Sharmaine Kwok's blog

After reading fellow classmate, Melissa Lim’s blog, I have to agree with her that this concept is definitely a great approach for the company to reach out to its younger audience. The retail establishment emphasizes on a laid back environment where shoppers referred to as “house guests” have an opportunity to mingle and hang out with one another. The Weatherproof store on West Broadway will be laid out like a New York apartment more than a store. The best thing with this marketing tactic is that the store promises no sales pushes. One sample of each type of clothing will be available for viewing in the store front while fittings are available in the back. The store also offers a stocked fridge, and a TV to really encourage the concept of interaction and allowing people to get to know one another. I love the idea of this concept, and will definitely visit the store when I get the chance!

If your pet is already a picky eater, the launch of this new advertisement will make Fido sit up and take notice. Nestle has made an advertisement using high-pitched sounds beyond human hearing to captivate its new target audience.

This idea came from an award winning campaign in Germany that featured “sniffable” posters to attract dogs. Besides targeting the sense of sight, marketers are targeting other senses as well, hearing and smell for example.

In response to Jessica Chang’s blog. This is an all new approach to selling animal food. It is true that animals don’t have much buying power as buying food is left to the responsibility of their human owners. But when you walk down the aisle to Petland won’t you take notice to the brand of food that makes your pet go crazy when it is being advertised on TV? There has been much research done on this ad including the help of U.S. experts in pet behaviour who researched what would appeal to dogs. Therefore it’s difficult for us humans to say whether or not this strategy will fail or not as this campaign targets our pets.

If you are the mayor of a small town in Saskatchewan, how do you get your tiny, unknown province some positive PR? You swap a house in your town for a movie role for one of your citizens with a blogger from Montreal.

In an example of blogging at its finest, Kyle MacDonald, a Canadian blogger, inspired by the childhood game Bigger, Better, bartered his way from a single red paperclip to a house in a series of online trades. His first few transactions were just for fun and at then it gets serious as he attracts a lot of media attention.

Kyle’s story is the perfect illustration of selling value. People trade their money for products that give them value. At the end of each sale, the main point comes down to one simple concept, how do you get your customer to value your $20 widget more than that $20 bill in their wallet?

As I reflect on Kyle’s barter success, there is a red paperclip sitting on my desk, I wonder what this may lead me to…

Check out the blog that turned one paperclip into a two-storey house: http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/

Start of a new year here at Sauder, and here I am writing a blog for my marketing class. In class, we talked about the importance of marketing in our interactive society. So why do companies spend so much money and research on brand positioning? Because it pays to advertise! No matter how fantastic your products are, no one will know about it unless you advertise! An example of a successful company at brand positioning is the computer giant, Mac. Asides from producing fantastic products such as the incredibly thin Macbook Air, the highly sought after iPhones, and many others, Mac has effective marketing campaigns.
As seen in the iPhone 4 commercial, Apple owes its success to its fresh, imaginative way of thinking and the way it does its business: A mixed combination of great style and design, sleek and enticing communications.
With the Apple products trending high in our society, its sleek design, and convenience, I have been enticed by the Apple iPhone ads and have also become a user of the iPhone 4 too!

This class has been an enriching experience for me. Comm 299 – Career fundamentals has taught me in the basics of commerce. In the first half of the year, we had public speaking classes. These classes helped us improve our public speaking ability and gave us the confidence we needed to learn how to successfully and efficiently communicate our thoughts to a large audience. In the end of the first half of the term, we made business presentations that we presented to our class. I was not a very good public speaker in the beginning of the year, however, these classes really helped me gain the confidence I need to effectively learn to speak in front of a large audience. In the second half of the term, we learned other aspects of commerce. We learned how to write effective resumes and coverletters, a skill that is required in not only a business school but in any other fields. We also had job interviews, this was a neat experience because it allowed us to learn how to handle a future interview. Overall, this course had been a great experience for me and also taught me important skills required in this field.

As I ponder on an influential person on my life to blog about, I come up with several names, both from family, and social figures. It’s difficult for me to specifically pick out a specific name, but I realize that people who I deem as influential have traits such as courage and determination.

Determination is a strong motivation and will to succeed. While courage is the bravery needed to overcome the obstacles that leads to success.

Both courage and determination are equally important and mandatory aspects in an influential leader.

Being listed on Time 100 eight times, Oprah Winfrey is one of the several influential people that I have in mind. She has had gone through many hardships in her early years, growing from a single family and being sexually assaulted at the young age of 9. She has had the courage to overcome these hardships and the strong will and determination to overcome these obstacles and to take her to where she is today.

We all know what an entreprenur is, an individual who operates a venture in hopes of raising profits. But what is a SOCIAL entrepreneur? A social entrepreneur is an individual who operates a venture but instead of raising profits, it raises awareness, help, funds to aid issues and problems in society. There major goal is to change society for the better. A great example of a selfless social entrepreneur is Craig Kielburger, the founder of Free the Children, in 1995. One year when Kielburger was 12, he read about a Pakistani boy who was forced into labour at the age of 4 and brutally murdered at the age of 12 in 1995. Angered by this, Kielburger founded the “Twelve-Twelve Year Olds” foundation which soon became “Free the Children”. He also founded the “Me to We” Social Enterprise which donates half of its profits to Free the Children by selling fair trade organic clothing.

Craig Kielburger, age 12, on his first visit to South Asia

If google offered you $6Billion for your small company would you take the offer?? I know, I definately would, but not all small companies would….take a look at Groupon. A small coupon company who walked away from Google’s generous offer. In my opinion, Groupon would have benefitted from Google’s offer. I mean, how long would it take Groupon to make that much money by itself? Besides, not a lot of people have even heard of this company, as shown in the poll in our Comm101 class. Even though Google wasn’t able to buy off Groupon, it will definately make plans to buy off other similar companies, I mean, which company in their right mind would resist such a generous offer of $6 Billion?

Take a look at Groupon’s website: http://www.groupon.com/vancouver/

So most people may have heard of guerrilla warfare, but guerrilla marketing??
Guerrilla marketing and guerrilla warfare are similar strategies that use tactics such as the element of surprise, ambushes, sabotage etc. There are so many different forms of guerrilla marketing as its widely being used in our society nowadays. Guerrilla marketing is a genius way of taking a detour from large marketing budgets.  This strategy is more targetted for small companies and entrepreneurs who are on a low budget One type of guerrilla marketing is: Reverse graffitti (also known as clean tagging, dust tagging, grime writing etc.) is a method of writing by REMOVING soot/dust off a surface. Some known companies who have used this form of advertising include Microsoft, BBC, Smirnoff.

Take a look at the video below:

Bill Gates as a Small Entrepreneur

Ranked as the  world’s richest person from 1995-2006, Gates was a college dropout completing only junior year at Harvard. He had a vision for “a personal computer on every desk” This vision enabled him to be one of the most successful entrepreneurs.

Before becoming an entrepreneur:
Bill Gates nurtured his vision. During high school, he spent many late nights tweaking his school’s computer system. After dropping out of college, he and his friend started a small software company in New Mexico.

An entrepreneur is a  “person who envisions a new business venture”
Bill gates did possess this vision, which had allowed him to become the leader in the software arena during the 20th century.