Taylor Apsouris's

Within class, we have discussed many times that effect Customer Relationships have on businesses success. We have gone over how businesses should look to build long term, deep relationships with there customers, rather then very shallow relationships that were being traditionally made, in order to make a more sustainable business. There are different methods and tools available out in the field today, which assist organizations in doing this. The tool I would like to discuss today is Groupon.

Groupon is an online coupon website which recruits different businesses to advertise on there website with a discount to there services and goods in an attempt to attract customers. Groupon usually takes a percent of each sale that is made on the site from the participating retailers. Groupon is so very attractive to the consumer, because of the fact that people can come across excellent deals that are as much as 90% off the retail price, which they would not have found otherwise. This is what brings legions of people hunting for these deals on this website. However, is Groupon really helping the participating retailers?

The opponents of Groupon say that what this website is doing to retailers is that, those that decide to participate are creating a certain price expectation among potential and existing customers. This then could create the issue that consumers are no longer willing to pay the full retail price, but only the reduced price that was found on Groupon. This could dramatically affect the bottom line, due to the fact that the prices that these products are listed at on Groupon are usually not set at a profitable mark. The companies are usually taking a loss, during these promotions in an effort to build publicity around there business.

The proponents of Groupon say that although the consumer will have the experience of paying a lower price for the product, if the organization has done a good enough job of expressing there product or services value, the consumers should return for their product. Also, they say that Groupon provides an opportunity for businesses to reach customers that they normally would not have the opportunity of reaching, allowing them to drastically grow their market share.

Does Groupon really help Organizations build a profitable customer relationship with their consumers? Or, is the relationship that is being built, an unprofitable one, and therefore not worth the time and effort of the organization? Although, evidence is present for both of these arguments, I would have to agree with the proponents of Groupon. Gorupon is really a wonderful tool for both organizations and consumers. If a business has properly expressed there value proposition, then there should be no worry about losing clients after the sale, due to the fact that these customers should be returning ones.

After the recent announcement of the highly anticipated iPad 3, called “iPad”, there has been much consumer buzz. Many of my peers have rushed to pre-order the new apple product, in order to get there “fix”. This really got me thinking, “How is apple able to have this effect on people? And how can it do this, so frequently?”. After watching the new “iPad” trailer, it dawned on me.

Apples so down to earth, common sense brand is what drives this consumer craze. Apples advertising campaigns tend to focus on human emotion, and focus strongly on human interaction and relationships. They have a brand personality about lifestyle; imagination; freedom regained; innovation; hopes, dreams and apsirations; and power-to-the people through technology. This strong brand presents an idea to consumers that conveys simplicity, and yet still seems to be revolutionary. Also, with such strong emotionally charged adds, the company is able to really engage there customer base, causing them to go and run out every couple years to buy the next best apple product in hopes of experiencing once again the “apple dream”.

This exceptionally strong branding move by apple has enabled them to position themselves in such a way in the personal computing and consumer products market that they are able to sell the same style of goods as there competitors, yet they are able to charge a premium price. The “added value” in the premium price that this legion of consumers is paying for is the membership to the “apple lifestyle”, that seems to scream innovation, passion, and freedom. One, for the same price could buy another competitor product, with the same computing power for a largely reduced price. Yet, through doing this, they are losing the value that the apple brand brings in their life.

Apple has got to this point in brand strength through one major tactic, referred to as monolithic branding. Basically, everything that is associated with the organization is branded under the apple brand. This fact right here enables them to really imprint the apple ideal that they so clearly try to express in all of their advertisements in their consumers mind. The past successes and feelings toward those successful apple products is usually then transferred toward the new expected apple product that is going to come out. This positive attitude towards the new product causes it to be under high demand.

Although this monolithic branding has greatly helped apple in its pursuit, it can also have a negative impact as well. This possible negative that I am referring to is the fact that since such great, innovative things are expected from all of the apple products, the apple organization has to follow through on this promise. If, apple is not able to deliver the most innovative, elegant product on the market, they could be in serious danger of permanently damaging their product brand reputation, which would drastically hurt their organization as a whole.

After reading my classmate, Niki Chiriac’s blog regarding the SOPA act that was introduced into the US, and the negative effects that it brought with it, it got me thinking about how far those so called effects would go. In her blog she mentioned how wikipedia, in an effort to raise awareness, shut the operation of their entire site down for 1 day. She then went on to mention what the consequences would be if google did the same thing, being an extreme amount of lost revenue for google as well as other companies. She then began to adress how if SOPA did indeed pass, sites like youtube would be shut down, taking away the ability to advertise on it. Although I do agree with Niki in the sense that SOPA would cause sites like this to close down, making advertising that much more difficult, I feel that the extent to how far these difficulties would stretch, would in fact be much worse than what was discussed in the blog.

If one were to truly analyze the implications of what SOPA is, being an act which tries to regulate and stop all copyright infringement, they would see what I am talking about. This act would not only shut down large sites like Youtube, but it would also lead to the closure of many different large internet forums, blogs, torrent sites, and much else. These all are very effective means for advertisement used by companies, which allow them to really reach their targeted demographic. With SOPA, they would be no more.

Also, with the introduction of this act, creating adds in general would become extremely difficult and costly. This is due to the fact that every single picture ever used in an add or on a site, or in any sense at all, if not beloning to the company doing the advertising, they could not use it, or they would have to go and find the photographer for the pictures, and ask his permission. What was once a very quick and easy process, would now become very costly time consuming, and now no longer worth doing.

Besides being detrimental to the companies profits, this would have a terrible effect towards overall consumers. Products would not be as effectively advertised as they are today, which would decrease customer awareness, leading to some great products, which could provide much value for consumers, not being heard off, thus not being consumed. Also, the advertising the companies would do, would be more expensive, and some of the extra costs would be passed on to the consumers through an increase in price.

Overall, SOPA is not a very beneficial act very society in general. Although I can see how the pirating that occurs today can hurt some citizens of a nation, the amount that would be negatively effected after the introduction of this act would much greater that what would be helped. SOPA is not good for anyone!

Market research, just as we have discussed in class, is an integral part of a companies operations. It enables them to provide the best products to their consumers that will contribute the most value for them. It also enables them to properly gage the selling price they should use for the goods, the proper target market they will address, and many other important pieces of information that are integral to the success of a new product line or service.

I personally had the experience when I was in high school to be apart of a market research experiment when I was in Las Vegas, Nevada. My family went on a vacation here, and at the Hotel I was staying at, MGM Grand, they were asking random guests if they would like to be part of a focus group that was watching a pilot episodes of candidates for a new television series. There was several different shows being viewed, but one of them made it through the experiment, and you can view it today. It was the show “Everybody hates Chris”.

Before this experience, I was really unaware of how much market research took place before a product came to market. The test pilot of episodes of the television series was not the first and only market research conducted for these programs, it was one of many efforts to gather information. The company would have gone out and done vast amounts of research in the first place just to get an idea for the program. Then, they would have done many different experiments along the way while developing their series, in order to make sure that they were properly representing their consumers needs. The test pilot was rather one of the last research efforts to make sure that they product they were going to sell, was in fact something that was desired.

Market research is one of the most important activities of any organization, as it can dictate how its other parts function, whether it be logistics, operations, accounting. This is why so much time, money, and effort is spent on it, as it can make the difference between success and failure for an organization.

Hello, my name is Taylor Apsouris. I am a second year BComm student, who has an interest in pursuing the combined option of finance and real estate. Like many others, I am enrolled in this course, as it is part of my STT. Given this, I am still extremely excited for this course, as I can see all the practical applications that it has in the professional field, not just in marketing.

For work experience within marketing, I worked as a sales associate at Sport Chek for five years, from the age of 13-18. As part of my job, I had to have a very broad understanding of products that were available within the store, and competitive products in other stores that we did not have. Also, I had to find a way to persuade the customer, by creating some kind of value for them, to buy our stores products. Looking back now, although this was very basic, I was working on my marketing skills. Besides working experience, like everyone else, I have been on the customer end of the marketing relationship. I have been assisted by many different sales associates, in many different stores, who were all trying to market there products to me in an effort to persuade me to buy them. Also, just like everyone else, I am being constantly exposed to many different forms of advertisements. These may be on Facebook, email, television programs, radio, billboards, buses, newspapers, etc… The list can go on and on. This is just a testament to how entrenched marketing is in our culture.  If I were to mention my favourite ad it would have to be from the Nike series. Specifically, it is titled “How Bad Do You Want It”. This advertisement gets me so motivated to run and work out. I am basically bouncing off of the couch after I watch it. Due to this massive interest in Nike, I am a “Nike Junkie”, and therefore all of my active wear, running shoes, and weight training shoes are Nike. A link to a video of this advertisement is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X38PCf7kao

For something personal about me, when I was 3 years old I had heart surgery. Despite this, it was a completely corrective. Now, I enjoy doing active things such as snowboarding, working out, skim boarding, Long boarding, and running.

I am extremely excited about participating in this class this year, and am very much looking forward to a very interesting semester.

Throughout this course of Comm 299, there has been many important lessons and  teachings that have been covered. Proper resume and cover letter preparation has been gone over, in order to prepare me in writing a proper business resume. Also, how to prepare and act in and interview has also been discussed, so when I go into the inteview process and look very profesional and qualified. Among all of these lessons, one most important lesson stood out. This was the skill of networking.

In this course, I learned the importance of networking in the business world, and that this skill goes even beyond the business life, but into your other daily activites. I learned how to properly communicate with people, in order to build a very strong professional network for myself. Also, to build astrong relationship with my network, I learned the importance of booking info sessions with career professionals. These meetings help establish a strong connection with in-career professionals, who can give me valuable insight into their particular career path early on in my life. Also, when it comes down to it, later on in my life, these people could open doors to various job opportunites that might not other wise have been available to me other wise.

In my life, I can say the most important lesson that i have learned has been a lesson that has taken my whole life to learn, and is still being learned today as I go on. Ever since I was a small child, respect was a big idea and concept that was talked about in my house, and was something that was taught to me at a very early age. My mother always said to me, “always respect everyone you deal with, no matter what the circumstance you find yourself and them in”. I understood this at an early age at a very shallow value, in terms of saying please and thankyou.

But, in my later life, I began to understand this lesson very deeply. Respect goes above and beyond just being polite. Respect is a way to live ones life. A way to go and approach any given situation and come out as a winner no matter what the outcome. And what i mean about respect in this context is going and listening to what people have to say, and treating them with integrity and respect no matter how ludacris the things they are saying. This fact itself, has got me many jobs in the past, and many other opportunities as being Captain of various sports teams etc..

Respect is something in my household that was taught at an early age, but was a lesson that never seemed to end. It has served me well through out my whole life, and I believe will serve me well for the rest of my life. Even though i may feel that I have a fairly good understanding of what “respect” truly means, I feel that my lesson will continue on and develop even more as I begin to enter into the proffesional phase of my life. I feel that this lesson is hands down the most important lesson that i have learned so far, and will continue to learn.

Reflection

Today i finished writing my reflective summary paper for comm.  I just have to do one more proof read tomorrow morning, and then  am good to go. After doing this assignment it got me really thinking and reflecting on the past and what happened this whole semester. It went by so fast. Today i decided to write a blog about some reflections of this past term in comm 101, what i learned, what i enjoyed, and what was the most important lesson.

Well, to start off, i learned so much in this course. It was really the first big business course i was ever in, and it exposed me to so much. I learned about various marketing strategies and different aspects of entrepreneurship. I learned how to write a case study, which took me quite a while to get the hang of. (note to self: do not forget headings). But i would say, the most important thing that i learned this whole year, which will help me through my whole life no matter what i do is how to create an effective team.  This little lesson will go into every aspect of my life, as people are everywhere.

Financial Education

I made a speech today in comm 299 about the financial crisis, specifically with regards to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. We talked about this topic in class for a little bit, but i found it very interesting. After the class i remember wondering who really was responsible for the whole thing? Now, i am here today to share my opinion on it with you.

Basically what happened was that people were buying houses on initially cheap mortgages hoping to sell the house in a bit to make some money. The housing market was rising so this looked very promising. What happened though was that the “real estate bubble popped”, and the housing prices plummeted.  Now, all these people who cannot sell their houses now, are stuck with a house with an adjustable mortgage rate. When the rate changed they couldn’t pay. This cause lots of money to be lost in the government because of how much credit people had out.

What i believe is that, although there were many contributors to the financial crisis, the main cause was the general ignorance and financial stupidity of the people who took the mortgages. Why would someone do that?

Education: Intelligence or Stupidity?

The question here is: “ Is education really the smartest move for young people right now, or could they lead a more promising life as a entrepreneur?”  Many people are saying different answers for this question. Some say that education is the only way, and if you get a degree, you will get a good job, and a good job means good money. Is this true, or is it just the old dogma of a failing system in our society.

Others say that you don’t need post-secondary education, all you need is your high school, and a hard working attitude, and you will be successful. Just start some kind of business and look for the opportunities, you should be fine. At least that is what Robert T. Kiyosaki thought in his book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. But does this really provide the much need “security” in this financial crisis that we are facing?

Well, my opinion is that i believe in doing both. In this world young people cannot afford to not be educated, just hoping they will catch some kind of break. This uneducation is what caused the crisis in the first place.