Happy Exams People

To those taking this Electronic Marketing exam and any other university exams , I wish all of you the best of luck doing the exam. May you don't stuff up during the exams, and hope that your common sense works so that you can wing the exam.

Eat a hearty breakfast, don't sleep too late, and revise carefully.

As a food for thought, during these periods, you might notice advertisements that are 'exam based' . Like suddenly those "Red Bull Gives you Wings for Exams" advertising sounds more appealing than what it was months ago.

International Marketing - Or How an Instant Noodle Becomes So Famous Here

Recently I stumbled into an advertisement for an instant noodle brand when I was walking near the student lounge in Monash just the other day. Indomie - is the brand that I looked at. The advertisement, was showing a package of the instant noodle with exotic looking spices in the back and the heading "Why is Indomie so Good? Because it Uses Exotic Indonesian Spices" or something along that line.

The best meal you can get for less than 20 cents

A part of me giggled deep down inside because to the best knowledge of me, Indomie uses a lot of MSG - not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes the noodle so damn tasty. But what I'm just amazed is that how does an Indonesian brand became so famous all the way down here in Australia? I went down to Coles a few times and saw the noodles being sold there in sets of 5, as well as supermakets such as Woolsworths, and even 7/11.

Returning back to marketing 101, I think that when the marketers targeted the Australian market, they had an idea of the Indonesian student population in Melbourne that needed a quick, cheap and filling meal solution as well as giving them a taste home. I remember hearing stories of how my friend who came here were given usually a box or two of Indomie to eat.

But of course there are other brands that falls into this category, one that is brought down from their home countries into another country and received such familiarity. What I'm amazed is just that they can afford to have a billboard advertising in Australia, so that means that they have a large distribution center or even a local manufacturing of Indomie.

I guess the virtue to be taken out of this post is that in marketing a product to a new market, marketers should always embrace the value of home. Whenever I eat a packet of Indomie, I'm always reminded of those times where I am sitting in a stall next to a busy street in Jakarta, eating a warm indomie with a cold glass of iced tea. I guess my future career of marketing in Indonesia could be fruitful after all.

i Takeaway - The Takeaway of the Future

Recently I've stumbled upon this new iphone application, its called itakeaway.



The application is really simple, register your information and then you can order takeaway food from a registered merchant in the application.

The application can also list up your list of favorite foods, integrate google map to locate the closest restaurant to your place as well as securely linking your transaction to debit and credit cards. All this in the convenience of your palms. It is also the first iphone application that does so in the future.

The biggest problem with iphone application is, even though iphone has such a large penetration rate, it is not yet the premier telephone for people, in the sense that the large success rate of applications such as these is that it relies on the number of people connected on iphone.

While this application has recently launched in the Melbourne food and wine festival, engaging the correct target audience. It does fit a lot of gaps according to the chief inventor Tony Peter.

With the iTakeaway, it gives restaurants more place to advertise their products and services also giving them more penetration, awareness as well as coverage.

For me though, it will give me more reason to be lazier in take aways so I guess it's a win for me!

You're Flipping Me!

Quite recently, Big M announced their winning flavor of their competition to bring back old favorite flavors.

Out of a selection of a number of flavors, customers needs to choose one that they like the most and then Big M will bring back those flavors.

After some period of the competition, Big M finally announced 'Egg Flip' flavour to be the relaunched to the market for a limited time period.



For one, I have fallen victim to this marketing campaign, having no idea what Egg Flip means, thinking that its a strange hybrid of egg nog and milk, I decided to give this flavor a taste and surprisingly they're pretty good.

Big M uses advertising to create interest and uses retailers such as Coles and 7-11 specials on Egg flip flavor for customers to try it out (the first time I came to Coles to get it, it was sold out!)

They even have a Facebook fan page!



Quite a number of companies have been using competition as a way to involve themselves with customers and to give them a say on the company. One of the more recent competition was the Smith's flavor contest - where customers are given a chance to create a Smith's flavored chips and then the winner will be made into an actual product.



I personally think competition is a great idea, it involves the customers, and companies that are using it needs to manage so that customers know about it, as well as getting the idea across to generate interest.