It was a great opportunity that I got to form a group to have an entire semester to work on a big project. Even before I talk about the academical and experience aspect, it was a decent exercise that made me to have a great network of friends and diversified spectrum of what a group work is.

I sincerely regret that I could not join the group meetings for few times due to the fact that my family reunited; my father lives in Korea alone and he got to visit Canada for limited amount of time. Even though I could not physically involve in the group meetings, I was mostly helping online in different areas.

Our group was well formed with each one of all different characteristics and strengths. The ability to make these dissimilarities into a great harmony with good chemistry was a crucial part to this project.

As we got together to discuss about Research In Motion, also known as Blackberry, great ideas came across and each of team members were able to transform these ideas into set of reports and consulting process for a better market strategy for Blackberry. While writing reports for first two tasks of the projects, few devil’s advocate were presented in a positive way to decrease the groupthink and increase the efficiency as well as the quality of the report. As we all work as a united team, the marks we got from those two assignments were above our premises to higher extend of satisfaction.

The process of making video was an amazing experience. Although most of our members did not know how to make a video, we all gathered up, researched to make a best video possible. The result was far more greater than what everyone of the group expected. It consists of all the information as well as homourous scenes.

This group project led me to know much better about Business Marketing. Marketing is not just about commercials, it is about the innovative ideas of distinctive members within the organization and how to put them into different areas such as pricing, placement, product and promotion. During this group project, I was well satisfied with the brainstorming, processes and result. It was a great experience that my professor offered our classmate to have! 🙂

These days, most of video advertisements consists of either, the Top Stars/Sports player, great sense of humor or stimulating sexual portion. It is a great way to approach customers. Apparently, stimulation and affiliation helps the consumers to easily get attached to the brands that consist of these stimulation, yet I believe the sympathetic, empathetic touching scenes can be a part of those category.

When I was surfing the internet, I bumped up to the video of advertisement under a name of “This is the Saddest Commercial You’ll Ever See.” This is a commercial of a life insurance company in Thailand. This video was in Thai language, however, the translation in English led me to fully understand the context.

In this video, a born deaf and speechless father comes out as a protagonist. He had one daughter who used to have a good memories with him. As she grows up and goes to school, she gets bullied and made fun of due to his father’s abnormality. The daughter then decides to commit a suicide hoping that her life would be ended from all the stress she got externally and internally. However, his father sense the absence of his daughter and find her outside of his house with bleeding arm. He then decides to take her to hospital and beg a doctor to save his daughter which would cost everything he got. Eventually, the girl gets her life back and then the commercial is put to the end.

Now, I understand that this is a commercial from a life insurance company and thus it is inevitable to have a serious content in the video. I am not writing this to set a boundary that all the advertisements should contain a sorrowful and a touching message, however I am proposing that this medium can be wisely and well used to move consumers’ mind.

According to a famous theory ‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,’ social needs is one of the most needs that people go through. This sense of touching message sends the affiliating message directly to the consumers whose then moved and get affected in his/her decision making.

At this developing society with better technology and better medium of commercials, a well-used touching lesson consisting advertisement could be a great way to move consumer’s mind as well as their behaviour of purchasing certain product!!

I would say, everyone who’s living in Canada would have seen this red cup with yellow arrow pointing top. After finishing warm and delightful coffee, people get to roll up the part where arrow is pointing to see if they have any luck to have another cup of coffee or even a better prize than that. Every coffee drinker in Canada would recognize the ‘red’ as a symbol of Tim Horton’s coffee shop. To certain extend, Tim Hortons is one of the best cafe in its competition in Canada along with Starbucks.

It is viable that Tim Hortons is one of the top in the competition for the reason being its brilliant marketing strategies. Today, I am willing to share some of the marketing ideas that Tim Hortons had that made them famous than ever.

One of their strategy is to approach customers with very local mindset. Every time I visit Tim Hortons, I see the pictures of children playing soccer, group of young adults playing football. Also, as soon as I walk in to the store, I see older people sitting down with French Vanilla talking on and on and on, unlike cafe that consists of fast-paced business workers and students studying for few hours with a cup of coffee. These local, yet friendly strategy is creating certain peaceful nostalgic atmosphere that attracts customers.

“Every child deserves a brighter future.” Tim Hortons is having a campaign to help children to have a better food with proper nutrition. That cookie is sold at a price of $1.00 + tax and all of the revenue that comes from this cookie is donated to ‘Food and Friends’ student nutrition program to help the minorities who are having a hard time eating the right food. This is a great campaign that Tim Hortons did which increased its values as well as the positiveness of the brand. Nonetheless, customers may come to have a cup of coffee then to buy a cookie rather than they coming in to donate $1.00. This campaign/marketing strategy gives a better understanding of a brand but, this work doesn’t necessarily bring more customers into the store.

What really attracts customers the most is the presence of buy a coffee and get another coffee strategy.  This ‘Roll up the rim to win’ was first started in 1986. Even though the first prize was a pack of Timbits, it was a great asset to Tim Hortons in a long run. As this specific red cup with yellow arrow comes out to the market, the lineup to counter gets longer. This strategy was well announced targeting the consumer behaviour. The expectation/hope as they roll up the rim as well as the satisfaction as they actually win a prize is the great extrinsic motivator that sweep customers into stores. Also, the number of prize recipients that’s posted up right above the counter increases every consumers’ desire to receive a prize.

These marketing strategies that Tim Horton performs is greatly affecting the revenue of Tim Hortons and its brand-awareness!

Most recently, I have seen a advertisement that suggests people to quit smoking. Nowadays, about one third of male adult are smoking. Also, about 80,000 to 100,000 children are starting to smoke everyday. Of course, there are many others who are trying to prevent this from happening.

I have seen a lot of videos and TV commercials about “quit-smoking” movements. However this video had a greatest affect on me. I am not a smoker, nonetheless despite the fact whether you are smoker or not, it has a great affect on every viewers of this video.

The director used a sympathetic and empathetic median to amplify the message it gives. What happens in this video is that few approximately ten-year-old children goes up to adult smoker and ask them whether they can borrow a lighter. The result was evident. Every adult rejected and refused to give the children a fire to light up their cigarette. During this process, both adult in the video as well as the children have an epiphany that they should not keep on doing this.

The effect of this promotion video was very successful. Using children’s innocence of childhood and strong prick of a conscience actually decreased significant amount of smokers who have seen this video. As the marketing world gets bigger and the world develops, people want stimulus such as sexual-related, violence, eye-catching arts and so forth. However, this kind of median that can ring people’s minds could let the viewers to really understand and to change their way of thinking.

Personally, I do not like the smell of cigarettes. If more and more people let each other know by touching their minds, 33.3% of smokers will be able to decrease to 3.33% and to 0% at some point in the future.

The article is based on reader’s debate on careless ethics of an employee at business and decisions made by the CEO. Alcoholic employee failed to show up to work had brought company to the loss of $100,000. Also, his failure of showing good ethics had downgraded the reputation of its company. With this problem, CEO did not consider to fire him, instead he had sent his employee for treatment.

“The CEO had a good heart, but at times the head must rule,” wrote Yvette McManus, owner of Yvette’s Designs in Sterling, in Lufkin, Tex. Likewise, many businessmen argued and criticized for this action took by the CEO of the company. Apparently, the head of the company managed to get his employee for help, yet paid too much for it.

I cannot judge whether CEO’s choice was noble or wise, yet when it comes to business, it is clear that leaders have certain line that cuts to minimize the cost and maximize the profit. Also, one should inspire by showing a role of dealing with this kind of stubborn dilemma.

cite: http://www.inc.com/magazine/19990501/791_pagen_2.html – Reader’s Debate

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