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So I guess this will be my last blog for this academic year, and I want to write my assignments reflections for this.

I liked my team a lot; everyone respects each other, we were able to talk and joke around, and when we got serious, we really worked on the assignments. Especially for the third assignment.

I thought that the process of making the video was really fun. Although I didn’t contribute much in terms of the script, I really liked it. It was somewhat witty and fun. At first, hearing that the video is about 5-7mins long I was wondering what kind of things would we include, but it turns out that the maximum limit was too short.

If I could re-do the assignment again, I would like to have been able to help out with editing the video because looking at Nena and Austin editing the video, it seemed to be very stressing and took a long time. I wish I had the chance to help them with the work instead of only being there and give some opinions.

Overall I really loved working with the team and hope that in the future we’ll have the chance to work together again.

So I thought that I want to write a blog on the ethical issues with Coke marketing that was shown in class since it left a deep impression on me. The issue was posted in Emily Tang’s blog, and I thought that I’d like to write about it.

Coke Targets Obesity

I thought that Coke isn’t doing a very good job at trying to get rid of the consequences of the over-consumption of their products, especially when they said that they are not fully to be blamed, but the consumers need to be able to have self-control too. Although I’m not denying that this is true, what I think Coke should do is to be truthful about the amount of sugar and calories involved with their drinks.

The Harvard University in the US is conducting a research comparing between sugary soda versus the diet soda drinks. There may be some problems involving the health of the consumers — “By providing a sweet taste without any calories, artificial sweeteners could confuse these intricate feedback loops that involve the brain, stomach, nerves, and hormones. If this happens, it could throw off the body’s ability to accurately gauge how many calories are being taken in.” This shows that there may be worse consequences in the long run. Therefore,the question which should be asked is whether drinking soda with artificial sugar is better than regular sugar in the long run.

So I just went to Seattle the other day and, indeed, I went to the world’s largest burger chain: McDonald’s. Before going to Seattle, I heard from a friend that the McNuggets are extremely cheap in the States, compared to the price in Canada. “How different could it be?” I thought.

So I went there, totally prepared to buy a few chicken nuggets for my friends. Friend #1 wanted 40 pieces, friend #2 wanted 20 pieces, and friend #3 wanted 10 pieces, so 70 pieces in total.  I went up to the cashier lady and told her that I wanted 3 boxes of 20 pieces nuggets and a box of 10, and she asked me why don’t I just get 2 boxes of 40 pieces nuggets instead. I was amazed. Each box costs less than $10 AFTER TAX. I remember buying 10 pieces nuggets at the Village McD for $5.29 + HST. No wonder people in the States love McDonald’s so much. It’s just so cheap! I think this is a good example of how the pricing of a good can affect the lifestyle of many, many people (a lot more demand for McDonald’s food in the US than in Canada), though the people’s basic principles and lifestyle play huge roles in making decisions on the food they want to consume.

I remembered reading an article on this a couple of weeks ago, and my friends were talking about it. I think this is a very good branding news. Let’s look at the pros and cons:

Pros: 

1. People are more familiar with the name “Blackberry” since that’s what they’re more used to “using”
2. Maybe they’re trying to renew their image with their latest product launch (Z10 and Q10)?
3. Giving a sense of unity through making the company name the same as the brand name

Cons:

1. It does not change their products’ quality
2. People have been associating RIM with Blackberry in the first place, if they’re trying to rebrand themselves and give impression of something new, this might not be a good way to do it

Can you think of any other pros and cons to this strategy?

So, guess which “boutique” we’re talking about? If you guess, Hermès, you got it right.

So this is the thing that I have to admit I don’t understand about shopping products. For me, investment means something you buy, and you are most likely to sell in the future to get a good return for it (meaning at least break-even, but profit is preferred). How a piece of accessory, or a bag, or a tie that costs a fortune could possibly be an investment is quite interesting to me, yet quite inconceivable.

I mean, imagine this: you just bought a Hermes bag that costs $5,000 today (let’s not talk about the $1 million limited edition bags that Hermes sells). It’s the latest trend. And then five years later. Hermes is a booming brand. Can you actually sell that for a price higher than $5,000? I honestly doubt it. After all, it’s now considered a second hand good, and it’s obviously not a good whose value will increase as time goes on. So is it really right to call it an investment? To me, it’s not because it does not suit the definition of an investment at all.

Idea came from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermès after looking at the “Further Reading” section.

So I was discussing about marketing ethics with my roommate and we stumbled on the topic of Lululemon and the Winter Olympics. In 2009, when Vancouver was getting pumped up for the Winter Olympics, Lululemon decided to launch a clothing edition that was specially designed for the Winter Olympics, called “Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 Edition.” This caused a huge uproar because Lululemon was not an official sponsor of the Winter Olympics, and the organizers feels that it is taking advantage of the hype. Yet, Lululemon is not found to be guilty of breaking any law.

Does it mean that it was right for Lululemon to “act” as if they were a sponsor of the event? The only reason I can think of to say that it was okay for Lululemon to do so was the fact that it didn’t go against the law. I guess that implies that people are “reading between the lines” and that it was up to people’s interpretation as to what Lululemon was talking about. On the other hand, I guess if everyone thinks that it’s related to the Winter Olympics, it doesn’t matter if Lululemon wants to deny it or not, because the public will still perceive what they want to perceive, and ultimately decide if they want to buy Lululemon’s products or not. Therefore, if the public is hyped up for Lululemon’s products, who can blame Lululemon for choosing a “good” marketing strategy that gets them the profit that they want?

Here’s the article that I was looking at if anyone’s interested:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2009/12/16/consumer-lululemon-olympics.html

Quote of the post:

What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising?  Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public.  ~Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 1964

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