Sauder Student's blog

Today， I just skim over the Carina Ip’s Blog.In the blog, she talks about Tim Horton‘s“Roll up the Rim promotion”.I was interested about it and want to  learned how Tim Horton increased its revenue by providing effective marketing promotion strategy to directly pull the consumers. First, roll up the rim becomes a trademark for the Tim Horton that distinguishes the Tim Horton from other industry competitors. In order to get a good understanding about why the Tim push out such promotion, I did a research, The Roll Up The Rim To Win promotion was created in 1986.by  doing so , restaurant owners can reward their loyal guests by giving them the opportunity to win millions of exciting prizes with the purchase of a hot beverage. Surprisingly, I found that Tim Horton’s does not participate in coupon or discounting programs as part of their national advertising strategy. They let the customers know that they are offerring guests’ every-day, value-priced, quality products.

Without providing various promotions, instead, Tim Horton just gives consumers a time limited chance to win a prize. Once I bought a coffee at Tim Horton, usually, I never roll up a rim or scratch a card to see if I get a prize, but when I looked the title “please play it again” I roll up the rim and won a free donut surprisingly. Here I would say that Tim Horton is so successfully seduce consumers to purchase their products, and maintain a high level of loyal customer base.

When I know Sauder offers us 1 credit course, which contains public speaking in the  1st term, and tutorial at the 2nd term, I feel a bit of stressed and frustrated because I am afraid of giving speeches at public.Also, I heard from my friend that 299 is too strict  to the resume and cover letter homework , even a little bit grammar mistake would lead a zero grade.

However, at the end of the semester, I feel glad about the course because I learned so much . as today, I fell more confident about giving speech at public, at first semester, every week I need to prepared a topic and give a 2miniute presentation in front of class. Although I fell nervous every time when I stand in front of many people,my confidence was gained a lot and my presentation skills was improved substantially. Further more, listening to other people represent inspires me a lot because I can learned from how other people present at a better and humorous way.

At the second term, I learned a lot of things from the tutorial. I enjoy the class because TA shared many experiences with us in searching job posting, witting good resumes, preparing the interviews. All of those business skills are essential to my future career success. I am glad have taken comm299 as it teaches  and inspires me so much that enables me to be more competitive in  a business world.

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Every time when comes to the boxing day or some other holiday, a lot of merchant tag big advertisement on the window display of their store trying to attract a substantial customers  to the store.

They offer consumers a variety of sales promotion such as buy 1 get 2 or 50% discount on selected goods. In china, when Chinese New Year comes, shopping mall are always crowed of people, and everything seems can be bought at a very good deal. Merchants usually offers consumers 200 yuan ‘s coupon if they spend 500yuan. One consumer spend 1000 in total, and he get a 200 yuan’s  value coupon, he may want to buy a stylised jacket of 800 yuan, with that value coupon, he actually pays 400 yuan out of his pocket.  The tricky tactics occurs: with actually paying 400 yuan, if one spends 100 more money, he would get another 400 value coupon.  But in that shopping mall, it’s hard to find merchandise priced at 100 which are actually needed. For me, I often feel trapped in such kind of promotion activity. And I believe that most consumers feel that way, too.

Here, many of the merchants and retailers are very smart to price their goods, they use a statistic method to price the goods according the face value of the coupon, and leave consumers in a trap that seems they just cannot get rid of the coupon if they continues figuring out a way of getting more coupon with spending not too much money.  As a result, consumers probably buy some stuff which are unnecessary and merchants and retailers make a great profit.

Public relationship is a field concerned with a public image for business, it also a practise of managing the communication between an organization between its public. Public relation disciplines include many of fields such as financial PR, consumer PR, Government PR and so on.

For marketing, it’s focus on the market, consumers and demands. Public relationship is interested in relationship-reducing the conflicts and improving cooperation. Good public relations will create a healthy environment for marketing. But simply providing technical support for marketing is not the same as good public relations.

Managing the Customer relationship is a key factor for marketers to develop their products brand among targeted population.

Here I’d like to talk about how Apple Inc. developed its customer relationship and how the company achieves to a tremendous customer loyalty. First, Apple introduce a variety of products, by doing so,  many consumers who may not ready to purchase a apple computer probably want to give gadget like iphone , itouch, ipod a try. This creates new opportunities for new users to be introduced to apple. Apple Inc also    create a store only for apple.  Apple stores are a friendly place where Mac and PC users alike are encouraged to play with and explore the technology that the company offers. This is a space where Mac funs can not only get service but also hang out with others who enjoy Apple products just as much as they do. By creating this space, Apple encourages current and new customers to get excited about what it has to offer. The company offers consumers a number of different ways to enjoy its products. By giving customers an opportunity to employ Apple in their living rooms, pockets and offices, Apple makes it easy to stay loyal to a brand they already like.

Apple can be so successful is not a result of luck or force beyond its control, it’s a part of a well-thought-out plan that deliver strong products and create an Apple culture in the world.

After watching a TV series, I become very interested in beauty industry. Everyone wants themselves to be beautiful and adorable to get other people’s attention.  Beauty not only is about having gorgeous apprearence but it’s also related to how self-esteem and self-value can be expressed individually at the best way. There is a lot of money to be made in the beauty industry, now more than ever. Every month, there seems to be a new product on the market promising youth for old women and glamour for the younger women.  Every magazine has a big section about beauty products because companies are willing to pay a huge amount of money for glossy advertisement about cosmetics and skin care products.  Beside, the anti-age products are growing at a furious age. Many of the top end cosmetics brands create their own anti-age product lines. And it seems that research and develop new anti-age product has became a mainstream in today’s society. Also, over the past five years or so, celebrities have become spokes models for beauty products, unseating the ‘Supermodels’ of the late 80’s, early 90’s. This reflects a general trend in advertising, I think, where celebrities have pitched all sorts of products from watches to foundation. They don’t wear a ton of makeup when stalked by paparazzi, but they may make a ton off pitching it for ad agencies.

So many people are obsessing more than ever about their jowls falling or lines appearing. It’s turning people to cosmetic surgery. At the same time, young people trying to look mature and piling on makeup at places like Sephora, which has whole lines of makeup geared for teens and preteens. More and more younger girls are making themselves up in an effort to appear mature/older.

promotion are powerful nowadays because it has been apllied widely by firms to increase their products sales. The real meaning of promotion means get the right message to the right audience though the right media. For example, peole often stop by the shops if there are any promotions going on , like what we often see, buy 2 for 1 price, or store give consumers discount coupon for the next purchasing. Therefore, customers are likely go to the store one more time to use the coupon. Another example would be the Mcdonald offer free coffee during the chrimas time in order to attract more customers stop by the store and increase the sales. It’s smart to use such promotion tactics because customers like free drink and once they get into the store, they are likely to purchase more food.

However, sometimes promotion could be costly for companies if consumers don not response to the promotion as company expected. Personally, for firm whose products are cheap and acceptable by consumers, promotion would be a good strategy to increase the customer base. But for the company who intends to sell luxury products, promotion may not be very effective because consumer think even the promoted products are still very high. So company should be very carefully when they choose promotion strategy in order to increase  its customer base and sales.

when it’s the time to go for a jog or drive on the way to school, I listen to my high energy boost music. During the car ride, I joggle between the news and my Japanese lessons. All of these events are done  through the use of a little device that seems to be everywhere we look. For past few years, we have seen how apple corporation not only introduced ipod into the market for music players, but also created the new must have pop icon.

After the discussion about product life circle in class, I begin to think about i pod’s life circle. ipods have grown into a recognizes culture symbol and was introduced to in2001.Designed and marketed by Apple corporation, ipod is a brand of digital audio/video players that stand out form the rest due to their user friendly interface and sleek design.

Currently, ipod is in the growth stage of its product life circle. It has shown a steady growth rate in sale as reported by Apple corporation.The most recent report has  shown a significant growth in the sakes volume of ipods, which is a good indicator that apple’s market is expanding. It appears as though there is now a definitely public awareness of apple ipod worldwide.

Although Apple already has a huge following of loyal customers, the apple has created new generation of new fanatics that simply can’t get enough of the ipod and all of the ipod attachment have since developed!

Brands are valuable to the firm, firms often use different branding strategies to increase company’s popularity.In order to develop the strategy, firm need to determine its brand’s objective and putting a plan into place that will help firm  success in meeting them first. Secondly, The power of a company’s brand relies on the ability to focus. That is why defining the target market will help to strengthen the brand’s effectiveness. Thirdly, When creating a brand strategy for a product or service, it is important to perform a careful analysis to determine principal barriers that may come in contact with. These barriers are also known as market conditions that can keep the product or service from achieving success.  Last, packaging is the most important thing because company image is all about the appearance of the packaging.

After experienced 1st week of teamwork in marketing course, I felt myself made a progress these days.  it’s a bit hard for me to discuss a project using the second language. So glad that my group member helps me a lot.

There were so much fun going on these week. We analysis the consumer behavior and learned how to do a marketing research. Social factors, situational factors, psychological factors and marketing mix are the 4 key points that influence consumer behaviors. This reminds me that sometimes when I went to the mall or supermarket, if sellers give me sample of the food or there are discount going on in the store, i always cant help to buy new stuff which are unnecessary. In China,when new year coming, shopping malls offer customer” great deal” on merchandise.  If you buy a cloth of 1000yuan, then you will get 500 coupon back. The trick part is here: often, there are no merchandise  ‘s price is exactly  500, and coupons are restricted for certain brands of cloth and consumers must use the coupons during certain period of the time. When  a consumer  want  a cloth on 1000, then she may pay 500 cash with coupon, then she get another 500 coupon……. as you can image, seems consumers get a great offer, but they are kinda of stuck with the given coupon because with a coupon, consumers always want purchase more.

Today’s class is so much fun! teams are tasked to try the samples of 3 different brands’ cookies and coke. Then each team give feedback on the samples. This activity looks like a market simulation, gives us a general picture of how to conducting a marketing search.

I like the quote in the textbook:‘marketing is the processes for creating capturing, communicating, delivering and exchanging offering that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

After 2week’s class, I learned how marketing plays an important role both within and outside the firm, and finally figured out that the opportunity occurs to a company is an external factor that we cannot control but within a marketing strategy, marketers can create value for the product and services. A marketing strategy identifies the company’s target, a related marketing mix 4ps and intends to build a sustainable competitive strategy.

1.   Business mission: become the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining uncompromising principles as company grow.

2.   Evaluate the environment of the company and find the strengths and weakness (internal), opportunity, threats (external).

3.   Apply STP(segment, targeting, positioning)

4.Product: introduce Simply smooth to gentle ppl’s stomach to increase the value of coffee./ cost, competitor’s value- based pricing/ create more channel such as stores, internet and retailers/promote through a variety of medium such as TV, magazine, sale force, internet.

5.   Performance metrics for the Starbucks eg. the net sale of 2006 is $7.88 billion and net profit was $564 million

The immediate environment compose of the company itself, its competitors, and company’s partners. Culture, Demographics, Social, Technology, Economic and Political are the macro-environmental factors.