As approaching the end of this term, I have learnt some basic and fundamental marketing knowledge throughout the lecture and assignments.  Especially with the marketing plan assignments, I understood how to utilize my marketing knowledge to practical issues as well as how to work with other fellows as a team. By dividing the assignments into small parts, each one in my team was able to contribute his/her understanding of marketing to analyze the chosen company. And, I  enjoyed the process of discussing and  sharing own thoughts with others.

The best and impressive part of this class is the assignment part#3, the marketing video. Since none of us had the knowledge of producing a film, we spent lots of time and effort on the accomplishment of the movie. By working with my team member closely, we got a chance to know each other better and deeper. We tried to overcome any hardship we encountered during the filming. This experience is more than just academic achievement. However, due to the limit time, we have to keep the movie within 7 mins. If there will be another opportunity for another marketing movie, I will put all ideas into our film.  I think this type of assignment helps me better to understand and apply the knowledge than simply memorizing definitions. It is wise to apply flexible marketing knowledge in different situation rather than memorizing the textbook!

Once again, after completing this marketing course, I feel that I learn way more than I expected at the beginning of class. Marketing is not about products and services, its also related to self-marketing, how to market myself in the society. Those knowledge will help me in my future career and life. Also, I found that I have strong interests on marketing strategies. I will keep learning marketing knowledge on my own after graduating.

Peng Zhang

I will link and comment on an external marketing blog, “Fashion retailers are still failing to optimize email marketing for mobile”, by David Moth on 12 November 2013.

http://econsultancy.com/ca/blog/63775-fashion-retailers-are-still-failing-to-optimise-email-marketing-for-mobile

In this blog, David talks about a phenomenon that mobile email is an increasingly important marketing channel as stats show that around 40% of email is opened on smartphones. Nowadays, more and more people transform from paper reader to e-version reader. As a result, companies start to sending email rather than paper flyers to the customers. By sending weekly or monthly email, fashion companies are able to effectively communicate with their customers regarding any new arrivals and promotions. However, as the rapid development of smartphone industry, more people intend to read email with their smartphones rather than computers. This turns out to be a problem which is the email compatibility with smartphones. Normal email intended to be read on a computer cannot be loaded properly on a smartphone. For example, people can only see a part of the original image on a smartphone due to the scaling issue. David did a test to receive email from several companies. And,only four brands had any success in rendering emails properly on his Android phone.

“It appears that businesses are finally beginning to react to this change in consumer behavior, as the new Econsultancy/BuyDesire Mobile Marketing and Commerce Report shows that  optimized emails are one of the top mobile priorities for businesses in the next 12 months.” In order to allow customers to understand and realize the value of a company’s product or service, the first thing a company needs be aware of is to think the way a customer thinks. From a customer’s perspective, the user friendly emails can definitely  catch more attention than a messy and unscaled email. This is same as customer service, the ultimate goal is not just deliver the service, but let the customer enjoy the service. If a company sends email that compatible with both smartphones and computers, the customer will most likely to spend some time to go through the information. Otherwise, the emails that are not compatible with smartphones will be most likely to go to junk folder. Once again, customers have the abilities to see the effort and attitude of a company towards them. Always think the way that customers are supposed to think.

Peng Zhang

I will link and comment on the following blog “How Southwest Airline add value to its customer”, by Tian Liu. https://blogs.ubc.ca/tian/

In his blog, Tian introduces a phenomenon that Southwest Airline has the lowest numbers of complaints among US airlines. As a middle size airline company, Southwest Airline consistently received the fewest ratio of complaints per passenger boarded of all major U.S. carriers since 1987. From Tian’s point of view, the reason is not “hardware”, but the “software”. In another words, rather than competing with other airlines on the products, Southwest competes others on the customer services. Southwest tries to provide more values to its customers by offering free luggage check-in, free non-alcholic beverages, entertaining way of announcing safety information and reward program to benefit frequent flyers.

I have tried two famous US airlines before. Both of them charged my checked baggage and drinks on board. If I knew the offers of Southwest Airline, I would definitely choose them.  From a consumer’s perspective, I would choose the product or service which provides the most value to me as long as it meets my basic needs. In terms of airlines, consumers would choose the airline company which would cost the least as long as the safety and comfort are ensured. According to the marketing Mix 4P, Southwest Airline takes advantage of low price to obtain the least complaints from customers. Also, based on the reciprocity principle, customer appreciate the incentive provided by Southwest Airline. As a result, Southwest Airline is possible to receive minimum numbers of complaints among so many competitors.

Actually, most of companies are competing with others in the area of customer services. By establishing a close relationship with a customer, a company could potentially earn much more profits than a simply transaction. Nowadays, people are not only judging a product or service by its functionality,  but also the experiences of purchasing. A company has to allow the consumers realizing the additional value that they will get is somehow more than other companies can offer. Then, consumers have to abilities to judge and decide which product to pursuit.

Peng Zhang

Winco Foods supermarket, an American company has addressed lots of attention of people from Vancouver recently. As a matter of fact, more and more people from Vancouver are driving to shopping in State due to the high price of grocery and taxes in B.C. With 100 KM round trip driving from Vancouver to Bellingham, a family of 4 people could save at least $400 dollars on daily grocery and gas each month. Even there are American supermarket like Costco and Walmart in Vancouver, some people are willing to go Costco and Walmart in State to purchase grocery, since the average price differences and taxes between two countries are still somewhat large. If you have a family with more than 3 people, it is wise to buy whole packs of grocery from Costco. But, you are required to join their membership with $50 dollars per year. Some people think that the membership cost worth the benefits they will receive.

In  July 2013, a new branch of Winco was opened in Bellingham. Obviously, the targeted market is not the local market in State, but the market from Vancouver. People started to transfer their shopping place from Costco to Winco. The main reason is th at Winco does not require any membership. Anyone can go and buy their lowest price grocery. Also, the new store opens 24 hours, 7 days a week. With those advantages, Winco was able to establish a competitive position in the market.

If you have been to Winco once, you could notice that they do not only place their selling price of products. They also show the price of same products at  Costco, Walmart, and other local supermarket. This action provides the customers a picture of guaranteed lowest price in the market. Another advantage over Costco is that you can buy products like water, pop, chips in any quantities you want rather than you have to buy a whole pack of drinks in Costco.

As my point of view, Winco targets itself as a developed supermarket of Costco, and is trying too snatch the market from Costco. At the customers’ point of view, as long as the qualities of products are same, they will pursue the lowest price and most convenience supermarket with no doubt.

Peng Zhang

As a most innovative smart phone company in the world, Apple has attracted everyone’s attention on its new products. Since the miracle of iPhone 4, people are getting higher expectations on the next generation of iPhone.

The new iPhone5s and iPhone5c launched in Canada market at September 20th. iPhone5s, a new continues generation of iPhone5, has the most advanced technologies from Apple. However, more people are interested on the iPhone5c which is the first product rated as “lower class” in iPhone family. With the technologies from iPhone5 and new material surface, iPhone5c was being expected by people who are not willing to pay $700 dollars on a cellphone. People were expecting to buy an iPhone5c with a price around half of a new iPhone5S. However, it turned out that iPhone5c is only $120 cheaper than iPhone5s.

Lots people began to critisize the marketing strategy of apple. If Apple wants to make profits from those people who are not able to pay almost $800 for an iPhone, Apple should at least make a reasonable price differences between those two new products. Therefore, some people said that the iPhone5c is just a marketing strategy of Apple. When people are thinking iPhone5s is too expensive for them, they will take a look at iPhone5c. With only $120 more expensive, most people will spend $800 to get iPhone5s which is the best newest and best iPhone now. Before the launch of iPhone5c, people were guessing that Apple was targeting the market in China. Since there are millions of people are willing to use an iPhone, but not able to pay the money, Apple designed a new products just for those people. But no one knew that they all mis-predict the marketing strategy of Apple.

Also, if we go to the US Apple website, we can see that the price of new iPhone5s is $649. The price of new iPhone5s is $720 in Canada. Obviously, the marketing strategy is different for US and Canada. But why they set different prices for two markets with similar behaviour?

Peng Zhang  2013/10/01

Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!