Cause Related Marketing and Consumer Behaviour with Social Media and its influence on Consumer Behaviour

Cause related marketing according to Ladero, Casquet and Signh in the journal article ‘Understanding factors influencing consumer attitudes toward cause-related markeitng’ refers to ‘campaigns in which a company collaborates with an Non for Profit Organisation making a contribution to a specific cause in terms of the product sale or product use’(Ladero et al, 2015, p. 53). It is seen as a mutually beneficial ‘marketing tool’(Ladero et al, 2015, p. 53) that aids companies in their yearly growth as well as contributing to a social cause.

Interestingly enough the results of this study suggest, and is reinforced by Kropps 1999 study, that consumers susceptibility to interpersonal influence directly and positively influence the emphasis on values (greater consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence will be reflected in greater emphasis on values (Ladero et al, 2015, p. 53).

Id also like to point out that it needs to be discussed how both this study and the study done by Moosmayer et al in their study of Consumer Perceptions of Cause Related Marketing, both showed that women were more susceptible to influence due to the characteristic of empathy.

Essentially, compliance of wanting to feel accepted and have favourable judgement, wanting to be identified with a behaviour or group that are apart of their personal image and internalisation to which we change our attitudes to stay consistent with our value system. An example of this is Mount Franklins Pink water for breast cancer awareness campaign. Women aligned with this cause as it was beneficial to an issue that relates to  women who they associate with or have known to experience this issue themselves, it aligns with their value of wanting to help others and they feel their contribution will help in some way.

This links into the power of social media and its ability to communicate an organisations CRM. An organisation along the bottled water route has successfully used social media to promote their CRM campaign. Thank You Co is an social enterprise that uses the profits from its bottled water and variety of food products to aid various communities in their efforts to produce clean drinking water. By purchasing water your helping another person get water…that sounds great! Now to convince the big chains to sell this product to get more people on board!

This article by Carolyn Butler- Madden outlines Thank You Co’s impressive social media campaign to influence those who currently support Thank You Co to reach out to Coles and Woolworths by any social media means, videos, comments, blogs.

The result?….

Coles and Woolworths stocking 17 products that helped launch the Thank You program to reach more people than before. This unique combination of CRM and Social Media influence created a drive to convince the two most popular super market chains to stock their products and promote their cause. Madden places the success on the use of social media, PR and storytelling (Madden, 2014) with perfect timing as social media acted as the driver for their story.  We as consumers already felt aligned with Ladero et al characteristics of CRM influence of compliance, identification and internalization as this cause was a benefit to our interest and of those around us of helping those who have less, and we wanted to identify with this progressive cause, the group who wants to make a positive difference in the world as it aligned with our value system as we ethically want to positively impact on those around us.

References

Butler-Madden, C(2014). Australia’s Cause Marketing ThankYou Movement: Powered by Social Consumers. CMF Global Voices. Your Public Interest Registry. Accessed 5/05/2015. http://causeupdate.com/globalvoices/australiass-cause-marketing-thankyou-movement-powered-by-social-consumers

Galan Ladero M. M., Galera Casquet C. and Singh J. (2015) Understanding factors influencing consumer attitudes toward cause-related marketing, Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., 20, 52–70, doi: 10.1002/nvsm.1517.

Moosmayer, D.C. & Fuljahn, A. 2010, “Consumer perceptions of cause related marketing campaigns”, The Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 543-549.

 

Consumer Behaviour and In-Store Decision making

‘More than two thirds of purchase decisions involve some sort of in store decision making’ (Inman, 2009, p.19). Consumers during the purchasing process will go through steps of need recognition, information seeking in pre-purchase search and evaluation of alternatives (Shiffman, 2015, 493). It is here that consumers explore all options and tools to seek out the best product by either means of online or in store comparison.

Working at JB Hifi it is not surprising that customers will come in with a clear list of evoked, inept and inert set of products as they have had a great experience with for example:

LG (Evoked),

….a terrible experience with Fisher & Paykel (Inept)

due to a lemon product or terrible post purchase service and an inert brand such as…

Beko which is newer to the Australian market…

As a quick note it is also interesting to see customers reaction to brands they’ve owned for decades such as Westinghouse, now being made in Thailand. Once they hear this, they immediately reevaluate their evoked set of brands. This alone gives great insight to their priorities with white goods versus other products.

Moutusy Maity  in ‘Consumer decision making across modern and traditional channels: E-commerce, m-commerce, in-store” refers to the media richness that in-store decision making can offer as ‘face to face interaction’ is beneficial (Maity, 2014). Maity also reinforces the cognitive risk involved with online research as technological and functionality issues can cause problems for information seekers. This is where my role is important in simplifying and tailoring the information of the features to suit their benefits. Otherwise the customer is too overwhelmed and cant point out the difference in products.

Working at JB Hifi for just under a year has helped me understand more about the decisions customers make on a day to day basis. I do have to note that there is a clear difference in risk perception between white goods (Fridges, washing machines etc) and small goods (toasters, blenders, vacuums) based not only on risk of price but also physical risk with moving the items. I have been trained to gain as much insight into what a customer wants now, restrictive of budget as well as what they will be happy with long term, highlighting that price is not always the best solution. I reinforce that for high involvement items such as a fridge, it’s bulky, large, heavy and expensive in general. In saying this I reinforce that unlike a computer that is expensive but portable and although the idea is not to change one every year, its not as bad as a fridge which I perceive to customers as a long term investment (five to ten years). I’ll go through the features that appeal most to them and emphasis those benefits (ie: literage, style, brand, where it was made, warranty, energy efficiency). Warranty, being a major risk minising tool is strategically used by LG and Samsung offering 10 years warranty on their inverter motor

based products which includes fridges, washing machines and dryers. Customers immediately respond to this benefit and also appeal to the smart diagnosis technology as it helps minise the financial cost of warranty and the psychological risk of stress with organising a repairer as the app organises it all for the consumer.

 

References

Inman, JJ, Winer, RS, & Ferraro, R 2009, ‘The Interplay Among Category Characteristics, Customer Characteristics, and Customer Activities on In-Store Decision Making’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 73, no. 5, pp. 19-29. Available from: 10.1509/jmkg.73.5.19. [13 May 2015].

Moutusy Maity, Mayukh Dass, Consumer decision-making across modern and traditional channels: E-commerce, m-commerce, in-store, Decision Support Systems, Volume 61, May 2014, Pages 34-46, ISSN 0167-9236, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2014.01.008.

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167923614000098)

 

Shiffman, Leon. Consumer Behaviour, 6th Edition. Pearson/Australia, 2013-09-01. VitalBook

Consumer Behaviour on the Internet

It costs more to delete the data….(Mitew, 2015)

I was startled and initially objected to this idea but after Dr. Ted Mitew from the week 6 lecture from BCM310 ‘The feudalisation of the Internet’ stated this he followed up by emphasising:

it is absolutely vital you understand this statement and the current online environment  for e-tailers and online shopping. (Mitew, 2015)

From there I realized the importance customer information was to an organisation online in providing buying patterns, trends, preferences, likes, dislikes, how much they spent online, what they bought at that time, why didn’t they buy? Was it harder on our website then others to complete the buying process? And the list goes on.

Essentially, consumer data is the main form of insight to online retailers as it is the only form of information they gain from a consumer that overcomes the physical aspect of interaction that brick and mortar stores have. It allows a e-tailer to tailor their offerings to facilitate their consumer’s wants and needs.

Several organisations understood this statement and have thus succeeded. In America, an obvious ‘winner’ is Amazon. According to Live Mints article ‘E-tailers use analytics to read your mind’ by Moulishree Srivastava Amazon uses ‘high-end analytics and algorithms’ to answer all these questions mentioned above and then tailoring their advertising to suit their consumer (Srivastava, 2014). The article also cites snapdeal.com as a website that ‘predicts market trends based on user behaviour, click data and information from social media that it collects’ (Srivastava, 2014) as well as facilitating the buying process by ranking sellers to aid in consumer decision making process (Srivastava, 2014).

According to Frost and Sullivans PWC industry report in 2012, major retailers such as JB Hifi, Harvey Norman and David Jones have developed an online strategy to become an omni channel offering retailer which can be dubbed click and brick offerings. However, these companies are playing catch-up as they only account for 5% of all online sales for that year. Due to this online convergence, these original brick and mortar stores are playing catch up in the realm of customer analysis and information retention that have given competitors such as kogan.com a head start in understanding how consumers purchase products online. However, companies such as JB Hifi have been able to adapt their price competitive model online to compete with pure plays to appeal with what Keen et al in ‘Etailers versus retailers: which factors determine consumer preferences” deemed to be a high priority as the internet empowers consumers to exercise their purchasing influence( Keen et al, 2002).

Where to now?

 

(I do not own or claim to own this photo. All rights are reserved by the author and publisher of this image sourced for educational purposes only). 

According to TechCrunch.com (Crook, 2015), Uber Rush is just one experimental service Uber, the successful driving service has developed as well as UberEats, UberFresh etc with the essential extension of fast, reliable and easy delivery of goods (Crook, 2015). What does this mean for e-tailers, consumers and brick and mortar stores? More flexibility to service the needs and wants of the customer. This facilitation allows an even playing field for Omni channel retailers to sell and deliver goods at not only a cheap price but with a high level of convenience. It also gives e-tailers the power to micro manage their distribution and handle complex orders without the bottle neck issue of set delivery times from courier services. Relating again to Keen et als journal article, with a combination of price and convenience offerings, a company can develop cognitive lock in using a variety of tools available through online channels.

References:

Close, A, Kukar-Kinney, M (2009). Beyond buying: Motivations behind consumers’ online shopping cart use. Journal of Business Research. Accessed 4/05/2015 http://uxscientist.com/public/docs/uxsci_17.pdf

Crook, J (2015). Uber is quietly testing a massive merchant delivery program. Tech Crunch. Accessed (1/05/2015).

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/28/uber-is-quietly-testing-a-massive-merchant-delivery-program/#.aaqkuk:4q4i

Frost & Sullivant (2012). The rapid growth of online shopping is driving structural changes in the retail model.  Australian and New Zealand online shopping market and digital insights.  PWC Industry Report. July 2012. Accessed 2/05/2015 http://www.pwc.com.au/industry/retail-consumer/assets/Digital-Media-Online-Shopping-Jul12.pdf

Keen, C, Wetzels, M, Ruyter, K & Feinberg, R (2002). Etailers versus Retailers: Which Factors determine customer preference. Department of Marketing. Fairfield University. Fairfield. Accessed 27/04/2015. http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ko_De_Ruyter/publication/4967040_E-tailers_versus_retailers_Which_factors_determine_consumer_preferences/links/54bd1ed90cf218d4a16a0560.pdf

Mitew, T (2015). The feudalisation of the Internet. Week 6 Lecture. BCM310. University of Wollongong.

Srivastava, M (2002). E-tailers use analytics to read your mind. Live Mint Industry Article. Accessed (24/05/2015)http://www.livemint.com/Industry/LGNW9qgvr1k0MPEYNifKGM/Etailers-use-analytics-to-read-your-mind.html

Are we equals?

Equal women’s rights is a topic that needs to be further pushed in all forms of work, social and personal life. All too often it is assumed that women are paid the same as their male counterparts or that there are enough women in upper management position, but to both these situations that is far from true. On top of this, the video below makes the point that women every day produce the same if not more than men but earn less of the total capital and are still seen as ‘inferior’ beings and categorised into groups of women who ‘need’ to be saved, helped or supported by a male presence no matter the situation. All of these stigma’s need to be addressed and discussed face on in order to make sure that equal rights for women are in fact equal.

The video I’ve shared in this blog was produced by www.weareequals.org that was premiered during the 2011 International Womens day. The way this was produced was a very close example of the current situation. In the clip, James Bond, womaniser, seen as a dominant male, able to protect, able to fight and fend for himself, strong willed but also seen to disrespect women as forms of meat rather than equals. Daniel Craid (James Bond) then is asked what is must be like to be a women? A cut shot reveals the normalised UK portrayal of a women whilst M. (James Bonds) boss slams him with fact after fact of the current state of womens’ predicament in the UK and around the world whilst stating it’s not about money and power, but equality to a variety of issues. James Bond then shifts and walks left off screen to the question: so James, are we equal? With his acknowledgement that no, women are not equal and that we must keep asking.

Now equality is, as Emma Watson believes, a men’s fight too. Her push of the #heforshe campaign is seen as a campaign aimed at uniting men and women in the fight for equal rights. But that’s what interested me most with her campaign…’its men’s fight too’. I had never seen it this way before. For a long time I saw equal rights for women as a movement that only women could join and speak of  and men should listen and that was it. But it is so true that men need to help solve this equality problem and bring about change to the current stigma’s faced by men and women. One issue that I link into these two examples (The video clip and Emma Watsons campaign) is that of paid parental leave (quite off topic to women in the media).

During our discussion, Nicole Evans asked why men didn’t get paid parental leave and if that was fair? I truly believe that this question needs to be answered or at least a solution found as I believe that it will, in the long term, help women and men be able to manage their personal and work lives a lot better. In one of the readings by Anna Griffin (2014), ‘Where are the Women?: Why we need more female newsroom leaders’ discusses the risk of becoming a mother and being treated as such or switching from work life to home (Griffin, 2014). Becoming a mother is mentioned in the #weareequal clip as a fear women have in their career life that is all too true in the fact they risk losing their jobs. But it seems that in Australia we face similar problems.

A friend of mine, who will remain anonymous as he is currently serving in Iraq, faced a predicament when his wife became pregnant. Although she is able to access a form of paid parental leave with her work (is still less then what she was getting paid) he was not offered the same amount of paid parental leave as her. He was offered up to five weeks compared to her 24 weeks. However, linking this situation to what Emma Watson was pushing with the #heforshe campaign and the #weareequals http://www.heforshe.org/ campaign, it seems that men need to speak up about this form of inequality. They need to speak up  because it seems that if women were allowed to share their time off with their partners, defacto, married or otherwise, then less pressure would be put on women to choose work or home life and be motivated to get that promotion. This would be in addition to allowing the partner to relieve this pressure faced by women and to take time off to look after their family whilst being paid to do so. But the difference in time off means that it forces women to risk their employment to look after their family and to put pressure on the other parent to work more or aim for promotions to gain more financial incentives. In the end, this is one situation that indicates that if we are to fight for equality for women, we must do it together, not to insinuate that women need men to be successful, but both need the other to be equal.

References:

Broccoli, B (2011). ‘EQUALS’. We are Equals. Accessed 6/05/2015. www.youtube.com/wearequals.

Griffin, Anna. (2014). ‘Where are the Women?: Why we need more female newsroom leaders’. Nieman Reports.http://niemanreports.org/articles/where-are-the-women/. Accessed 28 January 2015.

Watson, E (2014). Emma Watson at the HeForShe Campaign 2014 –Official UN Video. United Nations. Accessed 2/05/2015. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5O114-PQNYkurlTg6hekZw

Did we win? Net Neutralities ugly cousin

Being slammed in the metaphorical face by the book of the internet, hurts. However, it knocked something in my brain that made me think more critically about the current state of the internet. An issue that has hung over the Internet’s head like a magpie during Spring. It is called, ‘Net Neutrality’. This issue has challenged the free and equal characteristics that helped the internet soar as a main source of interconnectedness. But, it seems that Internet Service Providers did not like that idea…I guess.

I will briefly explain what Net neutrality is and in the link here you will be able to find a more in-depth form of the issue of Net neutrality and why it is important to you. Now, as this website does happen to word it well enough I will directly exert from its ‘why is this important?’ section:

Copyright Mike Ciarlo, 2015, http://www.theopeninter.net/. Accessed 4/05/2015.

Essentially the argument is that the internet should be open and free for all to access and its users be free to speak their mind and share their beliefs as they wish without charge, and to be equally treated as someone whom may be more financially able.

This dispute finally came to an end in the United States when Barrack Obama declared that the Internet is to be considered a ‘utility’. Basically, No, you cannot charge prices to access certain content. Sounds like we won, right?

Why we lost a similar fight….

Dr. Ted Mitew stated that the internet was once an open generative platform with information flowing through this platform that was copied and shared through a decentralised network of hubs that allowed users to produce and audiences to become amateurs in their passion. But like Dr. Mitew stated, walled gardens have emerged as a counter characteristic of the internet on closed platforms that promote safety and security (Itunes, app store, google play). As well, to access these platform, you do so at a price. Now unlike the current issue of net neutrality with ISP’s using their control to create paid packages in order for us to access these services. These platforms (Facebook, Apple App store, Instagram etc) are already asking us to pay via our identity, our likes, dislikes, our browsing patterns, our usage patterns and so on, that is collected into metadata, which is most likely traded among companies at a handsome fee.

I agree with Dr. Mitew that the internet has become all forms of walled gardens, or that these gardens are more widely accessed now than ever before. But I believe there is a link between these walled gardens and net neutrality. For example, on one of these heavily regulated gardens, Facebook, I cannot post any non-sense and not expect it to be taken down. Isn’t that a breach of ‘a free and open internet, that, protects freedom of speech’ clause of net neutrality?

Now I maybe off the mark here but doesn’t it seem like these platforms actually crush the ideal of ‘a free and open internet, that, helps prevent unfair pricing practices’ as Facebook (sorry but it’s the biggest culprit) have unfair pricing practices on its users if that user wants a post to gain more reach, they need to pay for that? 

This issue also seems to tie in with the set reading by Cory Doctorow called ‘Lockdown- The coming war on general-purpose computing’ based on a key note speech in 2011. This along with ‘The future of the internet- And how to stop it’ by Jonathan L. Zittrain both outline that the idea of the personal computer, the power of the end user to modify the way they interact with the software and the hardware on a large scale, is being down sized by the ever popular walled garden and ‘tethered systems’ (Mitew, 2015, UOW Lecture). The iPhone is an example that Zittrain uses to highlight that apple was once a company built on users helping to shape their culture around using the Apple II PC as a tool to do so but now, some 30 years later, the iPhone demolishes that idea with the new idea of protection, safety and controlled innovation.

With this scope on the current predicament facing developers and users alike, it’s hard not to see very strong links between the death of the PC due to tethered appliances that are not truly yours (but gosh darn it if you aren’t happy to be a part of this closed platform) and finally the defeat of net neutrality by platforms, not ISPs. Maybe ISP’s saw that platforms had the power to dictate the flow of traffic and thought this as their opportunity to regulate these platforms, to keep them in check if they ever thought themselves too powerful for the internet.

Id like to rap it up by including this parody of the famous game, Candy Crush, a walled garden that took ideas from free games and made it a paid to excel game.

References:

Biddle, S(2014). ‘Facebook Is Ending the Free Ride’. Valleywag. Accessed 04/05/2015. http://valleywag.gawker.com/facebook-is-about-to-make-everyone-pay-1547309811

Ciarlo, M (2015). ‘A guide to the Open Internet: What is net neutrality? Why should I care?”. Accessed 4/05/2015. http://www.theopeninter.net/

Cory Doctorow(2011) ‘The coming war on general-purpose computing’http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

Mitew, T (2015). ‘ The Feudalisation of the Internet’. BCM 310 Week 6 Lecture. Faculty of Law, Arts and the Humanities. BCM310. University of Wollongong. Accessed 4/05/2015.

Stein, J(2011). ‘ Data Mining: How Companies Now know Everything About You’. Time Magazine. Accessed 04/05/2015. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2058205,00.html

Zittrain, J. ‘Tethered Appliances, Software as Service, and Perfect Enforcement’. In The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it, Yale University Press, New Haven, ppp.101-126; [URL:http://futureoftheinternet.org/static/ZittrainTheFutureoftheInternet.pdf]

Stop being charitable but start being an investor

Growing up we saw World Vision, Red Cross and Make Poverty History campaigns run on television to help sponsor a poor little citizen from a nation within the African continent. Now it seems that being charitable is one of the worst things we can be doing? And I agree with that. This documentary, titled ‘Poverty, Inc’ outlines and discusses the issue of poverty porn which is term to describe what is seen as the over emphasis of a certain trait of characteristic and magnifying this aspect in order to achieve a response. That’s my understanding none the less. For many of us, if someone said Africa, we would all think of disadvantaged, starving and poor. But that’s been the image in my head for most of my life and im 23 years old. So this charitable approach doesn’t seem to be working too well. An article by Nick Wadhams in TIME magazine reinforce that by flooding the African market with free goods, you are destroying the local African continents economies chances of growing. The article also outlines that good intentions does not go hand in hand with knowing the consequences of your actions…

But my question is? Didn’t our good intentions come from those commercials we saw growing up?

You know, like this one?…

The one that said sponsor this poor little Nigerian boy, who’s malnourished, about to die and looks so awfully sad? For just a dollar a week I can make him smile just like that boy did in the commercial? I link these two situations through the use of poverty porn. As we have been, intentionally, or un intentionally lead to believe that giving away free goods, canned food, and old junk is going to help them get a better education (an example of the misconnection). I believe that by magnifying the ‘victim’ aspect of the situation in some African countries with poverty issues and leaving a call to action of ‘trying to help’ with ‘good intentions’ did we ever stop to think… Is this really going to help?

References:

Wadhams, N (2010). ‘ Bad Charity? (All I got was this lousy T-Shirt!)’. World News. Nairobi. Accessed 25/04/2015. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1987628,00.html

How would you like your beef? Cow or lab grown?

Only a couple of years ago the idea of lab grown beef was a scientists experiment with a price tag of $325000 to make. Now it costs less than $12.

This is huge. Why? Because for a long time, and in Fiona Probyn-Rapseys reading ‘Stunning Australia’, humans felt a sense of guilt, however small to the idea of killing a cow and honestly we tried our best to disassociate the killing of an animal for a tasty meal thanks to a stunning to the nervous system that swiftly kills a cow as swiftly as it kills our guilt. But now, vegans, vegetarians, meat lovers and even global warming activists can look towards the future of growing beef in a lab using only a small sample of a cow to reproduce its meat (which is to soon be replaced all together).

The positive impacts will be enormous for a variety of stakeholders. First of all, less pressure will be placed on food and water sources to provide feeding the livestock as this demand will drop. Less pressure will be put on the healthcare system as traditional meat can lead to heart disease, diabetes and other forms of cancer . Next, the positive impact of less factory style farming and the health hazards that come with it will mean less strain on the economy to correct this imbalance. Next, water sources can be better utilised for growing in areas that are facing long term drought to grow food for human consumption rather than for livestock.

But wait? Doesn’t that mean the livestock will die off?

In actual fact, the livestock that is left can be used in a natural way, the only thing that will change is the demand for commercial meat trade that will be subsided by artificially grown beef. This links back into a reading by Eva Meijer, ‘Political Communication with Animals’ in 2013,that gives humans the opportunity to study these animals in a new light, as animals that can offer insight into their communication and interactions rather than meat that can be served either rather or well done.

References:

Bohanec, H (2014). ‘California’s Drought -Who’s Really Using all the Water?’. News. One Green Planet: Unleash your green monster. Accessed 17/04/2015. http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/californias-drought-whos-really-using-all-the-water/

June, Laura (2013). ‘Your meat addiction is destroying the planet: but we can fix it’. The Verge. Accessed 17/04/2015. http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/13/4605528/your-meat-addiction-is-destroying-the-planet-but-we-can-fix-it

Meijer, E (2013). ‘Political Communication with Animals’. A journal of human/animal interface studies. Volume 5, Number 1. Accessed 17/04/2015.

Probyn-Rapsey, F(2013). ‘Stunning Australia’. Humanimalia: A journal of human/animal interface studies. Volume 4, Number 2. Accessed 17/04/2015.

Schwartz, A (2015). ‘The $325,000 lab-grown hamburger now costs less than $12’. FastCoExist. Accessed 17/04/2015. http://www.fastcoexist.com/3044572/the-325000-lab-grown-hamburger-now-costs-less-than-12

Zaraska, M (2013). ‘Is lab-grown meat good for Us?’. Health. The Atlantic. Accessed 17/04/15. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/is-lab-grown-meat-good-for-us/278778/

 

Best Customer Experience

The product I bought and have continued to buy is a simple one. But it’s one that stands out as being a part of an overall experience that makes me continue to buy from them. I work at JB Hifi in town and on my lunch breaks from when I first started consisted of the usual Mc Donalds to KFC and the occasional sushi. But after a while I grew tired of the mundane routine and decided to try a well raved about but hardly known butchers/burger joint.

The place is called Bush’s meat and they honestly sell the best burgers I have ever tasted. What makes them special not only lies in the amazing taste, but also the passionate and friendly staff.

The staff is a mix of diehard professional culinary chefs and deeply passionate and skilled butchers who only settle for what they told me was ‘grade 5’ beef as appose to Coles and Woolworths whom sell grade 3 beef.

Each and every time I go there I am greeted by every member and engage in friendly banter and they always find time to engage in any topic that is never repetitive. That’s what is next level about this place is, they never leave it at “how’s your day? Oh that’s cool thanks for coming”. Even when they are in peak period around 11-2 they always make the customers feel welcome and lift the moods of each individual who buys from there. And it works, as a regular, I notice other regulars from anywhere that come back and that is always a positive sign. They always run out of pulled pork but make up for it by suggesting the best alternative.

Once I was walking to work at 8 am and one of the chefs called out to me on my way to work and asked if I had breakfast, I didn’t have any that morning which was great because they wanted to promote their ‘breaky’ menu. In knowing that I’m a regular, the chef gave me a meal that really should have been featured on Epic meal time. It was a combo of spicy chorizo sausage, egg, a secret tomato based relish with a spicy aioli sauce and chopped bacon. They gave it to me for free with the promise that I would spread the word, and here I am!

Over time I learnt that they are striving to achieve their vision of an intimate and wholesome restaurant experience with the finest food and the most passionate and talented staff. I rate their customer service, food and all round passion for their art higher than Grill’d. Meatery, Cha Cha and it’s for the same price as a ‘maccas’ meal. Overall I believe that they created customer loyalty through value creation especially through the amazing food and great service that helped in the decision making process.

bcm210: media text review

As oppose to RT News encoding and decoding of the message, The Guardians article can be seen to have three different views. The ‘preferred reading’ (Dr Yecies, 2014, Lecture 4) is intended to want the readers to understand that what Crimea is doing is illegal based on a variety of evidence and use of national and international laws. The “Negotiated Reading” (Dr Yecies, 2014, Lecture 4) would result with this audience only agreeing with the legality of the vote but would also question the legitimacy of past events that have similar ethical and legal concerns, namely mentioned, Kosovo. The ‘Opposed Reading’ (Dr Yecies, 2014, Lecture 4) would believe that the referendum was legal, agreeing with RT news and deny that Russia is at fault, blaming the current situation on Ukraine and its illegitimate government that rose to power not through democracy but through protest. The Rhetoric and Discourse (Dr Yecies, 2014, Lecture 4) encodes messages that intend to illustrate Russia as an abuser of International Law and a bully of neighboring Ukraine and Crimea. The audience, mainly being western-based nations would use these messages in the hopes that its audience would decode the intended meaning (Dr Yecies, 2014, Lecture 4).

Its done but its not the end.

Before this course, the term: “Globalisation” had a pretty straight forward and direct meaning relating to the transcending of national borders taking with it various benefits for society at large. But when I started it developed into different scapes that involved the media, culture and technology among others. But now, through the development of critical analysis I have learnt it is not one definitive concept. It is ever changing, ever developing and ever growing to cover and conceptualise new world problems, issues and progresses. It covers the ‘glocalisation’ and ‘cosmopolitanism’ cultures that interconnect with one another through each scape. This blog has helped me filter the information and concepts into my own critical analysis which connects to my reflection.

I use this time, towards the end of another year and another semester to reflect on the vast knowledge I have attained throughout this BCM 111 course. I used to have a lot of trouble writing for others, both online and offline but this subject has helped me find my blogging voice, connect and comment on others work online who are also in my BCM 111 degree and to find out what their passions are and to be amazed by their creative writing styles.

During the ‘Global and local selves in Hip Hop’ blog postings of week 4 I found a blogger whom rapped three verses detailing the readings and his thoughts in a rhythmic fashion which by far was the best blog post I have ever read. If I never knew about this subject before, his rap would have covered all of it for me to understand what It was that was being analysed.

Blogging is not only a great way to develop reader ship with those in my course but to also reflect on the severity of issues that affect people around us in their day to day lives. In my week 3 blog posting I reflected on the Internationalising of Education but found this topic to be a distressing issue for those whom are International students themselves. Before this week I didn’t know the hardships they faced and to my embarrassment I didn’t recall the attacks on the International students in 2009. This as well as various other problems faced by international students which I touched on in my blog post made me realise that I can as a student of a very International friendly community at UOW can help welcome each student and make their experience less daunting, scary and less isolated. Its topics like these that have helped me develop better as a person as well.

I found the course to rely heavily on class discussion which allowed me to gain others insights in my tutorials and using these insights to create a less one dimensional blog post and to gain ideas about different concepts and approaches to different international issues.

In the end this has been a wonderful and exciting experience and I hope to continue blogging in my future endeavours in the Bachelor of Communication Courses.