How Wechat well played in SNS platform.
While Alibaba and Jack Ma became leading giant of Chinese B2B and B2C market， Wechat business has enter the game and became a threaten competitor of Taobao.
WeChat is a voice and text communications app released in 2011 by Chinese investment holding company Tencent Holdings Limited. As of 2015, WeChat has 549 million monthly active users with 1.1bn registered accounts worldwide. 100m of users are based outside of China. In 2014, WeChat restricted the number of friends a single user could have to 5,000.
Here’s some Stats about wechat:
- 46% of Chinese users have made WeChat their number one app (Source: Technode)
- 80% of Chinese users follow an official account (Source: Technode)
- $15.3bn in mobile data consumption was driven by Chinese WeChat users in 2013 (Source: Technode)
- WeChat is estimated to be worth $100bn (Source: Forbes)
Source: canalys.com
Source: Technode.com
As the most popular SNS tool used in China. Wechat has a function called “Moment” that users can publish their stories and photos. So, besides being used to send message, wechat also allow the users to share their stories/photos to their intimates, which brings a huge opportunity to business.
As we learnt in marketing, the word of mouth is the most effective advertising and that’s how Wechat played to build their business. And it’s especially important to social media marketing by considering target millennial customers. So, by promoting product in Moments, the Wechat business grows dramatically.
However, what interesting is they already took action to against Alibaba long times ago. When Wechat plans to enter e-business market, what they did in the first place is to banned the direct link to Taobao. Which means, 1.1bn registered users cant log in Alibaba and Taobao through Wechat.
When millennials become parents
By looking at 22 million millanial parents in America with about 9,000 babies born to the each day, TIME and Survey Monkey conducted a poll of more than 2,000 U.S. parents with children under the age of 18. Respondents answered questions on everything from social media use to food to names in order to understand what makes this generation different from Generation X and baby boomers.
Here are some Stats I found interesting:
-Nearly 90% of Millennials use social media (compared with 76% of Gen X-ers and 59% of Boomers).
-46% of Millennials posted a pic of their youngest child either while in the womb or before the baby was 1 day old (compared with 10% of Gen-Xers).
-Millennials are less likely to put marriage before the baby carriage, with 42% saying it’s “very or extremely important” to do so. Meanwhile, 51% of Boomers and 49% of Gen-Xers valued marriage before kids.
-61% of Millennial parents believe their kids need more unstructured playtime, according to a 2013 report by FutureCast, and only 21% view their children as “overscheduled.”
-60% of Millennial parents wanted to choose a baby name that was unique, compared to 44% of Gen-Xers and 35% of Boomers.
“Millennials are often inaccurately portrayed through the prism of youth and all the character traits that go along with it—narcissism, rebellion and entitlement to name a few,” said Jeff Formm EVP, Barkley
Contrary to popular misconception, the millennials I know have a perspective and drive that may put them in a perfect position to raise the next greatest generation.
And another new study suggested that, in terms of finance and debt, the children of millennials maybe better prepared financially for colleges because more millennial parents are saving for their kids to go to college than generation X parents are.
The reason behind that is many millennials graduated with a lot of student debt (the Financial Finesse survey showed that the average student loan debt burden for people in their 20s is up 60% since 2005) — and thus may be more inclined to help their kids avoid this fate. “More than any other generation, millennials have experienced first-hand the balancing act of paying off student loans while striving to become financially independent, which has likely propelled many of them, as parents, to take action,” the Fidelity report revealed.
Source: Fidelity Investments
A Man in the Shadow: Fritz Lang’s M (1931)
M (1931) is a story of a mentally disturbed serial child-murderer in Berlin. While the police are unable to catch the child-murderer, other organizations join in the manhunt. With the support of the blind balloon salesman, the organized crimes catch Hans (the murderer). Hans is judged in an underground kangaroo court. He falls to his knees, begging people to understand his pathological desire for killing children. The police show up just before the outraged people attempt to execute Hans. The film abruptly ends with a victims’ mothers’ speech, in which sorrowfully reminds and warns parents of their responsibility to take care of their children and to be vigilant. The ending of the film can be seen as a dark twist for blame the mothers instead of the murderer. The beginning sequence starts with the children play a circle game, follows by a new child loss successfully creates a threatening and horrified atmosphere to lead the story.
The first time Hans appears onscreen it is as a man in the shadows. The shot starts with Elsie (the victim) bouncing her ball. When she reads the wanted posted that asks “who is the murderer”, the camera rises up and makes her off the screen. Then the shadow shows up on the poster, looking down on her. This arrangement metaphorically suggests that the power of the shadow is over her. The shadow covers the little girl in the dark, which is meant to illustrate her weakness compared to the murderer.
Sound is what leads to the demise of the murderer. At 6’49’’, Hans whistles a distinctive song “In the Hall of the Mountain King” for the first time as he purchases a balloon for Elsie from a blind salesman. The whistling indicates the presence of the character since his face is not yet shown on the screen. The spectators can recognize this whistling later in the film as it repetitively appears. When the mother finds Elsie missing, she yelled her name out of the window and towards the empty stairs. Each time she calls Elsie, the specters observe different visual in silence. An empty chair with set dinnerware where Elsie would sit; the yard where the laundry dries, the ball rolling down the treed area and her balloon stunk in the telephone line. The cross-cutting applied here .The continuity of presenting those objects in each frame is effectively leading the spectators to realize that the death of the little girl has happened. The lack of sound in this case reinforces the atmosphere and attributes a sense of emptiness.
Saudi Arabia: Advertising differentiated culture
In the E- Marketing class, we’ve learnt that the web design across countries can be so different for a same brand or product. Among those countries, I am particularly interested in advertising in Saudi Arabia.
(The Ikea Saudi Arabia Ad controversy Meme)
In October 2012, a big news of Ikea. A Swedish newspaper compared the Swedish and Saudi versions of the manual, and found that in the latter women had been very skilfully airbrushed out. At the time, people criticized that the Ikea has subordinated women’s rights to business interests
Despite the discrimination discussion, I am curious of how major brand positioning themselves in such a region sensitive country.
I visited Saudi Arabia last summer, and I was shocked on what I saw and what I’ve heard. I saw little boy aged around 6-7 drive the car with their mom sit on the passenger seat because women are not allowed to drive. Also, women are only allowed to go to cinema with their husband. Women were barely appearing on ads since they only allowed showing their eyes to public. However, this brings opportunities to makeup producers. The eye shadow and mascara were popular in sell.
I personally think what Ikea did is showing respect to a certain culture. And not only Ikea, a lot of big name company did the same thing and also for other industries.
Here is some example:
- Starbucks design mermaid-free logo for its Saudi locations
- A Katy Perry album is scrawled over in pen to add modest new clothing to the singer’s arms and legs
Internet abuse: The price is more than shame
After being publicly silent for decades, Monica Lewinsky gave a speech on TED’s talk called “The price of shame”. It was a great speech of a woman who survived from the public humiliation. After watched this speech, the first time I know the word “cyberbullying” and the first time I’ve realized how horrid the impact can be made by the hateful comments and judgements.
As a victim of Internet abuse in 1998, there is no word for it. When the scandal went public, it was the time of digital revolution. Even it’s before social media, the speed of spread was still made her to publicly humiliated overnight.
And when social media was born, the consequence of the similar cases has become dire. Back to September 2010, there is news of an 18- year old student from Rutger University named Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington Bridge to his death. The reason behind that is because he was webcammed by his roommate while being intimate with another man. And then, the cyberbullying made him couldn’t live for another day.
There are uncountable examples of internet harassment nowadays. People are allowed comment whatever they want online and say it is their right for the voice to be heard, it is called “freedom of speech”. As far as I concerned, it is not. The freedom comes with responsibilities. We are well-educated people, we should be responsible for what we do as well as what we said because abusive words are literally powerful weapons. You will never know if it gonna change one’s life.
Here is the link of Lewinsky’s TED’s talk:
Digital marketing or social media
“Digital marketing”, “social media”,” Internet marketing ” Are those words sounds like a same thing to you? As digital marketing has been so wide-spread today, there are some confusion has been made.
Indeed, social media is the latest buzz word used in internet marketing and often refers to platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. It is a major competent of digital marketing. Digital marketing has more reaches besides Internet. The relationship can be clear explained by the image as shown below:
The success of new platforms of social media has changed the way we socialize, we interact, and shopping. Here is some statistics of the impact of social media.
- There are 135,000 new twitter users per day
- Twitter has 288 million monthly active users
- The average number of tweets per day is 58 million
- Facebook has more than 500 million active users
- 27% of total U.S. internet time is spent on social networking site.
- 56% of Americans has profiles on a social networking site
Social media has become a new way to connect business with customers. However, it has the limits to reach the audience offline which means sometimes it won’t be effective to promote certain product or service. For example , if you want to promote custom tools for farmers you can use social media as a resource to find out more about the products but your main selling point will be billboard ads on rural areas and Radio ads.
Digital marketing goes beyond the Internet and tries to reach people in the off-line world using digital means while social media is limited to the boundaries of the Internet.
Sources:
https://www.reliablesoft.net
A smart move of IKEA
Have you ever got lost in IKEA stores?
My answer is yes. I was confused why I got lost almost every time when I was a kid, but I enjoyed get lost in different types of model home. Now, I know that is exactly what the owner expected.
IKEA stores designed as a maze in order to make the consumers stay in the store as long as they can. The reason for that is disorientated customer feels compelled to pick up a few extra impulse purchases. If the consumer doesn’t want to get lost, they should follow the path guide. However, if you look at the path guide, it will lead you through almost every sales areas before meet the casher. A majority of consumers will be attracted by the cheap and fashionable products during the path and buy something they don’t expected before. That is the strategy, which IKEA uses to create 60% impulsivity consumption.
However, does this smart strategy – make your store a maze works for other types of store? Imagine that if a convenience store designed as a maze, what will happen? Most likely drives customers crazy. Nevertheless, nobody can deny that this strategy perfectly works for IKEA because its feature.
By thinking of the consumer behavior, people go to IKEA buying stuff for their home; therefore, they would like to stay for long time in the store and easily make unconscious purchasing. But when people go to a convenience store, they usually have clear list on their mind and want to get them as soon as possible.
Sometime a “good” business strategy not always good, it depends on the combined work between many part in the market, such as target consumers and the feature of the store.
Reflective Blog Post: Starbucks coffee company
The company that our group investigated is Starbucks Inc.
During the group project, I have the chance to better understand the world largest coffee company. We concluded several factors that make Starbucks succeed. In this case, I was really inspired by the power of culture. When I do the marketing research, I found an interesting thing that the cost that Starbucks spent on advertising is zero. They don’t spend money on advertising. Even through, when we see the signature green on the street, we know it is Starbucks. The indirect marketing strategy that locates its stores on every street corner servers them “free” advertising. The competition in coffee market has always been intense, especially in North America.
However, Starbucks not only successes in North America which has coffee-loving culture; they also got a great success opening the market in Asian. For example, in some Asian countries; as we all know, people in China and Japan has tea-drinking culture. Then how Starbucks gains the favor of customers in those countries?
I think the most important factor is the culture. People choose Starbucks not because they serve the best coffee in the world. People are not go to Starbucks to consume a cup of drink, what they really like is the Starbucks’s culture, the unique style and environment in their store. Starbucks is selling and spreading their culture to young adults, a lifestyle. When Starbucks enter a new country, such as china, they made few change for Chinese customers, they made special drinks, which only served in the country. In this way they show the respect to different culture while transmit their concept.
In this case, I’ve learnt that if a company want to be succeed worldwide, how to suit different culture is always the key issue to be solve, which makes marketing research very important.
Apple succeeds in mobile phone market
In today’s class, we talked about innovation and value, which draws mine attention to the success in iPhone.
Although apple already had strong brand name in computer market before IPhone launched, it is still a miracle in IPhone’s unprecedented success.
A market as competitive as mobile phone is always difficult to get into. Before iPhone launched, some mobile phone producers, such as Nokia, Motorola has already had great success in mobile phone market. They have large group of loyal consumers, strong brand name.
As I see, the key point of IPhone to be succeed in the market is that apple changed the competition rules in mobile phone market. In other word, they were opening a new market, which is different from people’s impression of mobile phone. They redefined the function of mobile phone, and bring this mini computer in your hand.
IPhone is always expensive compared to other mobile phone. However, look the people around, almost everyone has an IPhone. How could this be? Is that when people saw IPhone suddenly become non-price sensitive? I asked some of my friends about this issue. When I asked them “do you think IPhone is expensive?” almost everyone answers yes. Then, I asked “so why don’t you buy blackberry or Nokia?” They told me they like the system; they get used to use apple products and so on.
From my analysis based on the success of IPhone, I found 2 factors to be succeeded. First, the success belongs to the one who rule the market. Secondly, lower price not always win. Consumers don’t like cheap stuff, they just want the feeling of worth to pay. That’s why even iPhone set such a high price; people still want to get one. That is because the joy that iPhone brings to its customers makes them feel worth to that price.
How important ethic is when we define success in business?
There are always many conflicts between moral standards and maximizing profit. It’s hard to get win-win in making a decision because human wants are unlimited.
The first time i know the term ethics in business was last year. I was required to write a blog about business ethics for the COMM101 class. I was really shocked because when I was searching the key word ‘unethical business behaviors’, there are many scandals about the world top corporations such as Wal-mart, Barclays, and Nestle. However, when it comes to marketing, i want to talk about a commercial that really impressed me.
The picture I showed above is a commercial from Aston Martin, one of the world top brand of luxury sports cars and also my favorite one. Many people said this commercial is “good.” I think some people said ‘good’ because they were impressed, especially for man. However, as a woman, when i see this commercial , I don’t feel that comfortable. I feel that they are implying discrimination against women but I have to admit this commercial is distintive and unforgettable.
I discussed this issue with my friends. A majority of people love this commercial while some people feel same as me but almost everyone remembered it. I would say this is a successful marketing work, because it draws attention from audience. Maybe some people don’t like it but the much we talk about it, the more people will pay attention to it. And maybe this is what Aston Martin exactly wants. However, I don’t think this is commercial is ethical, i think the company should consider feelings from all groups of people because they still have many female fans. Nevertheless, I am wondering when we define “success” in business today, how many people will focus on whether they are ethical ?