Marketing Blog #10

According to Eugene Tan's blog, I think he had a great idea and understanding of why Malaysia need to advertise for its Tourism Industry. Changing the image of Malaysia is a great project and can actually attract more people to visit Malaysia. But for me, i think this is not a complete solution to improve Malaysia's image and significantly increase its revenue from Tourism Industry. I think that Malaysia should improve the "product" itself. Just like luxury good and normal good, cities like Paris and LA are luxury good and are every one's dream place. But Malaysia may not be because it does not have a good image and normally people go there just for vocation. First, Malaysia should start some famous spot and develop it into high end and luxury vocation place and pay special attention to security of that place. Thus it can gradually turn its fame into a nice brand. All it can do other way around. Make it bad fame really world wide and everyone knows it. After that it then turn the image of this country. But this is really risky and may not work if not dealt carefully.

Another blog that i want to comment on is Qi Zhong's blog about Coca cola, Qi Zhong identified that Coca-Cola used a variety of materials in its advertising and is developing all the way through its history. But something did not change is that it focused a lot on people's feeling and are always ahead of the trend. Its ads always encourage people to try its product and give people a feeling of freshness and happiness. Also its huge red Coca logo has a strong brand association which helps people identify its product without really know the logo or actually see the logo. And their ad campaign helps Coca successfully build up its brand and become the most known brand it the world.

Marketing Blog # 9

TedTalk--idea worth spreading.

I always watch TedTalk videos. They always have some great speakers like Bill Clinton, Robert Fischell, who will deliver a speech to audience to spread an idea. And idea worth spreading is their slogan. They successfully raised audience's awareness and interests. The inspiring speech also makes audience desire to take action. I think this is how they will market themselves. Also, some of their great ideas really inspired some innovation which develops a great market or discovered a great potential in some products. I also find that they do not have advertisement on their website and videos, unlike NBA or other homepage who has a lot of advertisement. On reason is because they are supported by a nonprofitable organization, the other reason i think is because they position themselves as and idea spreader and highly academic. But they are not totally academic, which means not only professer or phd. can talk about their ideas, i saw they invite children to give a speech or a volunteer firefighter to give a speech. They want to spread the idea that everyone can have an idea and every good idea is worth spreading.

Also, their show is not boring or totally academic. Their video is full of fun and inspiring. Which totally changed the image of knowledge in people's mind. Knowledge is no longer boring and waste of time, it also can be fun and cheering. And thus it makes people like ideas, willing to talk about ideas and automatically spread the ideas, which is the central idea of tedtalk. It is a great marketing example. Maybe other companies is selling products and promoting products. They are promoting some intangible good--idea. And they did a great job because they made everyone willing to think about the idea and spread the idea and come up with new ideas, and this is how tedtalk can last. Boosting new ideas is more important to tedtalk.

Marketing Blog # 8

Advertising for Japan.

Recently there is a earthquake happened in Japan. Japan does not fear earthquake because there are too much earthquake happening in Japan and Japan's buildings are designed to be able to survive the earthquake. But the tsunami caused by the earthquake ruined everything on its way and destroyed a lot of towns in Japan which cause thousands of people homeless and thousands of injuries and death. On the left hand side is a picture showing a man rode a bicycle through an area hit by the earthquake and tsunami in Kesennuma. But is this event related to marketing? Yes! For sure, it is related to marketing because it helps Japan establish its brand and promote Japan to whole world by showing how Japan react to this disaster. People all gather in schools' playground or any open area and women and children are served with priority. They are perfectly organized without any regulation. Even after the tsunami, people still line up to call their family or friends, even the line is 30 meters long.

And another thing is that a nuclear power station is destroyed in the tsunami and its material is leaking outside which spread radiation to the area. The picture below shows that workers are struggling to avert meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. And the picture on the right hand side shows that medical workers screened a woman for possible radiation exposure in Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Wednesday after she was evacuated from an area within about 12 miles of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. She tested negative. Japanese government's quick and efficient reaction helps reduce the loss to the minimum. And this shows the world that Japan is powerful because it has well organized citizen and responsive government. But the result comes out disappointing because the station exploded three times and its really dangerous to cool it down or go rescue victims, Japanese government already forbid any people entering that zone. So no medical care can be delivered and people there will saddly seat there and wait to die. But i believe this is the best solution for all members of the country.

Marketing Blog # 7

I recently realized that i seldom saw apple ads on TV or Internet, but it is already known by millions of people and a lot of people are crazy about it. How can it achieve this magical result? I think it must be from its market positioning. Most high-tech product devalue very quickly, maybe three month later it is only half of its price. But Apple products never become cheap product with time changing. Apple only send its product for free with new products as promotions. This strategy helps differentiate itself as LV or Guggi in the high-tech industry which can be seen as luxury goods. Also, it leads a trend in the high-tech industry. Just as LV or Guggi do not need a lot advertisement, Apple does not too. Apple focus most of its financial support on innovation and personalization its products which helps it lead the trend in this industry. And each of Apple's release will result in a huge wave of purchasing trend.

With comparision to another brand Coca Cola which is also a well-known brand name, Apple spend only a little money on advertising. But Coca invested a huge amount of money in advertising. They are also consider a trend leader in its industry. In a recent survey, Coca is considered as the most well know brand in the world. And different from apple, Coca spent fairly less money on innovation. Even they did, its for market development which focus on develop new market. Such as, they created Zero Coca which focus on develop women's market who fears high sugar amount in the Coca. But Apple's innovation is for product development which is aimed at increasing the purchasing frequency and customer amount in its current target market to ensure its market share.

Marketing Blog #6

With reference to Johnny Zin's blog, he talked about some 3D product which is growing in the market. He raised the issue that people will like 3D technology more than before but the glasses that required by 3D product will be a barrier to the development of 3D product. He feels that people might be annoyed by wearing the glasses. But to me, i think 3D glasses can be an opportunity for developing this technology. One possible way is that this glasses develop into a trend or fashion. Then everyone feels cool by simply wearing it. Or it can replace the huge TV screen. By just wearing the glasses, people can watch 3D movies. Thus 3D movies become portable just like mp3 player or ipod. So if 3D glasses can be innovated, it may help 3D movies develop faster and into a totally new era.

Another blog that i want to comment on is Qi Zhong's blog, which is about the fast food in NYC. The 4food restaurant used huge amount of social media which facilitates the ordering of meals and helps the restaurant spread its fame. The thing that i want to point out is that this may not be a long-term focused customer relationship. Most people come to the resturant to try new things, but the food may not be as tasty, which is the core value of a restaurant. So the vast use of social media may also harm its fame and spread the bad thing about it. Secondly as a fast food restaurant it feeds busy customers who cannot stay for long. And if they use social media, they may spend more time in the restaurant which they cannot afford. Thus it will not be as affective. But this is a good idea which may significantly change how people order food in restaurant later.

Marketing Blog #5

As a university student with a tight budget, i always go to food court in ubc village to have my lunch and dinner. I remember that i saw a new store opened in the food court named Traditional Soup last year. And recently i saw it closed down and rerent the place to others. I never see many people in front of their store even when there are long lines in front every other stores. I think i might unfortunately noticed its whole product life circle.

At the Introduction period, sales will gradually increase and profit will increase from negative to positive. I think the Traditional Soup did this and there are several innovators who want to try the soup out. But i never saw they experience the Growth period and the Maturity period. I think they go straight to the Decline period. Why this happens. I think because the have not finish their STP process.

For their situational analysis, I think they successfully identified their opportunity there which is that there are no soup stores like them in the food court and people might want to try the new thing and this can also be their strength because they a new. But they still have weakness which is that they are new for only a short period and they are located at a corner of the food court which is hard for people to see. And threatens are already there, two best selling Chinese food store there.

There product is soup, which i consider will not be enough for my lunch, but they still sell at around $5. So i consider their target market as people who want a soup after lunch or who just want snack soup(maybe they do not think this is their target market). But who are the people go to food court? I think they are mainly students who just want to have a cheap and quick lunch. People who have the spare money might go to white spot and other places like that which locate at center of UBC. So we can assume, their target customer never goes to food court, so they can hardly find the Traditional Soup.

However, if they make some promotion at the introduction period, making their product more accessible and give free trials, they may let more people know about their store. But they did nothing to promote their store which can not turn their innovators to early adopters. Thus, the diffusion of innovation just stopped there, making themselves unknown to their market. I believe that is the main reason that leads to their failure.

Blog #4

NBA fans will discover that when they log onto NBA.com to watch game highlights or top plays, ads will appear during the loading time. And it is strange to find that half of the ads are for female fans. There are a lot of ads advertising products for female and soap and tissue which should be targeting housewife who will often purchase this product. This is strange but is reasonable and appropriate. Why? I do not understand before i took the marketing course. When our professor mentioned that NFL research illustrates that half of their fans are female, it is not hard to understand why they advertise like this. I feel like they segmented their market into product for male and product for female, and then sell their rights to advertise to them. This is just a website strategy of NBA and it is beyond lots of people's imagination. Also, I think NBA has a large portion of female fans because their ads for female product are more than ads for male products.

I also want to talk about NBA's community involvement as an marketing strategy. They have a NBA Cares program which encourage each team to help their community to help children who are disabled or mentally disabled and give them care. This move shows NBA's value of sports is to make people healthy and never ever give up. I believe that this move will bring NBA at least two main benefits. First of all, they show their care for their fans or people who are not even their fans. So NBA fans when be loyal to them in return and they may even develop from loyal fans to people who advocate NBA which is a really powerful marketing tool--word of mouth. Secondly, they mainly help children and young people which may help NBA discover potential fans and develop them into their long term customers.