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When we learned about “People, Culture, and Organization” in today’s Comm 101 class, it immediately reminded me of a video that my OB prof, Tracey, showed us last week. Here’s a short clip:

The things that are discussed in the video relates back to what we have discussed in class today. Zappos, the online shoe retail company, also makes their workplace really fun for its employees. In fact one of Zappo’s core values is to “create fun and a little weirdness.” Pike Place Fish and Zappos both motivate their employees by creating a positive organizational culture.

As we can see, both Zappos and Pike Place Fish provide a very casual environment for the employees. For example, the CEO of Zappos don’t even have a room and “blends in” with the employees. This also contributes to the high level of customer service of these two companies because in this way employees will feel a greater sense of belonging and thus will be more passionate in their jobs.

The F!SH Philosophy, can be summarized by the following points:

• Play
• Make their (the customers’) day
• Be there
• Choose your attitude

These are some of the key points that I want to highlight:

Play: The benefit of creating a fun environment, as discussed in class, would be the creation of stress-free workers. When employees are constantly under stress, it is quite difficult to expect them to be nice to customers.

Be there: Employees at Pike Fish Place acknowledge and LISTEN to their customers.

So what do the stories of these two companies tell us?

In Business, customers – AND EMPLOYEES – are KING.

Really? Lady Gaga is that old? Lol no, it’s just that she has to cancel her concert in Paris due to the pension protest chaos happening in France.

What happened? The French government has recently announced its plan to raise minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 and full pension payments from 65 to 67. Apparently, France’s economy has been suffering in recent years, the government is losing a lot of money because more and more of its population are reaching retirement age and the government has to pay a large amount of money to these people (their pension plans). So the government came up with a “smart” plan a few weeks ago, with the objective to save money. By raising the retirement age and the age for receiving full pension, the government will then be able to delay some of these payments. This of course, enraged a lot of French citizens who will soon be turning 65 or 60 and are planning to retire. They will now have to wait for a few more years before they can receive their pension.

The situation happening in France is somewhat similar to what we discussed earlier in this class about the legacy costs of the automobile manufacturers in the USA. These companies are also suffering due to all the promises they made to their employees earlier. Now the legacy costs are haunting these companies. According to the class slides, Legacy costs are associated with deals that are made in previous years which create a liability for the future.

So what does this story tell us? THINK THINK AND THINK BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY PROMISES AND DECISIONS.

I am sure that everyone has had the experience of wanting to buy something, but was not sure if it’s a wise choice. Now, you might have just found the solution for this problem, if you have an iPhone.

Consumer Reports is an organization that publishes reports that compare and review products and services based on experiments and tests done in an in-house lab. Earlier in this year, it had published a report that is not recommending the iPhone 4. Ironically, recently it has launched an iPhone app called Consumer Reports Mobile Shopper iPhone App.

So what does this app do? Basically, when you are faced with tough decisions when buying something, from toddler toys to electrical appliances,  and want some helpful advices, you can scan the barcode of the product with your iPhone and gain an instant report of the product that tells you the good and/or bad things about it. So with this app, you can access consumer information, including price comparison, remotely with just the touch of your finger.

Personally as a person with an iPhone, I think this is a very useful and innovative app. I am thrilled by the idea of being able to carry a personal barcode scanning machine with me. For me, when I have to choose between 2 products, price would be one of my top priorities so this app would allow me to compare prices without having to collect a bunch of flyers, especially when I am not expecting that I would buy something – this happens to me a lot when “window shopping” turns into crazy shopping.

So who said technology and MIS are only used by big corporations to manage and make decisions?

Would you still buy a pair of Nike shoes if the logo looks like this?

Or would you still buy an iPad if the logo for Apple looks like this?

All the answers for the above questions are probably, “NO WAY!”

So apparently, the logo matters. Here’s a real life example… When the Gap debuted its new logo as an update on its 20-year-old original logo, customers weren’t very happy. In fact, some are even planning to boycott the brand if the Gap continues to use the logo. Marka Hansen, president of Gap North America, defended the new logo saying that the company is “proud of the new logo and that their efforts were to bring the company forward while still honoring their heritage.” …..Really..? Bringing the brand forward? This is true if by “forward” she means having their sales fall 2% in September.

So what does the above incident tell us? It shows that the logo DOES matter. A logo, by definition, is a symbolic way to express a brand. It has the power to give a brand a certain identity that customers will fall in love with, or hate with deep passion. Personally when I am not familiar with a brand, I will look at its logo first. I will only consider the brand if I like the logo. Some people might probably say that quality is the only thing that matters when buying something, but to many other people, image is a really important thing. Say, do you really want to be seen using an “iPhone” with a rotten apple core logo? Not really. What would people think of you? Will you still look professional and tech savvy? To me, I don’t think so.

I remember I was in Grade 9 when I finally got convinced by my friend Grace to get a Facebook account. It was the beginning of my new life.

By new life, I don’t actually mean it literally. By new life, I mean: going home everyday from school and then go on facebook for 3 hours and then start working on my homework and then go on facebook again. Whenever I tried to study, there would be a voice in my head telling me to go on Facebook. (I’m NOT crazy though, so don’t worry.) This is how influential social media can be. It gets people addicted.

An this is why social media can be such a powerful tool for businesses to stay connected with customers. People never get bored or tired of social media.

Here are some examples of successful social media marketing campaigns:

Burger King’s Whopper Sarcrifice application on Facebook

Sony Ericsson’s viral approach in marketing the Xperia on YouTube

And here’s a funny (but fake) example of a social media/information technology campaign:

If used appropriately and ethically, social media is indeed a very good medium for companies to market its products/services to customers. Social media opens up an entirely new horizon with endless possibilities and creativity. Most importantly and again – people in today’s world are related to social media in some sort of way. For example, every student in COMM 101 needs to create a blog and this is already considered social media.

Wow… sweet… so online communities is the perfect place for marketing because NOTHING bad can happen… and it’s cheap!!!!!!!! Well there could be a lot of problems. Words spread really quickly on the Internet. While a company can advertise and promote a product online, online users can also spread rumours (some stories could be real) online. And those words spread really quickly too. Many times on Facebook we see petition groups that are petitioning agains something. And there are always thousands of people who join. Once a company’s reputation is ruined and the words are spread online, it will take a lot of time (AND money) to rebuild the company’s image.

For those who are not new to North America, I’m pretty sure you guys have heard about American Eagle Outfitters or have shopped there before. But have you guys wondered, other than being a shopper, what is another way that you can be affiliated with this retail clothing store? You can be a a student rep, responsible for peer-to-peer marketing.

According to USA Today’s interview with Paul Himmelfarb (managing direction at Youth Marketing Connection), “college students are wary of old-school marketing.” In my opinion, this is true because how many college students actually pay attention to flyers and posters? With the increased reliance on the Internet for entertainment, TV ads aren’t very effective either. This is probably the reason why American Eagle Outfitters have recently hired over 10,000 student reps in America, and are paying them up to $1500 per semester with cash and products. This is known as peer-to-peer marketing. In early September, the company even sponsored free car-to-dorm-room services on move-in days.

Personally, I think that this kind of marketing is a very interesting way to position a brand into a college’s students minds. In class we’ve learned that with the overload of information, it is important to be the FIRST to position a product in consumers’ minds. Therefore, I think that it would be really cool if Vancouver has similar opportunities for students to become reps for a certain brand: it’s a win-win situation – the company sells its products and students make money!

When we talked about business ethics in Comm 101, it immediately reminded me of this video clip that I watched in high school. The story begins at the airport, where an Indian girl says goodbye to her departing boyfriend and the guy promises that he will be back. However, 3 years later the girl bumps into the guy on the street, and the guy is with a new girlfriend. OKAY, so what is this commercial trying to sell? Actually, you will never guess it right – because this is a commercial for a skin whitener. UHHHHHH… so what does this have to do with the love story? Well, the boyfriend broke up with the girl because her skin is not white enough.

This commercial is inarguably unethical because it is trying to sell a product by using the racist idea that “white is superior.” Of course, we all know that it is not true because everyone is equal and skin colour does not matter. The commercial is delivering the wrong message that “white skin equals beauty.” The question is, what if a person has dark skin – does it mean that she is not pretty and therefore should not be loved? My answer is NO.

The above commercial might have given you a “warm and fuzzy” feeling, but it also reminds me of the “McLibel” lawsuit and the controversy regarding McDonald’s exploitation of children in their unethical marketing campaigns. These campaigns include: Happy Meals that come with free toys, playgrounds that are located in some McDonald’s restaurants, as well as school teaching aids with frequent references to the Hamburger Giant. By appealing to children, the children will then ask their parents to bring them to McDonald’s, where they will be exposed to fast foods that are “high in sugar, salt and fat.”

The strategy of marketing to children seems pretty smart…Why is it unethical? Children often have very innocent minds and they are not capable of making sound judgements independently. Therefore, it is very unfair for McDonald’s to lure children using free toys in attempt to distract them from knowing how unhealthy the restaurant’s food is. If I am a parent, I will not want corporations to take advantage of my children’s innocence. And as a business student, I am passionate to learn more about the importance of making ethical business decisions while at the same time avoid jeopardizing the benefits of the company.

helllo everyone 🙂