Vicky Capron

Web Analytics World is a great blog written by Manoj Jasra who is a Sr. Strategist at Shaw Communications Inc. where overseeing social media and web analytics are part of his job description (sounds like a sweet job to me). I found the blog while trying to look into Google analytics, which is something I’m trying to learn more about. The idea sparked me when Beverly Chung discussed how she was able to increase her online presence by linking her blog to her twitter and vice versa while mentioning the use of Google analytics. As a side note, congrats Beverly for winning the twitter contest!

The idea of all this analytics penetrating the social media world is really interesting. While skimming down Web Analytics World I learned of an analytics tool called HootSuite.  The basic idea is that it can be used to manage and track your social networks, so you are able to increase your effectiveness. Hootsuite has just launched a new tool called social analytics (check out the video). From my understanding, this contains some really powerful stuff! You have the ability to customize reports, share information amongst teams, track results, and monitor conversations and can be used across a bunch of social media areas including Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. I think businesses with their increasing use of social media as a reputable marketing tactic can really benefit from social analytics, just like businesses have utilized Google analytics.

Isn’t it interesting to find the route of your thoughts? When your brain starts turning and the wheels keep going and then you wonder, “How did I even get to this thinking about this?” Well my most recent route went from watching the Today show and listening to Donald Trump talk about running for President, to thinking about the marketing campaign that he could run with all that money!  Then I got wondering if only people with a lot of money, or at least decent budgets could run effective marketing campaigns and businesses.

It turns out that that’s not always the case. I found a bunch of articles where businesses started from a minimal amount of money.  One article I found particularly interesting was from the Wall Street Journal which highlights a number of businesses that started for under $150.00! That thought absolutely amazes me when you think of how much money companies initially spend to market a new idea, especially when a presidential campaign can cost anywhere from 50-100 million dollars which is essentially marketing an individual.

Cecilia Wong highlights the same concept in her blog “Don’t Underestimate Cheap Marketing” where she describes a campaign for a Yoga Club where a man folds up into a box and hands out membership cards simply by sticking his hand out of the box and handing cards to passerbies. This is a great example of a sales orientation approach to the company’s objectives. The video made, was then posted online and received over 300,000 views on the Chinese version of YouTube. It is a wonder how effectively businesses and ideas can be marketed by utilizing online tools and social media. Maybe I’ll be successful with that someday 🙂

The other day in class there was a discussion about the Consumer Adoption Curve in relation to Twitter. I personally think that this social media tool is still on a great incline. Yes, there was certainly the “early adopters and innovators” including people like Ashton Kutcher, but now some people have over 7 million followers including Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga! That’s crazy and as more people start joining the trend, I don’t see this fad dying out very soon, I just think more people will start adopting it and current users will increase their frequency of tweets.

Dominika Kumpa, a fellow classmate, also discussed the “omnipresence of Twitter” and highlights the use of Twitter to communicate in a professional setting. She mentions the use of Twitter even in the OR room of Grey’s Anatomy.

To wrap up my belief that Twitter is still growing in presence, reputation and usage, yes my grandma is following me on Twitter. I don’t even know how she knows about Twitter which proves the point that people no matter their age are eager as ever to flock to the innovative changes that are shaping everyone’s online presence.

Right now I’m sitting at YVR and I’m so glad I’m flying West Jet. With the constant talk about what consumer’s value, I realize how much I personally value customer service. Maybe it’s because I’ve had less than pleasant experiences with other major Canadian airlines (I won’t name names), or maybe it’s because I just got done with a report on Starbucks and got to see firsthand the importance of customer service and the positive impacts on a business.

The video I have posted is a great representation of not only West Jets customer service but they’re great efforts to convey a happier, younger organization that truly cares. The company believes that just because you pay less doesn’t mean you have to get less. I think that’s a perfect idea, because especially in the service industry it is easy to associate high prices with receiving the most individual attention. I think it’s really interesting to see an organization that backs almost all their actions just with the idea of customer service. It is a characteristic that I think all companies claim to have, but there are very few that can truly embody and capitalize on that characteristic.

http://www.google.ca/imgres

YES! It’s that time of the year again…SUPER BOWL!!!! Now I will admittedly fall into the category of Americans who only watch the super bowl and no other football game during the year. Being in that category I am probably looking forward to the commercials more so than the actual game itself. In recent years hearing the ridiculous expenses that go into having commercial time is ridiculous! Some numbers I’ve read about range from $2.5-$3 million dollars per 30 seconds!

Of course I’ve always enjoyed the commercials but you have to wonder if it is worth it for companies to spend that amount of money to tap into their target market that may be watching. Heck yes it is! It is estimated that 67.1% of Americans are planning on watching this year’s Super Bowl. That is so many people that you can instantly reach versus trying to put commercials on various television shows you assume your target market is going to be watching. This is once a year, one show, one commercial that can reach not just the hundreds of millions of Americans, but people all over the world!  It’s like trapping everyone in one room and demanding their attention to promote your product or service. Then beyond that you have a high opportunity for new shows, web ratings, and people talking about “the best commercials.”It is also estimated that each person is planning on spending $59.33 related to the Super Bowl and over 10 billion total spending is predicted!

This year’s matchup is between the Steelers and Packers. (My money is on the Steelers) The game is being played in Texas and I can’t wait to watch the commercials and see how they influence my buying decisions…who will step up to the task?

When I first saw this commercial that EA is using to promote their new video game Dead Space 2, I thought to myself “wow that’s pretty stupid.” Why would a company that is trying to sell a game to children blatantly explain that there is no parental approval? My first reaction was that it wouldn’t be a successful campaign because in normal circumstances I assumed that it would be the Mom and Dad’s that would be the purchasers of the product.

Literally the next day however, we talked in class about the immense buying power of children and young adults. That’s when it all made sense…EA is actually jumping on that huge trend and capitalizing on kids buying power.  It’s even more awesome because teenagers seemingly love to make their mommas made at any opportunity. It’s genius!  

Being so caught up in this crazy and what I consider to be an unconventional way of advertising, I took my very first steps inside a video game store. I asked the guy working there if I could look at Dead Space 2. He then asked me something about which gaming system I needed it for to which I had no idea. You see, my mom never let me come near video games growing up. Acknowledging that I didn’t even know how to respond to that simple question made me realize that I certainly didn’t have the type of buying power when I was younger that EA is targeting. I guess this change in trends and influence can give violent video games a time to shine.

I’ll leave off with the idea that the back of the Dead Space 2 says 17+ and things along the line of strong language, violence, malicious, vulgar etc… Well can’t everyone see why Mom’s may hate it?

As we’ve entered into discussion about target markets, branding, marketing mix etc… I’ve definitely started to become more aware of why ads and other forms of marketing are the way they are.

Something that always jumps out at me is Disney because I have undoubtedly grown into an “advocate” for this company and brand (and I’m not ashamed of it). As the book mentioned, Disney is a great example of how they’ve tailored different parks to their different customers as a form of market segmenting. For example, Magic Kingdom is for families with younger children, and Epcot is for families with older children. What I didn’t realize was that Disney targets parents just as much as kids and it’s not just because the parents pay for the trip to Disney World.

 I found this video on YouTube which I thought really ties into this idea.

I don’t know if it’s the same in Canada, but growing up in the states made it very apparent that kids didn’t think their childhood was fulfilled until they had been to Disney World in Orlando Florida. At the same time I perceived the trip as the kids begging, convincing, and dragging their parents to partake in the vacation. However now looking back on the Disney commercials it is obvious that Disney works seamlessly to promote the vacation as fun for the entire family. They hit the nail on the head which I think contributes heavily to their seemingly never ending success which further emphasizes the power of marketing.

Well today is a beautiful day. Actually, this hour is a beautiful hour. It marks the very last assignment, project, or lab that I have to do in my first year of University. It’s this very blog post actually and I am so excited to be done, but of course filled with nostalgia. The year flew by and was certainly a memorable experience. In the whirl win of business fundamentals, nothing will compare to Mahesh speaking his mind, Paul and Jeff making fun at one another’s professions, the learning of new things and eye opening experiences. Understanding social media? That’s something I wasn’t expecting. Blogging? That’s definitely something I wasn’t expecting. Enjoying going to class? That’s absolutely something I wasn’t expecting. I guess we all  learn something new everyday 🙂

The tragedy in Haiti was obviously well broadcasted, and many fund-raising actions took place in order to raise money for the recovery. Interestingly I didn’t hear as much about what the people in Haiti felt, but predominately heard of the effects and attempts from external help towards the recovery attempts.

So I took it upon myself to find video coverage of people in Haiti and ended up on a CNNWorld page with video clips of different Haitian Orphans. Not surprisingly, like any event or situation, I heard many different opinions. The first young gentleman explained that he doesn’t want to leave, and eat by faith. He is a man who feels it is his duty to get a job and provide for food. The next orphan highlighted how everything is broken and he hopes to move to America and have a better life for his education and family. This is where I stopped.

Growing up in America I was always taught of the immigration and Ellis Island and the illusion that people thought the streets were paved with gold. Although I won’t deny that there are great opportunities in the U.S, I have to worry about plausibility. Are people continuously going to flow into the U.S in hopes of a better life, or is America just going to find more people living on the streets, and without food? It is estimated that over 3.5 million people are considered homeless in a given year in the U.S and a large portion of that is due to a lack of affordable housing.

It would be ignorant to believe that the U.S is worse off than people in places like Haiti, where the overall economy and standard of living is below that of the U.S. However, being homeless is being homeless. I was “homeless” for 5 days in a campaign to raise money and awareness for youth homelessness in Vancouver and I worry about those who have to fight that battle. Where is the line drawn between the haves and the have-nots, and what are the chances of jumping that line?

I was downtown yesterday, just strolling down Robson Street, when we casually passed Zara’s. Just conversationally I said, “Did you know that Zara has impressive vertical integration because they are designers, manufacturers and retailers!” Without sounding shamelessly cheesy I thought “hmm I think I actually may have learned something this year in Comm 486 G.” It was important to me because it wasn’t the standard and historical knowledge that normal classroom learning fosters. Instead it was present day, relevant knowledge which is something I am glad was a key factor in the business fundamentals course.

I realized I wasn’t just knowledgeable about Zara’s scope in terms of their strategy, but that most of the readings, lectures, and speakers from this class occupied portions of my retained learning. Cool.