Media Matters – SFU Business in the News – October 30
Nov 02, 2009
How SFU Business fared in the news for the week ending October 30, 2009.
National and World News
- National Post and Canwest News Service carried a feature on “shockvertising”, edgy, in-your-face ads that are sometimes quirky—but also sometimes truly shocking and offensive. The story quoted SFU marketing prof Lindsay Meredith: “If I throw you a really annoying ad, studies show you may remember my product but forget why you remember it. Marketers have essentially cut through the clutter by pissing you off.” But they can be overdone: “Edge may be the modus operandi of a potentially successful ad, but it’s also the modus operandi of a knife. Knives hurt if you get clumsy.” The story also ran in The Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times Colonist and Nanaimo Daily News.
- Meredith was also in a national Canadian Press story on a protest by the official supplier of bear-bells (yes, really) to the 2010 Winter Games. He’s protesting because one of the host First Nations for the games has unveiled a similar and competing item. Meredith: “Our Olympic friends are between a rock and a hard spot. I’m the first guy to say there’s a lot of money involved and somebody who pays that kind of money to be a sponsor deserves to have some right of protection and deserves to be treated as a partner in it.”
- The Economist (circulation 1.3 million a week) featured two SFU MBA grads who “have come up with an ingenious way of using the heat of the sun” to produce fresh water from seawater. “Ben Sparrow and Joshua Zoshi met at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, while completing their MBAs. Their company, Saltworks Technologies, has set up a test plant beside the sea in Vancouver and will open for business in November.”