The semester is coming to an end, and this is the last required blog for the assignment, and I must admit, that makes me a bit sad. Doing the blogs were actually quite an entertaining alternative from other strict, well-defined assignments. On a brighter note, at the end of this semester, I realized how much I gained out of this marketing course! As I was reading through this article online, I said to myself on several points in time, “Wow, look at all these terms I could apply – targeting, segmenting, direct and indirect competition, consumer behavior, branding, the marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion)!” Well, maybe, this is also due to the fact that all these terms have been drilled in our minds from the Group Assignments, and the various presentations we’ve had in the past two classes.

Now, let’s get back to the real subject, marketing, and how everything comes together in this one article, “The Consumer Trends that are Slowly Killing Wal-Mart”.

Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest and most famous retailer is facing a crisis. What? Well, simply put, changes – changes in economic conditions, changes in consumer behavior, and changes in technology. Through its cost-based pricing, Wal-Mart is known as a provider of low-priced, heavily discounted products, the major segment it focuses on targeting is low-middle income households. It is known to carry 100 000+ items in its huge stores.

So this seems all good and rosy, but, what is exactly the problem here? As summarized in the article, first of all, consumer behavior is changing; “even Wal-Mart’s core customer base of low-income households is now a significant part of this epic shift in shopping behavior”. Consumers are on a hunt for even better bargains. The term “bargain” I refer to not only includes better prices, but, convenience.

The deadliest convenience factors that are currently threatening Wal-Mart is the convenience of online shopping, which is provided by the online pioneer, Amazon.com, and secondly, the convenience of purchase in bulks with smaller scopes of alternatives which makes purchase decisions easier which is provided by the direct competitor, Costco. Amazon is able to thrive because it has kept up with technologic advances – the convenience of being able to shop online through one click on the computer, surfing through the iPad or Smartphone has been a major advantage for the online giant. Costco is fairing off better as it promises to have mark-ups that are guaranteed to be less than other retailers, and it has less variety of brands in its selection which is sometimes a plus for consumers who wants to make an easier purchase decision. They also have limited and irregular stock of products that attract buyers because there is a “fresh” feel each time they shop at Costco.

I personally have not shopped through Wal-Mart in whole, maybe sometimes to just pick up a few items because it was the only convenient place at the moment, and especially if the product I needed did not have to be of great quality (therefore, I could buy something that is cheaper, as compared to buying it from Shoppers Drug Mart). The amount of selection in the store overwhelms me, and the disorganization of many stores is also another factor that turns me away. Staff is always around shelving products, but when you need help, they are miraculously gone. Just from a personal point of view, I would prefer to shop at Costco instead. Easy, clean, simple stores, friendly services, and let’s not forget, food sampling!

Gone are the old days of traditional marketing for companies promoting only one brand at a time. Why raise awareness for one product when you can do double the duty in one single promotion? What is this new strategy? Cross promotion.

This increasingly popular tool has been used by various companies recently. Parent companies are realizing that attaching the corporate name behind each brand not only raises awareness of their presence in different products, but also solidifies the “loyalty branding” in consumers’ minds. Just like what Lisa Hsieh said in her blog – No Name vs. Brand Name – “that warm fuzzy feeling” we get when we recognize and associate with a known brand name verifies our confidence in the functions and expectations of the product.

Let’s take a look at Proctor & Gamble. How many people actually know that besides its well established position as the parent behind Tide and Bounty but also own the brands Pringles, Braun, and Duracell? In the Bounce – Old Spice cross-over commercial, P&G adopts a new marketing strategy. They use this “interruptive” twist on its “often bland” advertisings to not only add excitement to its product, but spark that recognition in our brain that says, “Hey, I know Bounce. I’ve used it before, that means Old Spice must also be trustworthy.”

Just that one little association in consumer thought results in enormous benefits – confidence in product, loyalty of another category under the same parent name, promotion of the brand(s).

In class we talked about the importance of branding; of positioning yourselves in the minds of consumers and imprinting your stamp on them. However, with competition so fierce, and the endless list of products available on the market, it is hard for companies to differentiate themselves. Confidence of products is even harder to justify especially due to the number of alternatives available. But, with a well established parent company attached behind each product, I think loyalty can be secured. Cross-promotion is truly a genius and interesting idea.

For those as wow-ed as I am about this topic, take a look at how P&G uses this strategy in the article “We interrupt this ad to bring you…another ad”!

Social media may be one of the best technological creations for companies today to promote their brand – if done properly – but if not then they might as well spell disaster for the company.

Recently, McDonalds attempt to jump on the wagon of social media to raise awareness of their “healthy campaign” through #McDStories reflects an application of the use of social media at its best. However, whether it was a complete failure or not seems debatable. Despite the many critics of this promotion strategy, I personally feel that although there were negative results of this promotion on Twitter, but also there were also overlooked benefits. As we discussed in class, yes the stories that were magnified on #McDStories were bad reflections of McDonalds, but they were also well known facts of the company – the unhealthy, behind the scenes composition of the food etc…. Therefore, that result was hardly detrimental to the health of the company; in fact, it further enhanced the attention of consumers to McDonalds.

The campaign on Twitter was mainly to market McDonalds’ attempt to introduce healthier alternatives in its menu. And with the negative stories about the “McD experience” on Twitter, they can say, “Hey, look at what we are doing now” in retaliation to the critics. This in a way serves as a benefit for the fast-food chain. It shows that McDonalds is responding to the dissatisfied customers, and addressing the problem in some way. The perspective of this so called “doomed to failure” attempt of McDonalds’ Twitter promotion is that they used this as a platform to encourage customers to complain – these responses serve as a very public way of gathering market research which will aid the company to solve its problems. As Christopher Lam said in his blog Listen to your Consumers, the negative feedbacks of consumers are “golden pieces of advice” for a company. It is the most effective way to strengthen the consumer-producer relationship.

Being able to distinguish the difference between a need and a want in the society is a bit of a grey area in society today. Do we define a need as a “must have“ standard that we are used to in our quality of life, or do we define it as the bare necessities of life that we need in order to survive, such as food, shelter, air etc….? From Garrett’s Marketing Blog on “Needs Vs. Wants – Blurring the Lines”, I concur with the idea that besides the physiological needs of the body, and maybe the emotional relationship that the mind needs, “everything else is a want”1.

Marketers have always been criticized for preying on consumers; feeding them unnecessary wants and manipulating their idea of wants into needs. However, I think that marketers need to also have to some degree, a demand or need of a consumer integrated into the product in order for it to be successful. Marketing strategies strongly appeals to people through the way it allows people to define themselves, and the ability it connects people to a “bigger sense of purpose”2. This is the “emotional need” that is being met. What I mean by this is that, people who care about defining themselves by trendiness may buy from Zara, as the company is known for their quick adaptation to the new “it-fashion”, or people will make their purchase amounting to at least $50 from a grocery store just so that the $2 proceeds will go as a donation to some kind of cancer fund. The first was an example of allowing people to identify themselves, and the latter is the greater sense of purpose to life that people like to be a part of. These ideas are brilliantly described in an interview done by Marketplace on “A Marketing Battle of Wants Vs. Needs”.

1 Garrett Marketing Watch, August 2008, “Needs Vs. Wants – Blurring the Lines”, retrieved from the site: http://garrettmarketing.blogspot.com/2008/08/needs-vs-wants.html on January 14th, 2012
2 Ryssdal, November 2007, “A Marketing Battle of Wants Vs. Needs”, retrieved from the site: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/consumed/marketing-battle-wants-vs-needs on January 14th, 2012

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.

From Commerce 299, the use of StrengthQuest was one of the most beneficial gains I received. It not necessarily told me stuff about me that were totally new, but it phrased my characteristics and strengths into words that I could use, especially when applying it to my resume, interviews, or just when analyzing what jobs/tasks would be suitable for me. I was very surprised to see how accurate the descriptions I got from StrenghsQuest was. For example, my top 5 strengths were competition, includer, woo, individualization and significance.

In addition to StrengthsQuest, I think I may have found a specifc industry in which I want to work for in the future: marketing/branding in the fashion related industry.

“So what if you fall? Just stand back up; rise to be stronger”. Although, it sounds like common sense, at least that was what I thought before.

I never took this saying seriously, or even into consideration because I have not experienced that impact of dropping from the highest peak of my life, down to the lowest of lowest. However, when it did happen, it really is, the hardest thing to accomplish. Being able to drag yourself out of a deep pit, is more diffcult than falling – as you can imagine if it was literal. During that time, my mom constantly reminded me again and again, “It’s ok to fail, everyone does at some point, but the most important thing is that you stand back up”.

Hearing this during difficult times is one of the most annoying things to hear, because you are literally thinking, ‘I’m trying, what do you think I’m doing?’, however, as time progresses, as you are more able to accept and handle the failure, you will be able to move on. Hopefully next time, I will be able to apply these words of wisdom faster so that I won’t have to go through so much pain.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/dell-profit-more-than-doubles/article1805002/ Dell has been an innovative company started by an entrepreneur who understood the demands and needs of the market. They have been successful in the computer market to offer personalized computers and in November, their profits have been doubled. Most of that was due to the demand for companies to replace aging technology, and since each different company needs specialized functions, Dell was the one company who could provide that for them. However, at the same time, Dell has been able to keep costs of production from rising too fast. This has allowed their brand to be widely known, and is a strategy they have used to present their point of difference. They have also been smart, like most businesses to prey on consumers during holiday season, however, unlike other suppliers, they are able to offer unique products. With more and more companies and products emerging out with a growingly competitive market, it is essential for companies to differentiate themselves. As a consumer, I find myself having differentiation and visibility as an important factor when I make my purchases. These are important concepts to grasp as a business.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/bell-mobility-offering-faster-data-speeds/article1804311/

Bell has launched a new service in which they are offering a new wireless data stick that runs at a speed doubling the normal. This has been released in Toronto on Nov 23^rd, and is set at only $10 above the normal network fee, and Bell will be the first in the telecom industry to do this. Bell has had a history of distinguishing itself from competitors in the market, and being first on many occasions to position itself into the minds of the consumers. Take for example when it aligned itself with the Olympics, as the exclusive telecommunications sponsor.

This time with this additional point of difference, Bell will once again imprint itself to consumers, as there is a growing demand for better and faster technology, especially with the emergence smartphones and transportable HD tablets. Personally, I have never really paid much attention to Bell, however, with the case studies done in class, and readings from the newspaper and advertisements, I see the strive of Bell to differentiate itself from others.

An interesting section of The Globe and Mail raises an issue with the ignorance of our food supply. The food that we eat comes from all over the world, and most of us don’t even know where it comes from. We are uninformed about who and where our food is produced and if it is inspected. The government only inspects 1% of the food imported. May that have a relationship as to why Canadians suffer 11 million food borne illnesses in a year? This is an ethical question that must be asked. If the government traced the origins of the food, and had more inspection and standards imposed on the imported foods, then much sadness could be avoided. According to the selection in the newspaper, the US Food and Drug Administration “found that traceability adds as little as 1%to the cost of a food product”. As a consumer, I take the standpoint that the meager amount of 1% additional cost can be sacrificed, and that inspections should be more heavily imposed. With the world being attacked by more and more disasters, either financial, natural etc…, a simple act on the government’s part could make a difference in protecting its citizens. This is an ethical question with a simple answer.