When I first saw the title of the article, I was attracted. Japan always has many interesting and incredible new inventions coming out. This kissing machine basically functions as giving people the feeling of kissing someone. I think this is a good example of innovation making it less competitive. Because no one did the kissing machine before and it is a completely brand new industry. So it does not have competitors. In addition, there is a target consumer for this, mostly teenagers who do not have many chances in kissing.

In the end of the article, it asks a questions: Will this ever make it to market? Even though it seems that it should gain a lot of success if it is made to market, I still do not think that it will actually appear on market. Because the invention of this to teenagers distorts business ethics to some extent. Even if it comes out, many criticisms and opponents such as parents and teachers will arise which is an external threat to the product. So I think the kissing machine will only be an idea.

Article: http://hypervocal.com/vids/2011/japans-latest-invention-the-kissing-machine/

According to the article, the US firms suggest that marketers should bid against each other to target users. In order to do this, a score is given to every posters based on the amount they post and the times they are tagged or mentioned in others’ posts.

As it is mentioned in the article, the authority score includes the following stuff:

• The number of posts, reposts and retweets they make
• The type of products they “like”
• The lists they subscribe to
• The amount of times others write about them
• How influential their own followers are

The information together gives clues to which advertisements that the website will choose to better satisfy users’ needs. In the blogs that I posted before, Instagram and Facebook are all adding advertisements but Instagram chooses the advertisements that match the users’ interests. In this way, the company can get the revenue stream from the advertisement but meanwhile does not upset users to keep business ethics. This is pretty much the same thing as the authority score. The authority score gives a even more complete information of what users are interested in. Personally, I think this is a good and realistic plan.

Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22895781

After reading the blog post of reacting to the new spokesperson: Brad Pitt as Chanel No.5 Perfume, I had some thoughts.

Lood at the three advertisement above, which one do you think fits Chanel No.5? Obviously, from my perspective, it’s definitely not the Brad Pitt one. First of all, Chanel No.5 is designed for women and the target consumer is women. What do women want? Being alluring and seductive. But the link between the image of Brad Pitt and an alluring woman is much less stronger than the previous two. Secondly, even though it is crucial to think about innovation and creativity of advertising, the right fit is even more important. As the author has mentioned in the article, “The right fit isn’t just about the right face for the right product, it’s about everything.” Personally speaking, I think Chanel should change the spokesperson of No.5 to a better woman.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mitch-joel/channel-no5-brad-pitt_b_2357188.html

Apple has become so popular now that people need to line up days before the new products released. I found this article in my friend Yan Kai’s blog. In Yan Kai’s blog post “The Apple at the Summit”, he mentioned the theme “Think Different” of Apple. Instead of producing something that is already existed, Apple is trying to produce a new product, or market in a different and innovative way. From the marketing perspectives, it is always easier to be top in a new prospect instead of being top in a mature industry. For example, Apple developed “Siri” in phones. Even thought for real, Siri does not have much realistic function, it is an innovation in smart phone industry. It is a point of disparity. This is also one of the reasons that Apple can surpass Coke to become the world’s best brand.

Article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/apple-surpasses-coke-as-world-s-best-brand-1.1873259

Link to “The Apple at the Summit”: https://blogs.ubc.ca/yankaing/2013/10/03/the-apple-at-the-summit/

Snapchat is the new smart phone application that gains a lot of popularity mostly among teenagers. It is also called “ephemeral media” because every picture or video can only be viewed up to 10s. After the time limit, it’ll be automatically deleted from the phone. Even though actually, people can hack into others’ devices or take screen shot (which I did sometimes too), people still keep sending each other medias.

The company of Snapchat is only two-year-old. As a result, the company is mainly making zero revenue, just to cover its cost. Normally, the companies like this would first try to find revenue stream such as investment of other companies. But the small and new snapchat company rejected the 3 billion dollars offer! This fact kind of shocked me. But this actually does make sense if you think of the growing popularity of snapchat. According to the article, the snapchat now has more than 100 million users exchanging 350 million messages each day. And this may continue to grow in the future, which means in the future, the company can get more investment than now. The company has a higher value of future than now.

Article: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/snapchat-rejects-facebooks-3bn-offer-8938936.html

I found this article in my friend Yan Kai’s blog and I was attracted by the interesting picture: a women is eating the burger but holding a wrapper with a smiling women face. 

According to the article, the wrapper is invented by a japanese fast food restaurant, motivated by the low sales of the largest burger of women. The Japanese restaurant thought that the reason is that women usually want to be polite when they are eating and do not want to show the month. And the result has shown that this strategy actually worked.

To tell the truth, I always have such concerns when I’m eating the burger or sandwich, or even pizza. But if the burger is with this kind of wrapper, I would actually be more willing to buy it because it is both funny and helpful!!

I think this is really a good marketing strategy and obviously it is successful. The restaurant fully understood consumers’ minds and concerns. And I think this article shows the relationship between psychology and marketing well, which made me think of maybe I should minor in psychology. LOL

Article: http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-freshness-burger-liberation-wrapper-2013-11

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

“Business ethics” tells people that business is not only about finance, profit, etc, but also about moral issues, and this is actually important for a business to succeed in long-term. According to the article “Facebook co-founder says team had right kind of ethics” (refer to the link below), Facebook’s founding principle of business ethics is the site’s privacy setting system. This makes users feel that they are safe and they have some extent of power cause they can decide how much information they want to share with others. According to the stakeholder theory, a business consists of consumers, investors, suppliers, community, etc. As a result, the Facebook’s principle of business ethics satisfies consumers’ needs and therefore they would have the willingness to keep using it, which builds up Facebook users.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/12/tech/social-media/facebook-dustin-moskovitz/index.html?iref=allsearch