Month: December 2010

Rogers Wireless is advertising its new series of high definition smartphones on YouTube with the aid of Nokia and Disney’s highly anticipated science fiction flick Tron Legacy.

A masthead ad on YouTube’s homepage  invited visitors to watch an exclusive movie trailer in HD. As you probably have already guessed, a small Rogers’ logo appeared in the bottom right hand corner.After clicking on the ad, a hand appears on the screen holding a Nokia N8, where the rest of the trailer is being played out. The words “Enter the world of Tron with HD phones from Rogers” appeared across the top of the page. James McDougall, creative director at Publicis Modem, pointed out that “the idea behind the ads was to take something as simple as a movie trailer and demonstrate how you can view HD content anywhere you go.”

While the only phone showcased throughout the trailer is Nokia’s N8 model, the ad ends with shot of the various HD smartphones offered by Rogers. Is this an effective marketing tactic? One may think that it is an smart way of advertising Roger’s products. However, at the same time, it may annoy or distract the audience who purely wants to watch the movie trailer rather than seeing Roger’s new products.

Some classes ago, we talked about how Canada consistss primarily of small businesses. However, the life span of these small business is fairly short. Small business should primarily focus on long term strategies that is able to maximize the comanpy’s growth. Five small business strategies include extending market reach, develop new products or services, finding partners, jointing ventures and enhaning productivity. Marketing is essential in any kind of business. Extending the market reach results in further penetration of the current market and gaining market share from existing competitors. Developing a new product or service will generate more sales and likely more profit for the company. Joining venture will allow the company to join forces with other business owners. As a result, new customers and market shares may be generated. Finding partners in a small business could be risky, in terms of loosing control of the business. However, partners who will add experience and expertise  will then become an asset of the company. Last butnot the least, enhancing the company’s productivity is definitely requied in order to become successful. Loans, grants and angel investors who can contribute captial to the company will undoubtedly enhance the company’s productivity.

For those who have watched The Social Network, the movie left many of its audenice disturbed and confortable. The key characters of the movie are Mark ZZuckerberg, the 26 year old founder of Facebook and Eduardo Saverin, Mark’s former Harvard classmate and Facebook co-founder, who originally owned 30 percent of company’s shares. Other characters included Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, whom believed that Mark ZZuckerberg owed them of their rightful share of Facebook. Zuckerberg is portrayed as an arrogant and socially challenged computer nerd, who later decieves Saverin into signing documents that reduced his ownship of Facebook to virtually nothing. The question then becomes, “Could Facebook be where it is today if Zuckerberg didn’t betray his friends?” Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Marc Andreessen are successful entrepreneurs in our time. These great entrepreneurs all have one thing in common, they are illustrated as “bad guys”. Negative traits can be found in most young entrepreneurs, who eventually succeed in their fields. Arrogance is required for them to believe that their idea is more sophisticated than other’s. Their selfishness allows them to prioritize their project over anything else. Their ruthlessness make them forget friends who were once useful. Zuckerberg is all of that, and that may be just why Facebook is where it is today.

Speaking of 2010 Winter Olympics at Vancouver, speed skating at Richmond Oval will be an extremely popular event. As a spectator, the most efficient way to get to Richmond Oval is by Vancouver’s newly built Canada Line Skytrain. However, the nearest skytrain station is 1.5km away from the Oval, which is equivalent to a 15020 minute walk. Especially in the month of February, a walk this long could be very chilly and cold. Occassionally, there will be a crew of people handing out free hot chocolate outside of the skytrain station from a catering truck. At first glance, the scene looks like Vancouver’s Olympic Spirit? Wrong, this hot chocolate came in styrofoam cups with a logo of a rival credit card company to Visa. Visa is known to be the world-wide Olympic sponsor, and its company logo can be found everywhere at the Winter Games. You might think this form of ambush marketing is cheating, but I think it’s just part of the game.