Month: October 2011

In lieu of the large-scale marketing campaigns and various other ways of approaching business, major corporations may now be looking at methods that were previously associated with small-businesses.

Companies achieve this by acting like technology start-ups. While this will promote a more innovative entrepreneurial mindset and is financially beneficial. However, the risks are operating in the same bureaucratic ways and also the repercussions of the sudden success of the founders.

Additionally, operating separately from a large corporation can increase and maintain focus because it is detached from the hierarchy of the company.

Overall, I see the logic behind the trend of small-business “thinking”; for so long, it was typical of large corporations to bombard potential consumers with flashy campaigns. Despite the risks of small-business tactics, the change to smaller-scale ideas is refreshing and will catch the attention of the many who are craving for something different.

After low profits, low sales, and other financial disappointments, Sears has announced its plans to sell its brands to its competitors.

The reliability of the brands that Sears sells is one of the company’s strengths, and in order to soften the recent financial blow, it will start selling those brands to competitors while charging a Sears brand association fee.

In doing so, Sears hopes to boost brand loyalty so that customers will buy more of its products, even if the products are not bought directly from Sears.

Although experts believe that this method will be successful in the short-run, they are unsure of whether this method is a long-run solution as well.

For the most part, customers seem to buy products from certain places based on convenience. Sears is not as accessible or widespread as a department store such as Wal-Mart, so it’s difficult to see how Sears is promoting its own sales through its new plan. It seems as though Sears would only make money off the brands they sell to competitors; in other words, the plan does not promote sales for Sears itself.

Although the iPhone 4 and newly released iPhone 4S have many similarities, the most significant new feature of the 4S is perhaps Siri.

Siri is a voice-recognition software that can aid in many tasks such as note-taking, scheduling, and information finding. Essentially, people can play with existing features on their iPhones using voice control through Siri. The sophisticated system is unlike other voice-control software because it is able to recognize and comprehend commands and questions at an advanced level (in other words, the system can recognize contextual/more subtle commands).

Much like how other Apple features have been adopted by other companies, the author believes that a feature similar to Siri will start appearing in other phones and technologies.

Technology as advanced as Siri is bound to make people feel apprehensive, and although some of the tasks that Siri can perform seem excessive, I predict that people will begin to use Siri for tasks that require efficiency and speed such as note-taking. However, until Siri is able to accommodate more people (through region or understanding accents), the popularity of this new feature will only grow gradually for now.

Mercedes-Benz is relaunching its smart car.

When it first came out, sales were promising because gas prices were high. However, sales diminished as large cars such as SUVs grew in popularity. With this relaunch comes a $30 million marketing campaign, aimed at promoting smaller cars such as the Smarts while “bashing” bigger cars.

However, some potential customers may be turned off by the relatively expensive price of such a small car.

The company is obviously invested in the concept of smart cars and is probably encouraged by the consistently high price of gas. However, as the article stated, people may not feel like they are getting their money’s worth with a purchase of a smart car. The marketing campaign is a good idea, but it’s doubtful that a significant number of drivers of SUVs and other big cars will switch to smart cars. Still, the marketing campaign will surely convince many first-time car owners to consider buying smart cars.