Marketing Campaigns

Hey:Guy

“The Power of Being Second”

          This week in business class we learn about  Marketing Campaigns so from a societal point of view, marketing is the link between a product or service to customer  for the purpose of selling that product or service. Red Bull is one of my favorite case studies because everything about the brand’s content, marketing and communication efforts is about its customers and what’s important to them.  The product itself is secondary to the activities that the customer engages in, and cherishes. Red Bull understands that its customers are young and active.They understand that customers in this age range are extremely savvy when it comes to advertising.  So instead of trying to market its product to these customers (which would be a turnoff to them). Red Bull focuses its content on the activities they love.

Red Bull on YouTube

Red Bull takes footage from the event and show it by itself and also works it into its commercials as well.  Red Bull got a lot of publicity from Felix Baumgartner’s ‘freefall from space’.  The brand divided footage from that amazing event into a highlight video and that almost 36 million view now.  Additionally it posted videos from test jumps Baumgartner made, and of course his successful space freefall closes out the broadcast advertising but notice something else; you don’t see the Red Bull energy drink until the final 4 seconds of the commercial.  You don’t see any of these amazing athletes drinking it, or any reference to it at all.  You see the Red Bull logo a few time but the commercial is clearly promoting these amazing athletes and their skills.

So  what makes this marketing so compelling is that Red Bull is telling a story “where the customer is the hero”.  The content is position so that the customer sees these athletes performing these amazing activities yet feels inspired to push themselves to go farther.

The product has become secondary to the activities that Red Bull’s customers enjoy.  

"Hey, I will be outspent." from Barack Obama

Today’s subject of our class was Viral Marketing, the Viral Marketing. It sounds like spiral or moral, isn’t it? Anyway, the word Viral is derived from Virus, and Viral Marketing means that if you launch an advertisement or some information about your product on the internet, then it could be spread to a numerous number of people by someone who likes your product or even don’t care of anything about it but only for fun.

It is obvious that almost every person has their own smartphone these days, and they also are really into the social media, which is I am addicted to as well. Like I said on previous post, companies started to use social media as a channel of their advertisement. Therefore, it has been approved that it's a new-brilliant way of marketing. But before we got used to social media, what kind of online communication method did we get used to do? Do you forget what was it? It is the Email. We are still using email of course, but do we use it as often as we did before? I suppose it’s probably more decreased than even remained.

But here is an unbelievable case of email marketing which happened to Barack Obama elected US President during 2012 US Presidential Race. 

This is one of the most interesting things that Obama campaign team did during the race. They made a webpage for their supporters, so supporters could feel much more closer to Obama actually. It made them act like viruses spread from one to another. In fact, people started get together through that webpage and even went out to conduct a campaign themselves. In short, that was a powerful and strong webpage for the campaign team, and they gathered email address of their supporters by letting people fill in the sign up form to enter the webpage.

Even though Obama got a number of his supporters' email address, it is absolutely hard to make them fund for him voluntarily. Among Obama's fund, however, almost $700 million was raised by email. How did they make it?

The answers are quite simple. Obama's email marketing strategies are targeting, testing, creative, and subject lines. Well, one of Obama's analysts said, "We did extensive A-B testing not just on the subject lines and the amount of money we would ask people for". The campaign team would test hundreds of drafts and subject lines before picking the best one. "When we saw something that really moved the dial, we would adopt it", says the campaign's email director who oversaw a staff of 20 writers.

And Obama's the other email strategy is 'send more, raise more'. Why? Because sending email actually means an opportunity to donate or fund. Sending volumes of email doesn't mean win the elections, but donations do.

Share a Coke with...

Hey it is me again,

Today in class we talked about marketing campaigns in general. Now our task is to find a specific 

campaign and to write about it. 

Last time I published something about the "Coca-Cola Company" and a few sentences about one of their campaign which is called "Share a Coke". Maybe you guys went to a supermarket once, grabbed a coke out of the shelf and were confused about the name on the bottle. 

That is actually the " Share a Coke" campaign which was launched in Australia in 2012 and became famous in 32 countries over the following years.

The first given name is a part of our identity, we react when someone calls us and when we read our name somewhere. Coca Cola realized this fact and made a campaign out of it which still is a great success.The company replaced its ironic branding with 150 most popular names and terms in different countries - such as "dad" or "super girl". 

The consumers can create personalized bottles which they can share with their friends - not only in real life but also on different social media websites such as Twitter or Facebook. The cooperate group want to show the closeness to the consumer by printing their names on the different kind of Coca Cola bottles. So consumers can identify themselves with the brand and their way of thinking. 

With this campaign the "Coca-Cola Company" accomplished a buzz around the product by thousand of people engaging with, sharing their products online or tweeting their excitement when they find a bottle with the name of a friend on it. 

See you Lara 

What about Marketing ?

Hi again Guys!

As every week, now we speak about business in that blog! The last week we focused on communication skills and abilities in the business world. The topic of this sunny week is quite different, and much more interesting:  welcome in the international marketing world!

What do you know about Marketing? Such a weird word, isn’t it? For beginners, marketing is a specific and very important skill which aimed to develop and create the customer demand for a specific product/service. In that way, marketers try to know as much as possible about their market, their likely customers and behaviours, competitors and strategies, and lots and lots of other pretty cool things! Be careful, Big Brother is watching you! 

By the way, an efficient and successful marketing campaign needs to focus on 4 main areas: the famous “4 P’s” or " marketing-mix"!! 

          - First one, the Product: we speak about the formulation, recipe, format, packaging, the design and others information directly printed on the packaging…

           - Second one, the Price: what is the right price for this product, as well as for the customers as for the company, I mean, we need to create cash too!

           - Third, the Promotion or how to promote and communicate about my new product, and all of the discounts and rebates can we apply to highlight the product on the shelves for example…

            - And finally, the Place: where could I distribute my product, it means in which channel of distribution and for what?

It that you can find in the theory of marketing (in old books!), but in the everyday life is not so easy for marketer to segment their markets, to correctly position their products… they need to think a lot about all of the Opportunities and the Threads they could face, but also the Strength and the Weaknesses of their products in the aim to find the best way (and, as much as possible, the most efficient one) to distribute and boost sales of their products! You know, it’s as fun as playing a Mastermind game, but in the real life, and with a lot of real competitors :) 

Anyway, it’s perhaps more easily for you to understand all of this weird stuff with an example of good marketing campaign. In my opinion, to succeed a marketing campaign you need to use all of the channel you can, and strongly try to build a 360 degrees communication campaign to support your product (mostly for a launching, but also for a re-launch or to fight a new incoming competitor). 

I can easily speak about Coca-Cola as example, which manage and operate very well its marketing campaigns all over the world. Anyway, just have a look on the streets, on the TV, on the radio, on the Internet, on your favourite social media platform, on YouTube, Instagram, on the cinema too, but also directly on the product… you can find a lot of way how Coca-Cola communicate in a same time! It is that we call 360 degree communication. Moreover, in support you would find in-store communication and testing, with huge rebates and discounts on the product (direct discounts or postponed discounts, buy 2 get 1 free, and other kind of in-store discounts). We can also focus on the last Coca-Cola “viral marketing campaign” named “share a Coca-Cola with…”, I mean that one in which you could find your name (if you are a lucky boy/girl)  directly printed on the bottle (or pay for... if you really need a "selfie bottle" !!). This special bottle was released all over the world at the same time, and supported by a specific website which aimed to develop as much as possible the viral effect of this related campaign (http://www.shareacocacola.si/Wall).

               

Finally, just think about international marketing. I mean, you must cope with all of these constraints plus all of the targeted overseas market ones… Like specific laws, regulations and customs prohibitions.  Also, you will face to new competitors, very well implanted in their home country, with different consumption behaviours and customs. It’s really difficult to market abroad without any help as a foreign agent or a domestic-based subsidiary.  And all of this without taking in account all of the internal constraints as financial producing or shipping constraints! (I am sure you know what I mean, like lots and lots of languages on the same packaging, in the aim of reducing the unit production cost...).

And, for sure, do not forget to share a coke with your friends, family, relatives, teachers, girlfriend/boyfriend and others people you can meet ! :)

                

 

Sorry Coke and Pepsi!

What makes the perfect viral ad?

Take a special event, such as the Super Bowl; take a famous and seductive celebrity, such as Scarlett Johansson; add a reference to your major competitors, such as Coke and Pepsi; and that’s that, problem solved!

That’s the SodaStream case, that decided to create a risky advertising for this year’s Super Bowl . The protagonist is Scarlett Johansson, the product is SodaStream drink. The commercial features the actress in a robe, making soda with the machine. The actress refers to her heroic acts, that she plays in the various Avengers movies, at the beginning of the commercial. Johansson says, “Like most actors, my real job is saving the world. Start with plain water, add bubbles, mix in the perfect flavor, look soda that’s better for you and all of us, less sugar, less bottles.” Then, Johansson thinks and says “If only I could make this message go viral”. So, she strips off her robe to reveal a sexy black dress. Then come the last few seconds of the commercial, in which Johansson says the controversial words: “Sorry, Coke and Pepsi.” And this is the sentence that unleashed the hell. Yes, because the commercial was banned and FOX rejected to broadcast the original ad.

Look the video!

A Super Bowl commercial means your product will be seen by millions of people during the big game. A banned Super Bowl commercial means buzz, interest, rumour. It doesn’t matter if your commercial isn’t broadcasted on Tv. There’s a huge method of communication today that is called Web. Web is better than Tv in some cases. Right! Because the SodaStream spot has reached more than 13 millions of views on YouTube and it has become a perfect exemple of viral marketing. I myself shared the video on Facebook because I think it was a winning strategy. A strategy in which the right ingredients are mixed in the right way.

So, yes Scarlett, you managed to make the commercial viral.

Sorry Coke and Pepsi.

Cecilia

ORPHEA Billboard Fly Trap

This campaign was chosen like one of the most innovative campaigns in 2013. The campaign was made by the leader in digital an interactive communication, by the 3th largest communications group worldwide called  Publicis Group.

Orphea is Italian company what produce and sales product against bugs. In the past the advertising for this products focused on the nostalgia. Now is the message different. They relies on the emotions their customers they hat bugs and used a extremely unique technique to transport there message.

They rented a billboard in Milan and created a sticky surface with glue in the shape of a spray. In the first days on the billboard was just the image on the Orphea spray can, but the weather turned warmer and as time passed more and more insects stuck to the bilboard.

Over time the bugs created a big insect trap. Are you shocked? It was a very unusual way to become in the center of attention.

The future of magazine ads Motorola Moto X

The marketing business is really competitive, thousands of products seeking consumer’s attention and trying to lure them into purchasing their product. There are a lot marketing campaigns, online, magazines, billboards, social media, TV, etc. getting the customers attention on establish media like a magazine may not be as easy as it used to be, mainly because we got used to having ads on the magazines, we usually just flip the page and keep on reading the article we were interested in.

There is one company that is looking to redefine what magazine printed advertisement could be in the future, this company is the cell phone manufacturer Motorola, and they created a very simple but cleaver marketing campaign for New York and Chicago on the print edition of Wire magazine. Motorola is trying to push their new smartphone the Moto X which is colour customizable and they have a large variety of colours and patterns to choose from.

The add itself is a mix of traditional magazine ad with a twist they build a multi-layer polycarbonate page with LED lights to show you the reader a few of the many options available for the Moto X, by simple pushing a button at the bottom of the page the phone change to the desired colour. This creates a WOW effect and encourages people to show the magazine to their friends.

The campaign hasn’t been out for too long, it came out on the Wire magazine issue of January 2014, but it got that WOW effect expected by Motorola on the cities that were advertise, although it’s not a massive or worldwide marketing campaign it did fairly well on those markets, and proved that ingenuity can give new life to older marketing formats.      

The case of Spoleto VS Porta dos Fundos

This week’s Business Class Topic is Marketing and in the blog we are to talk about marketing campaigns. We discussed a special kind of marketing using internet videos that people send or recommend to each other, using for it an expression that has become as popular as what it describes: “viral”.

For a video to go viral,

mostly, it has to be funny. That’s exactly why making a successful advertising campaign using one of these is so difficult, because comedy is nothing easy. Consequently, you can’t have a proper control over whether a video is going to go viral or going to be a failure, but you could use some tactics to make the wanted result more achievable, e.g. showing a well-known celebrity in your video, who doesn't necessarily need to be a comedian.

My chosen marketing campaign, by instance, involves a group of comedians that, in fact, wasn't really famous when the video was made, but rather made their fame from it. What is special about this campaign is that it was a total accident: the comedians just wanted to make a joke criticizing

the treatment a food company dispensed to its consumers, exaggerating the truth a little bit too much. This almost led them to court as the company threatened to sue them because of the video, but had a change of heart on the last second after taking the video with a pinch of salt when it brought them an unexpected publicity – that eventually led to resurgence in their number of consumers – and even signed a deal with the comedians’ group to produce two other videos (one a replica to the first video and the other an advertisement of a collection of dishes).

Almost two years later, Spoleto (the food company) is experiencing a re-growth after a period when they had lots of stores closed in different states of Brazil, which are now re-opening. As for Porta dos Fundos (Portuguese for “Backdoor”), the comedians’ group, they are nowadays a major success, having lots of videos in YouTube watched by millions of people throughout Brazil, and are even planning to launch a TV show called – guess what – “Viral”.

Hi guys,


Today I would like to share some interesting facts and information about the lovely and well-known company “Apple”.

As we all know, the American company “Apple”, which is headquartered in California, creates and sells among other things smartphones, Macs, tablets, computer softwares included the "iTunes media browser" and the "Safari web browser", not to forget “Apple’s MP3-Player”, known as the “iPod”. 
But did you already got informed about Apple’s great sensation “iPhone 5s” in detail?? NO? So there’s no way you should leave this blog without reading this…
Firstly, I have to say that iPhone 5s has been so successfully, that Apple’s critics have been forced to talk about the “failure” of the “iPhone 5c” instead, which was outsold right from the beginning. You think what I’m talking about doesn’t really make sense?! – you’re totally right! But be patient and let me explain in one sentence how it came to this serious kind of mess: competitive companies can’t handle with the success of Apple’s great innovations and therefore they’re focusing on something they just invented to ruin Apple’s image without any particular reason - because there are no reasons!
The 64-bit iPhone 5s managed to become the world’s best selling handset by outselling every other popular smartphone on any platform, it's almost synonymous with the iPhone 5c…

In conclusion, I want to give a good advice to all of you guys…if you can identify yourself as a great “Fan of Apple” don’t listen to other people who are talking about negative stuff just invented by themselves to represent Apple in a bad way, or at least try to check or inform yourself about unknown news or questionable statements before you believe what they're saying just by missing initiative.

Thank you guys.


Janine

Business Communication

Hey: Guy

In Business class this week we study communication.

         Why communication very important for run business because in business if company who have effective communication they will  be able to live in the market longer than the other.  Let’s me give you an example.

        McDonald’s company has very good internal communications team that deals with communications to all of their staff. A number of different communication channels are used, such as the internet and video conference  weekly  for staff to stay connected. And Externally they run a number of different advertising campaigns throughout the year to ensure our customers are aware of the great products on offer . They also have a media team who deal with all press enquires.

        In contrast, the British Petroleum (BP) came face to face with a crisis on 20 April 2010 when an explosion in the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig caused a huge oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico. The present case study aims to describe BP's serious communication mistakes with its stakeholders managing a serious hit to BP's reputation.

        BP has tried to block information about the oil flow rate, muzzled its employees, harassed photographers and members of the press, and manipulated the flow of information by claiming proprietary rights over footage of the oil gushing into the Gulf.

       BP’s only concerns in the wake of this disaster should be providing for the families of the workers who were killed, plugging the ongoing calamity on the sea floor, and protecting the ecosystems of the Gulf which support the livelihoods of its residents – the humans, birds and marine life that will continue to bear the brunt of the impact of this disaster. 

Communicator : Sign in & Like it.

Hi, today in our class, we talked about Communication, especially Good & Bad Communicators. 

We, may be everybody, know what are good and bad communications, however it is really difficult to deliberately do “good communicate” with others though. Perhaps, you probably come up with something like the most important and the very first step you need to do is ‘good listening'.

Everybody knows it, but nobody readily does it.

Good Listening (www.recruitingblogs.com)

Since our class name is "Business", so let's think about the conversation in business this time.

What if it’s in company? What if the company needs to communicate with customers? Then, what exactly could we try to make it work without any risk? Is ‘good listening’ still a good strategy for a company? If we are managers, then can we just keep calm and wait gently till the customers start a conversation with us? In front of  increasing competition? 

I'm afraid it might be not good enough with careful listening. I mean, we should go a step further to reach to our customers so as to know them as much detail as you want. This process is, in some way, like they would try to make a small talk. With this conversation which is customers wanted or not, some companies have been collecting their customers' information from the basic information such as address, age, occupation, etc. to the latest deal. 

For instance Amazon and Netflix, both use visitor’s past patterns which they viewed or bought before, therefore Amazon and Netflix can easily get a quite lot of information about their customers. So, whenever the customers surfing their website they often see the recommendations or suggestions from companies. And based on that information, such recommendations get more personal and individual to focus on each customer.

A part of Amazon.com website

By doing so, Amazon and Netflix find out what the customers wants and can form a solid customer relationships that earn some loyalty.

But let's just think about one thing, do you think the above is 100% sure? Do you think the customers become loyal only with being known about their interest? Is there any other way for companies to approach their customers to make them more loyal? 

SNSs (www.socialmediamom.com)

Do you know what's in this picture? Those ones which recently used, and most people would be addicted to all over the world.

Since a few years ago, we have been used to communicate with others through Social Network Service (SNS). So, some pioneer companies started to use SNS in their business to advertise their new product or to let people know about company’s story, for example, what the company is doing or wants to be known to public. And it also helps them to maintain their customers to stick with them, a.k.a. Post-purchase. Using SNS, companies can earn much more information than past. So, they have more time to put their onus on their customers than before.

But, the most powerful way, using this SNS, is letting people talk about your company themselves and letting them tune your company.

If you are interested in Smart Phone, you might know what ‘Samsung’ is.

Samsung's Facebook page

The world famous Korean electronics company is using SNS to advertise their products. Samsung even uses it having their customers feel that they’re talking with Samsung, friend to friend. So, if you may watch their tweet, video, or post, then you would probably feel you are much more familiar with Samsung. And sometimes you may be willing to share their story to your friends. Frequently Samsung hold an event to make their loyal customers spread out some story or ads which is absolutely good for them. You might know how powerful a short comment is if you have ever checked before you buy something via online mall.

Operating their Facebook page, Samsung also can get some actual information about their customer, reading their posts, what they did, what they really are interested in. Like above instance, SNS became a certain and relevant way to converse with customers to know about who their customers are or to know each other these days.

It's all about who's in control

This week’s Business Class topic is Communication and in the blog we are to talk about some examples of companies that had good communicative ideas and companies that had bad communicative ideas.

I just came across a good example of the first last week. I was in a hurry to buy something for my class shared lunch, as it were already 11 o’clock in the morning and I still had to take the bus from Britomart to Parnell. Suddenly, an idea popped in my mind: “I’m gonna buy pizza!” Now, I’d already tasted Sal’s Pizza and was looking for something different this time, and I only could think about one other big pizza company: Domino’s. This entire story I’m telling you just to explain why this company’s “pizza tracker” was so useful to me and why it simply caught my attention. The tracker is nothing more than a screen that tells you where your pizza is (if it is still being filled or if it is already in the oven) and how long it is gonna take for you to put your hands on it. Just looking at it made me feel a little bit less worried while I planned my next steps in order to get to school on time. I just wished other kinds of companies would use the same idea, so I’d never again have to worry about the status of products I bought online.

As for the last, I couldn’t really think of something, so I just looked it up on the internet and found some interesting stories. Perhaps some of the most known examples I saw were about companies that tried to use social networks as a way to get closer to their customers, but ended up becoming the subject of jokes. One that I liked involved McDonald’s and Twitter. The biggest American food company created this sponsored hashtag #McDStories for people to share stories related to the Happy Meal. What was supposed to increase awareness of the brand (if it’s ever possible to be more aware of McDonald’s anywhere in Earth) ended up seriously damaging their image. Objectors of them, ex-employees or simply common people wanting to make a good joke began twitting negative stories that were always appearing on everyone’s timelines.

Therefore, what I think one food company can learn from the other is that maybe McDonald’s should’ve “tracked” what people used to think about them before launching their campaign. Maybe if they had a screen that showed people’s thoughts like Domino’s pizza tracker… oh, yeah, there are companies that could check it for them! This way they would’ve avoided all the embarrassment.

P.S.: I’ve noticed I was not the only one to use McDonald’s as an example of bad communication, but still they manage to maintain a good image all in all…

Live on the Coke Side of Live

         

          "Live on the Coke side of life"

                               "Real Taste. Uplifting Refreshment"

                  "Open Happiness"

Hey guys,

Probably anyone has heard of "The Coca Cola Company" and associates the slogans above with        Coca-Cola. But the question is why is the company and its soft drink so famous ?

Because it is all about how they interact, react and commuicate with the costumers. 

Coca-Cola is one of the most valuable brand and their products can be found in over 200 countries worldwide. 

Since 1886 the commuication with the costumers is one of the strength of Coca-Cola, because especially through social media was it possible to spread information and deepen the commuication. 

That is why Coke is present on different social websites such as Twitter and Facebook where they have  50 million fans who can share they experience and talk about the products. 

Furthermore Coca-Cola invents campaigns and make events worldwide and pushes the message of creating happiness across all points of costumer contact. 

For instance they introduced other cola drinks such as Diet Coke, Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola or Coca-Cola Vanilla to reach the different tastes of the people. 

Moreover they made a "friend campaign" where the consumers can buy coca cola bottles with different names or words on it. That is how Coca-Cola want to incite the popultation to drink a Coke togehter and share happiness. 

On top pf that they create advertisement especially on TV to make the population think of what is happening in the world and let them know that they are one community. 

This are just a few examples how the company communicate with the people all over the world. Because of these issues, their longevety and particularly their heritage the Coca-Cola Company is one of the best companies in communication with their costumers. 

See you later ;)

Lara 

Put all your eggs in one basket!

“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It's like riding a bicycle or typing. If you're willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.” -Brian Tracy-

What makes a good communicator? Or a bad communicator? In the business world, good communication is important for the daily operation of the company, but can also be dangerous for the sales and, therefore, for the company’s future. So, if communication is important, a good communication is vital. Many companies put all your eggs in one basket and try to reach their costumer through innovative and strange form of communication.

 One of the companies that makes a good communication is ENI. Eni S.p.A. is an Italian multinational company headquartered in Rome. It is the Italian largest

industrial company and works in 79 countries. “ENI” stands for “Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi” (national hydrocarbons authority) and the company has operations in a large number of fields including nuclear power, energy, chemical and plastic ecc… Eni has built a company website that led the company to win a prize for the most effective online company communication. And, how to build the most effective company website? Through two strengths: consistency and usability. Furthermore, Eni won a double gold medal in reward to being the best society in the world for innovation of the digital web and for communication. But, what does mean innovation of the digital and of the communication techniques on the own website? “It is necessary a strong commitment and a bright management who understands the importance of the communication and the digital contents” says Roberto Ferrari, Eni web and Digital Communications Manager. Another Eni winning strategy regards the social networks. The company doesn’t enter into a social network just for the fun of it, but it tries to identify it and take advantage from it. For instance, the company uses Linkedin for recruitment, Twitter for news, Facebbok for a page reserved to the culture. For all these aspects, we can say that Eni is a good communicator company.

 But, what about a bad communicator? What happens when a company adopts a wrong method to communicate his identity? That’s the Mc Donald’s case. Recently, in

Italy, the company carried out a tv advertisement that raised not a few polemics. It decided to build a campaign that aimed not so much to clean up the sandwiches and chips image, as to emphasize the role that a company with 16,000 employees (in Italy) plays in the economy of a country. The logic is simple: job is a very high social sensitivity issue. Focus on this and you will be able to change the public view on the fast food chain. Not at all. The company was accused to manipulate such an important theme to take advantage from it. So, this campaign wasn’t a big success, it was a boomerang, indeed. It 's the price you pay when trying to exploit highly sensitive social issues to promote the corporate image. Should be evaluated the pros and cons. The problem is that too often the cons weigh significantly more than pros. In that case, forget about it! Change your strategy! So, if you want to communicate, do it well! Very well!

Cecilia

Apple has been the winner for five consecutive years by the sample of top marketers. But what’s their way of being so successful all the time? You guys might think that’s a very complicated question but you want to hear the truth? – It’s not! To answer this question in one sentence, the first things which are coming to my mind are trying to be everybody’s friend which means to show empathy to customers, to offer them a memorable and blithe service, in simple words: to make them feeling welcome and understood. The second point depends on having an excellent working atmosphere (good communication between employees, building the awareness of being ’one big team’ and making your workplace to your passion. The last step: Focussing on recent tasks to do a great job. At this point, I’m pretty sure that those three important rules or better known as ’Ways of success ’, the rules you have to master to be able to knock out your competition, are the most important keys  to run a great and remarkable business.

Therefore I would like to compare Apple with other companies, which are running successfully, but not without including bad business ethics: McDonald's. Primarily I would like to refer on McDonald's second name known as the special 'McDonald's Legislation'. In 1972, the company's founder, Ray Kroc, got an uncredible legislation by making a rare donation of $250,000 to Nixon's reelection campaign. The legislation includes e.g. teenage employees getting 20 percent less paid than federal minimum wages. Another spectacular aspect is shown by a great amount of headlines with bad comments and reputations, alleging that McDonald's is exploiting children and workers, destroying the Amazon rain forest, serving unhealthy but also high dangerously food, ignoring animal cruelty and promoting Third World poverty. Of course, running a successful and popular business is what every human being, who wants to be involved in business or run his own company, is dreaming of but what I would have to think of and hopefully you guys too, if I could be so cruel and ignore important ethics like those just to be successful?

So please go into yourself and think about this carefully, what kind of human you really are and want to be and how you could let down bad companies like McDonalds'.

Thank you guys.

Janine

How companies cope with communication. Let's have a look on Air New Zealand communication skills.

Hi guys !!
Hope you are well on this beautiful week ! 
Yeap Yeap, sunny week after the "hurricane". Such a good thing ! Let's go to Mission Bay after school ! ;)

More officialy, this week, on the Business class, we focus on a specific but very important point in the company life and connection with their customers: I mean the outward communication skills. I think you all know a lot about technology in everyday life, but, what does technology, and notably communication through technology improvements, mean for companies?

Indeed, communication becomes more and more important for companies in our countries, where offer is higher than the customers demand. A good outward communication often means better results on selling products (and so on turn over), and still more, as better reviews from customers. Communication can be used in two senses: first to give widespread information about new products or services, as well as communicate directly with the "customer-buyers" about lots and lots of things, notably about follow up, after sales and complains.

I would like to highlight Air New Zealand, and reward them for their good and wide communication skills. Effectively, the most famous Airliner of New Zealand, I would say THE flagship of NZ air commercial transportation, knows exactly how to communicate in both ways: wide communication and customer-buyer communication (after sales communication). For the first item, I mean “communicate widely”, Air New Zealand has developed an internet website with heaps of features and links to several others channels of communication. Indeed, this company uses widely the video communication through YouTube for example, where it’s easy to follow up the latest Air NewZealand news and/or see the in-flight safety short movie (my favourite, the last one: “Safety in Paradise” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQDip9V49U0). You can also find some features of the movie in the Auckland International Airport (billboard), and, of course, on the planes before taking off.

Moreover, you can see the commercial ads directly on your TV screens, as well on the web thanks to GoogleAds (advertisements on the right on your webpage when you are finding out other information or flight information…). As well, you can follow this company (and join the community too!) in it:

Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/AirNewZealand),

Pinterest page (http://www.pinterest.com/airnewzealand),

Twitter page (https://twitter.com/flyairnz),

Google+ page (https://plus.google.com/+airnz/posts_)…

In all of these pages, Air New Zealand releases some information about flights, sales and about a wide range of subjects as information about the destinations for example (food, culture, getting around...). Finally, you can ask for receiving information e-mails directly in your mailbox, through the official website.

About the customer-buyer communication, Air New Zealand use a large range of communication channels, as phone contact, emailing with the details of your booking, which one includes lots and lots on information (security requirements, customs restrictions and visas, weather at the arrival city…). Finally, they release a first and new mobile app in which you can directly do your check-in, and receive your flight information (time and status of flight, gate ...), a lot of notifications (as for check-in and boarding opening…), and information relative to the traffic near from the International Airport you flight out, the 7-days weather at your arrival city…I would really recommend this app, it’s so useful! For further information about the app: http://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/air-nz-app

Even if Air New Zealand is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of communication-skilled company, not all of these ones are as well as good in communication… Sometimes, bad skills in communication can create a negative company’s image and damage its renown. If I don’t have any example yet, I can just tell us to spend maybe more time and money in that department, I mean look at others companies, and above all, grant more funds in finding/hiring skilled employees. Finally, to grant a reasonable budget to the communication department would be my first advice, even if the company is running down. As Communication as Marketing departments are two crucial departments in which most of companies do not trust enough in creating value. But, it’s maybe the firsts departments, I mean under a long-term vision/strategy.

 

      Air New Zealand, Falaolo International Airport (Apia), Samoa (WS), 17th March 2014
                                                                  Photo credits : Romain Teyssier