Phirapatch Palalikit's Blog

After reading Alana’s blog (https://blogs.ubc.ca/alanabrodie/) on “product placement”, I find that it is very important to market the product correctly in order to gain more customers. For example in this case, Alana mention that “Manolo Blahnik product” became very popular due to the fact that Carrie Bradshaw, a character in Sex and the city TV show, was using it. This is interested how marketing a product through one person can gain this much attention. I had decided to explore further into other advertising strategy.

I had came up with the two advertising strategy that I find very interesting as it is gaining popularity which are Direct and Online Marketing. Direct marketing is connecting directly with carefully targeted individual consumers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationships. Many companies have chosen to employ it. Personally, I have been exposed to this myself and I’d like to talk about it. Amazon has constantly email me if I wanted to buy any product on discounted at that time. So how do they know what I want to buy? Well, I am an existing customer at Amazon, so every time I search any product or make a purchase the system would remember me. By doing so, it is able to personalize an advertisement to me, advertising me only the product I am interested in.

With the combination of direct marketing and online marketing, which is efforts to market products and service and build customer relationships over the Internet, had led Amazon to great success. A online-oriented retailer had great success, as the trend has changed, rather than conventional shopping, consumer prefer online shopping as it would save time, and even money as sales tax may be avoided in some cases.

The benefit of using emails as a direct marketing strategy on online marketing is that it is very cost effective and very efficient as suppose if brochure were sent it would cost more money and time. Also products update can reach customer at a faster pace without any delays. Suppose if you were a TNC like Amazon, you had to send out to customer worldwide, through adopting email method, they are able to reach a broader audience at barely any cost. However, the drawback of this it that it can impact the issue of privacy, as some will think that it is a privacy intrusion. Customer may feel reluctant to subscribe to these ads email and may eventually unsubscribe the service. So that’s what I think, what do you guys think??

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a bitter, acidic flavor prepare from roasted seeds of the coffee plant.  Coffee can be served hot or cold and it has been around for centuries. Recently, Nestle had thought of a great way to revolutionize the coffee industry by introducing  “Nespresso”. Rather than having to use coffee bean and turn them into coffee, the Nespresso machine uses a capsule to brew rather than the coffee bean. Imagine you want a cup of coffee, you simply have to insert a capsule into a Nespresso machine, and there you go, isn’t that great?

In terms of marketing, it had been perceived as an exclusive luxury good. The Nespresso machine is very compact, user-friendly, high quality and superb design. According to the blog: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/nespresso-pixie-the-apple-of-espresso-machines/17390, “Nestle Nespresso system is the caffeine version of the Apple ideology: user friendly, compact, high-quality, superb design, but ultra-proprietary. They say that IT industry is driven by coffee.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-cult-of-nespresso-could-it-really-be-the-best-cup-of-coffee-money-can-buy-395944.html

In terms of the product, Nespresso is a patented, foil-sealed proprietary capsule that contains ground espresso coffee. When it is inserted into a Nespresso-compatible machine will produce a very rich, high quality espresso shot. Officially, Nespresso does not allow coffee capsule purchase from other choice, resulting in limited choice of flavors. In terms of the price, it is relatively high compared to the traditional coffee beans in terms of the serving portion. Also there is very limited downward pressure on capsule price as consumer have no choice but to purchase the capsule from Nespresso. The capsule price range from $0.57 to $0.64 each.

For the distribution, due to popularity, there has been an increase in well-known kitchen brand such as Krups, Siemens, and Magimix offering number of machines to support Nespresso capsule. They distribute their product in two main channel; in-home and out-of-home which includes Nespresso Professional for workplace, Nespresso Gastronomy in top restaurant and Nespresso Aviation for airlines. In addition, on the marketing side, Nespresso rely heavily on advertisement, use brand ambassador George Clooney as the brand, promoted on magazine, and give out discount/cash back when purchase Nespresso machine with capsules for example. Also, if purchased in bulk, you can get a certain discount depending on the promotion.

(NESPRESSO AD)

(NESPRESSO REVIEW)

After I have read Elizabeth’s blog on the positioning of TOMS shoes (https://blogs.ubc.ca/elizabethzhang/), it had come to me that in order to be a successful company your goals, direction, and mission has to match the consumer you are targeting. Hence, a company needs to have the right market segment, clear target, and position itself so that it can approach the right type of customer. An example, that I will discuss is the Sprouts Farmers Market, although, it is a grocery store/supermarket but it does differentiate itself really well from its competitors. For more info visit: http://www.sprouts.com/

Sprouts, a Phoenix-based chain of grocery store has a very clear target. Its market targeting strategy that is being adopted is the ‘concentrated market strategy’ where the firm goes after a large share of one or a few smaller segments or niche, in this case, the grocery shoppers who are interested in buying healthy, natural, organic, and fresh groceries. Also, the firm had gain its competitive advantage from targeting these growing market of healthy shopper by offering product from organic meat to health and body cares at an inexpensive price. As a result, it has been very profitable ever since its establishment.

In addition, Sprouts had position itself really well. The store sends a strong message as an organic/healthy grocery store, which differentiated itself from its competitor and proving that it’s not just another ordinary grocery store. Also, it had position itself such that consumer perceive the good to be in high quality and low price- its slogan is “We are here to help America eat healthier, spend less, and live longer”. For example, the impression that it gives is all the goods are fresh, organic, and healthy from local farms with lots of variety at low price. A customer going into Sprouts would feel like going into a real farmers market to buy fresh vegetables, fruits, meat, etc.

From my personal experience, I had a chance to go to Sprouts during my time in Arizona. My first impression when I went into the store was “Wow”, to how fresh the fruits, vegetables, meats are. They gave a sense that I’m actually in a real Farmers Market by how they displayed their products using barrels and staff wearing jeans pants and vacation shirts. The product I bought was not common in other place as it is an organic toothpaste, which have emphasize how its product matches the mission to sell organic merchandise and differentiated from other stores.

In school, when writing up labs reports or doing a project we need to obtain information in order to answer the question or get to our objective. Same for marketing, in order to analyze whether the product will be a successful or not we would have to gather information. To obtain this information we need to conduct marketing research.

From market research, we can collect and gain data. Data can be categorized into primary and secondary. Primary data are the data that are collected by the researchers; these can be done through surveys, interviews, and experiments. Secondary data are the ones that are collected by other party such as an organization, the government, or a research company. These data are usually kept in the database such as the government or researching company. Usually in order to obtain these data, some fees have to be paid. In my opinion, it is worth to obtain these data even with some cost, as usually it takes really long to gather and usually we use it as a starting point in. From these data, company can plan a strategy accordingly to sustain the customer and company’s need and act on it.

http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing/market-research/1310-1.html  – this link shows the importance of data obtain from marketing research.

In my opinion, data is like a leg that helps you to move toward the goal or objective. As we move forwards, the trend and need changes resulting in the change in preferences and need of consumer, hence research is very important to get the latest data in order to produce the right product, market it carefully towards the right group of consumers, and thus steer the company towards the right direction. I’d like to finish off with this video on the importance of market research:

Picture of myself at Bryce Canyon

Hello everyone! I’m Phirapatch Palalikit, it’s easier if you guys call me Pete. I’m from Bangkok, Thailand and have been in an international school for my entire schooling career. In my free time I love to play sports in particular golf, ski, and badminton. It’s my second year here at Sauder and planning to major in marketing or general business, I am still unsure but leaning towards marketing-that is also one of the reasons why I am here.

I have told you guys the first reason why I am here, but the other important reason is because marketing is all around us and it intrigues me in the aspect that how it can create such an enormous impact on our society and I’d like to learn more on it and how these impact can be created to attract existing/new customers.  From my experience with marketing as a consumers I have found out that firms that tend to do well in terms of high revenue and profit tends to have a good marketing tactic and strategy-these are what lures customer to their product in my perspective. One of my favorite ads is the Chevy Camero at the Super Bowl, I love how they are trying to link the car to the movie transformer to try familiarize with the customer and allow them to see the link. Also I love the quote “Chevy runs deep” I think it’s trying to imply the company reputation and credibility. Also, just a little bit more about me; I love driving, sightseeing, and traveling 🙂

In this course comm 299 “Business Fundamental” it has taught me many skills regarding to how to become a successful businessman. Throughout the course, I have been learning how to make good resume, interviews, and present myself in the public among other business leaders.

Initially, I thought that this course wasn’t that necessary as it was not that interesting to start off. However, as the course progresses the content that I have been exposed to was in fact very appealing and I feel that it is very beneficial for me in order to get a decent job in the future. For example, to start off I didn’t know how to write a proper resume, after a few classes I was able to write a professional one. I have learnt that this skills is very useful to get good job as this is one of the key component for employer to assess when hiring workers. Also, I have learnt that I was able to do better interview when I have been through the lectures and this course can actually shape me to better leaders in the future. Lastly, the skills of presenting myself to the public is also very crucial and I find that I have benefit greatly from this course as it has taught me the skills how to approach people that I never before.

In conclusion, there are many things that I have learnt from myself throughout this course that I thought I won’t have such as writing good resume, conducting good interview, and meeting people if I didn’t take this course. The course has benefit greatly and I feel that it has give me all the basics I need to grow in the business world.

Recently, I have finished Case 3 that was about ‘Ambush Marketing’, and decided to do extra research to look into other companies that does Ambush Marketing. I have found out that during the 2010 World Cup match between Holland and Denmark. The Dutch brewery company “Bavaria” had done ambush marketing where 36 women wearing orange dresses from the beer brand Bavaria, where Budweiser was actually the official sponsor. FIFA has made more than 30% revenue from official sponsor; hence they are very concern and upset with ambush marketing.

I believe that it is very immoral to do Ambush marketing, as an unofficial sponsor firm is trying to steal the advertisement rights of the official sponsorship. It is unethical as no money had to be paid by company using Ambush marketing, however millions of dollars had to be paid by official sponsorship. If compared it can be like a company with no input takes audience from another, where another puts loads of effort into it. Ambush marketing can make audience believe that the firm doing ambush is associated with the event. This can be very misleading and I believe is very unfair.

In class, I have been lectured about the Supply Chain Management and I found it quite interesting. After class, I have decided to look into more detail about it and found an article about how Wal-Mart plans to try to reduce the carbon emission in its supply chain. It plans to cut some 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain by the end of 2015. Wal-Mart’s sustainability executives will work with suppliers to help them figure out what measures to take, including redesigning packaging or using a different fertilizer will be the responsibility of each supplier, not of Wal-Mart.

When I tried to look at this the other way, Wal-Mart is not actually doing much, in terms of changing it’s business plan, but in turn they force their suppliers to change their business models. It will be a win-win situation, as supply will have lower production cost if they invest to improve the supply chain as the energy is becoming increasingly expensive. Thus, more profit will be gained, thus passed on to Wal-Mart and hence consumers.

This is a commercial about Wal-Mart trying to be greener.

When we had discussion about entrepreneur and had to write a blog. There was one guy that had pop-up in mind. Mr. Walt Disney, the guy who was I first thought about due to my childhood experience in Disneyland. Mr. Walt Disney was born in Chicago, IL, as a childhood he enjoyed drawing cartoons and sell the sketches to his neighbor. He purse a career in art and animation, his first success was the animated Alice comedy, from there he started to pursue his dream, for example the opening of Disneyland in California.

The characteristic that Walt Disney possesses is that he is very innovative, creative, imaginative, and always has new ideas.  He started off in the areas of art and animation, then he moved on to open his own studios, to a television pioneer and had his own theme parks. This progress throughout Disney’s live was more than one that a normal individual can make. From my own opinion, all these characteristics truly define Walt Disney’s entrepreneurship, where he started off with nothing, but had the entrepreneur mind that allow him to develop the business from just being an animated artist to a theme park owner.

After the class about organizational culture. I have done more research about the company HP and found out as followed. Carly Fiornia was brought in as HP’s CEO in July 1999. At first Fiornia was welcomed to the trouble company. However with her implementation, the corporate culture of HP changed. “The HP Way” no longer maintained. Fiornia was asked by the board of directors to bring about change to the company. She did so aggressively, even bringing about the redesign of the HP logo. Her cutthroat managerial style and her celebrity ways soon became mismatched with the company’s vision. Later she was fired.

It is now the new CEO Leo Apotheker’s responsibility to establish norms for HP’s employees and let them solidify throughout every level of HP’s corporate structure. I believe that HP will face some resistance to change by employees and the organization, especially cynicism in regards to another CEO change and attempt at changing the corporate culture. When hiring new employees the selection process should be focusing on hiring employees that fit this new corporate culture and the process of socialization will allow them to completely embrace the new corporate culture.