Category: Uncategorized

 

While I am a commerce student, I have always had an artistic side to me. I particularly love hands-on craft projects, digital media, and quite frankly, anything that deviates from writing standard papers. In such case, I perceived that a marketing project would be the perfect outlet to express my creativity; however, this misconception was quickly brought to question.

Upon skimming through the assignment, I concluded that doing well on the assignment would require an extensive application of both qualitative and quantitative skills, rather than simply just “thinking outside of the box.” Yet, the required SWOT diagram, the marketing environment research and STP components really did not seem all too thrilling.

To add to the mix, the abundance of information on The Coca-Cola Company made filtering and conducting thorough analysis difficult. While we all were conducting endless hours of research and undertaking late night procrastination sessions, we were a living example of a team that was working hard but not smart.

However as the course progressed, our marketing professor really emphasized the importance of market segmentation for a firm. I now see the benefit in segmenting consumer groups with similar needs and wants to allow firms to best utilize their finite resources (to develop appropriate buyer based marketing strategies).

So when it came to part C, the daunting video assignment, our team was already more keen on doing the research, which led to all of us taking a more proactive approach in:

1)     Ensuring that we had face-to-face meetings to improve our productivity & to mitigate miscommunication

2)    Scheduling our meetings and “check points” at least 3 days in advance

3)    Dividing up the work equally

4)    Giving our best effort

5)    Submitting a day before the deadline

Through my group work experience, I have realized the significance and necessity of goal setting, planning, and face-to-face communication for group projects. By taking these appropriate measures, teams can be instrumental in meeting deadlines and can prevent falling victim to social loafing: a phenomenon where people deliberately exert less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone.

I can attest that our team’s combined performance in making the video really showcased our skill set. Rosa’s artistry, Ria’s imagination, Maddi’s organization, Raf’s flexibility, and mine and Nathalie’s editing and creative design abilities were highlighted throughout the video, making it a proud achievement for all of us.

 

Whoever thought that Barbie has lost her popularity, think again. According to The Economist, “off all the forces against which resistance is futile, Barbie ranks right up near the top. Any poor innocent who assumed that this piece of anatomically challenged plastic, devised in 1959, had been left on the toy shelf beside other relics of the era is evidently not the parent of a pre-school girl.”

 

In response to Shahista Kassam’s blog post on this topic, I too feel that the Barbies have somewhat “led to a distortion of beauty in the eyes of young girls” as Shahista put it.  Speaking from personal experience, I never once felt that Barbie’s were the “ideal” look that I should shoot for. I never once compared my body to that of Barbie’s – I just never imagined myself being stick skinny, having princess feet or luscious silky hair… it all just seemed too artificial and unrealistic.

 

However, there are more pressures on girls than ever before on their appearances. How must one dress? How must one look? Many girls would agree that Barbie has the “perfect” look. Zoya Jiwa in her TEDx video on body image explains how Barbie sure influences children, and how such dolls could “play a part in weight control measures that are being taken by girls ages 5 and 6.” I agree with Zoya that this isn’t fair for the children growing up in today’s society. ‘Thin is In’ is causing young children to re-evaluate having one last bite of their desserts, and feel the need to suck in their stomach around their friends.

But why can’t we stop this trend? The cold truth is that powerful industries make big money from these images, and they make us believe that such figures are attainable. Shahista was in favour of the government banning “such advertisements that use unrealistically proportional models,” however I strongly believe that a more proactive approach would be to lobby Mattel to alter Barbie’s body measurements to reflect an average teenage girl. Such approaches have been proven to demonstrate change, as ongoing Facebook campaigns have forced Mattel to add a bald Barbie to their line-up to “help kids suffering from hair loss.”

 

 

 

Even Demi Lovato is hoping for some radical Barbie re-modelling:

 

 

 

 

 

Zoya Jiwa’s TEDx Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1y4W0cKb_U

Sources: 

http://www.economist.com/node/1487595

http://teenink.com/opinion/pop_culture_trends/article/175098/The-Barbie-Effect/

The Effect of Barbie Doll Commercials on Young Girls

http://www.webpronews.com/barbie-makeover-doll-gets-average-womans-proportions-2013-07

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1379300/Former-anorexics-life-sized-Barbie-reveals-dolls-dangerous-proportions.html

http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/78621092.html

 

 

 

 

 

Marcel Brown is an experienced blogger. In fact, he has eighteen years of experience. He is the most trusted voice behind new world technology, and a believer of liberty.

However, while Brown has a wealth of knowledge pertaining to technology, his blogs are effective and highly-rated. Why? It’s simple – they can be understood by every “ordinary-Joe” reader.

For example, Brown’s blog, Tech Companies: This is How You Acknowledge Your Mistakes, explores how Apple deals with their mistakes – by suggesting that their customers alternatively use competing company apps while Apple fixes their own app.

In this blog post, Brown doesn’t merely summarize why the app isn’t working; instead, he emphasizes the strength of Apple’s platform, and his belief that competing tech companies should do the same. In doing so, the reader gets to hear Brown’s opinion, instead of simply re-reading a reiteration about the dysfunctionality of Apple’s app.

Furthermore, Brown’s blog is engaging: it opens with a capturing line, and ends with a clincher. He holds the reader’s attention from beginning to end by keeping the diction informal – making it a fast read, and a well-written blog!

 

Article Reference:

http://lifelibertytech.com/2012/09/28/tech-companies-this-is-how-you-acknowledge-your-mistakes/

Picture Reference:

http://marcelbrown.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Marcel-color-med-low-res.png

 

 

Statistics indicate “American women spend about $5 trillion annually…Over half of the U.S. GDP” (Consumer Electronics Association). Not surprisingly, when it comes to shopping, be it for new homes, computers, food, or automobiles – women certainly take charge.

It should not be surprising that 85% of consumer purchases are made my women. To illustrate a breakdown, 91% of new homes, 66% of PCs, 92% of vacations, 80% healthcare, 65% of new cards, 93% of food, and 93% pharmaceutical purchasing decisions are made by women. So I thought to myself, if women are purchasing a majority of household goods, how are products such as male deodorant and cologne able to speak to both genders? How are marketers effectively targeting and positioning their male-centric products to appeal to women?

Gillette has tackled this drawback by introducing a “What Women Want” campaign. This campaign promotes “metrosexuality” – heightening the interest in maintaining a well-groomed appearance for men. While primarily targeting men, Gillette’s campaign was launched with the intent to increase conversation between men and women, where women can help shape male grooming habits.  With great success, Gillette has redefined gender norms. After all, with “69% of American men saying that women influence how they style their body and hair,” I cannot see why women would not be considered a key market segment for Gillette.

Gillette Grooming Commercial

 

Sources: 

http://www.turnerpublishing.net/pdf/Women%20Purchasing%20Trends.pdf

http://www.she-conomy.com/report/marketing-to-women-quick-facts

http://www.canvas8.com/media/images/2013/04/11/12-04-13-gillette-title.jpg

Picture: http://www.canvas8.com/media/images/2013/04/11/12-04-13-gillette-title.jpg

 

Vancouverite, born and raised, I have come to appreciate our culture of Canuck bandwagoners, kale-munching activists, sushi fanatics, and yogis. Undeniably, our West Coast ways are peculiar.

Furthermore, we Vancouverites “enjoy” being active (or at least tell others that we are). What’s even more obscure about this whole fitness craze is the “recognizable, swirly “A” logo appearing so frequently on every booty, shoulder blade and ankle at the gym.”

In my opinion, while Lululemon was initially recognized as a vendor of overpriced workout gear, the company has certainly positioned their brand in the consumer mind as an icon of yoga culture – a status symbol. Who in their right mind ever imagined that a company selling sports bras and stretchy pants that eventually would reek of sweat could be valued at 10 billion dollars today? I vote no one.

How is Lululemon different from other retailers? Since 2007, Lululemon has continued to refine the depth of their core product line, with the CEO pledging to improve the fabrics and features of Lululemon’s products year-by-year. While such improvements rack up the cost factor, customers continue to demand their aesthetically pleasing, functional, and versatile products.

In today’s competitive industry, knock offs and various other designer brands (Nike, Underarmour, Addidas, etc.) offer alternative, quality options. However, I believe that Lululemon’s success can be attributed to their “scarcity” model. In the eyes of the consumer, Lululemon products are hot commodities – with little inventory – waiting to buy it the following week is not an option.

While Lululemon’s customers may be sweating to replenish their wallets after their costly purchases, Lululemon is keepin’ it dry!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mkxMQGG2z4

 

Sources:

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Vancouverite/8827087/story.html

http://theweek.com/article/index/226020/how-did-lululemon-become-a-10-billion-yoga-empire

 

As part of my portfolio as the Director of Academic Relations for the UBC Finance Club, I soon became aware that our goal of posting 3-5 social media posts per day can be extremely time consuming. As a student trapped in a 3-year contract with a slow blackberry and no data (how do I live, right?), posting in a timely manner was quite frankly, unmanageable.

Eager to save time and my sanity, I stumbled upon Hootsuite – “The leading social media dashboard to manage and measure your social networks.” Hootsuite functions in managing an array of social networks, including but not limited to: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Mixi, and Google+ Pages. With over 7 million satisfied users, this tool seemed essential.

In fact, if Hootsuite were an individual, it’d be the most efficient analytic in town. With talents ranging from monitoring/measuring your fan base, likes, and comments, Hootsuite allows you every opportunity to optimize your page’s virality. Additionally, historical comparisons help gage your progress over time. As an official partner in the Twitter Certified Analytics Program, Hootsuite tackles profile stats by comparing keywords over time with Twitter sentiment.

While Hootsuite was clearly convincing that it would provide my club with a more comprehensive picture of our participation in social spaces, one concern surfaced:  With all this great data at my fingertips, how can I share it with the rest of our club executives? How can it be aggregated and distributed to our marketing and visual media directors without too much extra work? Not surprisingly, Hootsuite makes this effortless! Hootsuite actually combines our social media analytics into daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly comprehensive reports, allowing for my team to be engaged at all times.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for existing, Hootsuite!

 

 

Christmas. While it is the annual commemoration of Jesus Christ’s birth, what typically comes to mind? Santa Claus, sugary candy canes, and toys? Precisely, and retail chains around the world are quite aware of our consumer spending habits associated with the holiday season — a peak revenue period for most. “Kids through age 14 will influence $160 billion in spending in November and December [2006], said James McNeal, author of “The Kids Market: Myths and Realities.” With all parents eager to please their little ones, kids become an easy target.

Unfortunately, young children do not have the mental capacity to understand that advertisements can be misleading, and therefore, find it extremely difficult to resist luring sales pitches.

Companies such as Wal-Mart are increasingly indulging in the “nag and whine” strategy, where kids are prodded into nagging their parents to buy them everything on their Christmas wish lists. In fact, in 2006, Wal-Mart helped facilitate the association of happiness with purchasing power by promoting their twisted, “kid-friendly” toy-picking site. The site, www.walmart.com/toyland, features two elves who nudge kids to select toys by clicking on the word YES when a toy appears on the screen. Applause is played when YES in selected. But it’s silent if NO is selected. “If you show us what you want on your wish list, we’ll send it straight off to your parents,” promises one elf.

Why is this so depraved? Well, parents are then forced to buy products for their nagging kids even during tough economic times. If the parents don’t comply, kids often have bad feelings towards their parents. Companies are deliberately encouraging kids to be materialistic, putting a greater burden on their parents to meet their unnecessary demands. This is clearly unethical, causing the true meaning of Christmas to be lost in the midst of child manipulation and greed.

 

 

According to The Globe and Mail, the boom of “low-fat soft serve frozen yogurt” has recently built a huge Canadian presence. While Pinkberry, Menchies, and Yogen Fruz are the big 3 contenders now, the Yogen Fruz chain is currently undergoing expansion, but under a new brand name, ‘Yogurty’s’. From attending class, I have developed this correlation that the more established and recognized your brand name is, the greater the success of your business. However, this does not apply to all cases.

 

Yogen Fruz, has sacrificed their well-known brand name as they start from scratch. Why would a company wish to revisit their ever-so-difficult start-up stage when they are already established?  The CEO decided that in order to compete with other chains, they had to clear their 1980’s image of being a “blended fruit” chain, to attract a new customer database.

Having spent my summer vacation working at Marble Slab Creamery, I will admit that I was an active follower of what I thought was Marble Slab’s biggest rivalries – Coldstone Creamery. Now, however, I caution Marble Slab about the exploding yogurt frenzy as frozen yogurt chains now occupy substantial market power in the industry of frozen treats.

 

Picture Reference 

 

After having two classes of learning what social entrepreneurship is, in my opinion, it is something that is still difficult to be taught. Hearing about it is just scratching the surface. Becoming social entrepreneurs involves transformative action to empower learning of new skills and strategies to tackle the next economic, social, and cultural issues of society.

On that note, it was interesting to read about how SFU’s Beedie School of Business takes a unique hands-on approach in brining concept to reality – an approach which UBC students, such as myself, would also find worthy of my time. Essentially, they have created this program that offers  students interested in a social venture idea the “support and structure” needed to take their first steps as social entrepreneurs. Students are assigned mentors and are paired up with individuals who have experience launching start-up companies.

 

While I am uninformed whether or not UBC’s Sauder School of Business currently has a similar “accelerator” program in place, Sauder still has a handful of graduates who have continued on to become successful social entrepreneurs!

 

 

 

Further Reading 

 

 

 

 

In today’s day and age, it can be a difficult task trying to decode a business’s underlying intentions when it comes to being “green”. To an average consumer, it seems that nearly every company wants to go-green these days. More and more companies are taking immediate action to reduce their carbon footprints.  For example, one of the easist steps a business can take to reduce their environmental impact is to begin using electronic formats of invoices, quotas, etc. to reduce using excess paper. At the same time, “greenwashing” is arising as well.

While I support many companies that are environmentally cautious, I cannot help but to wonder what a CEO  expects to gain from adopting an eco-friendly policy. Do CEOs adopt a green policy because they feel that it is their social responsibility to create a better world for the future generations? Or is their “green” efforts only a medium through which a company can capture a greater audience’s attention – in such case, a company’s “green” efforts are driven by another type of “green” – money.

 

Further Reading:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/21/branson-khosla-doerr-technology-green-billionaires.html

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22882532/ns/today-today_home_and_garden/t/how-can-you-tell-if-its-really-green/#.UKphFqn3C2w