Marketing Ethics on the Internet!

Since the internet started, it has completely changed the way firms market all of their products/services in a good way, except for the people/firms that use the internet as a ground for unethical behavior!!! These include scam artist and thieves that lure u into a fake-return proposal and end up taking your private details which can later be used to steal your identity and rob you of your money!!!

Heres a link showing a list of common internet scams of 2009: SCAMS OF 2009

Internet crime can come in many forms from empty gift-cards to phishing scams but the most popular seems to be phishing scams where these criminals send fake emails pretending to be a reputable company or not, and ask you to either join or purchase something in order for you to give up important PRIVATE information.  

Example of phishing scam from my hotmail account! Most of these scams i've noticed, tend to advertise sexual enhancement products :S making them really creepy in nature :P But the one I'm showing here is the creepiest of all since it is supposedly sent by a friend of mine and it would redirect me to a website if I clicked on in :S!

*Here, one also notices a trend that most of these scams have to do with making money online and claiming that its all free!

What is there to be done about these scams? Some of these scam artists are quite ingenious and I wouldn't blame anyone who falls for their traps, but three things are for sure: These scammers exhibit unethical marketing ethics without a doubt and the best thing to do would be to be very careful when opening strange emails and to never give your private information to untrusted sources!

What is this Ad's target segment?

As I read the our assigned reading for chapter 15, I came across an image that jumped out of the page because it seemed strange to me. The image I saw was that of Cosmetic designer's Traver Tains new cosmetic collection: The Heatherette collection, an addition to the M-A-C brand. 

What mostly seemed strange to me was the fact that, even though makeup and cosmetic firms know that their main target consists of women, Traver's choice of "faces" to represent this new line would be that of himself. At this point I questioned, what is his cosmetics target segment!?

Then I got to reading some students' analysis on the new cosmetic line and realized that not only was heatherette intended for women 16-25 but it were also intended for men who wanted to be individualistic and stand for themselves. With this bold move, heatherette targeted a new segment who had not been so boldly acknowledge before and gain from its risky intention. 

Now a day, the brand is still strong and even has a facebook page!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Heatherette/16119049173

Translink- Buses!

Busing Pricing Strategies!!! :)

Commuting to UBC 5 days a week by bus, I started noticing the degree of price discrimination in bus fairs. Seniors, adults, kids and babies all had different fares and under these categories, we have student flex-pass deals, monthly and yearly passes at discount, etc. All of this got me thinking… does Translink have a profit maximizing strategy?

Information About Fares!

http://www.translink.ca/en/Fares-and-Passes.aspx

Translink is government owned, which means that its main goal shouldn’t be profit maximization but Cost recovery and Market Incentives strategy. In other words, even though its government owned, it still uses pricing to help achieve its goals!!!

Cost Recovery- Translink chooses prices strategically to cover costs! (Increase prices)

Market incentives- Attract as many riders as possible (decrease prices)

Both of these strategies work together to find a balance where the customers are satisfied with fair fares and translink can pay their employees enough to keep them happy.

But what about us! the taxpayers!

Would Translink be better off if it was privately owned? More competition? Higher priced passes? Nobody really knows if ultimately the privatization of Translink will benefit the consumer but one thing is for sure, improvement in service would be a given.

How do competitors match to the Iphone?

List of Iphone's competitors:

HTC HD2

Motorola Milestone a.k.a. Droid

Google Nexus One

• Blackberry Storm 2

Palm Pre

(This list is non-exhaustive)

Apple's Iphone has always been the hottest commodity to have since blackberry released its first smart phone. Blackberry used to control almost all of the market for smart phones until the iphone came along! Skyrocketing in sales, the iphone took over most of the market share per singular phone and ever since, everyone's is trying to be the iphone killer!

So has a company been able to tower over the iphone yet? at least in terms of functionality and beauty (as opposed to market share). After reading Ting Yung Chang's blogg ( Ting Yung's Blogg) on the new HTC HD2 phone I was ALMOST convinced that a new heir to the thrown had been appointed: 

"in order to compete with iPhone, HTC focuses on inventing the best smart phones ever. In the commercial for HTC Evo 4G, which is the latest product launched in June 2010, shows all the functions that have been improved. The HTC Evo 4G has a bigger screen, almost three times faster internet connection, higher resolution camera available in both the front and the back of the phone and so on. The battery, memory card and SIM card are removable. All these features are definitely much better than the iPhone which lately has been all over the headlines for malfunctioning. When I saw this commercial I feel it must be the best phone in the world and HTC has come a long way to launch itself onto the world stage in the same league with Apple."

For a company to be able to take on the iphone and possibly be the next answer to phone users they must  not only match but tower over the iphone's features and beauty;

After some research I concluded that no company, not even the HD2 phone is able to match the Iphone's mystique. As put by Alejandro on Buzz.com (Alejandro's Article) "iPhone Competitors Comparison: HTC HD2 vs iPhone

" best device by far, the HD2 is a monster of a phone. With a huge 4.3 inch capacitive screen, this phone was touted to be the iPhone killer when it released. Boasting of a 1 GHZ snapdragon processor and 5 MP camera, the only downside of this phone was its Operating System. Windows Mobile. In comparison, the iPhone with its multimedia capabilities, was a much more stable phone. The HD 2 lost out on the operating system, otherwise would have been a perfect phone to topple the iPhone from its top spot. Windows mobile users will actually agree with me here, that the phone is prone to crashing and rebooting suddenly, which is rare in the iPhone. However, for people who do not want the perfect multimedia experience, the HD2 is a very good buy, considering that it has a faster processor, bigger screen size, and better camera."

Finally, with the HD2 coming very close to beating out the Iphone, I predict that in the future, a company will get the right combo of capabilities and features to triumph over the iphone, but clearly, the apple has a competitive advantage that appears to be almost impossible to climb over. Hence, it will be a while :) (specially with the launch of the new Iphone 4)

Windows Seven- My idea :)

The purspose of this blogg is to reflect on Kim Graves' blogg on how and for what purpose windows released the new windows seven;                
                                                         Windows Seven


What Kim's blogg brought up was that Windows was able to establish greater product excellence by taking into consideration PC users' input and creating a software that combined simplicity, efficiency and state of the art technology to fit comfortably into the PC users' lifestyle. Which process did they go through to develop their current software? As told by Kim, "Due to the fact Windows Vista had so many problems, people complained to Microsoft and suggested different ideas of how to improve the software.  Therefore, Microsoft took all of the feedback and created Windows 7, to make them happy".


Still i felt there was alot more to be said about this wonderfull new software that i love and believe is revolutionary! How where they able to make it so revolutionary? By a method of providing additional value to the already amazing windows XP software by a process know as value co-creation. In this way, it allowed them the opportunity to act as collaborators in creating the product  they themselves use. In this way, not only is Windows increasing overall sales, but it is increasing loyalty and establishing themselves in a high competitive advantage wall. 


Furthermore, even though they used value co-creation and developed a magnificent tool for our everyday lives, the price they set is crucial since this is the overall sacrifice a consumer is willing to make to acquire a specific product; in other words, price can't be too high or too low ( since high price can imply high quality if executed well ) Fortunately for windows, they were able to capture a great deal of consumer surplus, resulting in very high sales. 


Moreover, i would say that windows is a competitor and customer-oriented business. a), because even though apple is its main competitor, they focus on customer satisfaction by asking for their input. b). they are competitor oriented because they are always looking out for the new Mac releases and pricing with respect to apple's pricing strategies!

Terrafugia

The Flying Car!- New to World Product?

"Terrafugia is a small, privately held corporation that is developing a roadable aircraft dubbed the Transition. Their General Aviation (GA), Light-Sport Aircraft (LSA) is designed to fold its wings, enabling the vehicle to also operate as a street-legal road vehicle. It is the sole registered automobile manufacturer in Massachusetts."

In my opinion, this "transition vehicle" is a completely new product rather than line or brand extension, which is a new line added to an existing product mix. In this case, I see the transition vehicle as being a risky new product for the world.

Terrafugia is currently in the introduction stage of the product life cycle! In turn, Terrafugia has great challenges keeping them from moving to the growth stage and Maturity (optimal stage) in the long-run!

The key to making sure successful introduction to the market has to do with focusing on distribution channels and relationships with distributors. Also, Terrafugia has to be sure that the customers understands their products relative advantage, compatibility, coplexity, observability, and Triability.

Compatible: needs to be compatible with how people like to fulfill that need. For example, parking the vehicle at home and pumping gas in the gas station. Also, gas milage should be substantial enough for people to commit to the product in the long-run. 

Complex: the more complex, the slower to diffuse to the world {move slower through innovation curve (rate of adoption/diffusion)} Therefore, their model shouldn't differ too much from the functionality of a typical commuter vehicle.

Observability: show how easy and reliable the car's take-off is on media channels like youtube.com ( like the video I posted below!)

Trialability: Have them located at a specialty dealership for Terrafugia vehicles that accommodates for test Drives!

 Unfortunately, substantial costs arise with this kind of projects because of research and development costs and promotional budgets for consumers and distributors. Therefore, there's a chance Terrafugia may never get to the maturity stage in the life-cycle. 

Personally, at this prototype stage, the looks don't do it for me. For this reason, I'm hoping that this company succeeds in integrating itself far into the new product cycle, reaching maturity; in this way, they will get resources needed to work on new designs and attract new competitors in order to bring down the hefty price range of 200-250 thousand dollars!!!

Prediction for the future line of Gaming consoles:

As rumored by gaming hopefuls the PlayStation 4 or abbreviated to PS4, could be the fourth home video game console produced bySony Computer Entertainment, and the successor to thePlayStation 3 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 could compete with predictably upcoming Microsoft's Xbox 720and Nintendo's Wii 2 as part of the Eighth generation of video game consoles.

There are lots of prototypes on what the new Playstation console might look like but nothings for sure at this point. But the thing that can be said about this new generation is that it will surpass all of the Playstation 3’s capabilities to a possible virtual and enhanced interactive form of play. Not to mention, unbelievable graphics!!!

A major feature that distinguishes the PlayStation 3 from its predecessors is its unified, face-to-face free online gaming service, which contrasts with Sony's former videogame setup for online play with minimal interactive qualities. Other major features of the console include its robust multimedia capabilities. For example, its connectivity with the PSP- Playstation portable and its use of a high-definition optical disc player ,or in other words, Blu-ray Disc as its primary video player. This blue ray player is much like its predecessor’s blue ray but with even better quality.

Furthermore, this new and sleek PS4 I would estimate to retail for about 500 dollars. It would be a total bargain since it not only provides you with the multimedia capabilities that will be worth over 500 dollars, but its sure to beat its competition in single/ multiplayer fun hands down.

PS4


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