Month: November 2010

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.