Susan's Blog

Starting with an fun video, yes, that’s marketing!

Time flies, the first term of my second year has gone. Everyone is busy preparing finals and it’s hard to find a little space in library. It’s my first time to have a chance getting to know marketing and it is really interesting. I just finished all my text readings. The last part is about global marketing. It’s kind of interesting because almost all the commerce courses are end up with globalization. It seems like that being global is the big social trends in mordern world. Marketing is not just about marketing, it has so many things in common with other courses such as HR, finance and so on. Marketing is an important part of both business and life. It has a tight connection with culture and culture is connecting everything. When doing marketing across countries, we need to pay attention to what is different and what is the same with others. Even though globalization is a big challenge in every areas, many problems can still be solved by technology. Let’s take a look at how a global marketing manager spend her day.how a global marketing manager spend her day

I didn’t realize that different advertisements had different purposes until having today’s lecture. I was always thinking  all the ads to be the same. In my eyes before, all the ads have the same purpose: focuings people to buy. But, I suddenly found out that there were so much details behind persuading.

Advertisement, or promotion, is various based on the stage of their product’s life cycle. During each phase, the ads have their own focus. For example, when the most popular electronic product, iphone 4 first launched in the market, their ad is trying to explain every single new features to customers. The purpose for their ads is to inform people what is new there and to educate potential customers about the product.

On the other hand, if a good is during decline phase, the main purpose of  ads becomes  to remind people that the product is still there. No one wants his products to be forgotten by people soonly, so he needs to take some actions to help people remember.

But I was not wrong before. All the ads do have a main common purpose: to persuade people to purchase. This purpose existed all the time. You can always see some ads saying” Buy me”, “Try it today” or “Don’t miss it” and so on. Advertising is really a strategic task, which needs to plan carefully, to use appropriately and to control timely. What I want to say here is that ads do make a difference for a product. If you want a good sale, pay more attention on the ads and find out what you really want the ads to do.

Marketers always use some strategies to offer their customer something seems really attractive, but actually the truth is so different.

When playing games, especially the random ones, probability is a big issue. The game designer needs to calculate the outcomes carefully to make sure the game is profitable from his or her point of view. But all the players want to win as well. If their expected value is below what they pay for game, they won’t play. It is like a zero-sum game, someone must lose in order to make others win. So the designer better to take a serious consideration about how to make the game looks profitable for the players while he is the winner actually.

So, be careful, players and buyers.

When you go out shopping, the first thing of a product jumps into your eyes in its packaging. Packaging plays an important role in deciding weather you want to buy it or not. Companys put a lot effort in packaging its product. Some focus on making it appealing while others want to make it convenient.

Packaging function differs from situation. Suppose I go to Safeway and look for some snack that I can bring to school so that I won’t be starving during intensive classes. I want both OREO and nutrition bar, but the OREO only sale for a big  box while the bars have small snack packages. Definitely at this point, I would go for nutrition bar, even though I prefer OREO a little bit. Convenience is what I want when choosing snack. Snack is really nothing, but when this situation goes into an infinite number, it really matters.

Here is another case. My auntie just had a little baby few days ago, and I decided to take the weekend off to see the new life. Being a older sister, I want to bring some gift to my little new girl. I went to the gift store and two things attracted me there. One is a cute Teddy Bear and another is a music box. I love the Teddy so much but I chose the music box finally. Why? Because the Teddy only has a regular bag with it while the packaging of the music box is so amazing. It’s something I need to give to others so the packaging is crucial for me. That’s true. When people send gifts to others, they always package it well to make others feel good. Packaging is the first impression left on people’s mind, and the first impression determines everything.

Did you guys have fun on Halloween, or did you put your beautiful pumpkin lantern in front of your house? Yes, winter  is coming and summer has gone. Now it’s time to say goodbye to your favourite summer special frappuccino and get ready to have a cup of hot chocolate! Everything has a timing, even for drinks. People like different types of drinks based on season and the weather. Pumpkin is the symbol of fall, so a cup of pumpkin spice latte might be a good choice for today.

Read from Crystal Chu’ blog, https://blogs.ubc.ca/crystalchu/, I found out that people tend to buy seasonal drinks more often if there is a sign saying” limited time only”. This need marketers to pay highly attention to potential opportunities to attract customers and satisfy their needs. Catch the chance, and you will win! Marketing has timing, different seasons, different holidays and events help getting the market a lot. We all like something special, something made for a certain reason. When having these products, we may feel like listening to a story and obtain some extra experiences. My words might be overstated a little, but the sense is true.

Go and get something just made for today, that is what marketers design for you!

If when people see a logo, they can recongnize the product and the company at the first time, then the logo achieve its task successfully. Almost every company has its own logo. For those multi-product company, even though they produce a series of different products, their logo is the same or at least very similiar.

In Sonal’s blog post,https://blogs.ubc.ca/sonalharia/, she mentioned that “Logo’s can be more powerful than words”. Logos are not just symbols in her eyes, but something meaningful and can show the company’s culture. I totally agree with her. When starting a business, the company put so much effort in designing their logo because it affects how people see their product and how people think about their company. It’s something like positioning. Companys want to get a special postion in customers’ mind, which logos can help a lot. Positioning is a process that how company place themselves within their customers and how they distinguish themselves from their competitors.  When people think about a certain product, the first thing come up is the logo. So a attractive logo can really boost the company’s profit and leave a deep impression.

Logo is not just a symbol, it really matters.

Everybody is studying hard for tomorrow night? Midterm is coming and everyone is rushing hard.

Wedding, how beautiful this word is. Wedding is a dream in every girls heart. Luxury, amazing settings, flowers, cakes, dresses, great cuisine and many many things. But have you ever think that holding your wedding in a fast food restaurant? Macdonald’s can do it for you now.

Ignoring the bride’s feeling, from the point of reality, wedding is expensive and time-consuming. In the high pace society, people are busy all the time. Planning a wedding makes them exhausted and sometimes even arise conflicts. A esay and fast wedding can kind of solve this problem. In Hong Kong, two people got married in Macdonald’s last week and they both had a good time. The manager of Macdonald’s said that there were about 10 calls per month to ask for a wedding there. Macdonald’s weeding is becoming popular among young couples.

What I want to say is that Macdonald’s is smart and creative, they produce a completed new service to customers. It’s ” product development” in marketing, right? Macdonald’s understand the trend of the society and know the new life style of young people. This new idea will bring Macdonald’s a big increase of their profit, so successful!

The most important thing in marketing is to satisfy the customers’ needs and wants. =). ( Sorry I got it from the text). But I think the first step is to get to know the customers, figure out what they are thinking and what do they need. Only when we finished this part, we are able to move to the following stages.

Sometimes people might be surprised by a certain product because those are what they actually want before, and now the dreams come ture. Good ideas are not something very complicated, but something quite simple and easy to reach. But in the most time of our life, these ideas are always be ignored. Sometimes people have a certain feeling but they can’t describe it or they don’t even realize it, and if our product can express the feeling well and trully, the product would become very popular for sure.

Axe does so well in this aspect. Men always want to attract women and take the  dominant posiion in a dating. Axe helps them to achieve this. Axe catches what exactly men are thinking and make their brand as a symbol of ” dating leader”. So Axe is very popular within young males. It provides confidence to boys when they are dating, which also lead to success in the relationship. Young males always treat Axe as their weapons and totally believe it. Axe success is due to its understanding of their target market and know well about customers thoughts and needs. By doing this, it gives customers a feeling that Axe is what they exactlly want.

Will u determine your wedding date about one or two years before? Some people will do that for sure, even though they might not sure about their partners. Wedding is the most important thing in one’s life. People treat it as a combination of honor, happiness, holiness and everything, especially for girls. So picking up a meaningful date is important. In China, people are being particular about the date of doing things and believe that date determines the result in some degree. In west, some girls choose their wedding date as their mum’s or someday have special meanings. http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/10/08/con-wedding-weekend.html

Lately, there is a perfect day for wedding, 10-10-10, which means perfection. I just realized it a few hours ago, but for a marker, he or she must found out this at least several months earlier. Marketers must have a great sense of finding out new opportunities and catch it. Thinking ahead and planning in advance are important. You can’t wait for someone come and tell you what to do, you can’t be left behind by others. Slow means loss for marketers.

Planning is a major part of marketing. If you don’t start your plan earlier, you would probably not able to find photographers, limos and locations on such a popular day. After all the resources are limited and people’s need is unlimited.

A sense of knowing customers’ thought is also significant. Marketing is all about satisfying customers’ need. For a marketer, “ where is a need, where is a way”. People care so much about their weddings, and they want everything with a great meaning. Realizing ten equals perfection is a chance to win in the market.

Marketing is also universal and global. You can’t just focus on your own group culture, you need to extend the view to the world level. Like the 10-10-10, it’s from Chinese culture, but it has effect on the whole world. New couples want to get married on this day, no matter they are Chinese or not.

In the end, best wishes to all the new couples who have their wedding on10-10-10!!!

Before writing, I have no idea about what am I going to say. But at the moment I start typing, a quiestion jumps out of my mind; is marketing a group work or for individual? I think it’s a super easy question, everyone can answer it within few seconds. Of course it’s a group work! But, why?

Is it just because people are social animals? This could be a main point of the answer. Sure it is. We live with families and friends being aroud. We deal with different issues with others everyday. Being a good marketer, the person should not only know some marketing strategy, but also be a good psychologist. He should know what are others thinking, including the customers, partners and competitors. What I’m trying to say is that marketing is not just about a  batch of people being together to do some work, it also involved some individual thinking and analysis. Even though the majority of marketing is teamwork, personal work is also important.  What’s more, doing research is also an important part of marketing. Both buyers and sellers are facing many choices when they want to make decisions. Therefore, they need to collect as much information as possible and analysis “gain and loss” in their mind. This process is pretty much about individuals because I believe that doing analysis on one’s own is the most effcient method.

Marketing is kind of combination of both two; individual and group. I’m saying this in order to take social loafing out of marketing. Marketing should be an activity that everyone performs actively and positively. Get involved and start moving NOW!!!