Class 8: What did I learn?

It is the end of the course, the last day was fascinating to me, a lot of presentations a lot of great ideas, I learned a lot, especially that marketing isn't just after the product is finished! it is a whole process before and after, starting from designing the product, to Branding until after sale services.

Evaluating things in marking now is more interesting, Slogans has more meanings, Brands has different classes, well!! things have become different.

Group work in marketing team was also different, I enjoyed it the most, because every idea has its own value, own thoughts, even stupid ones! can make difference, actually it can be brilliant! ..

Presentations yesterday showed me that every product or services has it's own way to study it, I hope all of this will be applied on my own product in future :).

Class 7: Online Marketing

Online Marketing is my best field to talk about, it is very very interesting, I really like online marketing, and if I have a company I would relay on the online marketing 90%! ... why? because almost every one goes online! every one use google! (which you can use the ad-sense), almost now a days no one stay without an email? ... newsletters are amazing! especially if you like a company and you like to hear from them! .. for me I'm a big fan of newsletters, because it always update me with the promotions and events!

Companies must know the power of the online marketing, a lot of them still use the old way! but will be also good to use the online marketing, because you will make people see your products worldwide! even if you target local customers! ..

When I go to facebook, I see a lot of advertisements, I've knew a lot of products and institutes that I've never known that we have them in UAE, and I wonder, why don't companies just use this nice and friendly technology! .. we will know more about them!

Class 6: Pricing Strategies!

How do companies set up their prices? I was always wondering why do we have a different prices from Dubai and Abu Dhabi, sometimes we have higher prices in Al Ain City, comparing to Dubai, and in some items it is the reverse.

It is all about what we call (Pricing Strategies), some companies compete in the market with the lowest prices ever! .. like Daiso, the Japanese store, they have every thing which you can imagine and can't imagine. When people go there, they buy more that what they really need! because the price is low! however you end up with a *Good* amount of money to pay, but it is good pricing
strategy to attract people! ..I have a friend who started her own small business, she is making a cupcake, the prices is TOO LOW!!! .. and I asked her, why do you sell your cupcakes in a very low price? .. she said this is my strategy, other people sell them in a high price, and I want to get more customers with a lower prices, she end up with a lot of customers, because they get a good quality and prices.

Class 5: Market yourself

At class when we were talking about marketing, I notice that Marketing does not fit only for products and services, it could even be for human being! ... You do market yourself! ... First I though it is only in interview, but after focusing a little bit at work, I notice that people who can market themselves well, can get a higher opportunities of promotions. I always thought that working silently is the best thing, but I was wrong, I saw people who work less, and market themselves more, get a better promotions and a good reputation in work.

Also another thing, is how do you get your job? sometimes people can be very bad at work, they don't know how to do the basic things, however they got the job! ... and after long period of time, I notice that it is all about how you market yourself, if you market yourself right, you will get what you want.

I remember years ago in the University, they make a lecture called (how do you market yourself) how many students attend? ZERO! because we didn't know this concept well, however if the time go back! I will defiantly go to the lecture.

Let's Talk About it (5): Queit Smoking

There are many ways to let people quiet smoking, it is not easy, but it is not impossible, some of the ways are:

1. Establishing a private (Quiet Smoking Clinics), as I asked many people due one research in university about that, a lot of them wanted to have private clinic.
2. Make the Taxes and prices on Cigarettes and related products so high.
3. Make a camp for people who want to quiet smoking, with the support of Gov. to take help them quiet smoking away from their regular life until they feel good about it.
4. Increase the areas of (Non-Smokers) to make people quiet smoking by force, even for period of time.

Class 4: Product differentiation

This time when I went shopping, I tried to wear (The Marketing Cap) as dr.Bop says, I tried to figure out what's so different between products and brands? ... I came up with these examples:

Marks & Spencers:
When it comes to food, I like to go shopping there, because they have semi-cooked food which is so fresh and high quality, and I love the way they show the expiry date, and they have something also (Best Before xxxx), it gives me good knowledge when to eat this product.
Spring:
I really love this brand so much, when I go to their shop I know that I can find all what I need, sport shoes? flip flops? high heals? .. whatever I'm looking for defiantly I will find it, specially the cute bags, and their prices are really really good comparing to their quality and their rivals, when I go to Al Ain Mall, sometimes I find a shoes with 250 AED in one shop, and almost the same shoes in spring with 120-190 AED, it makes me easily see the difference! also they have a nice employees.

Let's Talk About it (4): Marketing campaign

I can't deny that using a movie star, sports star, Hollywood idol, or whoever considered as famous person can bring a very good results in marketing campaign, a lot of people can be affected especially if they like those people, and sometimes the reverse can happen.

But for me, things go in a different way, I always look into the creativity in ads, I like ads which show the points in a very simple way, being away from playing with people emotions, it is just like "Fake" for me when I see those idols do the advertisement, not all the time (especially if the producer of the ads was really creative, something like this:


I also love how Knorr made ads with (Salty) to show how they use little salt now, and how salty is no more used, they give salty and pepper as gift when you buy their products, so cute, and I love it!
Description: Salty purchases a black balaclava so he can look more like a pepper shaker. When it doesn't work out he unsuccessfully turns to a life of crime.



at the end, my point of view, that we don't have to see movie start to buy the product, but we will buy it if we believe the advertisement, and if it was attractive.

Let's Talk About it (3): Al Ain Zoo

We were talking about improving Al Ain Zoo, and we come up with a lot of ideas, some mentioned in the class and some are my own ideas:
- A gift Shop (especially for people who want to have sivoneers)
- Baby Animals.
- Rare Plants, especially for photographers, we can handle in our zoo one of the best glass houses to have the best and rare plants ever, it will attract people from all the regions not only UAE.
- Butterflies Cage or park.
- Photography with birds and animals.
- A Games Section (Something like a fun city) as we always like to take our kids to play in malls, why not we gather the Zoo with Games?.
- Food Area (Restaurants, fast food, and so on).
- Circus.
- Farm Animals Area (where kids can learn more about those animals and get close to them).
- Adventure (why don't we make an adult adventure section? like flying or sports or anything else?).
- TV Ads.
- Youtube Channel to show documentary videos about the Zoo.
- Host Special Events, and Live TV Shows (like what happen in Global Village).

There are a lot of other ideas which I hope we can present them to the zoo :).

Class 3: Exambles of Customer satisfaction

As I study marketing, I can now focus more about what happens around me when I go shopping , I can see the good company and the bad one, I can also touch my rights as a customer, and now I will write some of customer satisfaction that I experienced:

Dior:
As a prestige company, they take a good care of their costumers, they teat them in a classy way, they have a good database of customers, and whenever I purchase something I directly get email from them, which I know it is a system! however I just like it. On the other hand they try to collect information by email surveys with a title of (We would like to get to know you...)

L'occitane:
I will always be a loyal customer to this brand, although I didn't see a single advertisement for them, I still believe that they are one of the best, they don't have to lie or do advertisements, they are just delivering a high quality of products, that I enjoy using, it is just as they write about them. One more thing that I like about the company that they have an international website with almost all famous languages, so if I'm looking for information I can find it in Arabic as well. Their website has all information needed about the products which makes me feel comfortable to search and use what I need.

Class Two: Maslow's hierarchy of needs

The maslow's hierarchy of needs, which puts the people needs into pyramid shape hierarchy:

Throughout the levels:

• If we are in the physiological needs, then we are talking about the basic human needs, which we have a large number of competition on it, the job of marketers will be harder to convince people to buy their products/services rather than the next door competitor, UAE Examples: Water companies: Al Ain Water, Masafi Water. Or restaurants competitions, why people will buy from restaurant rather than the other one? Marketing should do the job of differentiating the product/services.

• If the product fall under the Safety and security category (which is next level), that will be mainly insurance companies, alarm systems, and so one, companies will compete here to make the customers feel safe and secure.
• The third level is love and belongings, if your product/services will fall into this category, you can affect on your customers by past testimonials, like what we see in web pages now (what did they say about us?), or they can have products to gather people and friends in online club for example or in travel plans, and so on.
• The forth level is the self esteem, where people need to be recognized, if the product or services fall in this category then they must give their customers this feeling so they will attract them to their products, that's what the designers dresses/accessories could do, or what a certificate of one institute could give to some one, or even how your perfume will make you look different and confident (as we see in advertisments).
• The last level is the self actualization level, do your product/service make your customers feels so? we can see that this level could be found in a doctor, army or any where else, but in my opinion, this level is all about parents, because they are totally devoted to their families.

Lesson learned:

• If you could put your customers and products into this level, it will be easier for the marketers to target them.

Let's Talk About it (2): Children Car Accidents Prevention

1- Children Accident Prevention campaign.
a. Showing Statistics.
b. Safety directions.
c. Show people how accidents can happen by mistake.
d. The importance of seat belt for children.

2- Restricted Rules related to children regarding:
a. Children sitting in the front seat.
b. Children car seat, and fitting the straps well.
c. Number of people in the car (no one carry a children on lap).
d. Approved child safety seats for children under the age of 8 (because they can’t fit into adults seats).

3- Hospitals awareness sessions for parents (when they have new born), they have to complete those sessions to aware them how to deal with babies in house and out the house.

4- Try to make the children like the seat belt themselves, by rewarding them to use it and by using a colorful seat belts.

5- Taxies and Public transportation's should have safety seats for children.

Let's Talk About it (1): Mcdonalds

I will not accept this offer from Mcdonalds, because they offer a junk food, while hospitals and clinks advice people to eat healthy diets, main reasons why I will not accept it are:

1. The conflict of interest, between what the health and the junk food.
2. The increased number of obesity in the country.
3. Even if they provide all health information on the menu, still the wrong image will be shown to children, because they can't understand all of these things, they will only care that they want the toys or the food.
4. The hospital should be the place to advice people for the right lifestyle and not the reverse.
5. The association can have deal with better food companies who can offer healthy food rather than Mcdonadls.
6. People health worth more than those investments, after all the junk food cause a lot of health problems, which will lead people to go to hospitals again to heal them.
7. How can we tell our children to stop junk food? If they are going to point on hospitals later on that it is allowed there?

Class 1: The Marketing Mix - 18/April/2010, Travel to Turkey Planner

For the first marketing class we took some guidelines for the course, and then we started to talk about several marketing topics such as 4Ps, SWOT, and some other terms, For my first Journal Entry I thought of choosing a service and apply the 4Ps concept on it (Just an imaginary Service):

1- Product/Service:
Turkey, What a feeling!! Travel To Turkey Planner.
This service is provided for people who are interested to travel to turkey, providing them a personalized plan for their trips, based on their: Preferences, needs, budget, and how many days they want to stay in.

2- Price:
The price will vary based on the customer budget and requested plan as the following:
A- Airplane Fees.
B- Hotel preferences and days.
C- Transportation.
D- Meals.
E- Private Guide.

or they can choose from our pre-planned package:
1- Honeymoon package.
2- Business package.
3- Summer fun package.
4- Explorer package.

3- Place:
All planes can be found online, beside online consultation and registering, sample plans and photo album is provided in the website. For more information customers can call the free tole numbers provided in the website.

4- Promotion:
- Seasonal Offers.
- Newsletters (by Email).