Dear FB students,
Please take the time to browse through the following Busness Briefs: they have some very interesting artcles on various business related topics. We will work in three teams this time: read the articles and write a 300 word summary:
Team 1: on "Emotional Branding"
Team 2: Facebook - faced dismissal (pages 17-18)
Team 3: Global Luxury Survey
Team 4: The G-8 Summit
Team 4: TIME's Person of the Year - 2009
Team 3: Global Luxury Survey
Team 4: The G-8 Summit
Team 4: TIME's Person of the Year - 2009
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ReplyDeleteThis article is about the emotional side of the buying-selling routine. It states that all the consumers may be positively, neutrally or negatively acting towards a product/service. That is why a brand-company must firstly engage emotional connections with its target market if it wants to have profits.
ReplyDeleteAccording to an international company Gallup, there are 4+1emotional states consumers have with brands: trust (not to over promise and not to under deliver), faith (consumers’ satisfaction towards the products/services and their belief in better), commitment (the brand earned customers’ faith and they believe in it), enthusiasm (when the brand exceeds the consumers’ expectations) and disappointment (in case the consumers are let down by the product/service).
If a company wants to make people feel these states, unless the last one, it has to be brand-centric, which means it has to focus on: firstly- brand values, secondly- brand objectives, and thirdly- brand communications. There is not just the sentimental factor in the emotional branding, but there are also emotional bonds, based on 3 brand-centric steps: pre-purchase- it communicates the brand values and “sincere” promises and it nurtures trust in its target market; time of purchase- people are not disappointed that they spent money on that certain brand and that product/service exceeds their expectations; post-purchase- when the company continues communicating with its clients in order to build a relationship. The emotional bonds refer to the long-term relationship with a brand and they are more financially beneficial.
I always knew that it is much easier to get on top than to maintain this high position, that is why companies must always be sure that their products make customers feel good and exceed their expectations, from the positive point of view. Walt Disney said that "People spend when they feel good" and we all know that this is a true fact that those which want to have financial benefits must be aware of it.
This article is about emotional branding of costumers. All consumers are emotional about brands to some degree, some have positive emotions, other have neutral or negative. That is why if a firm engages emotional connections with the target market, it forms relationships that are a lot more enduring and therefore financially beneficial.
ReplyDeleteAn international company called Gallup developed 5 emotional states consumers have with brands. First emotional state is “Trust” and is the basic emotion that a brand wants to evoke in consumers. They will favour the brand if it meets their expectations, or exceeds them. The second state is “Faith” and to develop this emotional state a brand must provide excellent post-purchase follow-up and back-up service. The third is “Commitment” and customers will feel committed to a brand if they have a personal connection with this brand. The fourth state is “Enthusiasm” – target market will become enthusiastic about a brand if it meet and exceeds their expectations and delivers a level of quality and service that cannot be matched by any competitor. The fifth emotional state is “Disappointment” – it appears if during at any stage costumers are let down by the brand.
To be sure that the costumer feel good about a brand, the company has to be brand-centric. This involves firstly an understanding of the brand values; secondly, developing a clear set of brand objectives and thirdly, consistent and sincere brand communications. Also emotional branding is to create emotional bonds by following next brand-centric steps: pre-purchase – to communicate the brand values and nurture trust in the target market with consistent and believable promises; time of purchase – deliver on all promises at the time of purchase, ensure quality delivery and personal service and exceed expectations; post-purchase - continue communication to build a relationship, encourage feedback from your customers and encourage return purchases and cross-sell additional products.
In this article is described how a company has to act in order to attract more costumers and to make consumers trust and to be faithful to their brand. An emotional bond results in long term relationship with the brand and the results are more financially beneficial than a temporary sales boost.
I think that if a company wants to be well known and to have loyal costumers it has to follow this steps described above and to take in consideration emotional states of consumers. Also it has to develop its relationship with customers in long term, has to know needs and expectations of clients and to exceed them. Companies has to make sure that people who use their products feel good about their brand.
“Emotional Branding” describes the stages through which passes a costumer regarding a product. Costumers are emotional about brands to some degree. Their emotions fall somewhere on a continuum from the extremely positive, to the neutral, to the extremely negative. It’s clear that each producer try to avoid engaging his target market from negative emotions but to succeed he must form relationships that are a lot more enduring and therefore financially beneficial.
ReplyDeleteTo understand how the producer can engage emotionally with his target market first requires an understanding of what the various emotional relationships are and how to quantify them. An international company called Gallup developed a set of rating scales that will help measure four emotional states consumers have with brands. These states represent the strength of the emotional connection.
The first one is trust, which producers want to evoke in consumers. The second one is faith, which will be developed in costumers if they will be satisfied with their products. The third one is commitment, which mean that if costumer’s expectations will be fulfilled they will give-up to the status of brand switcher and will be loyal to the brand, (also word of mouth ad). The fourth one is enthusiasm: When consumers feel that the producer’s brand has met and exceeds their expectations and that his brand delivers a level of quality and service that cannot be matched by any competitor, they will become enthusiastic about his brand. And the last one is disappointment in a product, because of certain reasons.
Emotional branding is not just about including sentimental images in producer’s communications and hoping for the best. He can create emotional bonds by taking the following brandcentric steps: PRE-PURCHASE, TIME OF PURCHASE, and POST-PURCHASE with their rules of processing.
In my opinion, this business brief is really an efficient one; it explains very well the strategy which must be adopted by the producer during the product’s life cycle and can serve as a guide in production. But in a way it represents an utopist model, because the producer is too concerned with the costumer’s wealth and less with itself. The producer always try to reduce the costs to maximize the profit, but in order to do that is not sure which effects will have that on quality (negative or positive). So, on market probably acts the equilibrium between price and quality which leads to changes in value of the emotional states of consumer’s parameters and its bonds.
Victoria Morari, FB-29G
Style & Design: Global Luxury Survey
ReplyDeleteThe article pointed on the fact that China is the world's third largest consumer of luxury goods-12% of global sales,(according to a December 2004 Goldman Sachs report),so Chinese yuppies can be often surprised buying everything from expensive watches to imported cars.
• First of all,It has been proven that the most often mentioned luxury brands remains the traditional French labels and expensive watches.In the top can be recognized:
1. Lacoste-2. Valentino-3. Chanel / Bally
• Secondly,acording to the data, 22% of affluent consumers in China own a Rolex: 66% of affluent Chinese men have bought at least one watch in the past six months and have paid an average of $2,253 per watch.Among Top Five Watch Brands you can find:
1. Rolex-2. Omega-3. Cartier-4. Vacheron Constantin-5. Breitling
• Another interesting fact is that Chinese people(the most part-women) are obsessed on saving face.It means that they invest in skin care more(almost 3) times than in makeup.Skin-care sales in different regions of China account for 26% to 35% of total cosmetics sales.
• Actually ,Chinese consumers who buy luxury goods do so to show off or to help define their identity.So,in this way,they want to demonstrate wealth and power.
• More than 50% of affluent Chinese consumers own either a Lancôme or an Estée Lauder product.
The obvious conclusion is that beauty and design is very important for Chinese people.They spend lot of money on luxury,so they focus on style as well as brend.It is about their “philosophy on life”.
Posted by Puscas Marina
ReplyDeleteFacebook-Do You Risk Dismissal?
According to Business Brief Magazine, a worker of 23 years currently was fired by his boss because of a disrespectful statement about his head put up on Facebook. Also there are two similar cases. A Pretoria man of 23 years was lay off because he placed a statement about the sluggishness of his boss. Another case is of a woman from Johannesburg, also 26 years of age. She was dismissed because she endorsed the products of rivals on her profile.
Facebook is used by workers as a mean of communication with their acquaintance and relatives. Even the President of USA has an account on Facebook.
According to regulation stated in contract, every worker is under the authority and control of his/her boss and his/her productive work is available for head in exchange for salary. Also, boss has the prerogative to make orders and expect that they will be obeyed. It is to be mention that it doesn’t matter what is doing the workforce of an enterprise in their free time. But a worker cannot keep on working in a company if his/her behavior has a negative consequence on the relation with boss. In this case the head has the right to punish the worker, even to fair him/her. This means that every worker should be careful concerning his actions that may be related to his/her director and should try to maintain agreement and consensus with the boss.
Speaking about Facebook, workers should keep in mind that their statements on their account can be read not only by friends and relatives, but also by persons that have a relations to the business in which they are acting. Workers should put up with the idea that they will be treated by their directors in the same way as they treat their director. Furthermore, they should not forget about the fact that as long as they are working in a company , their interests should be identical with those of their boss, and to tend to the success of the enterprise hand in hand with their head.