Elif’s World

 I haven’t been writing for more than 3 weeks. During this period, I started to write my dissertation and still continue the writng. I have started to see the positive effects of the writing dissertation. My dissertation topic is related with the customer loyality and the brand image. Since I made more research I found new things and new gaps between the brand and the customer loyalty.

I would like to share one concept difference: the customer loyalty and the customer retention… Generally, those two concepts seem to be close and almost the same thing but they are totally different. The customer retention does not show that customer is the loyal.One example will be good for understanding this; lets say that I have X market in my neighbourhood and because it is close to my house I am always going there, to the manager of that supermarket, he can thing that I am loyal customer, but if that X market go to another place and Y market open its branch. If I still keep going to X (even when it is far away) this shows that I am loyal customer. But if I go Y market than this shows that I am not loyal customer of X.

Generally customer loyalty and retention mixed by the brand managers as I mentioned before. This is very dangerous because the important thing is to have loyal customer. Retention is only good for short term profit but on the other hand with loyal customer company can have more profit for long time.

Image: http://fabfrog.blog.ca/2006/

Now I am in Bodrum, in Turkey. I enjoy the sun and the sea After a busy year it is good to take a rest. Now we have the most difficult part which is writing dissertation.

Also I bring lots of books to here for reading. I start to take notes

I am also sharing one photo with you This is a good picture of sea and pool from Bodrum

As I mentioned on my last post,now I am in Turkey. Today I am planning to write about Mercedes TV commercial in which Lewis Hamilton and Alonso were played. But I need to change my topic because when I opened youtube for uploading video I saw that in Turkey Youtube is forbidden. Since 30/04/2008 it is not permitted to enter the site. I don’t want to write about it because I don’t want to involve in political things. But still I think that my freedom is a bit limited.

But still I might talk about that commercial because I really enjoy it. I can write its link here so if anoyone wants to see it it might be helpfull www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C0I7Ef4gQI I hope this is the correct one

This commercial is not for selling product because no one buys Mercedes for its commercials or promotions. In my opinion if advertising is not done for earning money or selling product it becomes more succesfull in terms of giving a message to the customer.

                                Elif             Anderson         Rita              Hayley

Today, we did our last presentation with my group mates (picture on the top, but one of our friend is not there). I don’t know why but I feel a bit sad… Until today, I never guess that I will have this kind of feeling. When I came back to my room, I just have a look to the calendar, 9 months, in other words almost 275 days past. I asked two questions to myself, how and when?? Why time passes so quickly?

While time is passing we are getting older but at the same time we are gaining more experiences. Also this 9 month added many things to me both academically and personally. In the future, I believe that this period will affect 90 years of my life (if I live )

Tomorrow I am going back to my country and I hope I will have a good trip, so during 1 month I will keep blogging from my country. 

Last one week was my best days in UK because of the weather. I don’t know why but weather and sunshine effects my psychology. I become more positive and also I open myself to the world more than the winter time. While I am thinking about this I decided to write on this topic. How weather effects consumer behaviour?? 

For the companies consumer was everything. PR, marketing plans, media plans, advertising and all other promotions only done for effecting them. But we can not control the weather I found a site called weatherology. They also wrote “As consumers, our subconscious decisions determine what we eat and drink, what clothes we wear, and almost everything we buy and the quantities we buy in. So once a sale is lost through none availability, it really is lost because as the weather changes, so do our cravings.” This is the only one that supports the relation but there are more than one. I started to think that I am not the only one that was a good news to me so I am normal.

May be for the companies putting new product to the market or while promoting new product spring and summer time is the best, because consumers become more demanded (exept fashion and other winter related industries )   

 PS: image is from petermorgen.com

During dissertation process we are reading lots of books. The book that I am reading now is “Brand Leadership” written by David Aaker (who is the bestselling author of Building Strong Brands). One part of the book cover “Web PR” and  would like to share his opinions and examples. 

Web PR involves web communication not controlled by the brand, such as personal home- pages, new – or – gossip oriented sites, discussion groups and chat rooms (Aaker, 2002) Specialized discussion groups and chat rooms organized around brands or brand applications have proven their ability to dramatically influence sales, both positively and negatively (Aaker, 2002).    

How to influence Web PR? According to Aaker there are many ways of it, some of them are;

-         to have employees or their surrogates participate in conferences or chat rooms.

-         Encourage forums that are not destructive. By this movements it will able to correct the false information about brand or if there is merit to the negative information, it will be admitted quickly.  

Also Aaker mentioned about before and after web;“ Before the web, customers would talk to each other about the brand out of ear shot. Now it is possible to hear first hand reactions  - both good and bad- to the brand and use of experience” 

According to Aaker’s examples and ideas I think that a PR director or Marketing director should be active. They should control the blog’s, web site’s, forum’s and even wikipedia. By controlling them they will be able to change misperception of the public. In word-of-mouth communication world this is a very important aspect.

NOTE: Please watch the video, it illustrates Web PR and its importance with very good illustrations. It is illustrated and created by prweb.com.

I remember the first day of our lecture, all of us went to Library to find out some information about our tutor. Many of us used the internet to search and found his blog. It was the first time that I saw and heard the name “blog” which means many things to me now.  We run our blog’s now, we share our ideas about some subjects; sometimes take quotations from other blogers.

I say that blog means many things to me; it is a key which opens the door to other worlds. Running a blog is not only the sharing ideas but also to explore many things. I believe that we should always aware of the changes which are happening around us. In my opinion, the blogger’s ears and eyes should be open 7/24.

The last week was our last class with Mr. Richard Bailey. I will never forget him because he gave us a key and teach us how to use that key. Now, we are here and will be always on this arena.

Many of my classmates and me now in a hurry to write our dissertation proposal’s. What is the relation of this proposal with new media? Let me explain,

 I start my computer and open Google than write Emerald, once it is opened on the search engine of the web page I write which kind of journal do I need. That’s it from the search results I choose what I want! While borrowing book from library same process Open Leeds Metropolitan University web page go to Library make research on a book, place hold and go get from library.

Plus, I am trying to find more journals because books last published in 2007 which were written in 2006 but journals published in 2008 so they are more updated. (Also our lecturer Richard Bailey mentioned this thing at the beginning of semester) 

 While these process are happening at the same time I am on MSN for talking with my family and I don’t have television in my room so at the same time TV is open on my laptop. What a nice environment! Internet gets ready everything for me!

Now I wonder that how the academics or students researched the topics 15-20 years or more years ago. Addition to this, I also thought about the typing the reports by typewriters before the common use of computers. Now, I think that we are very lucky in terms of the time saving

Anna Farmery wrote on her Engaging Brand Blog a post on 4th of April. While I was making some research for writing on by blog I saw very interesting post written by her it’s name was Is social media the new stethoscope? She mentioned the importance of senses for businesses which wants to create “brand engagement”. She linked senses with those businesses (for the whole article please visit her site, here these are the only parts out of the article);

Taste - Give them a taste of what engaging with your brand will do for them personally, how their world, life will change for the better.

I agree this too because the most thing is to motivate people, and for motivating they should be aware why they need this engagement.

Touch -  Stories stay in your memory because of the feelings that you link to the story. Touch their heart, touch their soul…in a personal way.

In this point once one of my tutor told us in t lecture that ever product has a story in order to sell it. Companies needs to create relationship with the customer. So that refers to touch.

See - Be present with them, be in their environment. See them interact with the brand….see first hand what makes them smile, and do more of that…..see what irritates and do less of that in the future.

Hear - Listen to their feedback, listen to what people are saying, listen also to your gut feelings. Data analysis is often removing that all important intuition that leaders need….listen to your heart and listen to the heart’s of your customers. Does that make social media a stethoscope?

Listening is very important tool for interacting while talking with someone. Also she linked it with stethoscope example even doctor needs to listen our body before telling what we have. So we are doctor’s and inorder to give advice we need to know what is going inside of that company.

Smell - People love the fragrance of success…in order to celebrate success inside and outside the business…you need to understand what success would looks like, smells like…. Imagine yourself as a bloodhound…..on the trail of that elusive success, sniffing out opportunities, tracking the trail of that business animal which is out there for those who have the persistence to track it down.

Knowing what will happen next and for deciding the other steps I like the example of bloodhound. 

Now we know how to link 5 senses with our business life :) 

*Image is taken from Buzzard Blog.

On Monday I heard that Yahoo launched a new blog named: Shine. Aim of the site is to attract the woman between the age’s 25 and 54. In the site there are 9 categories which attracts women.

In Yahoo New’s page they wrote that “A new editorial team will develop original stories on a daily basis, and handpick the best user-blog posts to feature prominently on the site. ” So it will be an interactive platfrom where everyone can write their own experiences and opinions about the topics. Plus readers can start their own blogs. (Even the reason for targeting woman is “girls (presumably) write in diaries more than boys, teen girls also tend to blog more than their male counterparts, a new study finds.”

Also this web page will be platform for advertiser’s. Yahoo expects lots of online advertisements through the site. Again regarding to Yahoo New’s “Yahoo expects the site to be especially attractive to advertisers in the consumer packaged goods, pharmaceuticals and retail categories, where combined online advertising spending is expected to exceed $1.8 billion this year, based on a competitive-spending analysis by TNS Media Intelligence. “

One think came to my mind but again the answer was in the site, the question was; Is Google going to launch similar service? But authorities says no, according to the Sterling; “projects like Shine are outside Google’s comfort zone. Google might come up with a tool that would enable people to personalize content around certain themes to a high degree, such as a news reader. But Google would not invest in creating content for specific demographics”

Do you think that Shine will have a rank? or how can they get visitors to that site?