T'Ng Off

Well 1st term classes have come to an end, with only final exams left. This will be my last blog post and to whoever reads this, whether it be a TA or Tamar herself, it was pretty fun writing a blog, but it is quite deflating to know very little people read it. I know there is a requirement of linking to a classmate’s blog but it’s not really enough to create a community-feel overall. I think it’d be hard to make the jump from what it is now to what may be ideal, but I think if the lectures would highlight more student’s blog, it’d really motivate bloggers. I had my blog highlighted and I definitely felt a boost towards writing better posts. In addition to that idea, and perhaps to the dismay of future Comm296 students, maybe for the blogs you do highlight, have them linked on Vista for other students to see. Then maybe have a really simple clicker question at the beginning of next class be based on some insight in that post. Students may feel it’ll be an additional weekly burden, but they’re essentially getting easy participation/clicker marks. With perhaps 70% of the class reading or at the very least skimming the highlighted post, the likelihood of someone posting a comment will hopefully increase.

Anyway, that’s just something I wanted to point out/suggest before I abandon my blog here. Happy holidays to anyone who reads this 😛

-Tommy Ng

As most of you know the new Harry Potter movie has been out for a week or so, but I still haven’t taken the time to watch it yet =.= Anyway I’ve come across a couple of music videos related to Harry Potter and thought I would share it here (and ultimately dedicate my post to HP).


I’m sure there are a lot more, but the Harry Potter brand definitely has a lot of advocates who are willing to spend their spare time making videos just like the above ones.
By summer next year though, the 8th movie will be out and the original series will be over. It’ll be really interesting to see what happens after… will the studios find ways to milk the brand for more money? How long will it be before they redo the whole series?
I hope after finals, I’ll find the time to watch it (I’m not actually a super big fan) and perhaps maybe re-watch 5 and 6 before watching 7 (it’s been too long since I’ve watched them so my memory’s a bit fuzzy).
To end my post, I have another vid, it’s actually quite old and most people will have already seen it, but it’s just another example of fan advocacy from one of the earlier Harry Potter movies

I really don’t like snow. I probably sound like a cynic but I don’t see how the joy of snow could exceed all the dangers snow brings. Most of you (my class mates at least) can probably drive and would know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, snow is usually a good signal for probably the most popular holiday all year, Christmas. Which is also probably the equivalent of tax season for accountants to marketers. Marketing divisions will probably review their 4P’s or may just have a set of 4P’s specifically for Christmas since it’s just that important.

Some things they would know is that for their Product, they definitely need to add in new features or at least market it that way. I remember from last year’s OB project with EA, they would rush products to completion (which means they were buggy/glitchy), just so they could make it in time for Christmas.

Price will probably be marked up, but then again right after Christmas, we have Boxing day, probably the most well-known “promotional-pricing” day that people know about. (I think there’s also a couple of other days that are known to be promotional-pricing days… Black Friday in the states at least?)

For Place/Distribution, it will probably be quite a nightmare for the logistics people. Things getting sold out is an issue, with the classic Movie example Jingle All The Way :P.

Lastly Promotion, we haven’t gone over this P in class yet (will next week though), but I would think consumer conversion rates are generally higher, so the effect of promotions would be amplified.

The day I can’t wait for is actually not Christmas, it’s December 15th, my first complete day after finishing our first semester :D, I think this day will feel just as great as Christmas itself.

So in my classmate Graeme’s blog, he mentioned the Underground Youtube Decrees in his post here. Me being an avid Youtube surfer (as you can see from a lot of my posts) just had to respond.

Of the 7 decrees in UYD, I’ve seen many of them in posts but I’m not too familiar with IV (Thou shalt not ask if he died) or VII (Thou shalt not ask if an inanimate object is ok). I personally find some of the decrees amusing occasionally but more often than not, they are un-thoughtfully presented, which I guess warrants a decree against them.

One  decree that should be imposed is “Thou shalt not refer the whole video as their favourite part”. This happens when the comment links a section 0:01 – 3:15 (for example) as the user’s favourite part when in fact, the whole video IS 3:15 long, this is something that really annoys me.

Some other decrees I would add would be about comments that spout “FAKE!!!” and also comments that result in a long heated back-and-forth argument where posters accuse each other of being trolls. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “troll”, it basically refers to a person who deliberately takes perhaps a controversial side, with an intent to tick people off on the internet. It is no surprise that Youtube attracts many trolls since it is such a big community.

On a related note, I found this comic from XKCD about this issue, and the potential “solution” (note: I took the image and censored a word to make it appropriate for class, by clicking on the link to XKCD, you will see the uncensored version, please be warned)

So a couple of days ago, there was a dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica over the border of its territory. This dispute however, was not driven by a greedy government, but rather by an error from Google Maps.

As you can see, the two maps show a different border, hence the confusion. From the article I got this story from (here), they joked that “Bing’s next marketing strategy: Bing, the search engine that doesn’t cause international disputes.” So this got me thinking about campaigns where firms take shots at competitors to knock them down a few pegs. Is it ethical or effective? or does it just show a sign of weakness?

In this example…

we have the Cleveland Cavaliers (a basketball team) respond to a former player, Lebron James (who has been marketed crazily, with his own brand). To me, the video just makes the Cavaliers seem really bitter. If you’re a basketball fan, you’ll know what happened with Lebron’s “the Decision” and most people would agree that was quite stupid and unnecessary, but making response videos like the one above is just as unnecessary. It’s kinda sad to see the Cavaliers (who were quite irrelevant before the arrival of Lebron) try to tarnish the Lebron brand (ie. Witness –> Quitness).

We haven’t covered the promotion part of marketing, but I’m curious to see how important the role of music plays. Some common forms of music in commercials I can recall are…

Jingles – short, a couple lines accompanied by a distinct melody; an example being McDonald’s I’m Lovin It

Product based Songs – a song dedicated to the product itself, it’s usually pretty original and catchy; an example with Coca Cola’s campaign

and lastly, through even an unrelated song – really acts as background music but can be used to communicate a “feel” to the product (ie. it’s fun, hip etc) ,  the choice of an appealing song could definitely let viewers see the product in a better light, my example of that would be Maynard

and another one I really like is Pepsi

It’s also pretty interesting to see how the above two examples were songs that (in my opinion) were kinda obscure prior to the commercial itself. So basically I first listened to them from the commercial itself, and decided to find out the song’s name/artist. In that sense, the artists themselves are benefiting  quite a bit with the exposure, it’s really a win-win for the product’s company and the artists/record label.

I’m sure there are many catchy songs from commercials you like, so feel free to respond/share them. I (and I’m sure a lot of my classmates) are big fans of music, so I’m hoping the course will have maybe a little section dedicated to it. I’d really like to see what kinds of frameworks they have for a typical “commercial” and to see if they’d include an area for music 😛

So this week’s post will probably be a bit shorter than usual as it’s right in the midst of my midterms (Econ and Accounting next week L ) Anyway, the video I came across this week was a scene from Jamie Oliver’s show Food Revolution. He is basically a chef who advocates healthy eating and this skit is about an experiment he does with kids

Basically these kids perceive the patty shape as being delicious and this perception actually overrides their knowledge that the patties were made from “bad” meat. So how can we solve this problem? How big of a problem is it?

If we look at the 3 components of attitude, cognitively, they KNOW the patties came from the gunk of the chicken, but affectively, they’re happy to eat the chicken. Would it be right to act on their behavioural component? Perhaps restrict them from eating it?

I also wonder how much Marketing could be at fault here, but is it really their fault for promoting gross food as happy, delicious food? What ethical lines are there and have they been crossed?

I hope the video enlightens you because I didn’t actually know how processed meat is actually processed until watching this video. I only had the impression they were “bad” for you.

So yesterday was Blog Action Day 2010 and the theme was water. Basically close to a billion people today still don’t have access to clean water and consuming dirty water can lead to many different diseases. Coincidentally, my post last week linked a video about how UNICEF raised awareness through guerrilla marketing on this same issue. I hope innovative ideas and discussions have arisen to help solve this issue, but I’m curious about “Blog Action Day” in general.

It turns out, it started in 2007 and the theme back then was the environment, 2008 was poverty, and 2009 was climate change. While all of these are relevant and important issues, I’m curious who or how change.org (the website behind Blog Action day) decides on a theme.

This may sound a bit controversial, but I feel like some themes such as poverty and especially climate change, has quite a bit of attention already. I wish next year’s theme, they would choose something important but perhaps more… obscure or less main-stream (Note: I didn’t mind this year’s theme on water). Themes I personally would like to see is actually a bit more soteriologically (salvation types of ideas) driven. Don’t worry, I’m not imposing religious opinions on you but basically themes like Mars or the underwater world.

First I have a pretty big science/astronomy bias, but it really feels like space exploration is clearly not what it was as everytime it gets mentioned in the news, it’s usually about how they’re cutting funding for it. It’s just a feeling, but people today just don’t see practicality in going to Mars (and I don’t blame them) but that’s only because we’re so comfortable now. If the issues on climate change or other ways we’re killing our own planet, Mars is really the next logical step…

I figured I’ve already typed a lot and my argument may be better if it was delivered by physicists in song 😛

Another really underrated issue is the deep ocean actually. If anything, this might be easier to gain support as there is a bit more of a “practical” sense to it. If I remember correctly, there was a statistic saying how one or a few year’s funding of space exploration is greater than the funding underwater exploration has received…ever. We also actually know more about Mars’ surface than we do our ocean floors (mainly the deeper trenches we’ve never seen). The reasons we’ve been stumped is because of pressure basically, going underwater = more pressure, but in space = no pressure. The benefits can be huge though, getting closer to the core = potential source of energy? or maybe we could build underwater cities if overpopulation really gets out of hand.

I really don’t think my two suggested themes will become next year’s theme, but it’s kinda fun thinking about them and perhaps you as a reader can reply with any ideas/issues that you’d like to have awareness raised for : )

So as I was surfing through some of my classmate’s blogs, one post that really stood out to me was Sonal’s post on Guerrilla Marketing

The only thing I would like to add to the definition she provided is the fact I don’t think Guerrilla Marketing HAS to be used in a non-mainstream location.

For example, an Nintendo DS game, Wario Land: Shake It, first started their campaign on Youtube

Unfortunately, the “interactiveness” has been taken down, but at the time, it was definitely something different. Who would have thunk the video could move out of it’s four walls and wreak havoc on the rest of your page?

Guerrilla marketing definitely can be effective, but there have been instances where they have failed such as the animated TV show Aqua Teen Hunger Force, when they put up light displays in Boston that were mistaken for explosive devices. The attention they got through the stunt must not have been what they had planned.

Guerrilla marketing can also be accessible to smaller companies or perhaps even non-profits who are just trying to raise awareness. An example is UNICEF…

This can also be an example where the location does not necessarily have to be remote or non-mainstream. To end off my post, guerrilla marketing is such a limitless concept. Sometimes it can just be like “I have THIS idea, let’s just do it” and the response or the reason it gets approved is just… “Hmmm, this is kinda interesting”, case in point:

So I came across this short and interesting Ted talk on Youtube

Dan Cobley, someone who works in Marketing at Google, explains some parallels between Marketing and Physics, a subject he took an interest to before Marketing. These parallels are by no means perfect, but conceptually, I think they’re quite valid.

In the video my favourite point that Dan mentions is Newton’s Second Law – Basically acceleration = force over mass, so to change the direction of a brand (the mass), it takes much more force (marketing) if the brand is big. He then gives us some examples of how big brands often create new brands to move into new areas (such as Arthur Andersen –> Accenture) and how companies with many little brands are successful (P&G, Unilever)

He makes a few more points, but I’ll let you watch the video yourself instead of regurgitating it to you.

As for my own thoughts, I tried to think up some parallels of my own (bear in mind I’ve only taken Physics up to Gr.11), since Dan mentions Newton’s Second law, I figured if the other 2 laws could apply as well.

Newton’s First Law – This is Newton’s Law of Inertia, basically if an object is at rest, it’ll stay at rest, and if an object is in motion, it stays in motion. So this is a bit similar to consumers (as one entity), if they don’t like your product, they’ll continue to not like it, and if they do like it, they’ll continue to like it. This is where marketing kicks in. Marketing can disturb the natural tendencies of inertia, meaning you need marketing to break people out of the “I don’t like your product” slump. Likewise, negative marketing (so I guess a campaign that bashes on your product) can disturb the inertia of consumers that DO like your product.

Newton’s Third Law – This is probably the one most people have heard of, for every reaction, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So i think of this as if consumers make a demand like “WE WANT GREENER PRODUCTION PROCESSES”, the company must (or at least should) make the appropriate reaction and comply with their demands if they want to stay in business.

Anyways, I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but for anyone who reads it, feel free to add any parallels of your own whether in a comment or as your own blog post 😛