Month: February 2011

In Michael Tam’s recent blog post, I want a Blackberry! He spoke of wanting a Blackberry. As a blackberry user, I found that there are both pros and cons of using a Blackberry.

As Michael mentioned, having a Blackberry does make you look professional. It not only makes you look professional, it actually makes users especially business users professional with  its best contact management, calendaring, and email devices. With its renowned mechanical keyboards, Blackberry users can send/receive emails, SMS messages, and set calendar productively.

While having so many advantages of Blackberry, the two major disadvantages are its slow internet and short battery life. Blackberry has a huge disadvantage of its short battery life. I have used Nokia before, and it provides the most optimal power consumption for users. Weeks of standby time and hours of talk time truly bring users a very convenient usage. However, I have to charge my blackberry every night. The battery life can only hold for a day or so. In addition, I have great difficulties with web browsing using a Blackberry. It has a relative slow internet especially comparing with its biggest competitor of smartphone-Iphone. It takes forever to load a site and the screen is too small to read compare to Iphone.

After reading these profs and cons of having a blackberry, are you still to consider buying one?

After coming across Lauren Nipp’s blog, RBC Mobile Banking App, I was impressed by how creative and thoughtful marketers are while they are developing new services or products. At the same time, I really appreciate how much convenience new sevices/products have brought us to daily lives. As Lauren has introduced, “free RBC mobile banking application which includes a full range of banking services was now available to download”.

Markets are trying so hard to think of new services/products in order to attract new customers while retaining current customers. In addition to understand their customers better, the marketers must understand the macroenvironmental factors (CDSTEP). Time-poor society, as one of the various social trends, appears to be shaping this new application. As families are getting busier and busier, RBC realized the fact that many people need “bank services on-the-go or an easy way to make payments”.

The RBC application enables Smartphone users to access a full range of services, such as: view account balances for all personal and business accounts, pay bills, view transaction history and payment history, transfer funds, and etc. Under such a fast paced society, bringing convenient application like this, would definitely attract some new customers who seek fast and simple ways to manage their money.

Like Lauren has mentioned, “24% of people cited they would be worried about security and privacy concerns with the mobile service.” Marketers have to take privacy concerns, which is another social trend, into account. RBC promises to provide its customers “with the same safety and security guarantee as its online banking security guarantee.”

Last week, I wrote a blog on the ideal images women portrayed in recent media have deeply influenced how women behave in their daily lives. The pursuit of beauty and thinness is turning into a social phenomenon which acts as self-censoring block to their own development. Do all people just sit at home and mimic this negative trend?

 No, some people take actions by boycotting or disputing this phenomenon. For example, the well- known brand Ralph Lauren has outraged followers of fashion by using an extremely thin model, named Filippa Hamiltonon, in their advertisements. This advertisement shows a female model with jeans and tight tank top. Her waist and hips are even smaller than her head which makes the picture look really abnormal.

However, after working for Ralph Lauren for eight years, Filippa was fired by the company because she had become too fat for them. After further investigation, readers have found out that the advertisement was retouched in order to create a very skinny look. After this incident was exposed, people especially women started to criticize the company online. The reputation Ralph Lauren built for 42 years was ruined. Many women felt really uncomfortable and disrespected because the advertisers distorted images of a women’s body and conveyed the faulty idea of beauty. Afterwards, the company apologized for its mistakes. Society is taking this into account and some fashion designers are trying to avoid using skinny and unhealthy models. The organizers of Milan and Madrid Fashion Week have banned skinny women, with body mass index of less than 18, to develop healthier image.