Hi everyone!

My name is Rita Lee. I’m a second year BCOM student at the Sauder School of Business, and am hoping to specialize in marketing and international business with a focus on Japan, or Asia in general.

In addition to this course being a required course to take for our BCOM degree, I also really look forward to this course because I would like to further my understanding for what marketing is really about. What I find fascinating is that marketing occurs everywhere, sometimes people don’t even know it is happening. It presents itself in so many ways that is uncountable!

As a student and a consumer, I think that everything right now relies on marketing. It is not only the a way for profitable companies to communicate to their consumers, but it also works for non-for-profit groups, such as churches trying to spread their message, or World Vision trying to raise funds for a specific cause. To me, marketing is interesting in the way that it literally touches the lives of everyone in the country and all over the world -especially now with globalization. I also had a few experiences in marketing. Most recently, at a club I am in right now, we have numerous events that need promotion. We carry out this usually by designing our own attractive posters, whether through computer design or photographs taken by our own very talented photographers. Not only do we post these all over the school, we also distribute them to stores, restaurants and sometimes even newspaper companies. Also, another important way that we try to attract our target group is by word of mouth; we intentionally seek out groups or other clubs that do similar things as we do.

Recently, a way of promotion or advertising that I find surprisingly effective is the use of bi-weekly newsletters. In the past, I would always be annoyed at the sight of all the advertisement emails sent to me. However, now I am subscribed to some retailers, such as Club Monaco and also their own special “in the know” Refinery19 newsletter, and I find myself actually taking a second look at them. I think it may be because of the simplicity and just the refreshing ideas and messages it presents each time. A few reasons I find it successful is, first, it doesn’t bombard my email as it only comes once every two weeks. And second, the layout of the materials and information is easy for me to scan for things I am interested.

Something personal about me would be that I absolutely love chocolates and coffee. I am also partly addicted to Gossip Girl and Nikita.