Yizhuang Guo's Blog

The death of Steve Jobs was not only a death of a person, but a loss of the world. A blog from Drew’s Marketing minute “What can the average Joe learn about Steve Jobs” emphasized this point. We have never seen the world being so sad about a business man’s death, and I don’t know if we are going to see such time again.

Steve Jobs didn’t just change Apple, but he changed the entire marketing world as well. If there’s innovation of Apple brought by Jobs, other electronics companies like Sony, Sharp, Nokia and etc might still be developing and a turtle-moving speed. Apple stimulated the advancement of technology. He knew clearly what he was doing, and he knew what consumers wanted before they knew what they wanted for themselves. He understood marketing, and the power of simplicity, as well as branding… He was truly a genius and great innovator.

The next day after his death, I logged on Renren (A Chinese social network very similar to Facebook) and I saw a lot of people criticizing him and disrespecting him. I myself am a (well, somewhat) fan of Apple and their products, and I also admire and respect Steve Jobs very much. I think it is ok for people to not like Apple products, since everyone has different values and perceptions. However I found it very distasteful for people to insult Steve Jobs and humiliate his achievements. Some people just think that buying Apple products is a way of showing off how rich the buyer might be. However that’s a thing that happens in the Chinese market —- it is somewhat distorted. Some consumers and customers hate Apple users, maybe because of they are jealous, or maybe they really don’t like Apple, I don’t know. But they can’t deny the fact that even though Steve Jobs passed away, his long lasting brand will continue to be a giant in today’s technology market.

Fans of NBA would know that the notorious action by Lebron James, for he escaped from Cleveland Cavaliers to Miami heat to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to fulfill his dream: An NBA championship. However, in today’s world, as sports are being more and more commercialized, the NBA league, teams and players are all trying to expand their “markets”, which are basically people who watch or have the potential to watch basketball. So James’ action would bring him what his fans would love to see: the fact that he will win the chamionship.

Lebron James has earned himself a lot of admiration from fans, and I personally is a fan of Lebron James. He is a smart player, not only on the basketball court, but in the business field as well. Simply with his talent on basketball, his skills would attract millions of basketball lovers. As a result, “Company Lebron” has been dominating the fans market.

A lot of people already know that James is one of the advertising endorsers of Nike, and now, he has been working with the largest fast food restaurant McDonald’s. In his new McDonald’s spot, James allows the script to poke fun at him. “The odds of LeBron James winning seven championships?” the voiceover says. “One in …” — which James interrupts with mock outrage, saying: “C’mon, man!”

The voiceover continues, “The odds of LeBron winning a [Monopoly] prize? One in four.” And sure enough, James wins. “Free fries!” he says with delight.

In my personal opinion, even if McDonald’s stop launching advertisement campaigns indefinitely, it would still be the largest fast food restaurant in the world. However, the endorsement of James would be a good marketing intermediary to help McDonald’s promotion. However, it would not be a great deal for James, whose haters would now laugh more at him because of the “inability to win a championship” shown in the advertisement.

blog source link: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/09/30/McDonalds-Monopoly-LeBron-James-093011.aspx