Phoebe Fangyi Chen's Blog

It’s the last week of school. “YAY” for finishing another semester in univeristy and “OH NO” for the upcoming final exams.

Since it’s the last week of school, why not share something interesting/funny to everyone? Let’s have some fun before we all dive into the finals.

This is a passage about marketing that I once read online, and I found it very funny. Because we are not studying the promotion P of the marketing mix, I find this passage even more interesting. Let’s take a look:

1. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: “I am very rich. Marry me!” – That’s Direct Marketing”

2. You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you  says: “He’s very rich. “Marry him.” -That’s Advertising”

3. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and get her telephone number. The next day, you call and say: “Hi, I’m very rich. “Marry me – That’s Telemarketing”

5. You’re at a party and see gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and says:”You are very rich! “Can you marry me?” – That’s Brand Recognition”

6. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: “I am very rich. Marry me!” She gives you a nice hard slap on your face. – “That’s Customer Feedback“

7. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: “I am very rich. Marry me!” And she introduces you to her husband. – “That’s demand and supply gap”

8. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say anything, another person come and tell her: “I’m rich. Will you marry me?” and she goes with him – “That’s competition eating into your market share”

9. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say: “I’m rich, Marry me!” your wife arrives. – “That’s restriction for entering new markets”

Do you find this funny? I think this is a very interesting way that helps us capture the definition of these marketing terms.

Good luck on your exams folks =)

An exciting fashion event hit Vancouver last Saturday Nov. 20th, 2010.

Before telling you what the event was about, I am going to show you a few photos of what was happening that day.

You might ask what are these people lining up for? Haha, the answer is that they are lining up to buy Lanvin for H&M clothing.

Lanvin, one of the most expensive and famous designer clothes brands has built a partnership with the Scandinavian shop H&M, to design a line of products. Given the high cost of a Lanvin dress, which is sometimes more than $3000, Lanvin is not an affordable brand for the majority of customers. However, after building this partnership with H&M, designers from Lanvin designed a number of clothing from t-shirt to dress to jacket. The attractiveness of Lanvin for H&M is not the design or the price on its own, but the combination of these two. The price tag on a Lanvin for H&M dress only says $199 whereas the price tag on a Lanvin dress is more than ten times the amount. Wonder how the Lanvin for H&M looks? Here you go..

The promotion strategy used by Lanvin and H&M has undoubtedly helped achieve the expected outcome – the whole store is sold out in less than 12 hours. I believe what Lanvin and H&M was targeting was the group of ladies, who do not have sufficient money to purchase such an expensive dress yet want to fulfill the functional/psychological needs. Lanvin and H&M got the point, and thus achieved such a great success.

One little story about my experience.. I was planning to go line up for the yellow dress, which is on the right upper corner of the picture above. However, I was deterred by the freezing weather and the rumor about hundreds of people will be lining up to get into the store. I still called the sales associate at H&M on the Friday afternoon. I was told that there had already been people waiting for the dress at 5pm….ARE YOU SERIOUS???? YES….The sales associate suggested that I should go line up before 3am of the Saturday if I really want the dress.

Anyway..now you understand how successful Lanvin and H&M had planned their project.

I remember reading an online article “McDonalds Decides To Go Green, Changing Its Iconic Logo in Germany” conveying the the action of McDonald’s going “green” by changing its logo in European countries.

(http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/mcdonalds-decides-to-go-green-changing-its-iconic-logo-in-germany/343288)

McDonald’s first started in Germany. Specifically, the yellow and curvy “M” is no longer standing on a red background, instead, the background is changed to green to promote the concept of eco-friendliness. Here is the comparison of the two logos.

I actually first heard this news on a friend’s Facebook status saying “we will stop eating McDonald’s if the logo is changed to green,” then I did some research and discovered this piece of news is true. If you ask if I perceive this action as beneficial or harmful to McDonald’s, I would say it’s both.

We learned in our textbook that social trend is a crucial factor of the macro-environment. In other words, specifically the trend of green consumers is growing at an increasing speed. Consequently, it is to McDonald’s advantage to take this social trend into account. However, McDonald should also consider the potential harm this change of logo might bring to the company. For example, some “loyal” customers might have adverse feelings toward the new logo as they are more familiar/used to the one it has always been there. Another concern I have is that McDonald’s is a fast food company, and I personally do not find too many links between food and environment. Well, I do not mean that food has nothing to do with the environment. What I am trying to stress is that some manufacturing companies should put more concerns about the environment, because their operations can harm the environment more easily.McDonald has been a great model in advocating for eco-friendliness, therefore, other companies should take that into account as well.

All in all, there is way much more for a company to consider before taking any actions, especially the ones that are so obvious to the public (i.e customers, competitors, and partners).

After reading Kimberley Chung’s post “Buy One Get One Free,” I had a few thoughts in mind.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/kimberleychung/2010/11/07/buy-one-get-one-free/

There are always different kinds of promotions going on almost all the time, and this phenomenon becomes more obvious now as the biggest holiday, Christmas is coming in about a month. When you walk into malls, individual retailer stores, and dollar stores, you can often see signs or posters announcing a big SALE going on. Some of the popular ones include “Buy One Get the Other One Free,” “Everything is 30% off of the original price,” and “Any Purchase Above $500 will receive a gift card valued at least $100.” I admit that these kinds of promotions are really attractive, but I sometimes think if the sellers are being honest.

The reason why I doubt the sincerity of sellers launching a sale is because of my personal experience of working at a home decor store. I was a part-time sales associate at a home decor store, and right before the store launched its annual Christmas sale, the manager asked us to change ALL the price tag on our merchandises…..I felt so shocking as I did not know such thing would ever happen. My experience somehow corresponds to one of the topic our textbook covers-the ethics of marketing. I remember reading one paragraph conveying how “bait-and-switch” works, and I think similar exercises should be avoided to ensure fairness in the market.

This week in Class, Tamar was teaching us about the Product P in the 4P’s, and one of the class activities she did was really fun. Specifically, she put 20(?) logos in a picture and ask us to tell which one was which. Tamar did not show us the full logos, instead, she only showed us partial ones. There were some logos that were easily identified; for example, MacDonald, Adidas, BMW, etc. However, there were a few that made us spend a lot of time figuring it out, and examples included Qantas Airlines, IBM, and GE.

After the activity, I started wondering if the same thing would happen if Tamar gave us slogans of companies. Here is a question: What pops into your mind, when I ask you to tell me a slogan and its corresponding company? I personally thought of the slogan of Tim Horton’s, which says “Always fresh, always Tim Horton’s.”

What else are there? Let me list a few:

I’m Lovin’ it – MacDonald

You Are Richer Than You Think – Scotiabank

Hello Moto – Motorola

Because I’m Worth It – L’Oreal

…..

There are actually many slogans in the world, and what I’m trying to say here in this post is that if you have a slogan that is familiar and well recognized by consumers, it will be a huge invisible asset for the company. Because the more easily your product can be in the retrieval set or evoked set, the more sales you are likely to generate.

I remember there was one question on our midterm that was about Coach sending handbags from it’s rivals to a celebrity. Why would Coach do that? The answer is very simple-Coach thinks the that celebrity does not match with its brand image. In other words, when that celebrity is carrying a Coach handbag, it potentially harms the reputation/impression that Coach has on its customers.

Companies are often very willing to have celebrities carrying or using its products. Why? Because it is a very effective yet not costly way to promote its products. Celebrities are always under spot light, and when fans or ordinary people see their idols wearing a certain brand of clothing for example, they will immediate know that this brand must be a great one and even develop the incentive to purchase one for themselves. Consequently, the brand becomes so easily recognized by a lot of people.

On the textbook, the author uses Christian Louboutin as an example of satisfying psychological needs. Louboutin is perceived as one of the most expensive shoes in the world, yet thousands of women are crazy about it despite its high price. Why? Because many celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, Lindsay Lohan, and Victoria Beckham always wear them. As a result, the psychological need of feeling superior and confident is satisfied when there’s a pair of red sole shoes with you.

Therefore, the influence of celebrities can never be overlooked, because it is closely related to the sales of a company. In the mean time, a company should keep an eye on the most famous celebrities of what they are using, wearing, or carrying.

If I mention the term “fast food,” what pops up right away? The possible answers include, MacDonald, KFC, Burger King, A&W, and etc..

Here is another question: have you every consider Subway a kind of fast food? If your answer falls on the negative side, I think the position strategy utilized by Subway has succeeded. Although the sandwiches at Subway is technically a kind of fast food, given the little amount of time needed to prepare one, most people do not group Subway with other fast food, or rather junk food. Why? I believe it’s because of the positioning strategy used by Subway differentiates it from the junk food category.

Look at the company logo of Subway, you may find out that there are vegetable, such as tomato and lettuce in the background, which portrays Subway as a healthy and nutritious food. Beside the background of the logo, Subway also has a motto, “eat fresh,” which again stress on the healthiness and freshness of its products.

The target market of fast food companies are quite similar, because they all focus on the convenience they can provide to customers, who do not have much time  to spend on eating, but there are still differences among companies. The target consumer segment of Subway is those who do not have much time to spend on eating yet want healthier food. To achieve this, Subway provides numerous kinds of vegetables, meat, and dressings to meet the demand of customers. This also becomes there sustainable competitive strategy when few of it’s competitors offer similar service.

The planning and implementation of STP strategy has a significant impact on every firm, because if the application of STP is a success, the firm is very likely to make a lot of profit from it.

I was just reading my friend, Susan’s blog, and one of her post provoked my interest.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/susanz/2010/10/09/thinking-ahead/#content

In her post, she stressed on the importance of looking into the future to find opportunities, where firms can increase their revenue. Oct. 10th, 2010, which just passed away five days ago, was seen as one of the most meaningful date because of it’s uniqueness of 10-10-10. Specifically on Facebook, many users updated their statuses to content that is related to this 10-10-10. The number 10 is perceived as perfect because we often rate something out of ten. As a result, significant events such as wedding ceremonies, were all planned on this day.

In order for marketers to satisfy the needs of consumers, they need to think ahead and plan ahead to win over their competitors. I agree with Susan’s idea that marketers must have started working on their “10-10-10” project months or even years ago. For example, countless weddings were held on this day all over the world, firms/designers, such as Vera Wang, who is internationally famous for designing wedding gowns for celebrities, might have started their promotion a long time ago before the 10-10-10 approached.

Hilary Duff wearing Vera Wang for her wedding.

Recently I noticed that a lot of the TV commercials are about Halloween-Trick or Threat. For example, candy snack giants such as Mars and The Hershey Company have laughed a series of commercials advertising for their signature product such as M&M’S, Snickers, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Halloween is one of the few periods that the demand for candies increase dramatically. Consequently, firms want to apply their best strategy to utilize this once-a-year opportunity to make profit, and the planning and implementation must have started a long time ago.

I remember a quote, which says “life was so much simpler when apple and blackberry were just fruits.”

This funny quote metaphorically describes the situation of the mobile phone market, which is mostly dominated by iPhone-Apple and Blackberry-RIM. Although Apple and RIM see each other as their rival, I perceive their competition in a different way. I think Apple and RIM have their specific target groups of consumers, and because of that, their marketing strategies are disparate from each other.

First look at the appearance of their cellular phones:

iPhone: Innovative                                                                          Blackberry:Professional

On many of the iPhone commercials, Apple draws an emphasis on the different “apps” possessed by iPhones. The app categories vary from gaming such as “Angry Bird” to finance such as “CIBC Banking” to utilities such as weather forecast. On the contrary, RIM focuses on the relatively more ordinary feathers such as SMS, Emails and MP3 Player. In other words, iPhones are perceived more casually whereas Blackberry are used by professionals.

There is also another video clip, which depicts on rivalry between Apple and RIM. In this video, a “blackberry bullet” was shot at an apple and went all the way through the apple. The link to the video is below.

Blackberry takes a shot at Apple!

In response, Apple had another ad, Apple Hits Back!!, where the “blackberry bullet” was broken into pieces the moment it hits the apple.

Although, I am an iPhone user, I still consider a Blackberry as a choice after I get a job, because it DOES look so much more pro!



When talking about marketing, there is always this successful company that I have to come across.

Tah Dah…APPLE!!!

Apple is one of the few companies that I have known people “craving” for. The success of developing the affective component of it’s consumers is definitely one of their sustainable competitive strategies. I have hardly ever heard of hundreds of apple fans starting to line up for a product days before its debut. (Well, I know one of my friends went to line up for a xbox360 before its debut. ) I have to say that Apple has succeeded on it’s marketing, so maybe their marketing division generally gets the most annual bonus? LOL

Fans lining up for the recent debut of iPhone 4

Apple is not only a manufacturer of it’s products, but also a merchandiser who establishes their own Apple Stores.

Their flagship store located on the 5th Ave. Manhattan New York

What apple has done differently than most of it’s competitors is that they display a large number of laptops, desktops, iPhones, iPods etc at their stores and have “potential” consumers come in and play with them and eventually fall in love with them LOL. Trust me, once you use Apple products, you ARE going to love it.

I was deciding what laptop to get after I graduated from high school. I was thinking between a Sony Vaio or a Macbook, because Vaio has many colours and they are beautiful. I was at first reluctant to get a Macbook because I was more used to the Windows system. However, my Macbook-user-friends were all convincing me to get a Macbook, and I ended up with a Macbook in my hand. Guess what happened? I fell in love with it, and every time if people ask me what laptop I recommend, my answer is always “get a Macbook, and you will love it! Guaranteed!”

Oh, I think word of mouth is another factor that increases its revenue =P

I LOVE MY “APPLICIOUS” LIFE!