Facebook, as one of the largest social media streams, has permitted to use users’ posts as a way of advertising. An example given in the article is: “… if someone posted “Just had a great seafood feast at Red Lobster” or even just hit the like button on the chain’s Facebook page, the restaurant company might pay to make sure that post, or sponsored story, showed up high in the Facebook feeds of that person’s friends.” This acts like word of mouth and the messages can be passed on from one person to another extremely easily.

For firms, this is a very good opportunity for them to advertise their brands and build up the brand reputations as massages about them can be exposed to millions or trillions Facebook users in such an easy way. And as the consumers are the ones who are promoting the brands, it would appear to be more reliable and the credibility of the words increases.

However, a concern that arises with this assertion is the privacy of the Facebook users. If their posts can be used to advertise without noticing, it can be considered to be unethical as it is taking away the users’ rights.

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Innovation is a crucial component to help firms to achieve their common goal: to maximise profit. Innovation acts a key differentiator between market leaders and their rivals. I have come across an article which states that firms should have innovations that match with their brands. If a brand fails to have innovations that fit the brand, the firm will face high costs and failure to expand and grow.

I agree with the article where it mentions that trustworthy brands play a significant role in innovation, as it reduces consumers’ risks in trying new products, positions the innovation, and provides credibility. If a brand is unreliable with its current products, new ideas and products will be meaningless as the consumers won’t buy it.

Therefore, there is a clear link between marketing and innovation, which is not about R&D only, firms should focus on building up brand reputation or use other strong branded streams (e.g. media sources such as the New York Times) in order to get high attention from consumers and other stakeholders. This significantly helps the firms to become more competitive and hence increase sales on their innovated ideas or products.

Work Cited:

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/11/make-sure-new-features-match-your-brand/

Shoppers, Canada’s largest retail pharmacy chain has recently merged with Canada’s largest food retailer, the company Loblaw Co, under a $12.4-billion deal. This action has varies effects on different stakeholders.

For both Shoppers and Loblaw, this takeover is an extremely beneficial growth opportunity as they can use each other’s built-up brand reputation to increase their customer sources. For Shoppers, with the pressure of increasing cost resulted from regulatory changes in drug reimbursement programs as well as increasing competition, being taken-over by Loblaw allows it to increase its profit.

Moreover, to explore the effects on consumers and consumption trend, as mentioned in the article, “Shoppers’ president and chief executive Domenic Pilla said the Loblaw deal will change the retail landscape in Canada.” As foreign competition has become highly competitive within Canada’s retail landscape, this takeover can be seen as a development of new store concepts or brand strategy innovation.

However, the concern from this takeover is the pricing of the drugs from Shoppers. In comparison with other independent pharmacies, Shoppers’ general pricing tends to be higher than average. It is important for Shoppers, or Loblaw after the takeover, to examine the price in order to maximise profits.

Work Cited:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/shoppers-drug-mart-profit-dips-on-loblaw-takeover-costs-1.1539575

http://globalnews.ca/news/962385/shoppers-loblaw-behemoth-eyes-buying-up-more-pharmacies/

While reading my classmates’ blogs, I came across this interesting blog post by Aidan Lau on points of difference, which took the newly launched iPhone 5S as an example. He points out that the article he chose is concerned with the drawback of the fingerprint system is the insecurity as government and hackers can access fingerprint information of individuals. However, Aidan thinks we should not put too much focus on the points of difference as it can lead to technology development constraints.

As a user of iPhone 5S, I strongly agree with Aidan. For firms, the fingerprint system is the main feature that differentiates iPhone 5S from the other smart phones that brings them sales and makes them stand out. For customers, like myself, I find the fingerprint system really useful as it saves a lot of time and efforts on typing in passwords.

It is certainly a good thing to consider thoroughly while launching a new product. However, it is slightly exaggerating to deny the benefits of the fingerprint system with some reasons that may not necessarily come across in daily life basics.

Work Cited:

Drawback of Points of Difference