Link:http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/2011/11/how-did-your-black-friday-behavior-compare.html

“Black Friday” is a typical example of sales promotion, which gives an incentive to customer to purchase the product- a push strategy. According to this blog entry, it attracted more male customers than female customers which is a surprise me. I think this indicates that retailers can launch more such sale promotions that specifically target males. It is worth to mention that the study proves 69 percent of customers think internet is believable which proves that Internet is the most important marketing medium not only because people are always online, but also internet is more believable. Personally, I believe it is because it is easy to find information online and not only from sellers but also from pervious users which increases the accuracy of the information.

Link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/janienguyen/2011/10/24/its-free-but-whats-the-catch/

I think “freebies” is a really interesting topic because we all know that companies are not charity and they want profit. The reason that why companies give free products away is, for a new product, is a fairly good strategy since people do not give a new product a chance. After people try it, if it is good, then people will purchase it and tell their friends (good word of mouth). Even if it is bad, the company will get the feedback from people who get the free product so the company can stop further production and avoid cost. The disadvantage of giving free things away, as you mentioned, is that it might attract many unprofitable customers.

Link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/simonchow/2011/10/24/location-location-location/#content

I cannot agree more that Location (distribution) is an extremely important factor in the overall marketing mix.
Especially when considering the lunch options in UBC, I think it is the best evidence to support this argument. I do not know how to describe the food in UBC in a nice way; however, it does not change the fact that I still need to pay ridicule prices for them. However because of the good location of those businesses (while other elements of the marketing mix are so weak), they can still be profitable. Choosing a right location is the answer!

For my last blog entry, I would like to talk about the iPhone. Recently, Samsung has beaten Apple and took the lead in the smart-phone market because Samsung has successfully launched the Samsung galaxy S2. On the other hand, Apple’s iPhone 4S is not doing as well. I think the reason iPhone lost the lead in the smart phone market is because many iPhone lovers were expecting iPhone 5. Personally, I own an iPhone 4 which I think offers not much difference compared to the iPhone 4S, and according to rumors, the iPhone 5 will be launched in next March. I am confused about the marketing strategy that Apple is using. What is the reason that Apple updates its iPhone so frequently? On average, an iPhone costs 600 dollars, and if you want to get an iPhone by signing contract, the contract would be 3 years with at least 50 dollars monthly plan. How many people can afford to change to phone just to follow up apple’s updates? Yes, there are crazy Apple fans that are willing to spend that much money, but I still think Apple should focus on innovating new product rather than just taking advantage of its brand name (reputation) because if it will run out eventually without providing superior value consistently. In addition, I think Samsung is doing a good job with its new phone. I have tried it, user experience is definitely better than the current iPhone, and many of my other friends are considering changing their phone to Samsung. Good word of mouth is such a powerful marketing weapon.

The ad that I would like to talk to about today was launched by FedEx recently. As we all know, FedEx has a good reputation regarding express delivery. However, the economy is still in the recovery period, so companies want to cut their costs as much as possible; for some less urgent items, companies would like to use ground delivery services instead. Therefore, FedEx promotes its ground delivery service to suit the current economy environment by launching this commercial.

Some of advertisements that we can see on the TV which are focusing too much on creativity and differentiation, as a result audiences do not know what companies are trying to sell and what they are talking about. The objective of this commercial is clear, which is, besides fast delivery, FedEx is also good at shipping less urgent items. In addition, the commercial is also creative. Instead of stating how good they are at shipping less urgent items explicitly, in the commercial, the main character changes his identity consistently, doctor, tattoo artist, chess master etc, and he seems good at everything, which imply FedEx excels at everything.

Obviously, there are a lot of marketing concepts that can be seen in this commercial. For example, the executing of the advertising is more like working environment (lifestyle) combine with personality symbol (professional), which are closely related to the target segment of FedEx. It also conveys the consistent and clear message with previous commercials which is the slogan of FedEx “Relax, it’s FedEx!” overall, I believe this advertisement can reinforce the brand image of FedEx which is professional and reliable.

I think no one would disagree that having a brand is important. It gives us an idea what kind of product/service that we are getting. However, it also rises a controversial issue that, as a customer, what we should really value, just the brand name or what this brand name can give us.

Brand name sometimes is very powerful; it is very good at telling people that you need me and you should have me, which can lead us to forget what we really should concern about. In some cases, we don’t even care the product itself, and the reason that we purchased it is just because this product is from this brand because it represents popular, fashion or high status. I asked some of my friends who like to purchase luxurious brand. Why are you willing to buy a $300 T-shirt dollars which is no difference with $20 ones. They told me that this T-shirt is from X brand.

To illustrate the idea that some people purchase status and not products, in China, some people go to Starbucks and use the brand’s logo to signal to others that they belong to a higher social class, they have a higher status than most. Some people who can really not afford this lifestyle will buy a coffee and re-use the cup by filling it with water or cheaper coffee, not for the sake of being eco-friendly but to pretend that they too possess a higher status by pretending they can afford such way of living.

I just want to say that we are what we are; it will not change because you are wearing Prada or drinking Starbucks. Don’t fall into marketing traps.

Undeniably, advertisement is an effective way to promote your products. A good ad not only brings customers and increases sales volume but also it builds a company’s image and reputation in the long run. However, a bad ad can be a disaster; it actually can ruin the company within that 60 seconds or even shorter. In today’s blog, I would like to talk about the good example of ads, and I might talk about the bad one in my next blog’s entry. So here we go~~~~

Carlsberg stunts with bikers in cinema

I think this ad is very creative. At first, I thought it was a research experiment, and started to wonder why they did this experiment. Why did they let 148 bad guys sitting in the cinema and just left two empty seats for those couples? What information do they want to get from this? Until the end, I found out this is a beer commercial advertisement.

After finishing Tuesday’s class, I think it is a very good example of how marketing use aspirational influence in the advertisement. Beer’s major target market is man, and the ones who are not afraid of the bad guys and sit with them get the beer and cheers from the “bad guys” to celebrate their courage. In my opinion, this commercial implies that only brave and strong people deserve to celebrate with the Carlsberg’s beer. These are qualities that men are looking for. I think this is a brilliant idea not only catchy but that can also shape their brand image very well.

Marketing and Grocery Shopping

For my first entry in my marketing blog, I wanted to record something ordinary, such as grocery shopping. Actually, it is quite interesting to see how marketing has been involved in grocery shopping.

Where do you buy your groceries? Personally, I always buy groceries in 3 places, T&T Market, Safeway and the little shop next to my house. I want to focus on Safeway today because there are a lot of marketing concepts that we covered in class which can be noticed in Safeway.

First, Safeway uses a ‘club card’ to increase their customers’ loyalty. I know other supermarkets do that too (Save on foods for example). However, I think Safeway does a better job than most others. From the receipt, you can clearly see how much you save with each purchase by using your Safeway card. Refer this to the concept of “Perceived value.” I personally feel that shopping at Safeway saves me a lot of money because I can see the ‘amount saved’ at the bottom of my receipt every time I cash out. I know it is a marketing strategy.

Besides its own loyalty card, Safeway is also the partner of Air Miles. If you are a member of Safeway, I believe you have received emails like this:

Or if you go into any Safeway store, you can always see something like this:

I do not know how many Air Miles users are in Canada, but I believe that this program helps Safeway attract numerous customers, and increase its revenue as well.

In fact, I compared price between Safeway and Superstore and found out that Safeway’s price is not competitive at all even after discounts. But it is undeniably working on me.