Tag Archives: Marketing

Did “Sandy Sale” cross the ethical line?

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” On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy — the largest Atlantic tropical system on record — made landfall just south of Atlantic City, New Jersey, bringing winds up to 90 mph (150 kph), and pushing a massive storm surge onto beaches and shorelines. At least 12 deaths have been reported in the United States. These fatalities, when added to the previous toll in the Caribbean, leave Sandy responsible for more taking more than 80 lives to date. Millions across the Eastern Seaboard are now without power, and even more are struggling with rising floodwater. Sandy continues northward, now downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, and those affected are now assessing the damage. Collected here are images of Sandy’s aftermath, many from New York City, which suffered widespread blackouts and a record-setting high tide early this morning. ” (the Atlantic, 2012)

From the following cover picture of New York Magazine, it is clear showing that Manhattan was lying in darkness after the power outage due to the damage of Sandy. The strong wind also caused floods in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, NY, and forced the shutdown of mass transit, schools and financial markets.

Picture From: http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-magazine-cover-hurricane-sandy-2012-11

But what American Apparel did on the hurricane day (OCt 29, 2012) was sending the advertisement below to its subscribers.

Picture From: http://mixeddigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/american-apparel-hurricane-sandy.png

“After sending out this ad, American Apparel was subsequently attacked via social media sites and blogs, with individuals expressing disdain for the company.” (Marketing Ethics, American Apparel & Hurricane Sandy, 2012)

What do you think about this ad? If you were the victims, would you feel excited when you see this ad and then shop on the e-store of American Apparel to get rid of your boredom?

American Apparel CEO Dov Charney said they were not out to offend anyone and their heart was in the right place. No matter their intentions were pure or not, as i think, it is inappropriate to make the ad in a way like that they were simply looking for money and didn’t even care about the victims and cities get hit by Sandy. They only need to change a bit of the ad, and it will give their customers a completely different impression without complaints. What American Apparel should have done was something like: we will donate 20% of profits from every purchase to the victims of Sandy.

The Future of Shopping – “Let’s Try Everything Out First!” (Comment on Crystal Li’s September Trend In Review )

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I am really interesting in Crystal’s blog post about business trends and wanna thank her for providing us such an awesome company’s website to explore. I love all those innovative ideas and vivid descriptions that make me feel like diving into a marketing world.

After reading the October 2012 Trend Briefing: SERVILE BRANDS, I am so impressive with the unique perspective of the future development of selling that it points out as well as the real-world examples.  The idea of SERVILE indicated that for brands, serving, assisting, and lubricating is the new selling. The first example of “SERVILE is: Letting customers try out first” is what I have imagine about, definitely the coolest shopping experience you would ever have. I wish I could shop as the girl in the following video. Check it out first!

The Future of Shopping

Isn’t that cool? What a fabulous combination of technology and marketing! And there’s more, the following example is Hyundai Home Shopping provided in the October Trend Briefing. Customers can try out all the clothes, handbags and accessories by simply uploading a photo of themselves on this phone app to see how everything looks on them. This service is even available for interior accessories and total up to 70,000 products. Moreover, users can also post and share what they bought or intend to purchase on FB and Cacao Talk (Korean WhatsApp).

Picture from: http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/

I believe the above innovations  of shopping will tremendously influence people’s shopping pattern in the near future. Since the modern people have lesser and lesser time to hang around in the shopping mall and always complain about the long line-up in front of fitting rooms, it is imperative to come up with some new ways of shopping that are time-saving and convenient. Therefore, increasing number of people tend to shop online by using laptops as well as mobile apps. Recalling from what I have learnt so far, marketing is not just about advertising, it is also about changing the ways of doing things and that’s exact what Hyundai Home Shopping did.

Source:

http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/

September Trends in Review!

We All Love Limited-Edition Products! (Comments on An External Blog Post)

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After reading Donald Cunningham’s blog post “Limited-Edition Products Create Marketing Buzz“, I found that this topic is so fascinating to me that I have to mention it.

Following are my comments and a few more ideas around this cool topic. Check them out!

Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 Versace Limited Edition

“Selling less helps you get more. It’s counter-intuitive, but it works.”

Have you ever bought something that was relatively expensive compared with the similar products and sometimes unnecessary or even useless to you? But your subconsciousness would encourage you to get it much greater than those normal products regardless of the high prices. Those incredibly appealing products are the so-called “limited edition” products or something “exclusive”. They are limited supplied and more expensive, however, people tend to love them more and crowd to purchase them. This interesting phenomena reveals that people tend to more value things that are rare (i.e. Gold, diamonds, vacations and winning the lottery).

Don’t you think the following limited edition products are more attractive to you, not only with their stunning looks, additional features but also their “limited” title.

Mario Special Edition NDS

Picture from: http://www.amallonline.com/nintendo-ds-lite-ndsl-red-mario-limited-edition-p-14808.html

S/S 2012  Louis Vuitton Monogram Vernis Alma BB

Picture from: http://www.esaybag.com/monogram-vernis/3356-louis-vuitton-lv-monogram-vernis-alma-bb-bleu-lagon-m91696-bag.html

ADR X H&M

Picture from: http://mirrorme.me/anna-dello-russo-x-hm/adr-x-hm/

There is a marketing strategy stem from this kind of customer behaviour, that is the scarcity strategy. It creates excitement and motivation for potential customers to make a panic purchase and greatly boost the company’s short-term profits. Interestingly, we found that people with good buying power desire to get those exclusively limited luxury goods no matter how much it takes.

Why? And what kind of things attract them?

From the marketing aspect, we can explain that the higher prices and the limited quantity or time supply of the products would create a stimulating atmosphere for customers who would perceive a higher value of the products as well as the brands, also promote the images of the brands. For those who with high status or want to be treated as high-class people, they tend to enjoy buying expensive limited edition products that as their status symbol in order to convey their unique social images to the public.

Source from: http://www.brandeo.com/scarcity%20strategy

 

Apple’s iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S3, What’s Your Choice?

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Click in and watch the Video: The Next Big Thing is Already Here — Samsung Galaxy S III

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf5-Prx19ZM&feature=youtu.be

Picture From: http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/iphone-5-vs-samsung-galaxy-s3

This interesting video from Samsung Mobile USA well reveals the direct and intense competition between Samsung Galaxy S3 and Apple’s iPhone 5. As we know, Samsung Galaxy S3 is an innovated and revolutionary mobile product that also attracted a large number of people, which we could say it would be the only major threat to Apple’s iPhone 5. During the gap between iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, people got introduced to the Samsung Galaxy S3 by all kinds of mediums from May 2012. Since there was no exciting product to stimulate the public’s desire of buying during the gap time, this proper release time of Galaxy S3 was advantageous to catch people’s attention all on this product so that it even broke through the 10 million barrier. Therefore, choosing the right timing is really important to make marketing decisions.

Picture From: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-galaxy-s3-impressions-maybe-it-is-designed-by-human-emotion/

 

Picture From: www.apple.com

As for iPhone 5, after the long time waiting and rumours spreading , finally we are going to see and feel the new real iPhone 5 in our hands within less than a week. How excited! It is getting lighter, thinner and faster with a larger screen, though it looks not much different except of a longer shape and the mental back. This time, Apple didn’t stop or block those “New iPhone 5” rumours spreading as they used to do in Steve Jobs Era. This phenomenon have been brought up a lot of questions towards the new CEO Tim Cook’s lead. Would that be a more beneficial marketing strategy to leak information of the product before its release or he is going to lead Apple into the wrong direction. From my perspective, spreading rumours actually is a way to market the product, since you can get people’s attention back from others to some extent. And for those who follow and care about the rumours, are exact their targeted and potential customers.

Now here’s the problem, Apple and Samsung are both awesome marketers when promote their new cool new phones, in this case, they leave the decision for the customers: Which one should I pick if I am going to get a new phone? (If you are rich to afford both of them, then you can totally ignore my question.) Following is an article about the comparison of these two phones probably can help you with your decision.

Article: http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/iphone-5-vs-samsung-galaxy-s3 

Title: iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S3 – Design, Screen and Power, by Andrew Williams, 12 September 2012

I wanna listen to your opinions on why you want to choose either one or keep using your old phone, let’s say an iPhone 4/4S, Blackberry or Nokia. It will be a really interesting discussion about the little device that you can’t live without.