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GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!!!!!

So, the long Journey of Stanley Cup has ended, and unfortunately Canucks was not the final winner. But in my mind, they are always the winner.

I went downtown today to watch the final game. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am not a big fan of hockey (I love soccer), but I really like learning and experiencing about new culture. So I brought myself out to downtown at 3pm. As soon as I arrived, I started look for a sports shop that sells Canucks tshirt. I not only found the store but also a ironic situation. The owner of the store probably knew that the demand of Canucks related products will temproraly be very high, so it is very likely that he/she prepared a big stock of them. Tshirts were being sold incredibly quickly that a lot of people had troubles finding the right size. However, there were many caps left unsold in stock. The owner was right for predicting the demand for t-shirts but not for the caps. At the end, the owner decided to give out 50% discount on all the NHL caps. I think the owner made the right decision there because it is fairly obvious that the demand will be in a great recession during off-season (that’s why I was thinking maybe I should buy the t-shirt after the game, but that would be no fun). It might have looked like a simple marketing where you just need to get as many stocks as you can when you know that the demand will hit its peak, but it turns out that it’s not actually as simple as it looks. You might actually suffocate some loss by being too greedy!

Original post can be found from: https://blogs.ubc.ca/sandychen/2011/05/27/booster-juice-marketing/

Can’t believe it’s already the last week of the first term of Summer (which means I need to finish up all the blog posts!).

I totally agree with Sandy’s opinion where Booster Juice at Village is specifically targeting certain people, and so is Hollister in New York.  Their targets are very clear and limited, but they still make a big profit. Well, if that is the case I was wondering how profitable those blue-chip companies are. Google, Wal-Mart, Apple, Microsoft, and many more are targeting most segments in the world. Of course, it is almost impossible to receive supports from every single person on the planet, but I am actually amazed how they are able to differentiate and specialize their products and service for different targets. For example, Apple produces fair variety of products while covering a lot of different segments. iPod Shuffle is popular among active people who like to jog with some music on. iPod Nano is popular among teenagers or 20’s that are willing to appeal themselves with fancy designed products. Now it has come to iPad that has many different kinds of functions covering number of segments: a handy business tool for businessmen, a class tool for teachers, a quick&easy music editor for musicians.

I have never been to Booster Juice store but I am sure they have variety of flavours and kinds of their juice. I believe that if they are a little bit more careful about music, they would be able to catch some of the missing segment.

 I am not a big fan of Hockey but I tend to try to understand different cultures and what other people are following. So I started watching Stanley Cup Final Series. I have to admit that I sometimes fell asleep on my sofa watching the games, but after all, I found myself being more and more into the series. All the unfamiliar rules that I could not understand became my knowledge now, and I even know that if you do not play for at least a second during series your name will not be on Stanley Cup even if your team win the series.

 As I become more knowledgeable at Hockey and series itself, I am starting to see a twist. Canucks seemed to be a great team when they were playing home games, but it was a totally different story when they were playing away ones. First I thought maybe they were intimidated by the atmosphere and Boston’s home ground advantages. But a lot of my friends and I myself felt that Canucks was just not trying as hard when they were in Boston. Moreover, after I heard that Canucks make at least five million dollars for every home game, I thought that it was maybe more than just home and away matters. It is becoming (or already has become) a fact that politics and business are involved in most of the biggest sports leagues. For sure, playing seven games and four or five games make a huge economic and political difference.

Despite all these doubts and suspicions, I am still hoping that all the players and coaches are asking themselves ‘what is really right?’, and Stanley Cup Final Series is not contaminated whatsoever. And of course, hoping Canucks to win 🙂

(This post will mostly be based on visual presentation than writings)

Since we are recently learning about promotion, and advertising is one of the most important aspects in promotion, I decided to display more of those creative ads for my classmates.

Original post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/minjungchung/2011/06/03/celebrities-influences-consumer-behaviour/

Minjung mentioned the marketing influence that celebrities have, and link it to one of the COMM296 concepts ‘social reference group’. I think she was talking about aspirational group specifically, and as soon as I think of the concept aspirational group, I automatically visualize Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez or Christiano Ronaldo playing with Adizero, Predator and Vapor on, respectively. Not surprisingly, I have already tried all of them on when I play, and I figured that Adizero suits the best for me. I am also using Gillette razor that has been advertised by Ji-Sung Park, David Beckham and Micheal Owen.

On the other hand, though I would just not wear some specific types of football clitts just because my unpreferred player is wearing it, but if I were to choose between two different types, I would definitely prefer the one that my favorite player is wearing. Of course functions, sizes and colors are the top priorities but social reference group certainly plays a big role in marketing in both aspirational and dissociative way.

Along with my last post about Shopping at Safeway, I have found another marketing trick from McDonald’s (MCD) this time. I regret so much that I could not take a photo of the Safeway’s trick last time, so I remembered to take one for McDonald’s this time.

It has not been very long since MCD launched a new menu called Snack Wrap. There are two different types of Snack Wrap, and the menu says ‘$1.99, pick any two $3.98′. Commonly, menu informs consumers the unit price, and when you are encouraged to buy an extra unit of the same product, there is certain amount of discount (like my Safeway blog post). Of course, it’s not that MCD cannot provide the calculations for consumers but since it does not get along with the normal menu trend, I thought that there is a high chance that MCD is using consumers’ unconscious habit of perceiving it as a discount promotion when there is a price for two units of a product.

I have been living off-campus since the beginning of the second year, and Safeway has been one of the easiest way to get grocery and other home needs. Until I started taking COMM296 this summer, I have never really been paying attention to promotions in Safeway. Safeway usually provides discounts for the club members, and they inform it with special yellow price tag. If, for example, it says that two bag of lays chips are $4 I would just buy two different flavours of lays chips without even looking at the orignal price, because I am already thinking that it must be really cheaper compared to the original price. I have been doing this for almost a year, but yesterday I was a little bit surprised. I am not sure if it was just for yesterday or this particular item, but the yellow price tag was saying that with the club card, if I buy one it’s $2.10, and if I buy two it’s $4.00. I am not sure if I was expecting too much but giving the discount of 20cents and trying to make it such a big deal did not seem very nice to me. It’s such a shame that I forgot to take a photo of it. I am still happy with the fact that I actually learned from it and from now on, I will be paying more attention to those promotions.

I am currently volunteering to organize a classical music concert performed by UBC Music students. It’s called Chamber Night and it will be on 4th June at Burnaby. Getting a sponsorship was one of the beginning steps for organizing this concert. Since it’s a music concert, I decided to ask some music stores for sponsorship. Long & Mcquade agreed to help me selling tickets and I put their name on the poster of the concert. By them selling the tickets, I save some time and effort. By putting their name on the poster, they advertise their store. I found that it’s a win-win marketing from sponsorship.

P.S: If anyone is interested in attending this music concert please let me know 🙂

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