Patricia Poon's Blog

Upon finishing our marketing video for Lululemon, I am extremely pleased with our results. Firstly, we chose a good team. We were similar and relatable enough to get along well throughout the course, but different enough to bring different dynamics and personalities to our project. In our section, we were one of the more diverse groups in terms of personality and skillset.

Although none of us were proficient in movie or audio editing, each of us learned a new skill in order to complete this project. Skills learned included:

• filming using a DSLR, including focussing on the subject and blurring the background
• planning/timing a storyline and script
• using movie editing software such as Final Cut Pro
• how to position yourself in front of a camera

Throughout the project, there was a comfortable and casual group dynamic. Some members contributed creatively, by helping edit and film, while others wrote the script and voiced many of the parts in a professional manner. Our group successfully worked to finish the written assignments together; every member made a conscious effort to be present at meetings and to pull their own weight, even asking if there was extra work to be done. I found this project enjoyable and would work with this group again.

This week I will be responding to a post from a classmate in my marketing 296 class. Lydia Choi recently highlighted thetransformation of marketing tactics throughout the past century. Firms have moved from a logical marketing strategy – simply stating the specifications of the product, to appealing to emotions to empathize with consumers, to creating an interactive environment for the consumer from the marketing campaigns to the shopping environment.

I would like to commend Lydia on her insightful observations. While reading her blog, I began to ask myself what drove entire groups of marketing firms to change their tactics on such large scales, and came to realize that her statement required a slight adjustment. In fact, quite a few brands today still use a logical marketing strategy – for example, ThinkPad still operates under the notion of robust, dependable design, as do many other PC brands who brand customization. So, some select niches with loyal customers can continue to see success under a logical strategy.

However, in today’s competitive markets, with many well-established firms in a variety of industries from retail to technology to beauty products, emerging firms must adopt an interactive marketing strategy to differentiate their brand. This could include cliffhanger advertisements which prompt the viewer to visit their website to find out what happened next (GoDaddy, SuperBowl commercial), to the more popular social media campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. For example, Vancouver-based tattoo and piercing studio Adrenaline frequently holds contests on their Facebook page, offering a free simple piercing to the first customer who visits the store and completes a given challenge.

You know you’re a business student when you giggle out loud reading a Forbes article. This particular entry by Paul Brown caught my eye – he argues against the notion of creative new products. He is not discouraging outlandish and impractical ventures, but is blatantly disapproving unique entrepreneurship.

Paul argues that creativity, though a valued trait, is not profitable. In that sense, an ‘innovative’ product will likely not be successful if it aims to create a new market. Entrepreneurs should first analyze the primary needs of a given target market and shape a product around these needs. From my marketing course, I know that this eliminates one of the largest problems of aspiring entrepreneurs – finding a market who will want to buy their product. By aiming to fulfill a need rather than creating an entirely new product, we already have an identifiable, reachable, and feasible target market, as well as a product that we know has a high probability of achieving profitability. The marketing strategy, process becomes dramatically easier.