On the Remembrance Day, a day when people should remember the war heroes is being made by some merchants to make a sale.

 

Such actions have triggered the anger of many citizens.Indeed,taking advantage of a serious event can be disappointing, and hence could largely jeopardize their brand image.

Thinking from the perspective of business, I would rather say that GAP and Crocs are doing the right thing in a wrong way. I have always believe that it is justified for a company to pursue profit, but not turning the such a sad day into a happy shopping holiday.

Only when the special promotion matches the atmosphere of whatever the promotion is about; in this case, if companies want to do promotions, a better way would be to produce clothes with poppies on them and sell them in a relative low price for a few days around the remembrance day. In this way, the public perceive the company as a good one, one that not only a cold blood merchant that only chase profit, but also a human firm that cares.

Another way to do promotion is to tell the customers that every one item you you buy, we will donate xx dollars to whatever charity is related to the remembrance day and the war heroes.

 

News from :

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Business/ID/2596183467/ 

Featured Photos from :

http://o.canada.com/news/gap-crocs-under-fire-for-remembrance-day-deals

 

The social entrepreneur, those whose goal is to do good for the society, is a fast growing group of people. Even if a nation is ‘fully funded’, the social enterprise is needed.

First of all, there is no country that is confident to say that they have eliminated poverty, even if in highly developed countries. One of the main goals of social enterprises is eliminating poverty, and therefore can help the impoverished and being overlooked citizens. In addition to directly give out money, job training, educations, etc can be a great help since trough the government process , free job training and activities that help the poor took a long time and may not be approved.

Another important point I want to point out is that the idea of social enterprises give people more choice of what they want to do for career. From the aspect of women, such choice promotes gender equality in a way that other actions of the government could not, for example, social enterprise gives women more choice to choose to decide how to pursue career success (Lisa Samuel-St. Rose).

 

Work Cited:

Rose, Lisa. “Who Can Benefit from Social Entrepreneurship?” (2013). Set4change. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://set4change.wordpress.com/social_entrepreneurship/who-can-benefit-from-social-entrepreneurship/>.

Featured picture from:

http://www.onedayswages.org/donate/org/charity-water 

This blog is writen as a comment to one of JuLie Zhong’s blogs: Has your iphone 6 been bended over? https://blogs.ubc.ca/juliezhong/

 

In her blog, she writes that because of the quality and the fact that apple has not been creating new product, apple is going down. However,I do not believe this would cause Apple goes down in sales performance,generally spaeking.

Although the thrive of Apple Inc.is due to the disruptive innovations of Jobs,ie Mac and Iphone, it does not mean that every year, they have to come up with some kind of other disruptive innpvations.Apple is,first of all, too big to fail.Its overall quality exceed most of the cell phones on the market. Its unique system with the physical hardware also gives Apple gaurantee to keep the throne in the market.

As for the quality issues for the iphone 6,I would rather say that even big companies can be undiscrative. Big car cmpanies such as Ford,Toyata sometime call back their cars because of quality issues.

On the other hand,not only for Apple, but for all other companies, innovations are important. A company can survive without changing for a couple of years, but a company with no change will evntually vanish.

Featured Photo From:

https://www.apple.com/

 

 

This blog is written as a comment to the following blog :

Using Social Media to Generate Sales Leads. http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2014/11/07/social-media-sales-leads/ 

 

Social media has been always a growing industry since the emergence of the Internet. There is one post that roughly illustrated how social media can affect and help one’s business. I could not agree more since social media such as facebook has become an indispensable part of life for many people, and ‘one of the best tools customers are using to locate the products and information they seek’ (Aronsky E,2014)

 

Statistics show that ‘100% of business decision-makers use social media for work purposes’ (Lamoreaux S, 2013), therefore how to get in the leading position is critical. Other than all the things the author talked about in the blog mentioned above (try to know your customers, give them what they want, etc), try to keep customers on the company’s page is another important part of a successful social media leading company. The reason is obvious, if people do not subscribe your page, people are less likely to get to know the products.

To do so, the site of the company must do things for potential customers, and to fully exploit functions on social media. In conclusion, give customers or potential customers what they want and keep in touch with them keep a company’s social media site alive.

 

Work Cited:

Aronsky, Eugene. “How Does Social Media Marketing Work?” Common SEO Questions, 13 Aug. 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://commonseoquestions.com/2014/08/13/how-does-social-media-marketing-work/>.

Lamoreaux, S. “Is Your Social Media Strategy Dynamic?” Business 2 Community, 22 Nov. 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://www.business2community.com/social-media/social-media-strategy-dynamic-0692287>

Featured Photos From:

http://www.tintup.com/blog/looking-towards-the-future-using-social-media-the-right-way/

This Blog is written as a comment to one of Ayesha Hasan‘s Blogs：Staples, online shopping.<https://blogs.ubc.ca/ayeshahasan/>.

In the post “Staples, online shopping” (Ayesha Hasan), author points out that Staples closes 15 retail stores because online shopping affected Staple’s business, saying that in a world where you can buy everything online largely affect the sales performance of the physical store.

However, I could not agree to that point. Online sales, admittedly, is popular, but would customers go online if they only want to buy a couple of pens which can be bought in the store nearby? I do not think so, at least not for most of the people. Online shopping is so welcome mostly due to de deduction of the opportunity cost of customers buying things. When buying something that needs careful consideration or large quantity, consumers save huge amount of money and get more options. On the other hand, stuff like staples and other groceries that are needed immediately and are usually bought in a small amount could not take the advantage of online shopping, since the opportunity cost of shopping online even exceed the cost to go to a actual store.

Nonetheless, the model O2O (online to offline) which is mentioned in Hasan’s blog post can be very helpful. Choosing items online and pick up at a store selected.

 

Work Cited:

Hasan, Ayesha. “Staples, Online Shopping.” (2014). WordPress. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/ayeshahasan/>.

Featured photo from :

http://www.socialsamosa.com/2013/11/coming-together-online-and-offline-worlds-interactive-technology/ 

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Alternative+power+projects+cheaper+than+Site+report/10193801/story.html

There are many factors that impact a company’s business plan or model, the aboriginal people is one of them sometimes. In this case, the C site would bring about inverse effects and therefore is strongly opposed by the aboriginal people. As a result, the government has to make adjustment – to develop alternative techniques.

Thus it is important to get to know and avoid every incident and factor that could impair a certain business plan before launch it, since this C site is already ready to go if it was not for the aboriginal people. If government had thought of it earlier, much time and resource can be saved. In addition, we also learn the importance of a backup plan when running a business.

From another perspective, BC hydro, which wants to launch the C site, is very likely aware of the fact that this action could jeopardize aboriginal people’s benefit, but still released the program although was rejected. It is irrefutable that companies, excluding non profiting ones, are money oriented and sometimes we need to stand out for our own right if offended, for some firms may take aggressive move to obtain more profit.

 

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/lg-rolls-out-new-positioning-to-add-warmth-to-the-brand/4007542.article

In August 2013, LG launched a new brand identity, adding warmth into the brand image.

This is a move that the firm is trying to put itself in the leading position of a particular aspect. It is right that a company should always find a perfect position in the business game but I think LG did not get the right facet, since many companies has long realized that customer experiences are the most important  things to work on and they are already advertising about how they put customer value in the first place.

It is essential and inevitable that a firm would fail a few times before finding the right spot. Although LG is one of the most successful appliance companies, it does not have an outstanding character. Some firms, which have successfully built their brand image such have deeply rooted their special characters into customers’ mind.

Maybe LG can try some slogans that target certain customers more specifically and stick to them instead of a slogan that is to broadly targeted

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140613-the-stunning-value-of-dusty-dolls

 

This article talked about how old dolls become something more favorable than before. Doll collectors whose primary intention is not to resell old dolls contribute the most. In the eyes of the majority population, old and sometimes even dusty dolls do not sound appealing, but they do enjoy a growing share of the doll market.

I take its unique value proposition as the biggest strength. There are values inside of the dolls, values that are appreciated by some people. This can be extended into other companies as well: It is nearly impossible to please almost everyone and talk them into buying the products, and therefore clarifying the value proposition of a firm is one of the most essential steps for a company to succeed. In this case, the value proposition of old dolls is the internal beauty and the inherent value that differentiate those dolls from other toys.

In addition, a clear positioning of a company usually comes with a specific group of target customers, i.e. the customer segment, which, along with the value proposition is vital for a firm to get into the business game and root the brand name into the head of customers.

The prosperity of business world brings opportunities as well as challenges for individual firms. Under such circumstance, many companies favor sponsoring charity organizations or events to be more competitive.

 

I am not denying the huge benefit many enterprises have given to the society, and I do not think donation to charity is something that goes against business Ethics. Although some insist that such action is actually bad for the society because doing so means to acting like government, a role that a firm should not have played, levying on people and distribute to those in need, I can not give consent to this opinion because it is totally optional weather customers chose to donate ( A company would have to rise price to get more profit to donate) either directly or indirectly.

 

What concerns me is that some firms may be tricky about donation when is comes to giving out its money.

 

Here is a link talking about how some companies may be very deceptive. http://www.care2.com/causes/are-those-companies-charitable-proceeds-actually-going-to-charity.html

 

Some firms claims to support charity and in fact they do, but firms give little clue of how much they have actually given. Companies, after all, are profit- driven, if we put aside the non profit firms, and can be tricky when it comes to money.