Renato Morales

Procter & Gamble is mainly known for its heavy and persistent investment within its marketing department, however many consumers argue that they have not established mutual communication and feedback with certain brands under the conglomerate’s branch.

I read a particular blog representing the dysfunctional community Procter & Gamble are offering to its customers. This case was mainly based on Asacol, an anti-inflammatory drug used to treat inflammation of the digestive tract ulcerative colitis Crohn’s disease. John Mack, the blog writer, criticizes the fact that Asacol’s website does not give the consumer’s the chance to post constructive feedback and that the few of the product’s reviews in the website are suspected to be written by Procter & Gamble’s own employees. “All these stories, whether actually submitted by real people or not, contribute to a feeling of community on the site, but it is a faux and dysfunctional community at best”. This has certainly created major controversy, not only for Asacol, but for other brands owned by Procter & Gamble.

Probably, the most important aspect I learned from my marketing class, is that a brand has to achieve customer value in order to attract and retain their customers. It is obviously that Procter & Gamble are not encouraging their brands to establish strong relationships with their customers. Instead, they invest more money and put more attention to advertisements, promotions, pricing, and sales. Nowadays, companies have to start investing more on consumer behavior in order to better understand what the consumer wants and open more room  for their products’ improvements.

http://pharmamkting.blogspot.com/2009/06/proctor-and-gambles-dysfunctional.html

Response to: https://blogs.ubc.ca/serenarvp10/2011/09/23/pepsico/

While reading my classmates’ blogs, I had the opportunity to read Serena’s post about PepsiCo’s marketing procedure and how the marketing department plays a predominant role within the company’s objectives. After studying “marketing mix” in my marketing lectures, I find myself constantly applying this term to many of the companies I encounter regularly in order to understand how they want to sell a product.

Marketing Mix is a set up ingredients (product, price, place, promote) used in ways that both targeted groups and organizational goals are reached. A company has to use the essentials of marketing mix: decide what product to sell in order to make their investments result with even higher profits, choose a competitive price for its product, have a place in mind to distribute the product, and promote the product so consumers can be aware of what is being sold. In my opinion, this strategy brings up effective steps a company’s marketing department follows before coming out with a new product or service.

Most companies, such as PepsiCo, Procter&Gamble, and Coca Cola use marketing mix as an affective strategy before introducing a new product/service into the market. For example, PepsiCo’s marketing mix for Pepsi represents how well prepared they were before they entered the beverage market. PepsiCo’s beverage product is Pepsi and they are willing to sell this product at the lowest price possible in order to have competitive advantage. Pepsi is then distributed within retailers, distributors and bottlers in order to reach  the customer. Finally, Pepsi is promoted through heavy advertisements and sponsorships. This process helps PepsiCo position their product and target a market where they can successfully have most of the market share. Marketing mix helps companies reach consumer groups and accomplish their own objectives with the product.

While reading my COMM 296 classmates’ blog posts, I found a pretty interesting blog post mentioning how Coca Cola is changing their marketing strategy in order to satisfy consumer’s needs during the worldwide financial crisis. Dominic Sunga, blog writer, specifically talks about how people today try to spend as little as possible just to satisfy their own needs. Now, market competition is not that dependent on a brand’s recognition or popularity. Customers are now targeting to buy cheaper substitutes, putting a lot pressure to the high-priced popular brands in the market.

Coca Cola’s main strategy is to release smaller bottles in response to the consumer’s demand. They launched a 16 ounce bottle with a price around 99 cents, opening a smaller alternative to the traditional 20 ounce bottle that is priced around $1.50. Coca Cola believes that it will be a lot cheaper to produce smaller Coke bottles, hence selling their product at a more conformable price. Coca Cola’s marketing department also stated that consumers today are enticed to the idea of sustaining a fit/healthy life and saving money to face the financial crisis. With this new reduced sized Coke bottle, Coca Cola is successfully updating their production strategy to fit the consumer’s needs. Now, consumers are able to buy Coke bottles at a cheaper price and drink less Coke in order to stay in shape. Under these circumstances, Coca Cola is now able to be more competitive against their competitors in the “lower prices” market war.

Coca Cola, like many other brands today, is trying to open more alternatives so customers can have an easier time choosing what deal suits them better. Therefore, Coca Cola may be offering less Coke in these bottles but they’ll get more profit from them due to the current frugal economy.

Marketing Blog Post #2 – Coke: Less is more

Apple is probably the most recognized brand in the computers and electronics business in this past decade. Their commercial boom has expanded so much that it is almost inevitable to see people using or operating with Apple products. Due to their vast number of products, such as Ipods, MacBooks, Iphones, and Ipads, Apple has successfully infiltrated the most important technology markets out there. However, the big question is: How did Apple manage to become one of the most renowned brands in the world of technology?

15 years ago, most people were not familiar with Apple or with any of its products. Actually, Apple’s blossoming was a shocking surprise in the business market through out these past years. However, something that people might not know is that Apple started a long-term marketing strategy , called branding strategy, in order to expand the line of their products and take over most consumer’s favoritism over the years. Apple’s branding strategy is basically based on the consumer’s emotions. Since most marketing strategies directly focus on the customer’s values, Apple’s branding strategy started to form a solid and distinguishable brand personality. After thorough marketing research, Apple had a clear idea of what future consumers wanted so they tied these values with their own brand’s personality. Therefore, Apple’s personality can be associated with innovation, imagination, simplicity, practical, people-driven product design, and a heartfelt relationship with its customers. By having a good relationship with the consumers, Apple has been able to form strong customer loyalty which is fundamental in marketing. For example, Apple is considered one of the top companies to have the best customer service. Therefore, every time someone needs to by an electronic device, they’ll buy an Apple product since they’ll probably be somewhat familiar with the Apple experience. This explains Apple’s wide success in distinct markets.

My name is Renato Morales and I’m a second year student in the Sauder School of Business. I was originally born in Peru but I have lived in various different countries such as Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and Canada during my past years. Therefore, I describe myself as the typical UBC international student. The reason why I’m taking COMM 296 is because it is part of my required courses for second year. However, during the past few weeks, I’ve taken more interest in marketing. Now, I know more specific areas of marketing such as value-based marketing, marketing research, and relationship marketing. This brief knowledge on marketing has given me more motivation to place marketing as one of my potential career options.

By living abroad, I have been exposed to many different types of advertisements such as commercial, political, and environmental ads. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much job experience with marketing but I do have a marketing background from a student and customer point of view. As many other young adults, I was raised with millions of advertisements being exposed to me everyday. The rapid growth of marketing in the past century has definitely shaped the culture of modern society in terms of social, psychological, and theoretical values. This is why why we are the largest group of consumers so far. Marketing achieves this by targeting to what people like, such as sports, fashion, then environment, comedy, etc. For example, one of my favorite ads is the Old Spice tv ad with the ship captain; it’s a pretty funny ad.

Something personal about myself is that I’m still not sure wether commerce is the right career for me. However, I think second year looks promising now that I’m being introduced with more courses relevant to commerce.

Microsoft was pleased to announce that they’ve sold over 2.5 million Kinect devices for the Xbox 360 in their frist month of sale. Kinect, a gaming device that allows Xbox users to play without a controller, was released last month by Microsoft. This device became one of the most acclaimed products last month and will probably persist after the holiday season. Microsoft is thrilled on how the consumers reacted towards Kinect and they are planning to increase the size of production to keep up with the demand. It was predicted that they will sell 5 million Kinects during holiday season.

Kinect was an ambitious project allowing Microsoft to increase their sales and compete against its gaming competitors: Nintendo and Sony. Both Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii launched gaming features allowing users to play videogames with enhanced movement. They were successful in targeting new customers with this plan. Microsoft knew they had to make their gaming device more versatile for the entire family range in order to increase sales. Microsoft was clever with the Kinect because they differentiated their product by making it not requiring any controllers. People were amazed with the technological features Kinect offered and Microsoft achieved its goal of attracting new consumers.

Both carmakers, once suffering financial crisis, are now planning to hire around 1000 staff members.GM and Chrysler announced that they will start hiring engineers and researchers in order to start producing a new line of electric vehicles, which is their biggest competitive challenge in the automobile industry. Apparently, both companies believe that offering other energy sources besides petroleum could increase their annual profits and at the same time protect the environment. This astounding move has definitely convinced some people that the US carmakers have the potential to protect the environment, with the introduction of their new electric vehicles, and emerge from bankruptcy.

This new strategy could definitely help both companies differentiate their products in the hybrid car market, especially since their financial problem did not really help them invest in technological research. Now, by hiring a significant number of researchers and engineers, both companies will get the chance of catching up with their competitors and penetrate the hybrid automobile market. Sustainability is a really popular idea today, especially among young consumers. If GM and Chrysler decide to develop this plan further in the future, they could market their product towards this the future consumers and increase profits.