There has been a huge backlash from everyone in regards the the Lululemon Founder Chip Wilson coming out and saying that their product is not meant for women of all sizes. Though I believe it may not had been right the way he went about saying it, it’s true that if people wear clothes that are too small for them, they wear out faster. That’s all Chip was trying to respond to, but he has been cursed every since he came out with those comments. In a blog written by Marci Warhaft-Nadler she states that “Lululemon wants women to hate their bodies” which I don’t believe is true. Lululemon was  being critiqued because of supposed poor quality from wearing out too easily, so the founder responded to these complaints with a valid point.

Lululemon is known for supporting a healthy lifestyle, and that’s who they market for. I don’t believe Chip Wilson deserved the backlash he received after his comments, and though people are saying they won’t shop at Lululemon any more because of his views? Frankly, I don’t believe that will be much of a hindrance to the company, who currently has, and will continue to have a very strong and loyal customer base.

(Marci Warhaft-Nadler. Lululemon Wants Women to Hate Their Bodies. huffingtonpost.ca <http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/marci-warhaftnadler/lululemon-controversy_b_4240422.html>)

It’s true that Coca-Cola has been, and continues to be a very profitable company. As Albane Le Provost finely states in his blog post, Coca-Cola has been so successful for a number of reasons, including first mover advantage, strong marketing strategies, and a “triumphing culture”. Albane does a wonderful job describing Coca-Cola’s business strategies and explaining how they became so popular, though the one section of their blog I had questions about were when he mentions how he believes Coca-Cola has survived the years by “adapting and evaluating current trends and forces”, while at the same time somehow remains “traditional and stable”. I had issues with these two statements because when he mentioned Coke’s ever adapting nature the first thing that came to mind for me was when they came out with their “New Coke”.

This had an obvious backlash for Coke and that’s how they came out with the “Coke Classic”. I would argue that in Coke trying to adapt, that actually hindered their business temporarily. I believe that for Coke to continue their ever growing success they need to keep sticking with their “traditional and stable” side.

(Albane Le Provost. “It’s The Real Thing”. blogs.ubs.ca <https://blogs.ubc.ca/albanelp/>)

Raksha Sachdev’s recently posted a blog commenting on ethics in marketing. She argued that United Colors of of Benetton’s ad that depicted Pope Benedict XVI and Egyptian figure head Ahmed El-Tayeb sharing a kiss was “extremely unethical”. I disagree with Raksha, who argued that it disrespected both religion and homosexuality.

I do believe that this clothing brand challenged the views of many popular religions, and that some may have found this offensive, but I believe this was more of a risk done by the company, so they could share their views and support for the gay community. I feel the timing of this ad must be considered as well. Lately there has been lots of debate over whether gay marriage should be allowed, and a media frenzy recently broke out over the famous Chick fill-A incident where the president outwardly said he did not support homosexuality. United Colors of Benetton knew that this ad would cause some controversy, and I don’t really believe that to be a bad thing. They are showing their support and wanted people to start talking about them, and this strategy is clearly working for them. I don’t believe Raksha looked at the whole picture when critiquing this campaign.

(Raksha Sachdev. One Kiss too Far, An Example of Unethical Marketing. blogs.ubc.ca. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/rakshasachdev/>)

The evolution of shame in our culture is an interesting one to look at. Take body odour for instance; in the early 1900’s people were not ashamed of having it, so why invest in deodorant? This provided an interesting obstacle for some businesses at the time, who were trying to sell a product that society didn’t believe they had a need for. Lifebuoy came up with an interesting tactic to solve this problem. Their ads started to introduce body odour as being a bad thing, and portrayed how shameful people should feel for having it.

By simply implying body odour was a shameful thing to have, their sales increased, and they managed to reshape societal views. Advertisements have a bigger impact on society than one may originally think, Lifebuoy was able to reshape the view of society by simply introducing an idea in a few ads. This example makes one think. Had such ads never been introduced, would these typical things we deem to be shameful still be such a big faux pas?

(Terry O’Reily. Shame: The Secret Tool of Marketing. Under the Influence. cbc.ca. Published June 1, 2013. http://www.cbc.ca/undertheinfluence/season-2/2013/06/01/shame-the-secret-tool-of-marketing/)

Growing up we learn to think of failure as a bad thing, but what happens when failure unknowingly turns into success? We get such multi-million dollar products as Play-Doh. Play-Doh was not invented by someone passionate about the goings on in the children’s play industry, Play-Doh was originally invented as a substance used to clean the soot off of wallpaper in the 1930’s. The wallpaper cleaner soon became obsolete though after many households switched from coal, to oil and gas to heat their homes. Rather than accept bankruptcy, an employee at the Kutol company, Joseph McVicker, discovered through his sister that the putty substance was actually a big hit with children and decided to re-market the product geared towards them. So Play-Doh was born, they soon began selling in an array of colours, and is now one of the most famous toy brands in the world.

To be an entrepreneur is takes more than a good idea. A person has to be driven and be able to adapt to ever changing surroundings and problems. Had Joseph McVicker given up on this putty substance and accepted its fate, he never would made a multi-million dollar brand, and Play-Doh would not exist today.

(Terry O’Reily. Accidental Brands. Under the Influence. Published March 17, 2012. http://www.cbc.ca/undertheinfluence/season-1/2012/03/17/accidental-brands-1/)

In the world of marketing it is of course the goal of a company for their ads to be as successful as possible, but what happens when the ad is too successful? Take H&M for instance; in 2003 they set up an ad campaign in hopes of exposing their new bikini line in Germany. Their advertisement idea was simple; just plaster posters of supermodel Heidi Klum all over the country wearing their sexy new bikini.

The ad worked better than anyone imagined. Within hours all 750 posters had been stolen, and display cases had even been smashed by people trying to get them. Their entire ad campaign had been stolen. Rather than scrap the entire ad campaign they had already paid for, H&M decided to do some problem solving instead. H&M managed to incorporate the posters popularity in a manner that worked in their favor. They decided to give out the posters for free and bikini sales soared. H&M expressed a newfangled approach to a problem by embracing it rather than trying to fight against it. By embracing their initial problem, they were still able to make major profits off of what initially could have been seen as a marketing failure.

(Terry O’Reily. Charlie Bit My Ad: When Ads Perform Too Well. CBC Radio. Published April 14, 2012. http://www.cbc.ca/undertheinfluence/season-1/2012/04/14/charlie-bit-my-ad-when-ads-perform-too-well-1/) 

Brand image is everything, That’s why it’s important that a brand stay true to the image they are trying to portray. If inconsistencies are found with what the brand is supposed to stand for and how they actually run their business, customers will lose trust, and if customers lose trust, companies lose business. When brand hypocrisy is brought up the first company that comes to mind would be Unilever. Unilever is the parents company to many popular brands, including both Dove and Axe. Yes, that’s right. Dove with it’s campaign for real beauty, and Axe, the company with arguably the most degrading ads towards females on TV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9tWZB7OUSU

Dove appears to be working hard to break down the social custom of what beauty is perceived as, though I find it difficult to become invested in their campaign. How can a company promote natural beauty, while at the same time send out ads depicting the classic supermodel thin, every man’s dream woman. I believe that the dove real beauty campaign is a great one, and definitely does wonders for their brand popularity, but at the same time they can’t be as effective because in the back of peoples minds, they are still thinking of those infamous Axe commercials, which leaves people questioning the true intention of the company.

(Jennifer Wells. Taking the Axe to Unilever’s Hipocricy. thestar.com. Published November 28, 2007.  http://www.thestar.com/opinion/columnists/2007/11/28/taking_the_axe_to_unilevers_hypocrisy.html)

In a recent class the question of whether employees were considered assets or not was brought up. I found that this question raised an interesting debate. Some interesting points were brought up regarding how critical employees are to the company, saying how they provide the customer service and even the reputation of a company. While others in the class may have disagreed, it is clear the Google does not.

As one employee states in the video above “Google takes care of us”. With free food, multiple gyms, medical, and even laundry services, it’s clear that Google views its employees as a priority. So why would such a large company go so far to try and please their staff members? Google obviously views them as a critical part of the company, which can not be easily replaced. With such great perks Google certainly attracts some of the best in the tech world, and it’s these people who are working to keep Google innovative and relevant. Google works hard for their employees so, in turn, their employees will work hard for them and offer their best. In response to the question posed earlier, I believe Google is on the right track in treating their employees like assets. This technique has clearly been working for them, as they are one of the most successful companies in the world. I believe that in order for a company to be successful they should take a page out of Google’s book and reconsider how far they are willing to go to keep their employees happy.

With the recent drop in sales of the Ipod one begs the question, is the Ipod still relevant? Apple used to dominate portable music device market, and even with their recent sales decrease of 19% from 2011, still do. So if Apple is still dominating the portable music industry, where are the sales going? You’ll be hard pressed to find a rival MP3 that is taking sales away from the Apple IPod’s. I believe that Apple is not in fact losing these sales, they are just being transferred to the IPhone rather than the IPod.

In this day and age everyone and their grandma has a smart phone, so if we can so easily access music on our phone’s, why buy the shiny new IPod? Not only can we download music onto our phones, but with new apps and websites offering live streaming, we can easily access thousands of songs for free. IPod’s just don’t offer the same features, and with such drastic innovation in the past ten years, I estimate the IPod will be an old relic in 5 years. When everything is so accessible in one device, the IPod has become dated and some may even say useless.

(Rebecca Kelley. Is The Ipod Beginning it’s Slow Demise? intego.com. Published November 1, 2012. http://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/is-the-ipod-beginning-its-slow-demise/)

When it comes to ethical issues it all boils down to perception, what one individual may deem offensive, another may not give a second thought. While many ethical issues can be blown out of proportion by the media and deemed a ”scandal”, when it came to the Hyundai car commercial the consensus was clear. The commercial in question depicted a man attempting to commit suicide by asphyxiation by locking himself in his car and feeding the exhaust through his windows.

http://youtu.be/JyHhvL89LGE

While the adds intention was to display how the new model only produces water vapours from its exhaust, the response from the public and media has shown the company how misguided they were. The commercial has brought up negative memories from mourning family members and seems to be trying to make light of the fact that thousands of people die every year committing suicide. When producing a commercial that sparked such outrage from the public, one would think that somewhere along the production line an individual had to have protested this misguided attempt at humour. Though the company did pull the commercial and has issued a formal apology there are still individuals who were deeply affected by the commercial and the company will be forced to deal with the negative reputation they brought upon themselves for years to come. When it comes to public perception, intent does not seem to come into play. Though Hyundai never intended to hurt of offend anyone they must still deal with the consequences of how their actions were perceived.

(Jeffrey Maciejewski. Hyundai Suicide Ad Draws Visceral Reactions. creightoninfoethics.wordpress.com. Published April 25, 2013. http://creightoninfoethics.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/hyundai-suicide-ad-draws-visceral-reactions/)