What do you feel when you first saw the title: Instagram begins to add ads? To be honest, when I first saw it, the first thing that pumped into my mind was: what? again? After Facebook added random advertisements on its homepage, Instagram is also going to be “polluted”.

I think this is somewhat related to business ethics. It is true that the company can gain much more profits from adding ads. However, it is for sure that users may get disappointed or even annoyed to some extent. But meanwhile, even though the users are not satisfied, they know they cannot quit and they have to keep using it because Facebook and Instagram are pretty much dominating the socializing market, and the company knows as well. As a result, a choice between profit and consumer occurs. However, we cannot blame the company for choosing “money” because for most of the companies, profit maximization is always their goal.

Compared to Facebook, I think Instagram has more ethics. Because according to the article, Instagram would choose ads that match users’ interests whereas Facebook just plugged in some random ads. In addition, the type of ads in Instagram is “beautiful, high-quality photos and videos from a handful of brand”. This means that there is still a high possibility that users will like the ads and then really follow the brand, which is more effective than ads in Facebook.

Personally, I can accept and understand the action of Instagram but I just hope that in the future, my Instagram would not be overwhelmed by ads LOL.

See the link below to read the original article:

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/03/technology/social/instagram-ads/index.html

E-reader has always been a hot topic that the public and the professionals are arguing about. However, according to the article, the invention of Amazon Kindle Paperwhite has stopped the argument to some extent. This is mostly due to its design. As it is mentioned in the article, it has a proper size and weight, a lasting battery that can satisfy most of the consumers’ needs. More importantly, the display of Amazon Kindle Paperwhite is the aspect that Amazon is the most proud of. Therefore, it becomes Amazon Kindle Paperwhite’s unique selling point.

Many people may have the question that why is the unique selling point important to a business. I would say that among all types of similar products, what differentiates YOUR product and makes YOUR product attractive to consumers is YOUR unique selling point. In this Amazon case, the design of the display is the key point for Amazon to win over other e-readers. Due to the article, it has a front LED lighting control, a highly responsive touch panel, etc. These make Amazon Kindle Paperwhite have an advantage over others, and it is also the reason that some people commenting that the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite is the best e-reader ever made.

In my opinion, I think even though Amazon did a really great work on differentiating its product by its unique selling point, it is still hard for it to attract many consumers from other competitors. Because there are many similar products on the market and they all have a very solid consumer base such as IPAD from Apple, TouchPad, etc. If Amazon wants to win more consumers, it still has a long way to go.

See the link below to read the article:

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/07/technology/kindle-paperwhite/index.html

According to the article, Emirates, an airline company, repositioned itself as “globalistas”, followed by a marketing campaign “Hello Tomorrow”. Making a new marketing campaign and a slogan can be viewed as one of the most efficient way of doing brand positioning as in my opinion, it is very direct and can reach to consumers all around the world easily and fast.

So how will Emirates’s new brand positioning function? Due to the discussion we had in class, there are some principles that the company should follow while repositioning itself. First, the company should make itself NO.1 in a new area rather than try to change consumers’ current perceptions about the existing area. This is what Emirates is trying to do. In addition to the common area evaluating airlines such as safety, punctuation, comfortability, Emirates creates a new aspect: diversity and communication. Emirates claimed that traveling internationally would enable you to embrace different culture and experience the unfamiliar, which is exactly Emirates’ target audience (well-travalers) is seeking. Secondly, what matters a lot in brand positioning is POD (Point of Difference). POD is the points that differentiate the brand with other competitors or rivalries. For Emirates, it is trying to create more routes and more different destinations which matches what its marketing campaign. As it is mentioned in the article, Boston Consulting Group estimates that Emirates will become the largest airline company by 2013. Personally, I think this is possible. Because from the new marketing campaign, I can somewhat see Emirates’s attempt to attract more customers and ambition to grow.

See the link below to read the article:

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/emirates-introduces-new-brand-positioning/4000869.article