I would say that this isn’t the best team experience that I ever had. Nevertheless, I have learned a life/working experience, to say overall.

Our team consists of me, Summer, Briana, Katherine, Adrian and Ali. All are brilliant students with fantastic ideas and thoughts. We are pretty diverse that we come from different places and are brought up in different environments. The diversity in our group enables us to gain insights from different perspectives, and of course, many different ideas are brought into the group. I am thankful for being able to see how people that brought up in such different environments work.

However, if I can go back in time, I would have given more thoughts when we chose our company. Instead of choosing a right company that I have known better, I decided to follow the choice that the majority had, which is Toyota. We had a reasoning behind this choice- we are so diverse that Toyota is one of the few companies that is the intersection between our different trails of familiarity. It proves to be a bad choice for me, for truthfully, I had zero knowledge about vehicles to start with. To get to know the product, in the least, required much effort in my part, let alone to evaluate the entire marketing mix of Toyota.

On the video assignment, I think we could have done better if we have been more organized about our group. If everyone was to turn up during meetings and be more committed, it would not have been as messy as the way we experienced during the process of making the video. Although the process and outcome might not be up to my expectation, everyone has fairly completed their respective parts and we managed to produce a video for this assignment.

Referring to Summer’s blog, I personally agree with her proposition that companies have not done enough to make customers “loyal” through the more commonly used customer loyalty programs, Simple Point System.  Summer mentioned that this system gives customers headache as customers barely have time to keep in track the amount of points accumulated. More simply said, this program is just not effective.

To businesses like Save-On, Safeway and Shoppers, the customer loyalty program is beneficial to them in a way. By name, the phrase “customer loyalty programs” refers to an initiative in which efforts are made to induce loyalty from customers, so that they will not be attracted to go to competitors who may offer better offerings. However, another purpose that serves more importance to businesses (which is to obtain information about customers’ purchasing behavior) often makes businesses to forget the former purpose.

As a customer of Save-On myself, I do my grocery there every week, in the hopes of getting rewarded a free product or maybe just some cookies, in exchange with the accumulated points that I have. Usually, it would say on the price tags “Redeem this product with xxxx points”. And when I look back at my previous receipts, my total accumulated points are only 3-digits. In the system, you earn a point with an expenditure of $1. So, basically, I have to spend about $1000 before I could get a free cookie? This is in part, frustrating to me as a customer. I will just never reach that level.

As in this case, I would say that the program is ineffective in the sense that it is unrealistic. When customers like me realize that they would never get awarded when the redemption points set so high, why would they stick to Save-On? We could just go for other places that offer better prices for the products that we want.

All in all, there is definitely service gap occurring in this scenario. After customers give up their personal information to businesses, they expect businesses to do their part to reciprocate what they have given.

Reference:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/qianyusummerli/2013/10/08/is-customer-loyalty-dead/

I am inspired to blog about this brand, Contrex after watching one of its interesting promotional videos that was filmed in 2011. Contrex is a brand for mineral water and is only sold in a few countries, which are France, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic and Japan. I applaud Contrex for its successful promotional video to build brand awareness. This particular video is viral online and has reached audiences from many different places, including countries that are not within the list.

Target Market Segment

Contrex’s marketing strategy is clearly developed in both this video and website. From the clip itself, it is obvious that Contrex has a very well- defined and clear targeted market segment: the ladies. During the event, they invited mainly women to try on the bicycles and had the male neon stripper as an attraction. Their website has even more saturated hints of targeting women. Laid in pink background, Contrex features female models and tailors its language in feminine form (in French) as if they are directly speaking to their female customers.

Brand Association

There is very little marginal difference in the product of mineral water. Usually, consumers are indifferent between different brands of mineral waters as they bear similar features. However, Contrex manages to differentiate itself from its counterparts in the same industry, by concentrating on making its brand getting associated with healthy lifestyle, fun and good appearance. Back to the video, the stripper finally holds a board congratulating the participants for losing 2000 calories. Also, the ending statement of the video says that “we slim better if there is fun”. In addition, on Contrex’s website, they use words like “take care of myself”, “line”, “pleasure” and so on. Noticeably on their welcoming page, they have the phrase “To get in touch with your slimming partner, choose your country and connect yourself to the CONTREX world of slimness”. All of these are not fluke; they are the aftermath of thoughtful planning that intends to associate Contrex with the mentioned traits.

All in all, Contrex did a great job in establishing their direction and execution in brand marketing. If I am to say, it will not be very difficult for Contrex to try to penetrate to new markets as it has strong brand awareness that was spread through the promotional video.

Here’s a sequel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKPtNDYezLY

Reference:

http://www.contrex.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBjCfISUO6Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKPtNDYezLY

This blog provides insights of an emerging consumer behavior in light of increasing use of smartphones. More and more consumers are reportedly to practise “showroom”behaviour, which means to compare prices, reviews, and product details on their mobiles and then, make purchases online while they are in a physical store.

This emerging behavior can become strength, an opportunity or a threat to businesses.

“Showroom” behavior acts as strength to businesses. A retailer’s website or app will be impact the impression that customers have on the retailer. Having an interactive, easy-to-access, user-friendly and integrative website or app that is able to provide the precise answer to what customers seek for, will increase the chance that the customer would choose to close the purchase with the particular retailer.

“Showroom” behavior can also act as an opportunity to businesses. Businesses can effectively inform customers of their deals and discounts that they have at low costs. A retailer will be able to “steal” customers that engage in “showrooming” from their competitors if their offerings are better than what is offered by their competitors. This means reducing customers’ loyalty towards the business’s competitors.

However, this can become a threat for the business itself as the same phenomenon would happen if its competitors are able to provide better offerings to customers. Also, if the retailer is unable to maintain consistent positive reviews from customers, this is bound to chase away future potential customers.

All in all, “showrooming” behavior is another customer behavior that presses businesses to maintain good reputation and high quality. By now, businesses should have acknowledged that customers are increasingly engaging technology in their external search for information. Technology can be very contributory or detrimental to businesses. Therefore, businesses should be careful in their interactions with customers and offerings as “showrooming” behavior is just another example of increasing consumer power.

Reference:

http://econsultancy.com/ca/blog/63393-why-are-people-showrooming-and-how-should-retailers-respond