Personal work

My topic

In this blog I write about my exchange period in Clermont-Ferrand. I will tell about my trips and everyday life in France. Additionally I will give some tips and advice about exchange life. This Personal work part includes all my works about Digital Marketing course.

A Doppelgänger Brand Image – McDiabetes

A Doppelgänger Brand Image (DBI) is a collection of disparaging stories and images. Usually many anti-brand activists, bloggers, and opinion leaders make Doppelgänger images on the Internet. Doppelgänger brand image competes with the brand owner’s official meaning, for example “Cancer Coke” has destabilized Diet Coke’s image of a harmless soft drink. Motivation for creating a DBI is based on the perception that a brand is being inauthentic. In other words, some firms claim that they are something what they are not.

My example of DBI is McDonalds brand (Original title: Alta Autenticidad de Marca a pesar de los Álter Egos: McDonald´s, Tob Magazine, Tob of Brand) McDiabetes

I think that almost everyone knows a brand of McDonalds. For the past few years McDonalds has had criticism because some of its products may cause for example diabetes and obesity. Most of its products contain a lot of fat and they are unhealthy. So that’s why someone has made this picture which McDonald’s logo is changed to ”McDiabetes”. Logo is otherwise identical but instead of word ’Donalds’ there is ’Diabetes’. This act produces a new contradiction and thus provokes a new doppelgänger brand image. McDiabetes-picture gives a true picure of what McDonalds food can cause. It’s kind of protest against to unhealthy lifestyle.

This picture makes you think your own health and values. Would you like to have diabetes or do you want to be overweight? Maybe not. McDonalds is very popular brand all over the world and many people like its food. However, this picture can reduce McDonald’s clients. In addition healthy lifestyle is now very popular, so this picture can change many client’s opinion about McDonalds. To address these contradictions, innovators must frequently redefine the meanings of the brand and its users. In order to improve its image, McDonalds has taken also healthier alternatives to its product range, for example salads and wraps. These healthy options will be better for your health, so then ’McDiabetes’ is not true.

My Starbucks idea

In this excercise I had to submit a product, experience or involvement to Starbucks. At first the exercise was a bit difficult for me, because I have never visited in Starbucks. We don’t have so many Starbucks in Finland, only in Helsinki. However I got to know Starbucks page and now I know it somehow. Many of my ideas were already in the MyStarbucksIdea site, so it was pretty hard to invent something new. Moreover Starbucks is very popular coffeehouse all over the world and that’s why it was difficult to come up with an idea that’s better than their. In addition the Starbucks page didn’t work well, but finally I was able to offer my new idea. Here is my idea:

Blind dates on Valentine’s day

It would be awesome to have a chance to organize blind dates in Starbucks on Valentine’s Day. Before Valentine’s Day you can sign up at Starbucks for a blind date. When there is enough people signed up, the staff of Starbucks will match those who are about the same age and opposite sex (depends what everyone is looking for). The people who signed up will get a notice of the date when blind dates will take place. Practically: for example when a girl comes to Starbucks for a blind date she will get a coffee cup where has been written her date’s name and some sign and her date has a coffee cup with her own name and the same sign (for example heart). The girl has to find the boy who has the cup with her name written on it. So let the lovely dates in Starbucks begin!

Click here see my idea!

I submitted my idea to MyStarbucksIdea site 13.1.2016 and I checked my idea on Friday 15.1.2016 again. I have got -30 points and three critical comments to my idea, for example: ”Walk up and talk to somebody? Are you kidding? A text maybe. ” I think that maybe many people are so mean on the Internet, such as in Starbucks page, because they can be anonymous. Nobody can recognize them and they can say anything they ever want. If the same discussion had been face-to-face, I’m pretty sure it would have been different. Nevertheless I’m just wondering why people hang out in Starbucks page and give rude comments to other people ideas? Don’t they have better things to do? Anyway I have learnt that it’s important that you don’t mind about rude comments, because it’s very normal in Internet and nothing personal.

After all, this exercise was a good example how customers can express their ideas and opinions easily online and also other customers can tell their opinions of other’s ideas. I’m sure there is many creative and interesting discussions at the Starbucks idea page and that ideas can be very useful and important for Starbucks development strategy. For Starbucks it’s easy way to know what their customers really need. After this excercise I appreciate Starbucks more, because this shows how much this firm cares of its customers. They want to offer products and service that satisfy the needs of customers! By using customer co-creation, I think that Starbucks is more modern and pioneer company than many of its competitors.

In my opinion ”My Starbucks Idea” page really uses customer co-creation, because customers are truly able to enhance product development. This contribution is made using a web-based platform, Starbucks own website. I think that Starbucks is employing collaborating type of co-creation, because My Starbucks Idea page is customer-led and contribution activity is open. Customers can use it easily whenever they want and they can give all kind of ideas.

Quizz C1 Product

1. B
2. A
3. D
4. A, B, C, D
5. D
6. A
7. A
8. B

Wikipedia – Iisalmi

In this Wikipedia exercise I edited Iisalmi’s English page in Wikipedia.org. I decided to edit Iisalmi’s page because it’s my hometown in Finland and its page in English was very short. I wanted to add some facts about Iisalmi’s sport possibilities. Although Iisalmi is a small town, there is many different alternativies for sports. Before my editing, there was only one sentence about Iisalmi’s sports: “Iisalmi is best known for its football club, PK-37” and that’s it. So after my editing, also foreigners can find out some sport possibilities in Iisalmi. Here is what I wrote about Iisalmi’s sports:

Iisalmi / Sports

Iisalmi is best known for its football club, PK-37 and ice hockey club, IPK (Iisalmen Peli Karhut). Other known sports clubs are FBI (floorball club), Iisalmen palloveikot, Klubi-36, Iina, Iisalmen Visa and Koljonvirran ratsastajat (riding club).Iisalmi has many good alternativities for sports. There is a very nice frisbee golf place near the Paloisvuori ski center. There are also many good beaches in Iisalmi, for example Perttu’s beach and Beach of City. Many beaches offer an opportunity for beach volley too. In winter time Iisalmi offers good ski trails, skating rinks and also opportunity for downhill skiing and snowboarding in the Paloisvuori ski center. In addition Iisalmi has good facilities for gym workout, swimming, bowling and minigolf.

Click here to see my editing!

I edited the page on Friday 16.1 and now on Wednesday 20.1, five days later, nothing has happened to my content. I think that Iisalmi’s English page isn’t so popular in Wikipedia and that’s why nobody has edited the page. I wrote only facts to the page and also therefore no-one hasn’t done any changes to my content. If I had written something false information, maybe someone would have changed it.Wikipedia – user-generated contentWikipedia is ranked among the ten most popular websites and it contains information almost about everything – thanks for its users.

In this exercise I learnt that Wikipedia is very easy way to share information. Wikipedia is really created by users and it works online. Anyone can create an articles or edit an existing page anytime. Good thing is that it’s so easy to share and give information online and anyone can learn something new in Wikipedia. But bad side is that anyone can also share information which is not true. That’s why everyone should remember that you shouldn’t believe all information in Wikipedia. Luckily there are many contributors who work on cleaning up abusive updates.

 

Quizz C2 Promotion

1. B
2. A
3. A, B, C, D
4. D
5. A
6. A
7. A
8. A

Thingiverse

The name: Artichoke Lamp Shade

Type: Artichoke Lamp Shade is a beautiful creation. This product’s category is household, decor.It is inspired by the geometry of an artichoke and Louis Poulsen’s great lighting studies and diagrams.

Click here, to see design: Artichoke Lamp Shade

Why this design?

I would like to have printed this lamp shade, because it is very beautiful decoration, and it would be perfect to my living room. It looks like an artichoke but at the same time it is very modern design, so I really like it!

According to product description, I can use any standard hanging light cord and a low temp bulb, so it is easy to use. It has had 2213 likes and 8156 downloads, so it is quite popular and it confirms my opinion to have this even more. In addition I saw 11 different variations (different colours and materials) of this lamp, and it looked awesome.

I also read all comments and there was nothing which would have changed my opinion. gCreate had answered well to all questions. The only problem with this product was, that it could be tricky on some printers. Anyway many customers have managed to print it, so it’s not so big problem.

… and why Thingiverse?

I think that Thingiverse really impacts placement, because online shopping is so easy option for customer nowadays. People don’t need to go a physical store, because using Thingiverse customers can create designs anywhere, for example at home. That’s why purchasing is very simple for consumers. In addition, according to Van Wittenbraut’s researach, it is cheaper to make your own products by 3D printing than to buy them. It is useful for sellers too, because by using 3D printing they can sell objects directly to buyer.

Quizz C3 Place

1. B
2. D
3. D
4. C
5. B
6. B
7. A

Prixing

1. Coffee

Brand name: Special filtre Cafe soluble
Store Price: 3,40 €, Carrefour Market
Lowest local retail price: 3,00 € Carrefour Market Gerzat
Lowest Internet retail price: (online price wasn’t available)

-> This coffee would be just 0,40 € cheaper in other local Carrefour store.

2. Detergent

Brand name: Ajax Fete des Fleurs nettoyan menager coquelicot
Store Price: 2,60 € Carrefour Market
Lowest local retail price: 1,95 € Carrefour Riom
Lowest Internet retail price: (online price wasn’t available)

-> Ajax would be 0,65 € cheaper in other local Carrefour store.

3. Men’s T-shirt

I visited in almost all men’s clothing stores in downtown and I scanned many T-shirts, but I couldn’t find available prices with this app. However, based on my previous experiences of buying online, I think that the cheapest price of T-shirt would be online. I have noticed that if I have compared for example same shoes in physical store and online, shoes have been cheaper online. In that situation it’s good to try shoes in physical store, and just buy it online, if shoes fit well.

4. Battery

Brand name: Duracell Ultra Power AAX4
Store Price: 7,15 €
Lowest local retail price: 5,00 € Auchan Aubiere Plein Sud
Lowest Internet retail price: 6,99 € Darty

-> Battery would be 2,15 € cheaper in other local retail. And it would be only 0,16 € cheaper in Internet retail. So the cheapest option would be local retail, only 5 €.

5. Television

Brand name: Samsung UE40J5000
Store Price: 399,99 €, FNAC, Centre Jaude
Lowest local retail price: (local price wasn’t available)
Lowest Internet retail price: 399,00 € Darty (451,99€ Amazon)

-> Samsung UE40J5000 would be just 0,99 € cheaper in Internet retail.

Submission

It was very difficult to find these prices by Prixing app, because it didn’t work well with my Finnish phone. I was in the store a long time, but I wasn’t able to find product, which gives both local price and online price. Especially online prices were often unavailable. That’s why I couldn’t calculate how much money I would have saved by buying there items via an Internet retailer. Only battery gave both prices, and according to that, the cheapest price was in local retail store. Instead, television was 0,99 € cheaper online. But because price already was almost 400 euros, it doesn’t matter is the price 399€ or 399,99 € for me.

This calculation exercise proved me, that sometimes it’s useful to check prices online before buying it directly from physical store. In my opinion prixing is very quick and easy way to know prices of different products, and it helps customers to do decisions. In addition it’s a good thing to be aware about right prices, so I don’t get cheated. When I know the right price level, it’s easier to do right decision. For example next time, when I have to buy new mobile phone, I will use an app like this. Mobile phone is a product, which I’ll use a long time and it’s also quite expensive, so it’s important to compare prices. But if I’m just grocery shopping, it doesn’t matter if price is only couple euros cheaper in other local store or online.

This tool would be even better, if they developed its marketing. I thinkt that especially older people don’t even know about this tool. They should add more products to this app, because it didn’t give online prices very often. In addition I and many of my friends had problems to use this app, so they should solve all technical problems too. When all problems are solved, they could include also prices of other countries, so it would be useful abroad too, not only in France.

 

Quizz C4 Price

1. A
2. A
3. A
4. D
5. B
6. D
7. D

Web Design questions

Question 1. It’s very important to look at what the user needs from your website before considering any other factors, because the user will never use it if he doesn’t need it. You have to be sure that your website has an appropriate design which appeals to the user. The users have to be interested in your website, so they will use it and also visit again at your website. You always have to put user’s needs and wants first in order to create a great user’s experience for them.

Question 2. In my opinion functionality is more important then look and feel of a website. The most important thing is that a website is simple to use and the user can find everything (all elements, navigation, search, links etc.) easily in your website. Users appreciate when a website is easy to find, easy to use and useful. If a website looks nice but it doesn’t work well, users don’t come back to your website. Anyway both, functionality and look/feel are very important to consider.

Question 3. Web copy has to be easy to read because only then users will read it. If it’s very long text, font is small and unclear or it includes colour clashes with background, it might be too difficult to read. People can’t remember much because our brain can’t handlle more then seven items at once. People are also impatient and they will not waste much time for reading on website. In addition reading on a screen is harder (30 % slower) than reading from normal paper, so it’s very important to keep web copy very simple. In fact people scan online and they are looking for only keywords and phrases from web copy. In other words they just read directly what they need the most and skip other parts.

Google AdWords

In this exercise I have created 2 different campaigns for my blog. The campaigns I decided to create are Exchange life and Study Abroad. I shared my 1000 € budget for two campaigns, 600 €/day for Exchange life and 400 €/day for Study abroad.

For the campaign ”Exchange life” budget is bigger, because my blog is mostly about exchange life and traveling, so I wanted to invest more in that. Instead the campaign ”Study abroad” has 400 € budget because I also write about studying in Clermont-Ferrand, but not so much.

Campaign 1. Exchange life

600 € / day, I expect 2000+ clicks and 447 000 impressions. So price for one click would be 0,3 €. I got this results when targeting audience was the whole world.

Ad Group A: Exchange life in France
Keywords: exchange life, Clermont-Ferrand, France, abroad, studying, french, e-rasmus, traveling, Europe, backpacking, eurotrip, abroad, adventures, experiences, travel, trip

Ad Group B: Traveling in Europe
Keywords: exchange life, Clermont-Ferrand, France, abroad, studying, french, e-rasmus, traveling, Europe, backpacking, eurotrip, abroad, adventures, experiences, travel, trip

Campaign 2. Study Abroad

400 € / day, I expect 1000+ clicks and 449 000 impressions. So price for one click would be 0,4 €. I got this results when targeting audience was the whole world.

Ad Group: Exchange studies
Keywords: study, abroad, exchange, studies, France, studying, Clermont-Ferrand, e-rasmus, Europe, french

I used Google Adwords website to calculate clicks and impressions for my campaigns, and then I noticed that my first campaign would have more visitors, (over 1000 more) than the second campaign. Maybe because it has bigger budget and also its Ad Group is more popular.

It’s very important to select appropriate keywords for your ad in order to be sure, that you are targeting right people. For example keyword France had 2240000 of search popularity and Europe 1500000. Instead keyword E-rasmus had only 90 of search popularity. I think that my potential visitors will use these keywords, so I decided to use that. I think that my keywords are relevance, but on the other hand many my keywords were very competitive and popular, and that’s why also more expensive.

Social Media

• Link to my blog’s Facebook page: Greetings from Clermont – facebook page In this page I share my posts and pictures for my followers, so they will notice my new posts easier. In two days I got 30 followers to my blog’s facebook page, so I think that this social media channel is very effective.

• Link to my blog’s Pinterest account:Greetings from Clermont – pinterest account I share pictures about traveling, France, Europe etc in my blog’s Pinterest account.

• Link to my blog’s Instagram account:Greetings from Clermont – instagram account I add photos about my exchange life and traveling in Europe to  my instagram acoount.

• Link to my blog’s Twitter account Greetings from Clermont – twitter account I twiit my posts and my thoughts about exchange life in Twitter.

 

E-mail

I created an account on Maijlet, but unfortunately the website said that I have to contact tech support to be able to use the program. Then I did that but anyway I can’t use the website.

But if I was able to use the program, my newsletter would have been something like this (I created my newsletter by Microsoft Power Point) :

My newsletter is pretty short and simple, so it’s easy to read quickly and it just ’calls to action’. It is direct and it goes straight to the point. In addition I tried to make it personnal and friendly. Before sending this newsletter, I would have tested it by mobile device, to be sure that it works well also by mobile. I would have sent this at the weekend, because it’s the best time for my customers; then they have freetime to read my blog, and so the Clickthrough Rate will be higher.