Packaging is a major factor of marketing mix and it plays an important role while customers make decisions. Especially for chocolate bars 🙂

Cadbury, UK’s top chocolate company was founded almost 200 years ago and it uses a purple color for packaging for about 100 years. The eye catching purple color is a big component of Cadbury’s brand identity, since customers link the color purple directly to Cadbury products. This is why, Cadbury trademarked the purple color in 2008 and by doing this it prevented Nestle or any other companies to use that purple color for their packaging. However, Nestle appealed against the trademarking of purple and the ruling last year. It took a year for the court to make the decision. Last week Nestle won the appeal. Now, not only Nestle but any competitor company can use Cadbury’s purple for wrapping their products.

This is a fail for Cadbury, however it has been more than a hundred years that they use that color for every single chocolate they produce. Personally, I believe that it does not matter if other companies use that bright purple color. Many people will still know that bright purple color is Cadbury’s color.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24401249

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-04/cadbury-s-purple-reign-ended-by-u-k-court-in-nestle-appeal.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/9579930/Cadbury-defeats-Nestle-in-battle-for-purple-wrapper.html

On May 28, 2013 a big protest started in Istanbul after the government decided to destroy one of the biggest parks in the city, Gezi Park for urban development. Thousands of people reacted in tens of cities, not just because the government will cut the trees of Gezi Park and damage the nature but also because the democracy in the country is in danger and the government keeps forcing people to accept its decisions without any objections. After people start protesting for their rights the police attacked them with tear gas and rubber bullets. Many people got injured, many people died and most importantly the international media showed every second of the protests.

Tourism’s a major factor of income in Turkey. Istanbul hosts approximately 12 millions of tourists each year. However since Gezi Park is located in a highly touristic place, during the protests tourists were also under the attack of police. Therefore the number of tourists visiting Istanbul decreased dramatically in last 5 months. Many tourists cancelled their reservations. This cost 55 million euros to hotels in Istanbul. There is no significant change in politics after the protests. People still protest from time to time and apparently the tourism sector will get smaller.

Sources:

The Gezi Park Protests and the Future of Turkish Politics: An Interview with Seyla Benhabib

http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/tourism/2013/06/21/Turkey-Gezi-Park-protests-cost-55-million-euros-hotels_8905647.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23795857

$400 for headphones? Yes! We’re talking about Beats by Dr. Dre. Today we see those headphones everywhere but how did they become so popular? Beats electronics is actually a very young company which is founded in 2006 and with a rapid growth it became a mainstream brand. By selling around 15-20 millions of products each year, now the company’s market share in U.S. is 60%. Also it is expected that the company is going to hit 1.4B dollars of revenue by the end of this year. A common thought is their products are overpriced, however by their business strategy with the support of many celebrities they manage to sell more and more. As a customer of Beats headphones, I think that the designs of Beats headphones are very simple but also classy. Especially the quality of the sound is amazing. HTC Corporation, a well known company that produces smart handheld devices, started to work with Beats and produce cell phones with Beats in order to improve its reputation. Last month Beats ended its partnership with HTC and bought its 25% stake back. Beats is now preparing to buy one of its biggest old partners, HTC mobile. Now people are curious. What will be the consequences of this purchase?

Sources:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3015051/major-beats-beats-electronics-may-be-on-track-to-hit-14b-in-2013-revenue

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/27/4776318/beats-ends-htc-partnership-buys-back-stake

http://www.fastcompany.com/3015937/fast-feed/dr-dres-beats-may-buy-out-its-unhappy-htc-partner

http://www.beatsbydre.com/aboutus