Myer

We were a bit sad today not because we are visiting Myer, but we struggles to believe this will be the last day of our study tour. Anyway, today we are visiting Myer, one of the biggest retail in Australia although retailing is not doing well in recent years.

Myer, as one of the biggest retailer in the Australia retailing industry, is a demonstration of how the retailing struggled to adapt its business to meet the changes in consumer's shopping pattern. To cope with the new age in retailing industry, Myer came up with a new communication model called - omni-channel which is essentially multi-channel retailing in marketing term. As the last company we visited in this study tour, Myer didn't leave us with much impression, since most of the topics had been covered over and over. Luckily, Myer has almost realised the digit trend and working hard to leverage such trend to gain a new growth of its sales.

Hate to admit it, but this is our last company visit and our last day in the study tour! We went Studley Park for a panic. We struggles to believe this is the last day of our study tour and we are going to back to normal university life! (oh no!)  Why can't all units be like the study tour :D.  In Studley Park I also had my first boat rowing and I had to say I'm pretty good at it, expect I am kinda of defenseless during the water fight because my hands were rowing. Anyway, it was a great way to finish off our trip. I tried not to be too sad because we will still catch up with each other!

What a rower!!!

                                           

My last smile before the water fight...

L'Oreal & Salmat

L’oreal

Today we are visiting L’oreal, which is one of the most successful companies in skin care and cosmetic industry. Although we did not spend a lot of time in the workplace visit, but we spent a lot of time on listening. We were also trying hard not being to excited about goodie bags but focus on the academic side of the company visits, however after taking a glance at the goodie bags beside us, I guaranteed this would be the most excited company visit for girls.

Lauren, a senior brand manager who was previously working at Garnier. She presented a very practice case study, the launch of a new product from Garnier. Garnier is a very successful brand in Australia, its products includes skin care, hair care, sun cream and body care. However, a good brand doesn’t guarantee a successful launch of new product. In this case, Garnier chose to extend its product to the deodorant market. With two major competitors who hold large percentage of the market share, Garnier requires a sophisticated marketing plan to launch its new product. It was quite surprising for me to know that, the marketing plan they had develop is like a high distinction assignment from amarketing unit, which proves that what we were learning in the university are quite up to date and still very relevant to the industry. Just like a high distinction assignment, the launch plan covered research, objective, 360-degree marketing communication plan, monitor and long term plan. It was great chance for us being able to hear from the person who actually implement the plan and inquire question about the practical aspect of the implementation process. 

Our four presenters from L’oreal is George, who is from the sale training team of L’oreal. He is the most incredible and charismatic presenter that I’ve seen in this entire study tour. He briefed us about the history of L’oreal and many luxury brands from L’oreal’s brand portfolio. Through the presentation, we can clearly feel how passionate he is about L’oreal and how proud he is being able to be part of it. His great presentation skill also got everyone is the room persuaded and become a cult of Lancôme.

Goodie bags! yeh!!!!

Salmat is the second last company visit we had in Melbourne. Sean and Thomas gave a presentation about how Salmat does its business and how it compete with other in the market. It was surprising for many of us knowing paper catalogue is still widely used in these day and still contribute a significant amount of sale promotion for many business. However, Salmat also suggest that growth of using online medias is growing faster and faster. As a communication solution providers, Salmat strives to provider better solution packages to its clients. There is no doubts that digital media is getting more popular and powerful, but it does mean the traditional ones are fading away! The reality suggests they can complement each other.

The Age & Western Bulldogs Football Club

First company visit in Melbourne and I started to miss my buffet breakfast that I used to have for the last seven days. Anyway, we are visiting the Age and 3AW today! The Age and 3AW had both been acquired by Fair Fax media and move to a six star energy efficient building next to Southern Cross Station. After the a quick tour of The Age and 3AW, the Age's management team gave us a presentation - a case study of the launching iPad App.  The news publishing industry is undergoing a very difficult time, some argues that the emerging social media and electronic devices will take over the traditional media - news print, or at least significantly weaken it. This can be seen, as Fair Fax media had acquired many medium sized media companies and tries to compete more effectively in its market.

Our next company visit, Western Bulldogs  football club. It's also a interesting company visit because it is very different to other and the chief commercial officer -Nick was once a Monash graduate! I figured it will be challenging job for him because there is a important aspect of marketing is outside the control of his hand - the product, that is the performance of the team. Despite a good implementation of marketing mix strategies, the performance of the football team plays a vital role in attracting more fans and converting those fans to club members!

The visit of Google & Shoes of Prey

Today we visited one of the most anticipated company in this trip - Google. As most of people know, Google's unique corporate culture and work environment are often referred as one of the best companies to work. In comparison to other companies that we had visited so far, Google is a technology driven company unlike many company which are driven by fulfilling the customer needs.  James from Google's marketing team gave up a presentation about the company background, Google's predictions of the future and how Google provides search marketing to clients. 

Google tries to be green...

After our lunch, we went to our last company visit in Sydney - shoes of pray. It was a amazing company visit. It  was quite inspiring for me to visit entrepreneurial company, because they are often enthusiastic and passionate about their company and their products.  Michael's marketing strategy for shoes of pray is to be the 'purple cow' among its competitors. In this sense, social media, YouTube and blog to share content and engage  with their customers.  Having my parents working close to the shoes manufacturing industry, I understood how difficult it is to manage mass customization production. A very sophisticated system is needed to ensure the effective and efficiency is the supply chain. It was also an awesome presentation about how Michael and his team, true entrepreneurs, tackle their marketing strategy and leverage the unique advantages of the online medium.

Lend Lease & DDB

Our first company visit in Sydney is Lend Lease, a very different company compare to other companies we've visit so far, because it is in a real estate industry which we don't usually study in marketing. It was surprising for us to know the company emphasize on the environmental sustainability of the building and tries to use it as a live example for its clients.

After the tour, the retailing division of Lend lease gave us the presentation. It was interesting to know that for Lend Lease's retail division, their business model is a bit similar to the media company such as Austeor we visited before, where they tried to understand the need of shopper in order to attract department stores and other store owner to become tenants of their shopping! In that sense, Lend Lease also use Facebook to create community for their shopping centers!

After visiting Lend Lease, our next visit is DDB. Although I don’t know much about this company before the visit, it was a interesting visit because we were given many real industry case study in the presentation.  I don’t mean to  mention about the content of the presentation because of the confidentiality agreement (first time of signing one as well haha!), but DDB seems to be a good place for marketing student from Monash!

Sunday off! Let's explore the city!

The bridge climb gave me a really a sleep night because I was so exhausted. However,  it also means I'm reading to have a energetic and awesome sunday in Sydney! First of all, the Food!  We decided to go to the Sydney Fish Market for lunch.  Sydney Fish Market is the largest seafood market in the Southern Hemisphere and second largest Seafood market in terms of variety outside of Japan. Without any doubts, the seafood in the Sydney Fish Market is super fresh! The oyster and scallop are our favourite, they are incredibly delicious!

Awesome Seafood!

                                 

Everyone looks happy after the delicious lunch  :D

After having our stomach well fed, we went to our next destination, one of the most famous landmark of Sydney - the Sydney Opera House!  Although I had been to the Sydney Operate House back in 2008 when I was still in High School, this time I'm here with new friends from different parts of the world. I had to say thanks to our beloved photographer - Bee, who took may awesome shots of us and helped us to capture the best moments of our trip in Sydney.

Did you see the bridge!? can you believe we were on top of that!?

This is definitely one of the best group picture, expect Katherine was looking for some alien spaceship..

later at night, we decided to go to Bondi beach as it will be the last free night for us in Sydney! However, the weather wasn't nice and we almost got stuck at Bondi because the rain was so heavy. It takes so long to get a taxi and the road was a bit flooded! Luckily, we went back to hotel safely!

Bondi beach.. a bit late though

You can tell how pleased I was with the food....

Amazing shot taken by Bee!  Look at the thunderstorm in the back!! lucky!!

We almost got stuck!!

Sydney Bridge climb

After having a difficult time to say Goodbye to our beloved Gold Coast, we move on to our next stop of our study - Sydney!  In comparison with Gold Coast and Melbourne, Sydney is such a bustling city. The traffic is way busier and the street is crowded with people! 


After a bit of rest, we are going to climb the Sydney Bridge!! First time for many of us, not to mention how excited we are. After about 45 minutes tutorial we finally started climbing, not as dangerous as it sounds. It is actually quite a safe climb which means we can spend more time on enjoy the great of the entire Sydney city! Such as shame we can't take picture of our own, but at least we got some good group ones!

We are ready to rock and roll!

Yeh!! I'm in love XD

We are on the top of the bridge! We made it! Alive!