Blog Post 8

Companies Who Save the World Own the World

In today’s business world, it is extremely difficult to get to ahead of competitors and more importantly continue to stay ahead of them and we, the consumers, are not making it any easier. We want quality items and services, at low prices, services and products to be technologically advanced and now communities are pushing to be environmentally friendly as well. These are tall orders to fill, especially the push towards companies becoming environmentally and socially responsible. This is known as sustainable marketing; social and environmentally responsible marketing that meet the present needs of consumers and businesses while also preserving the ability of future generations to meet their needs. This concept of becoming environmentally and socially sustainable to provide more for the future is becoming more widespread and is changing consumers buying habits.

            Here are two commercials for dish soap. The first commercial is for Dawn and the second commercial is for Palmolive. Both claim to have dish soap that is soft to the touch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysTFRcBqFpE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9ZeJzUilgM

POP QUIZ:

1. After watching these two commercials which company are you most likely going to chose next time you are shopping at the grocery store?

            A) Dawn

            B) Dawn

            C) Palmolive

            D) A or B

If you picked C you do not have a heart and you also failed todays assignment, so go hit the library. Anyways, environmentally and socially responsible companies today have an advantage over other companies. Consumers will be more likely spend extra money on the brand that saves little ducklings from oil spills than on a different dish soap brand that is potentially cheaper but lets the cute ducklings have oil covered coats. Dawn uses the slogan, “Save on the brand that helps save lives”. What is more heart warming than saving a life by cleaning up after your ungrateful children who leave their dishes in the sink for the non-existent maid to clean? (I have heard a similar lecture once or twice before because I myself am an ungrateful child.)

           

Food corporations in particular are being pushed towards changing their recipes to being healthier or they are now providing healthier alternatives. At McDonalds fries can be substituted for apples, (for the record, this is the third blog post that I have mentioned McDonalds, that’s unhealthy) and everything has to have the nutritional facts posted about the product. Food corporations who are not socially responsible are quickly falling behind other responsible companies who have changed their ways to adapt to the needs and wants of their consumers.

Trader Joes and Whole Foods has become an increasingly popular grocery store in this day and age because the healthy options they provide. They are smaller stores and do not provide the variety that a Market Basket or Stop and Shop does but they provide a more concentrated selection of products. They also are significantly more expensive than other grocery stores they are competing with but they have something others do not. They have a vision of the future in mind for their customers, not the company. They want to provide the best for their customers and they hope that their customers return the favor by accepting the challenge of paying higher prices for higher quality foods.

Trader Joes Mission Statement:

“The mission of Trader Joe's is to give our customers the best food and beverage values that they can find anywhere and to provide them with the information required to make informed buying decisions. We provide these with a dedication to the highest quality of customer satisfaction delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, fun, individual pride, and company spirit."

Whole Foods Mission Statement:

“Our motto—Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet — emphasizes that our vision reaches beyond food retailing. In fact, our deepest purpose as an organization is helping support the health, well-being, and healing of both people — customers, Team Members, and business organizations in general — and the planet.”

Blog Post 7

Breaking News:

Homework Doers Are More Successful

            When a senior in high school, I got the privilege to go on a 10 day trip to Spain and France with some of my classmates and teachers. It was an amazing experience and I learned a lot on this trip, I learned I couldn’t read map to save myself, French people are not very friendly to foreigners and they are even more unfriendly when you butcher their language by attempting to use your five years of French to ask where something is located (because I couldn’t read the map). But anyways, we first went to Madrid in Spain. We had 3 hours of free time to get lunch, shop and do some sight seeing on our own. Having been traveling for over ten hours between the plane and the bus and the train, we were starving, jet lag was creeping up on us quick and the plane food wasn’t cutting it. Across the street was a mall, a park, which was surrounded by cafes and restaurants serving delicious foreign foods, I’m sure. But where did we end up eating that afternoon? McDonalds. Good ole fast food. My parents were thrilled when I told them my first meal abroad was fast food, the same fast food as I could have gotten in the United States. Heck I was spending all this money on a trip abroad, why spend money at a café or good restaurant food, right? We didn’t choose McDonalds because they had bet

http://www.indexmundi.com/blog/index.php/2013/02/25/
the-presence-of-mcdonalds-across-the-world/

ter food or service. We chose McDonalds because it was familiar and in a sense safe. We do not know what is in the other foods being served at the restaurants were; only half of us spoke Spanish therefore only half of us could read the menus at other restaurants. But you bet we knew what a number 10 was at McDonalds. That, my friends, is Americanization. The phenomenon of Americanization in the dictionary is defined as, to make or become American in character; assimilate to the customs and institutions of the U.S. Simply, other countries losing their national identity and becoming more and more like the United States.

            McDonalds is a global firm; it is everywhere in almost every country. It does not have such dominance abroad for there are not as many franchises as compared to how many there are in the United States. Is this surprising? America is the most obese country in the world, we love our food, we like it fast and we like it as convenient as humanly possible. On the contrary, for example, the French have a very exquisite taste when it comes to food. “French cooking has influenced the cuisine of the rest of Europe, the Americas, and parts of Asia and Africa to a remarkable degree.”[1] Countries have different cultures, different life styles and different tastes in food. Companies must adapt, not only what they they sell, but how they sell that food to the different consumers. Every nation is diverse and unique when paralleled to other countries. The company or organization must research, recognize, and understand the quirks of each individual country before entering the market. Failing to do proper research on countries can result in a failed business venture.

For example, Wal-Mart has failed in India, Germany, Russia and South Korea.[2] Business Insider attributes the failures to the lack of research on tariffs barriers, cultural differences, and other barriers.  Other barriers include, situations such as in the case of India, 30% of the items in the store had to have been bought from a small to medium, specially, Indian business. This only goes to show that, “Wal-Mart's failures in four major countries shows there are some obstacles even the world's most powerful retailer can't overcome.”[3] Doing proper research into the country you are about to set up in is important and could be detrimental to your organization if a country rejects your business.

There is much more than geographically coordinating where to put your business. It would just be illogical to set up a surf shop in Montana or another land locked state. For the obvious reason being… it is land locked. Another reason is they want to put their luxury and recreational money into something more useful to them. It is also very much so important to take into consideration demographic characteristics of the country and economic factors specific to that country.

           

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[1] “France; National Cuisine” Global Road Warrior (2014): http://www.globalroadwarrior.com/ContentInfo.asp?iso3ltr=FRA&nid=20.14&cid=52&next_nid=20.15&parent=Food%20and%20Recipes

[2] “4 Countries Wal-Mart Failed to Impress,” Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/countries-that-wal-mart-hasnt-dominated-2013-10

[3] Ibid.

Blog Post 6

           

Happy 100th Birthday to America's Muscle Car

           The Dodge Challenger is coming up on its 100^th anniversary and Dodge has come out with two distinct commercials to promote the new 2015 model of the car. Both commercials end with the slogan “Their spirit lives on”. Both commercials are showing the years of transformation the car has had throughout the years. The first commercial shows the two brothers, Horace Dodge and Francis Dodge at a type of Gatsby party. This was the American Dream, to start off their career making only a bike to creating a very iconic muscle car that has been desired for generations. This type of nostalgia is aimed to target the older segmentation of the market for the cars. Using nostalgia is a great way of getting the older generations attention. This technique is also in a way two-fold. In one way it is targeting the older generation but in another it is targeting the younger generation as well.

They are not limiting themselves to marketing only to the older generation, they are using multiple segmentation basis. Dodge is not limiting their customer base to one age demographic; however, they are marketing almost exclusively to males. The market for muscle cars is almost all in the male demographic. They are marketing to the older segmentation; Grandfathers and older men who now have the money they did not have earlier in their life to afford such a car. They are also marketing to the segment of young males; ones perceived to be bachelors who have jobs and can also afford a down payment on a car. The Dodge Challenger is a sleek and sexy car. It is definitely a car that a male who just entered the work force and would afford would desire to have.

Furthermore, Dodge is segmenting the consumers by their loyalty to the brand. On the company’s website, they use slogans such as “ Your grandfather wanted one. Your father wanted one. Now you want one” and “American Muscle Car Grows Stronger”. They are targeting the working class males who have worked their way up the ladder in order to get to where they are today. These slogans are not attempting targeted to the rich businessmen necessarily. They are associating the car with the classic story of the American Dream. In the first commercial, they explain how the brothers first started off with selling a bike and now they live the lavish life style of the rich; a rags to riches story. The Dodge Challenger is an icon of the hard work and dedication it takes to afford one of these cars.

Dodge is also using brand loyalty as a way of marketing to their consumers. By using grandfathers and fathers, they are marketing to the generation that just entered the work force. If their grandfathers and fathers wanted a Dodge Challenger, then they should too. Why? For no reason other than they can afford it and it is THE American Muscle car. They have a competitive advantage over other companies because they are more affordable but still is a top of the line, sleek muscle car that has been driven from generation to generation.

http://www.x17online.com/media/images//2014/10/
charlie-hunnam-car-crash-100714.jpg

            Dodge has also done their research on which television series their target market would likely watch. Dodge sponsors the final season of the insanely popular TV series, Sons of Anarchy. Sons of Anarchy is about a motorcycle gang who runs guns and sells drugs. (It is a great TV series, highly recommended and its on Netflix). This kind of show is more popular among the male viewers because of the violent content and overall masculine stereotype surrounding the show. Naturally, this show would be a perfect platform to promote the Dodge Challenger. Immediately following a cut in the show for a commercial break, Dodge presents two of its commercials for The Challenger. This is perfect timing, it is before people can jump off the couch to grab a snack or refill their drink and it is not lost in the mix of commercials that are showed during the break. If you do stick around during commercial breaks, the Dodge Challenger presents an "SOA Moment"where they re-visit a fan favorite moment from a previous season. Furthermore, during last week's episode of Sons of Anarchy, Jax was running from the cops and he stole a car, not just any car, he stole a Dodge Challenger and he got away. The picture, is Jax successfully getting away in the Challenger. If you missed the commercials, the scene in the actual show itself and the SOA moment, DON'T YOU WORRY!! Dodge also sponsors the "Anarchy Afterword", the live talk show with the actors about that night's episode. The Dodge Challenger has become the Sons of Anarchy car.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_bjdpDFudo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oicu39lda0E