COMM 296 Marketing Blog Assignment 4

Last month the release of the new iPad from Apple has again draw the public attention and I did see a large number of people lining up in front of the Apple Store on that day and waiting to experience the newest features for iPad. This time, Apple use the word “revolutionary” to describe this new product with the stunning Retina display, 5MP iSight camera and ultrafast 4G LTE.

Well, for myself, I admit that I was attracted by their impressive marketing strategy for this new iPad. Indeed, I was almost addicted to it every time by Apple since I have purchased their products year by year from iPhone4 to this new iPad. Now only because I like to be a member of the “i-family” but also owning the newest products from Apple has become the fashion among teenagers. It has become a strong belief that the products from Apple, even after Steve Jobs has passed away, can always bring us the newest technology in The Contemporary Era. As a result, people would just go and purchase iPhone and iPad from one generation to the other without any hesitations.

However, a recent blog names “iPad 2 vs New iPad – Can You See The Difference?” suggests that for people in possession of both iPad 2and the recently released New iPad, it is hard to tell the cosmetic difference between the two models. Ironically, technologists at The Next Web have made a test by giving out the “new iPad”(which indeed are the iPad 2) to one hundred customers for the purpose of test use, 97% of them did not realize that they are actually holding the wrong iPad and among which 80% said they are satisfied with the experience of this “new iPad”.

Here, I am not saying that Apple has made little progress in this new generation of iPad. However, as a customer I would for sure like to see some more “differences” that worth me to spend money on the new one rather than the older generations. If most of us can not even distinguish the new product from the old ones, would people still have their trust on the company and even want to buy the “NEW” iPad?

http://www.webpronews.com/ipad-2-vs-new-ipad-can-you-see-the-difference-2012-03

Marketing 3rd Blog Assignment

For this week’s blog, I would like to refer to Timmy Cheung’s first blog post titled “New Money”, in which he talked about the dramatic increasing of high-end luxury market in China for fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermes, etc. The recent emerging of Chinese millionaires and billionaires are pretty eager to spend big money of international luxury goods. In order to fulfill their demand and grab the potential profit, grant corporations like LV and D&G have quickly react by opening new stores in place such as Hong Kong and Shanghai in China.

Most of the time, those luxury brands are famous for their genuine materials, quality craftsmanship, outstanding customer service and of course the exclusive price. These detailed elements would make their brands symbolize elegant, classy and fashion. However, I think those “nouveau riche” in China are trapped in the trend to take advantage of these brands as a way to show their wealth and social status. Not only in China, but also in other major cities around the world such as Vancouver you will find places such as Holt Renfrew are crowded with these Chinese riches.

Seemingly, this should be a win-win situation for both luxury brands and the increasing Chinese millionaires. However, problems appear such as long line ups in front of these prestigious stores in Hong Kong as well as rude and discriminating sales associates have brought a negative effect to the brand. In my opinion, it is understandable that people purchase luxury good in order to enjoy a tasteful lifestyle. However, everything has a limit. There are thousands of other ways for those “nouveau riche” to show their richness and a sense of belonging than just spend so much on these luxury goods. Meanwhile, for those brands, just imagine that if everyone would able to take a luxury handbag to do grocery in the supermarket, can their brand still represent elegant, classy and fashion at all?

Comm 296 2nd Blog Assignment

 

After looking at some other classmate’s blog posts last time, the one that was written by Christina Song “Do we really need that much caffeine in life?” makes me think back to our daily life. As some of us may already experienced from the Tim Horton’s shop downstairs next to Sauder building, instead of the old cup sizes, they have introduced a new 24 oz Extra Large cup and all the original sizes were moving down from Large to Extra Small.

Seemingly, this should be an effective promotion for Tim Horton’s as a way to stimulate the market and show some pay back to its customers. However, as Christina has mentioned, an early survey from CBC showed that more than half of the customers claimed that they would not interested in the new Extra Large size. Even though I am not a big coffee lover, I do sometimes go to Tim Horton’s and enjoy their “Ice Cup”. Actually I did that early this week and at the same time I was trying to watch for some response from the customers that were buying coffee there. Some young men did show some excitement and ordered the new Extra Large size, but most of the customers are not really interested.

This new action of Tim Horton’s reminds me about McDonald’s super size. There was even one movie for that named “Super Size Me” which examining the influence of the fast food industry and explores the consequences on people’s health of a diet of solely McDonald’s super sized food. I am pretty sure that this time it will not be something serious like that, but still we would questioning about this promotion. Christina used “Do we really need that much caffeine in life” as the title of her blog, this idea would clearly illustrate that people may getting confused with this new drink size. As we have been increasingly advocate for a healthier lifestyle, would it be too much caffeine for customers for a 24 oz Extra Large Tim Horton’s?

COMM296 1st Blog Assignment

As some of you may already knew that two Taiwanese singers Gary Cao and Landy Wen were invited to Vancouver last October for a concert. This concert was hosted by a local corporation in Richmond named Star Entertainment Co. Luckily, I was employed and selected as one of the event and marketing advisors in June last year which were responsible for the promotion and ticket selling of this concert.

That was actually my first working experience that related to marketing. Before this job, I used to think that marketing was kind of “easy”, because what they usually need to do was just use some kind of methods to sell the products. If the products are mostly needed by the customers, there is not even that much effort they need for advertising and promoting. Indeed, after I had started this job, I finally found out that there were so much more you need to do to make a good marketing for this concert. You need to think about almost every perspective that can help to attract potential customers and work in details to finally grab those customers.

As for our concert, we need to first design posters and search for locations to post these posters which would draw more public attentions. Secondly, we have to enlarge the promotion of this concert by using different ways of adverting methods such as the Internet and radio. Thirdly, we marketing advisors were also responsible for seeking sponsorship. Moreover, we need to use every possible resources to help selling tickets and monitoring this whole process. To be honest, that one was by far the most intensive job I have ever done in my life.

With that experience, I have the opportunity to know more about marketing that encourages me to work hard this semester on COMM 296. Fighting!