Monthly Archives: November 2011

Organic Groceries Online, Delivered to Your Door!

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Last blog post!

I just read Eliza Lee’s blog on online grocery shopping in Korea, and thought the idea was amazing! After looking up online grocery stores in Vancouver, I came across Spud.ca, who specialize in organic produce.

Spud.ca gives free delivery to your doorstep with a minimum purchase order, and has weekly sales and the like just like any other door.They supply produce, instant meals, ethnic foods, beverages, and even potted plants. In addition, they have partnered with a recycling organization to donate money to charity. They also try to buy from local businesses and sponsor programs like the Vancouver Sun Run. Overall, it seems they really want to benefit their community not just in selling healthy groceries, but in other areas to make the city a better place.

While looking at their website, I was reminded of the change in the general trends of companies’ marketing approach now a days. In the past, a grocery store sold groceries, and a recycling plant handled recycling. There wasn’t much interplay between the two, and people never really expected any. Now a days, however, consumers are putting greater expectations on companies they buy from to be more socially responsible, and now the thought of an organic grocery store online being associated with a recycling program doesn’t really seem that strange at all – in fact, it is almost expected.

A general rule I pull from all this is that marketing is all about adapting to change in consumer expectations. Marketers need to be aware of social trends and get engaged in what their consumers are engaging in. If customers are buying online, start marketing online. If they are being more sustainable, then follow suit. It’s something I’ll keep in mind as I continue pursuing marketing in the future…

Thanks for reading!

Coke, Pepsi, and Product Experience!

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While reading Michael Wat’s blog post on Coke’s “Share a Coke” Campaign, I was interested to see some other Coke commercials and their results from the past.

I stumbled across a 1985 “New” Coke Commercial with Bill Crosby. I thought it was quite entertaining, seeing how far Coke has come since then in regards to advertising. In this commercial, Crosby talks about the “new” Coke and then goes on to say that there’s no need to describe it – he downs it and SHOWS how amazing the taste is. I then compared this with another Pepsi commercial with Michael J. Fox from 1985, where Pepsi is also SHOWN rather than described in a rather different way. Though their approaches were different, but both focused on customer experience rather than on product description.

After watching the two, and after chuckling to myself at the difference between the past and present advertising methods, I realized that in fact the difference between these old commercials and new ones are actually not that different. Both modern commercials and these ones tried focusing on the “experience” of drinking colas rather than on trying to describe them. I did chance upon a few older commercials from Coke which tried to describe how Coke was the best, but I definitely think this version was much better. Trying to portray a product experience is much more powerful than trying to describe the benefits – the unsaid details speak louder than anything the commercial could have said – different people will pick up on different aspects that might not have even been in the original marketer’s mind. I am looking forward to improving my skills in this area to effectively advertise customer “experience” rather than just product description!