According toTomažič, T. 2017“Mass media have never in their history had such a strong impact as they have right now, mainly due to the emergence of new technologies” by that the importance of social media in marketing is extended from the evolution of technology traditional marketing is not as powerful as before. Successful Companies are the one that were able to adopt the latest marketing tools and systems. Moreover, the guest speaker of this week talked about social media in virgin mobile company and in the overall businesses.

Nadiyah al Mutiri is one of the digital marketing students graduated from Dublin city university program at Princes Nora University. Nadiyah did her co-op in virgin mobile company located in Riyadh, virgin mobile is a telecommunication company. However, the company audience often get confused between virgin mobile and the virgin mega store. And by that the company finds itself always redefining their products and overall identity. The company targets youth and this is one reason why Nadiyah stood out in the digital communication department even though she worked on every department of the company as a test of her abilities and skills but in the end the digital communication department was the most suitable.

What are social media and why it is important in marketing

Social media defined by Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, p. 61 is “a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technical foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content” these internet-based applications can be blogs, websites pages, visuals or even sounds they are designed to receive and share content through wide network. However, the importance of social media in marketing was stated by Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004, Nambisan and Baron, 2007) Social media have inexorably changed how consumers and marketers communicate, consumers use social media to find information about desired products with the best prices. Moreover, “Social media gives consumers a voice, and allows them to interact and share their experiences with any person anywhere in the world “. (Kozinets et al., 2010,Ahmed Rageh Ismail, 2017). This indicates that social media is not only important for the company alone but it is also beneficial for the consumer of a product or a service. In way where they can know more about the company offers and share the bad and good experiences. This is useful for the brand awareness where the sharing of experiences is a technological word of mouth marketing. Which is way better than the traditional WOM- marketing this is due to the broad range of social media users.

 

The best social media tools for the virgin mobile brand and how it is a part of the company marketing strategy.

As explained before social media is the core competencies for any business that aims to sustain in the current competitive markets. However, some platforms are more important and more useful than others. This depends on what is the type of customer the company wants to reach and on what are the provided products or services are. Moreover, Nadiyah defined the virgin mobile personality as simple, straight forward and youthful. Moreover, the brand identity must be defined in order to fully reach the customers and engage with them. Additionally, defining the target audience is equally as important as the brand identity. Virgin mobile target market are the millennialswhich are the individuals between 18 to 35 years old form both genders. And by that the chosen social media platform used by the company were: Twitter, Factbook, YouTube and Instagram which are smart choices depending on the target market and the personality of the brand. However, the company measures the effectiveness of each platform by analyzing the engagement on these platforms. And by that the company knows where to locate their social media efforts.

Opinions

“When we talk about brand differentiation, we find that marketing is focused increasingly on the consumer, Social media are a key communication platform for consumer as well as business”(Lockshin & Corsi, 2012. Tomažič, T. 2017). By thatsocial media marketing is a must for any business that wants to fully reach their consumers and grow the business.

 

Insights

Technology have changed the business world in many ways from the way we purchase the product or service to where we find it, businesses must take advantage of this evolution and expand their customer database and overall businesses. Moreover, social media are important tools to gain customer insights in the best and easiest way.

To summaries, in this technological era traditional marketing is not effective alone yet, it should be connected to digital marketing. One simple way of doing it is social media marketing. But this type of marketing is very risky hence, not everything can be posted and definitely not in anytime.

 

Reference

 

Ahmed Rageh Ismail, (2017) “The influence of perceived social media marketing activities on brand loyalty: The mediation effect of brand and value consciousness”, Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 29 Issue: 1, pp.129-144, https://doi.org/10.1108/APJML-10-2015-0154 Permanent link to this document:
https://doi.org/10.1108/APJML-10-2015-0154

 

Hennig-Thurau, T., Kevin, P.G., Walsh, G. and Gremler, D.D. (2004), “Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer opinion platforms: what motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the internet?”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 38-52.

 

Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M. (2010), “Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media”, Business Horizons, Vol. 53 No. 1, pp. 59-68.

 

Lockshin, L. & Crosi, A. M (2012) consumer behavior for wine 2.0: A review since 2003 and future directions, Wine Economics and policy, 1(1), pp.2-23.

Nambisan, S. and Baron, R.A. (2007), “Interactions in virtual customer environments: implications for product support and customer relationship management”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 42-61.

 

Tomažič, T. 2017, “The Importance of Social Media from the Wine Marketing Perspective”, Lex Localis, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 827-844.

 

 

 

 

 

The Forth Industrial Revolution and Digitization

 

There are four main industrial revolution the first one happened as a result of the discovery of steam engine, the second was the mass production, then the technology era, and finally the current revolution is the digitalization. Said by the first guest speaker, Reef Al-Awwad the forth revolution changed this generation world in many aspects. For instance, how this era witnessed the fall of big companies and the rise of new ones for example, how Uber new concept of transportation disrupted the taxi industry. Reef Al-Awwad is a business strategy manager at Accenture which is a major global consulting company with more than 500,000 employees working in over 200 cities. Reef worked on digital strategies for governments across the region, to see how these governments can implement technology in the government sector. With the aim to gain economic outcome, as well as using technology and innovation to provide better services for their citizen.

How the digital trends are changing the life we know

The way people use technology has evolved, business started to differentiate their services from the competition by better utilizing the data. The digitalization concept in the transaction processes in certain sectors raised the expectation the citizens have toward the government’s services. However, the industrial revolution 4.0 made the human lifestyle easier and faster where is everything connected to technology. For instance, how the Internet of things (IoT) took over the world “(IoT) is to make pervasive presence of things around us communicate with each other to achieve common goals. The major features of IoT are the integration of various identification and tracking technologies, such as wired and wireless sensors and actuator networks, enhanced communication protocols, and distributed intelligence for smart objects” (Atzori et al., 2010). Smart houses are one example of how Artificial Intelligence is related to the Internet of Things (AI) is a technology that has been used to simulate the thinking and behaving process (such as studying, reasoning, thinking and planning) of human beings (Pfeifer and Scheier, 2001). Hence, the effectiveness of the Internet of Things deeply relies on the Artificial Intelligence.

 

Trends in the Saudi governments system

However, Al-Awwad explained how this digital era is shifting the governance system specifically in the Saudi Arabia government. With the implementation of 2030 vision “the concept of electronic government (e-government) has emerged over recent years, with this being one of the sectors that is attempting to provide services via the internet. E-government utilizes information and communication technology (ICT) to deliver government services via the internet” (Majid Al-Ruithe, Elhadj Benkhelifa, 2018). Absher system is one example of how Saudi Arabia government is taking advantage of this digital era, the system delivers e-services related to passports, traffic, and civil affair.

The economic impact of the current industrial revolution

The second guest speaker Jack Molony is a consultant at payment services company, one of the Irish business men. Jack discussed the economic impact of the forth industrial revolution and how the past three revolutions led to this 4.0 industrial revolution. Moreover, how the digitization concept changed the transaction process especially in the payment methods from monetary and Payable to the cryptocurrency (bitcoins) or the virtual currency. However, depending on the economist’s insight of the market design Bitcoins have the potential to disrupt existing payment systems (Rainer Böhme, Nicolas Christin, Benjamin Edelman and Tyler Moore, 2015).

The following chart illustrates the growing market of the cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) from 2013 to 2018

(Bitcoin Market Cap, 2018)

Jack discussed the impact of the forth industrial revolution on the economy in terms of how the spectacular technological development is threatening the future of the human jobs. Everything is automated no need for human intervention Particularly with the new inventions of robots.

 

 

Opinions

 

As indicated the e-government is remarkable trend in providing better services and experiences to the citizens but it can get very challenging for countries to adopted it due to size of their computational data. Consequently, in order to improve e-government efficiency and user satisfaction, government organizations need to find ways to deliver their services to citizens as economically as possible without compromising the achievement of desired outcomes. Hence, cloud computing can be a suitable model in the implementation of e-government architectures (Majed Al-Ruithe, Elhadj Benkhelifa, 2018). In addition to the economical impact of this trend Jack Molony considered the (AI) as a threat on the future of human’s jobs. However, researchers have four different points of view 1- The Optimists: who saw the raise in (AI) presence as a better life index, where human are able to enjoy easy fast long life with no complex jobs stress. 2-The Pessimists:Perspective of the (AI) that it is a major threat on the human survival, they believe that the machines will have the higher power. 3- The pragmatists way of thinking is that (AI) is beneficial for the humanity under specific regulations. 4- The doubters: never believed of the future of (AI) hence, they do not consider it as a threat on humanity. (Professor Spyros Makridakis,2017)

 

 

Insights

The driver of the forth industrial revolution is the digital technology, making the whole world digitally connected this technology is showing in four aspects: artificial intelligence and machine learning, the Internet of Things, big data and cloud computing, and digital platform. (Schwab, 2016). Countries who adopt the latest trends for their citizens will provide better experiences and services for them hence, will increase the economic growth for their countries.

 

Conclusion

 This era is the age of digitization, where individuals, organizations, and governments are all changing toward digital technology in a dynamic economy. This revolution excluded anyone who did not follow these trends.

 

 

References:

 

Atzori L, Iera A, Morabito G, 2010. The internet of things: a survey. Computer networks, 54(15): 2787–2805. doi: 10.1016/j. comnet.2010.05.010

Pfeifer R, Scheier C, 2001. Understanding Intelligence. Cam-in the era of Industrial 4.0 and the Industrial Internet.Journal of Stimulation, 10(4): 310–320. doi: 10.1057/s41273- 016-0037-6

10. Al-Ruithe, E. Benkhelifa, Determining the enabling factors for implementing cloud data governance in the Saudi public sector by structural equation modelling, Future Generation Computer Systems(2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2017.12.057.

The Ministry of Interior, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Absher systemAccessed at: 7/11/2018 Online https://www.moi.gov.sa/wps/portal/Home/Home/!ut/p/z1/04_iUlDgAgP9CCATyEEmKOboR-UllmWmJ5Zk5ucl5uhH6EdGmcVbBro7e3iYGHm7GzqaGTh6mhv5G3iaGrp7Gul76UfhVxCcmqdfkB2oCABPX762/

Rainer Böhme, Nicolas Christin, Benjamin Edelman and Tyler Moore, 2015. Bitcoin: Economics, Technology, and Governance Journal of Economic Perspective,—Vol. 29, Nu.2, P.213-23.

Bitcoin (BTC) price, charts, market cap, and other Metrix. Coinmarketcap.com. Accessed at: 7/11/2018 Online https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#charts

 

Professor Spyros Makridakis, 2017. the forthcoming Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution: Its impact on society and firms. Director Institute For the Future Vol, 90. P,46-53.

Le Guoping, Hou Yun, Wu Aizhi, 2017. Fourth Industrial Revolution: technological drivers, impacts and coping methods. Chinese Geographical Science, 27(4):626-637. Doi: 10.1007/s11769-01700890-x

The entrepreneurial aspects in Funko company 

  

 

(Making Fun the story of Funko 2018)

Funko started as a small toy company with licensed pop culture toys. Who later on changed the whole game in this Industry, Mike Becker the funder of the company managed to turn his passion into a Successful business. This article will inspect the entrepreneurship aspects of the Funko Company, The concept of the entrepreneurship hence, whom an entrepreneur is depending on different points of view. What is creativity and is there any possible relationship between creativity and entrepreneurship.

 

Joseph Aloe Schumpeter definition of The Theory of Entrepreneurship

 

The concept of entrepreneurship depend heavily on the point of view, Joseph Aloes Schumpeter an economist professor at Harvard University defined the entrepreneurship term twice the first was that a person is an entrepreneur when he is a risk taker who is willing to challenge the uncertain circumstances of the business environment.

Joseph Schumpeter considers an individual entrepreneur when these characteristics are available: passion in what he does, the courage to take risks, and competitiveness. However, entrepreneurship is a broad, wide concept depending on how it viewed as illustrated in Schumpeter later definition: entrepreneurship relies deeply on innovation and a group of people or a corporate are considered entrepreneurs.

 

What is creativity and is there a relationship between creativity and entrepreneurship?

 

On the same matter as entrepreneurship, creativity is wide concept with different ways of definition perhaps the best way to define it is “creativity as the capacity to produce novel or original work that fits with task constraints” (Lubart 1994) hence, creativity is a process of generating novel ideas yet appropriate to the given framework. Funko Company illuminates the importance of creativity in reaching large segments of customers from young toys collectors to boxing champions.

 

Where all of this leaves entrepreneurship?

 

Initial understanding of entrepreneurship was the capability to take the risk in the uncertain competitive environment, this idea developed over the years to include innovation, originality as well as agility to change, However, the key question here is there any connection between creativity and entrepreneurship.?

The answer is yes; in fact, creativity and innovation both are inseparable parts of entrepreneurship it is required to have entrepreneur skills such as risk-taking to implement creative ideas in an uncertain changeable business environment with taking into consideration driving profits to the organization.

 

Who is the entrepreneur in the Funko Company and why?

As illustrated, there is a wide range of entrepreneurship definitions it only depends on which manner it was viewed however, there are a specific personality trait and qualities of entrepreneurs. They are individuals who have the ability to turn their ideas to a real competitive business, they take the risk to win it all or nothing, hence an entrepreneur executes creativity in order to create profitability and able to increase their success under uncertain conditions. In this case, the entrepreneur was Brian Mariotti the CEO of the Funko Company, Brian bought the company from his friend and funder of Funko Mike and managed to create a whole world for the company or as they call it “The Planet of Fun”, the company blossomed in his era. from low-tech products to big deals with the largest companies in the industry such as Marvel.

Brain managed to globalize Funko toy Company by his great entrepreneurship skills as well as implementing creativity in everything he does, thus seize new opportunity to develop the firm and enhance the company position in the market. Brain is a powerful example on how entrepreneurship skills can raise or fail the firm’s success, as shown in the “Making Fun the Story of Funko ” documentary on Netflix entrepreneurship and creativity result happy loyal customer that will allow any firm to grow.

 

What all of this had taught us about entrepreneurship in Funko Company?

 

An entrepreneur leader or a firm is the core of business success, in many ways such as increasing the customers base along with strengthening its competitiveness in the marketplace,

Funko CEO Brain embodied how entrepreneurship is an essential part of any company survival in the marketplace he was able to create a complete world for the Funko fans dream place for the toy collectors from all different ages, career paths and characters they all agreed on one thing, loving and supporting FUN-ko.

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

 

Śledzik, Karol. (2013). Schumpeter’s View on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. SSRN Electronic Journal.(online) Available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256060978_Schumpeter’s_View_on_Innovation_and_Entrepreneurship  (Accessed: 19/10/18)

Mattews, Judy H. (2007) Creativity and Entrepreneurship: Potential Partners or Distant Cousins? In Chapman, Ross (Ed.) Managing Our Intellectual and Social Capital: 21st ANZAM 2007 Conference, 4 – 7 December, Sydney, Australia.

The Role of Creativity in Entrepreneurship. Journal of Enterprising Culture (JEC). 18. 49-81. 10.1142/S0218495810000501. (Online) Available at:  https://eprints.qut.edu.au/11214 / (Accessed: 19/10/18)  

About Funku. Funko news Available at https://www.funko.com/about-us/news  (Accessed: 19/10/18)