Samantha Dodson's Blog

As I read Sean Goodall’s Blog on Kia’s new marketing strategy for the Kia Soul, which includes LMFAO’s hit single “Part Rock Anthem”, it got me thinking deeper into celebrities and their role in the business world.

Celebrity endorsements have been a widely used marketing and advertising tactic for many years. This is due to various studies that have shown how celebrities have a strong and positive appeal to consumers when it comes to choosing between products. All in all, it has been proven that celebrities are an excellent marketing tool for products that are produced by an established company;however, are celebrities as successful endorsing their OWN products as they are endorsing others’? The answer is…yes.

I looked into the fragrance industry and found that celebrity perfumes make up a majority of this market, which is traditionally targeted towards teens, tweens and young women. It seems that true fans can’t get enough of their favourite celebrities. For instance, teen sensation, Justin Bieber, has his own perfume, “Someday”, which has become a huge success. Some of his customers have made comments like, “When I use the perfume, I feel him!” and some look at his perfume as “hope in a bottle” since Bieber was able to shine in the music industry even though he started from nothing. Other artists as well as Bieber, like Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez, have been particularly prosperous with their perfume products. Consequently, many celebrities have realized that there is a huge market in the perfume industry for the rich and the famous which has caused a major recent spike in the emergence of celebrity fragrance products.

It’s no wonder that firms utilize celebrities in advertisements: celebrities sell.

This last summer I vacationed in Kona, Hawaii and visited a Macy’s store expecting to find the usual Seattle and California merchandise. To my surprise, the entire store was “Hawaiianized”; the store mainly consisted of bathing suits, sun hats, sunglasses, Hawaiian jewelry (e.g. pooka shells), and the tacky tourist Hawaiian shirts. I then remembered reading an article in Bloomberg Businessweek that revealed Macy’s new marketing strategy to “cater to regional tastes”.

Macy’s, one of the oldest and most established department store chains in the United States, realized there had been a decrease in customer spending since four years ago. As a result, Macy’s came up with the “My Macy’s” program in order to gain back their popularity and profitability. The “My Macy’s” program is a strategy to modify and customize store merchandise to individual markets. For instance, the store realized that there was a “demand for separately sold pieces of women suits in Washington D.C.”,so stores in D.C. adjusted merchandise for their clients.

This realization helps the company profit by targeting different demographics (specifically by location) so that they can maximize on their wants and needs in order to become more profitable and popular again. Moreover, it also helps increase their profit by stocking up on items that will be more appealing to customers in a designated area as well as eliminating excess and irrelevant inventory from that store.

According to various sites (e.g. Reuters) the “My Macy’s” program has been viewed as a success in raising the company’s shares and profits.

Hewlett Packard, a company that specializes in printers and computers, has recently introduced its new marketing strategy: printers that feature a removable tablet PC. The printer’s user interface is removable from

the printer and becomes a functional tablet PC with a touchscreen. The concept of this strategy is that by buying one of their printers, the buyer will receive a free tablet with their purchase. This could be a game changing marketing strategy as competitors like Dell, RIM, and others try to introduce their own tablet PC’s. The printer and tablet combo, which is predicted to sell at $399.99, could be perceived as a bargain since the buyer will receive a printer, mobile tablet, and a stationary home organizer/browser all for that price. HP’s tactic has set themselves apart from their competitors, and it is a tactic that has been mentioned in class. However, it’s up to HP to make sure that the tablet can compete with other products like the iPad in order for this to be a successful strategic plan.

Most of us have heard, either through the news or through conversations, that Nike employs underage and underpaid workers in China. Nike has been caught falsifying factory documents and has used hiring practices that do not make sure that minimum age requirements are met. Despite being one of the world’s largest sneaker and sportswear makers, they have created the possibility of tarnishing their brand name by allowing customers to question their business ethics. Nowadays, people correlate the words sweatshop and Nike together. As a result, it makes me question whether or not I would want to buy a pair of Nikes. In fact, I don’t own any. As mentioned in class, there are few brands that have been able to associate their name with their products, and Nike is one of the few companies that has been able to associate its brand with its product. When individuals go shopping for sneakers, they say, “I’m going to go buy some Nikes”.

-Shark Club waitresses

There are several restaurants in Canada, including Earls and the Shark Club, that are known for their good looking staff. Moreover, some restaurants have gone beyond hiring only attractive people and now enhance their employees’ sexiness with a provocative dress code. The Vancouver Sun has looked deeper into this issue and has come to the conclusion that, “Provocative clothing has become a social norm and attractive servers wearing skimpy outfits are commonplace in many sports bars and restaurants”. Should employees be forced to wear form fitting tops or skirts? This idea challenges people to question certain ethical standards, a concept mentioned in class, concerning restaurants and their employees. While many people consider this an unethical business practice, it is a strategy that companies are continuing to use because of its success. As a result, many companies who have found this technique successful disregard the notion that it may be unethical and simply think of it as good business.

Article from The Vancouver Sun

These Slimfast advertisements depict brides who should have lost weight before their wedding day. Despite being humorous, I came to the conclusion that it’s unethical especially in this day in age because of the increasing number of people who have eating disorders. I think this because the advertisement’s target audience is young women who are insecure about how they look. They specifically chose to prey on brides- to-be since they know that, usually, women who are preparing for their big day want to look their best, which generally means that they will go on a diet. I was watching TLC’s show, Say Yes to the

Dress, which featured a young woman who was very sensitive towards her weight. As a result, she didn’t find a wedding dress because she didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin. It’s women like they who will view this ad as a message to take SlimFast in order to lose weight. Despite Slimfast’s target customers being people who want to lose weight,and the fact that they targeted brides in this situation is unethical because they are a vulnerable group of people. But in Slimfast’s defense, it is a strategic marketing tool. As mentioned in class, both ethical and unethical companies are successful in business. Therefore, sometimes companies need to be unethical in order to profit.

James Cleveland, a social entrepreneur, created Jumpstart, a program that is intended to help young children improve their cognitive and emotional development. Social entrepreneurship, a type of business that was explained in class, has many similarities to traditional entrepreneurial companies but the main detail that separates the two businesses is profit. Traditional entrepreneurial companies want to make profit whereas social entrepreneurial companies have a vision to help societies. Jumpstart’s target demographic is children who live in low-income communities. One of Jumpstart’s beliefs is that, “regardless of social or economic circumstance — enter the world with potential and deserve an equal chance for success in school and in life”. One of Jumpstarts tactics for teaching their children is to give them one-on-one assistance with an adult mentor. This kind of help allows children to receive assistance that suits their learning needs. Moreover, the company has looked into several statistics concerning children, particularly in America, and how they are unprepared to learn when entering school. Jumpstart hopes that by teaching children how to read, learn, and socialize before they enter kindergarten it will result in these children receiving better jobs in the future. So far, Jumpstart children have shown to have significantly, “greater progress in language, literacy, and social skills than children who are not enrolled in Jumpstart”.

45 Social Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing the World

Lululemon Athletica, a company that focuses on yoga-inspired athletic apparel, has a manifesto (Lululemon’s Manifesto)which includes the company’s core beliefs, and it encourages its staff and customers to follow it daily. A major part of the company’s culture consists of employees setting goals for themselves. This includes setting personal, health, and career goals. Ultimately, the company has a healthy and proactive image that is portrayed through its employees, merchandise (including eco-friendly products), charities, and media. Moreover, the company goes beyond selling merchandise; it host in-store events that include self-defense, goal-setting workshops, and free yoga classes. Lululemon has been able to successfully portray their healthy living image through its services and products. This kind of image has become more attractive to consumers as health and wellbeing and being eco-friendly are emerging trends in our society, as mentioned in class.

This is Lululemon’s Breast Cancer Halifax Window Campaign. The writing on the window says, “We can’t cover up the effects of breast cancer. Have you been checked lately?”. The company has advertised this campaign which proves that the company believes that helping our communities is not only the right thing to do, but it is good business.

Popular and Successful American companies realize there is a place in the Canadian market for them. Not long ago Hollister Co., cousin to upscale and trendy Abercrombie and Fitch, entered the Canadian market by opening stores in British Columbia. This gave people living in places like Vancouver better access to this brand of clothing. No longer do Vancouverites have to travel to Seattle so that they can purchase the Hollister brand. Hollister realized that there was a demand for their business and took the opportunity to expand. Other companies like Sephora and Forever 21 realized a strong demand for their stores in British Columbia and have done very well by opening stores across the border. Best Buy, affiliated to Canada’s Future Shop, has opened stores and is giving Canadian consumers a second big electronics store to shop. Other big US stores to recently cross the border include Whole Foods and Costco. Target, a slightly upscale Walmart, is planning on making homes for a number of stores across Canada within the next three to four years, so the battle between American companies could payoff for Canadian consumers. This exhibits the strategy that numerous companies are executing in order to try and gain broader consumers, which is a strategy that has been mentioned in class.