The Prime Minister Stephen Harper is currently on a official trip in China. This time he brings hockey diplomacy to China as one of the purposes of this trip. According to Mr. Harper, “It’s just another great cultural connection that will enhance the sense of shared experience between the Canadian people and Chinese people who I know have, notwithstanding occasional political differences, great affection for each other.”  Hockey is indeed a great bridge between Canadians and Chinese people. The most important thing is that, Prime Minister bringing hockey to China could actually bring Canada big economic profit as China is a huge market. Canada is already a worldly famous brand for hockey so that Canadian-made hockey stick is also the first priority for customers. Asides from that, selling hockey to China could also reveals a signal that Canadian business groups are willing to develop the relationship with Chinese firms. Just as Mr. Harper said in Beijing, “I think we have significantly advanced the economic relationship.”

Sources:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-is-harper-in-china-the-ethnic-vote-and-money/article21519254/?cmpid=rss1

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-sells-hockey-to-chinese-sports-fans-on-beijing-trip/article21523344/

http://www.womenshockeylife.com/

Nov. 11 has  never been a regular day for Alibaba and all the online shoppers in China since Alibaba made this day the world’s biggest online shopping day in 2009. “Alibaba recorded its first $1 billion in sales this Singles’ Day in only 17 minutes—it took about an hour last year.” This year, the sales of the two shopping website, Tmall.com and Taobao.com of Alibaba are expected to be $8.7 billion, a 40 per cent increase from last year.

Why would this day be so special? There are a number of reasons to push it forward. The most important reason is that the day 11.11 has been called the Singles’ Day by  young people in collages in China at where the major online shoppers exist. As the Singles’ Day was getting popular, Alibaba bought up the concept of  Shopping Festival to encourage single people to shop and provided free shipping as well as heavy discounts in the 2009.  The success of 11.11 results from the concept of “Shopping Festival” proposed by the CEO Jack Ma and implement it with full thoughtful plans.

Sources:

http://www.illuminantpartners.com/2012/04/09/tmall-logo-amusing-heritage/

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102165986#.

Instagram- a Facebook Inc. owned photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service is bringing advertising to Canadian users today on Nov. 10th, a year after starting advertising in the U.S.

The first five corporations Instagram chose to work with are Hudson’s Bay Co., Target Canada, Sport Chek, Air Canada, and Travel Alberta. All of these advertisers already have their own accounts. Before advertising push, they can only post to their followers. After this project being launched, companies could pay to reach other Instagram users who is not their followers.

With the development and popularity of social networks, advertisers are paying more attention on them such like Instagram. Accoarding to Facebook Inc., its revenue has  largely increased due to mobile ads stream.

Mobile ad is a new tech and a  highly efficient way to reach audiences, bringing the business in front of people everyday. As a  company, it’s no good not to catch up the new tech-trend.

Sources:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/brand-building-one-instagram-post-at-a-time/article21514759/

http://instagram.com/p/vL6–dTbRC/?modal=true

In Samantha Solomon’s “Like Comparing Apples and Blackberries”, she compares the sales of the new product of blackberry, the passport and iPhone 6 of Apple and the struggle that Blackberry is going through.  At the first weekend of releasing , 200,000 units of passport were sold which is only one-fifth of the number of units that iPhone 6 sold at the first weekend. “In such a competitive smartphone market, Blackberry is yet to establish a customer segment with their new expensive yet unique device. ” In deed, Blackberry is lack of point of difference at the current point. It used to be individualized for business people by its outstanding email system and security reasons, but other smartphone brands have been diminishing the advantage of  that.

Even though we admit that Passport is a brilliant device, but Blackberry have not made full efforts in marketing. Low investment pumped into marketing department is barely a good idea for such a  dog-eat-dog smartphone market, especially Blackberry has been holding less and less share each year since 2008.

Samantha’s Blog:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/samanthasolomon/2014/09/29/like-comparing-apples-and-blackberries/

Other Resources:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/passport-sales-bode-well-for-blackberry-analyst-says/article20838923/

Red Bull – caffeinated drinks giant – was recently sued by a regular customer in the U.S. and had to pay out $10 to every customer who had ever bought its products during the past 12 years. It was all because the advertising slogan since  2002, ‘Red Bull Gives You Wings’.

From the advertisement in 2002,  a man grew a pair of wings after drinking up a can of Red Bull. We must say that Red Bull actually did a great job of positioning itself. Because its selling point was caffeinated drinks and bought people energy, a pair of wings perfectly explained the spirit.

It was hard to imagine that there was actually someone believing in that commercial. The result of the lawsuit was that Red Bull must give up $13 million to any US customers who had bought the drinks since 2002. $13 million was a huge amount of money but it had not to be considered as a loss. On the other hand, it might be a opportunity for its marketing department.  This lawsuit actually brought Red Bull to the public again without making another expensive commercial  to avoid being forgotten.

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2786594/Red-Bull-ordered-pay-13million-settlement-doesn-t-really-drinkers-wings.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11155731/13m-lawsuit-proves-Red-Bull-doesnt-give-you-wings.html

Starbucks has always been claiming that businesses can – and should – have a positive impact on the community they serve. Recently, its CEO, Howard Schultz said that Starbucks would focus more on veterans in the U.S. He told the media that two and a half million of young man and young women had served in Afghanistan and Iraq and a million of people had entered civilian life. The transition for the veterans  were very tough. The unemployment of veterans ware higher than the national average. They needed a job but the lack of skills had become a obstacle. So Starbucks would provide more opportunities and training for veterans.

Asides from that, to help those veterans, Howard Schultz  also intended to encourage every business leader to recognize that the veterans have incredible skills. He believed that the heroes who served the country deserved celebration and opportunity.

This movement of Starbucks brought itself to the public again and builded positive image of  the brand. It practiced its relief of social consciousness again and that was one of the points of difference distinct from other coffee-house brands.

Image Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/33696639/?q=Howard%20Schultz

Additional source: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3878480589001/starbucks-ceo-pays-respect-to-veterans/#sp=watch-live

Although  the national referendum of  Scotland Independence has ended up with a “No”, it is still meaningful to explore the impact that a yes vote would have on Scotland’s Exports and the economic influence on the rest part of the UK as well as the European Union. The independence of Scotland would have a negative drag on its exporters like whiskeys, food and beverage.  Take whiskey for instance, the whiskey industry relies much on  the support of  both the UK and EU governments in their overseas market. As Scotland might not be a member of EU after independence, the future of its export industry could be a concern. As for the United Kingdom,  it would have lost a bunch of export tax revenue if Scotland had gone independent. Consequently, English consumers would have pay more for the goods that originally come from Scotland because the goods would have been no longer domestic so that the UK Would have  to pay for the import tariff.

Sources:

THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE, David Cojocar’s blog

https://blogs.ubc.ca/davidcojocar/2014/09/19/the-economic-impact-of-scottish-independence/Scottish Independence: What Impact Will a Yes Vote Have on Scotland’s Exports, International business times

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/scottish-independence-what-impact-will-yes-vote-have-scotlands-exports-1465529

Recently Sony announced that it expected annual loss to swell to $2 billion at a press conference. The loss is due to its troubled smartphone business. It is not surprised to hear such news because the current smartphone market has been mostly occupied by Apple and Samsung. Aside from that, strong Chinese rivals are another key reason for sony’s loss. Why sony could not compete with Apple? Because of the technology? The answer is no. Actually Sony’s smartphone has its own advantages like the high screen resolution and pixel. However, Sony  is lack of  the differential strategy.  It is the fact that iPhone has gains the most loyal customers because of its founder Steve Jobs’s inspiring legendary. Without making a big difference, it is not easy to win over  the smartphone market share. To save their smartphone market, I think the first thing is to increase the advertising. In Apple’s biggest market, China, iPhone’s TV commercial is broadcasting intensely, but Sony Xperia never did the advertisement on TV, the most effective way of advertising.

Source:

Sony predicts $2.1 billion loss, Jordan Andrew’s Blog

https://blogs.ubc.ca/jordanandrews/2014/09/18/sony-2-billion-loss/

“Beleaguered Sony predicts $2.1 billion loss as smartphone future falters”

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/personal-tech/Sony+forecasts+loss+swell+billion+after+writing/10211364/story.html?__federated=1

Although iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus have been on sale for a while in many countries and we have seen so many people lining up for a whole night to buy them, as the biggest market of Apple, China is not the initial market for the new iPhones this time. But it does not affect its popularity there. Based on JD.com, a Chinese website that tracks the pre-orders of iPhone 6s, there were over 2.8 million pre-orders for iPhone 6s as of 11 pm Friday Beijing time (8:00 am Friday Pacific time). Tencent news estimates that in the four days since the iPhones were approved for sale in China, reservations topped 4 million. From the data we could see the how strong the influence of Apple and iPhone 6s are.  It’s not surprised that iPhone could make such a success because Apple has made such clear value proposition and have conducted it through its amazing advertisements.

Citation:

“Forbes”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2014/10/04/apples-iphone-6-pre-orders-are-on-fire-in-china/

Social responsibility of business is a wildly discussed concept amongst businessmen and the whole society.  According to Milton Friedman, the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. From my point of view, social responsibility is more than that.

As Jack Ma, Alibaba’s group executive chairman said, “When you have 1 million dollars, that’s your money. When you have 1 billion dollars, that’s the trust from others. They think I can spend money better than most people do.”  What he said reflects the spirit of social responsibility of business. The corporations make profits to solve society issues and help individuals. In other words, profit is never the destination.

The first thing we should know that the social responsibility of business is actually undertaken by the corporate executive of those big corporations. It’s not deniable that making as much money as possible is the responsibility for the corporate executive because he has direct responsibility to his employers. However, at the same time, the corporate executive should think about more about the society issues like helping other individual proprietors or eliminating discrimination. This is the most effective day to gain public’s respect while their respect could help the company with long-term development.

Source:

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3794796483001/alibabas-jack-ma-we-are-here-to-help-small-business-not-compete/#sp=show-clips