On top of all the classwork, I have jumped in head-first outside the classroom.  I have been writing a blog about my experiences (which is in desperate need of an update) that you can read here if you like: www.thembajourney.com.  That blog was actually noticed and I was asked to create an official MBA experiences blog for Notre Dame.  After being sternly warned by the Director of Admissions, the Director of Marketing and the Director of IT for the MBA program that this blog is important and needs to be relevant, well-written and most importantly consistently posted, I began the task of gathering a team of writers and creating the blog.  It’s been running since January and can be seen here:  http://blogs.nd.edu/mbastudentperspectives/.  I was elected in November to a one-year term as the VP of Communications for the Net Impact club.  (The titles all sound so businessy)  The Net Impact Club attempts to show students how to use their business skills to improve the world, a huge task!  My job is basically to make sure all of our meetings, events and other information is well-communicated.

By far the biggest undertaking I jumped, however, on was the Family Life Committee.  Thankfully, Miranda (my  wife) is a huge help on this one (I can be honest, she just makes me look good by pretty much doing everything!).  Miranda and I were asked to Chair the committee for one year after Miranda organized a few couples events in the fall (Wine tour, Christmas party, Cooking Class).  The Family Life Committee exists to help MBA students with significant others, spouses, and/or children with life in South Bend.  We organize big BBQ’s to get everyone together, playgroups for the kids, couples nights, game nights, organize meal deliveries to new parents, and help incoming families through the transition to South Bend.  It’s a lot of work but has been very satisfying and Miranda is awesome at it!  People love her.  In fact, I’m pretty sure she knows more people than I do and that they all like her more than me.  Check out our FLC blog here: www.weareNDfamily.com

In all seriousness though, I’ve been very proud to be Miranda’s husband during this past year.  She has done so much and everyone really does love her. Our bed and breakfast has gone great and she has learned all about running a bigger venue through her work at the Oliver Inn.  She made a commitment to dive right into the ND community and enjoy her two years here, and she has really stuck to that.  She’s even joined a team of MBA’s with me to start a charity, which is very cool and you should read about it here:www.99fridays.com.

We had an amazing, but too short, time seeing our friends and family last weekend in Toronto.  Since then, we visited Ann Arbor, spent a day on the beach and Miranda has gone to work at the Inn for graduation.  I’ve spent 3 days golfing, which has been fabulous.  On Tuesday, I move to Madison to start an internship with Lands’ End.  I will be involved with strategy and business development for their corporate clothing division (think logoed golf shirts and such).  The work sounds great and Madison supposed to be an awesome place.  Unfortunately for me, Miranda is staying South Bend for the summer to keep working and spending time with friends.  Friends have been the best part of this program, and we’ve made a lot of them, some of which I feel we will keep for a very long time.  We loved it every-time we had friends visit too, so if you are thinking about coming, please do!!

That’s the last year in a nutshell, a very large nutshell, maybe a coconut shell.

I found this theme intriguing.  It had some elements of Generation X; of bucking the system and being independent.  It also had some elements of the Millennial generation; of youth having the power to change how things are done.  There was no collective force working to change the game, but simply two guys who went rogue and employed a brand new way of doing business.  At the same time, the two guys came from different generations, so we get a sense of the generations working together to form a better collective team.  Billy had the connections and the people skills and Peter had the ideas and formulas.  With Billy believing that Peter was intelligent enough to perhaps be right, the two embarked on a storybook season.  I believe that the tension between the Gen X independent ideals and the Millenial dreams of collective progess allowed this film to represent both generations, while pushing back just enough to make everyone think.  Or perhaps it was just Brad Pitt.

So, it turns out that the ice cream has “ground vanilla bean” in it.  That’s got to better than fake vanilla flavouring.  Doesn’t it?  I actually don’t really know.  If I wanted healthy, I should just skip the ice cream altogether, or try to find one with less ingredients that i can’t pronounce.  But still, I feel justified in my quick decision because I was right, the ice cream actually has vanilla beans providing real flavour.

What does this mean?  For one, point of purchase labeling works.  I wonder how many people like me chose Edys Vanilla because of the vanilla bean.  Marketers need to understand behaviour like mine and label appropriately.  How big of a target segemnt do I belong too?  Consumers need to be observed and studied to find out why they buy what they buy at the grocery store and how many of them act in a similar fashion.  If the answers are as simple as label design, some companies can make a lot of money by truly knowing why people choose what they choose.

Wow, I need to pause here and explain what just happened around me.  Talk about well-timed…  I am currently sitting in front of the TV watching the Superbowl, where advertising is king, and what comes on?  Watch this:

Apparently, Samsung has clued into the micro-boredom trend.  At this point, I don’t know why a pencil will improve my smart-phone experience, but I guess it may bring a phone closer to a tablet.  Either way, the phone seemed cool because I know what it is like to be bored while standing in a line, and Samsung is offering a solution.  Maybe marketers should take note and start addressing this problem with better apps, phones, and who knows what else they can come up with.  Thanks Samsung?  Or did you cause me to be rather pathetic in the first place?

Shoes get a lot of airtime.  Have you seen Sex in the City, or talked with a girl recently?  Shoes have some magic appeal.  The industry itself, however, is very crowded and differentiating your brand is hard to do.  There are broad categories, such as athletic shoes, boots, sandals, casual and dress shoes but even each individual category is full of brands.  Do you want Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Reebok?  Zappos.com literally advertisies that it carried thousands of brands!  So how do you differentiate your product?  Toms shoes has come up with a unique approach that just may do the trick.  They started with a decent shoe, a simple shoe that fits the hipster style.  They took that one style of shoe and made it in every pattern you could imagine.  That’s all good, but doesn’tdo much to catch peoples attention or drum up loyalty.  Here’s the kicker – if you buy a pair of Toms, they will give a kid in need a free pair of shoes!  Buy one, get one free…. for a kid in need!  To date, they have given away a million pairs of shoes, meaning they have sold a million pairs.  And they were founded in in 2006.  Not bad.

After some quick research, I realized i wasn’t far off:

“I think that home cooking is definitely expanding,” Stephanie Robinett, director of communications at Allrecipes says,  “[We see people] participating with food social-networking sites, sending recipes to friends via Facebook, or emailing recipes to friends. The more technology becomes a part of cooking, the more the younger generation will start to take part in it.”

This fits in line with the Millennial generation, which I am a part of.  We want to collaborate and the web has provided that for cooking.  No longer are we opening cookbooks with predetermined recipes but instead we are trying out other peoples creations, altering them to our own tastes, and posting our results for others to read.  Online collaboration is here to stay and marketers need to get on board.  Activities that were once mundane, like cooking, can be revived with the right social networking.

For Kobe to be RBV valuable, he must satisfy four conditions: be valuable, rare, difficult to duplicate and difficult to substitute.  I will go through these conditions one at a time.  Is Kobe Bryant Valuable? His 5 championship rings point to yes, as do his 13 all-star appearances and 2 scoring titles.  However, he is getting old and less valuable as we speak.  Is Kobe Bryant rare?  Michael Jordan recently stated that Kobe Bryant is the ONLY recent player that can be compared to himself, so yes, Kobe is rare.`Can Kobe Bryant be imitated?  Yes.  Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, Carmello Anthony, Derrick Rose, and the list goes on.  All these players imitate Kobe in terms of performance, star quality and jersey sales.  Is it difficult to find substitutes for Kobe Bryant?  Here’s the sticking point.  Substitutes abound for Bryant.  The Mavericks team based system and even the NHL which is stealing NBA market share constitute substitutes for the star player that Kobe brings.  To conclude, Kob Bryant is not a very RBV valuable resource, especially this late in his career.

2. As a Catholic Institution, does Notre Dame have an ethical responsibility to bring its high level of education to the masses?

To bring its brand of education to the masses would seriously harm Notre Dame’s key competitive advantages.  The excellent faculty would require a watering down, as would the level of achievement among the perspective students.  As an institution, it aspires to educate leaders of the next generation, not the generation in its entirety.  Expansion can only happen at a pace where the level of education can be maintained if the school is to maintain its position as a place where future leaders will apply.

Mike Donald

I find this controversy very interesting.  One of two things took place here: either this 9/11 reminder was unintentional or it was intentional.  That sounds obvious, I know, but its fun to think about both scenarios.  In scenario one, I would find it awfully ironic that the most popular show on advertising would make such an advertising blunder.  In scenario two, the ad is probably genius, but risky.  By inciting all this criticism and controversy, Mad Men has gained a lot of coverage in the media and on social networks.  People are debating whether this poster is classy or insensitive as I write:

People are upset about the new Mad Men poster saying it’s insensitive to 9/11…Really?wp.me/p1ZxA8-3md

@BStephensonB. Stephenson

10 Ways The New Mad Men Poster Could Have Been Less Offensivemamapop.com/2012/01/10-way…via @MamaPop

As found on the Huffington Post: “To some, the main image is simply a screengrab from the show’s graphic opening credits. To others, it’s a tasteless reminder of 9/11. Either way, it’s got people talking. Sounds about right for a show about an ad agency”

So how does this translate into the world of marketing.  I believe there are lessons to be learned.  First, marketers need to look out for unintended consequences, to ask AND THEN WHAT?  If my ad will definitely resonate with my viewers, should I go ahead and place it on New York bus stops without asking what the rest of New York will think?  The answer is no, as my ad will only be effective as people place meaning to it.  Second, after finding some unintended consequences, are they helpful or harmful?  Maybe in the case of Mad Men, any press is good press, debate will intrigue people.  Either way, this question needs to be asked.  Finally, online presence and follow-up can be amazing for your brand.  The twitter debate going on is a great opportunity for Mad Men to enter into a conversation with its viewers.  As online communities react to unintended consequences, good brands will be right there with them, explaining the misunderstanding or feeding off the unexpected hype.

Mike Donald