed that day and i found it to raise an interested marketing aspects, pshychological pricing, and packaging if i can call it like that. The images from the package always  seem so much more appealing that what you actually buy its much like we’re the fish and the packaging is the hook! the question is, do we bite?

MY FIRST POST

Upon being exposed to a site in Comm 296, marketing, during my group assignment for that class, i stumbled upon what seemed to be a phony site that bashed DOVE to a very extravagant extent. It pretty much says that DOVE body wash products cause cancer, which is a very bold statement when you think about it! My group members mentioned among all our comments about the site that it could possibly be a competitors doing, makes you wonder whether competitors would go to such bounds to create negative advertisement to its consumers, i mean the only reason i found this article was because it was on the FIRST link of the search “Dove + toxic”. So it is information thats going to be viewed by customers seeking to know whether or not the product is harmful to them. The site goes on further and says that the products is cancer proven, has a cancer link, has reproductive toxins, uses untested chemicals (which seems VERY unlikely), and goes in to more depth further in the site which is why i decided that the site was bogus, such a danger extent in a product would never be publicized, but the doubt is what could get the consumers that aren’t conscious of what they read on the internet! Another reason why the site seems to be fake is because it has NO certification of its data whatsoever, and such research should usually be scholarly and this site shows no signs whatsoever, and again, consumers who don’t see past those observations can get dissuaded, so i found it very unethical of the site creators.

site url: http://www.natural-skincare-authority.com/dove-body-wash.html

p.s. this is my first time blogging and i find it very tedious! not in a homework sort of sense but in a practical sort of sense, seems like an overdose of social networking involved!