Olivia Boon Tze Chuin's Blog: COMM101

Starbucks is about to get a whole lot stronger as it expands its customer segment to a healthier population.

With its recent announcement of Fruit Packs, Starbucks has decided to introduce a healthier option for food in their cafes. Amongst their 19,000 stores internationally, most of Starbucks’ profits come from their sale of drinks. After witnessing a decline in their packaged food sales, Starbucks has attempted to launch the line of Fruit Packs to help increase revenue from packaged goods. The Fruit Packs have little calories and provide for a healthy snack on the go, and are going to be produced by third party suppliers in order to reduce costs. With the Fruit Packs coming into place, Starbucks has also decided to let go of some of their other packaged goods, e.g. bread and more. This caters to the demands and lifestyles of consumers as most want to eat a sweet treat that is not going to produce adverse effects on their health.

The Fruit Packs will be priced at $2.50, will be relatively small, and will replace their current $2 packs that are less healthy than the new option. Starbucks will also hold promotions, where buying a coffee or a drink will allow customers to receive a half price on their fruit pack, in order to gauge interest and to assess its success with customers.

With such a move, Starbucks not only expands their target market, but also allows for them to yield higher profits, if the Fruit Packs scheme proves successful. In other news, Starbucks also raises the prices of their coffee to raise profits, as coffee bean prices fall.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100990171

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2013/10/28/walmart-turns-green-roofs-research-labs

The first thing we notice after watching this advert is the humor in it, how it was great and memorable, and how the idea was funny and original. However, due to the tricks of the trade video marketers have used these days, advertisements like that of the above really has more than what meets the eye.

Video advertisements nowadays are created to target the market of the product, to be memorable, and to essentially attract more customers. A lot of planning goes into video marketing, for example having to set a time it is shown (e.g. after school hours on television if the target market is children). This Pepsi ad was actually shown on late nights as it catered to adults who would stay up to watch television, who would very likely enjoy a Pepsi whilst doing so. The desired psychological effect a company wants to have on its customers must also be decided upon, and this ad creates the feeling that Pepsi allows us to feel connected to out spiritual roots, to enable us to achieve what we always wanted to be (e.g. the kid wanting to become an established monk and finally doing so when he had pepsi.) The setting also plays an important role, this ad looks like it could have played around Asia, Europe or America, but unlikely to have been played in Africa, for example.

Pepsi commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40DykbPa4Lc

In a post on Kelly Huijia Yang’s blog, Lululemon was supposedly supporting their new sheer nirvana yoga pants line that were incredibly see-through, as this was revealed when a couple of angry American customers wore underwear over the yoga pants to showcase this protest. However, the founder of Lululemon, Chip Wilson, supported these pants and allegedly claimed that these jealous women didn’t realize that “some women’s bodies just don’t actually work for it (the pants).”

Oh no he didn’t!

Customer relationships are a big part of a business scheme, and vital in making sure the business keeps a good reputation and maintains profit levels. Customer relationships do not only help these, but they also showcase the importance of making customers feel like they are valued and maintaining vital interaction between producer-consumer chains. Keeping customers at a good level will ensure brand loyalty and consistent demand. If Lululemon’s founder really made this statement, this would heavily impact the company in a similar fashion to that of Abercrombie and Fitch. abercrombie’s customers were angered when the founder/owner/CEO mentioned that the clothes and accessories they sell were simply not for “fat” people or people under a certain size.

Not only is this harmful to the company’s sustainable business future but it is also harmful to the self-esteem of many women out there. This not only impacts the business market but could also cause social disorder.

Social entrepreneurship is defined by Google Dictionary as “the process of pursuing suitable solutions to social problems, whilst adopting a mission to create and sustain social value.” Many entrepreneurs in third world nations have faced various financial problems when it comes to wanting to start up their own businesses – and as lenders around the world begin to lend a helping hand, eco-friendly business people in third world nations such as central Africa and Colombia are beginning to gain confidence in entering the international market.

Why do this? Lenders have been concerned about the employment issues in several parts of the world and came to the conclusion that if more entrepreneurs were able and willing to start their own businesses, employment rates will rise as the demand for human labor increases.

According to the ILO, in order to maintain today’s level of unemployment, 400 million new jobs must be created in the next decade or so – and the fact that unemployment in present day is already rising imposes a problem. If this problem is not treated soon, not only will current unemployment levels rise, this will also not allow for a sustainable future employment rate and will effect other parts of the economy, e.g. inflation.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/17/lender-targets-developing-nations-top-entrepreneurs/

Try to think about some advertisements you’ve seen today. DO you remember any of them?

Probably one, or two. The rest have just slipped your mind haven’t they?

Nowadays, businesses and organizations are coming up with the most outrageous, yet effective road advertizing schemes in order to attract consumers to their products. Imagine cruising down the road in a car to be faced with a huge billboard of a football pitch, and wait… are those players on the pitch moving? That’s right – in an Adidas ad in Asia, they hired TWO REAL MEN to look like they were playing football on the billboard itself! As crazy as that sounds, it is incredibly memorable – one of the key components a business MUST have in their campaigns.

Although the crazy ads are a great way to attract consumers to businesses, they are also costly and could be contradictory to some value propositions of business to improve prices for consumers by reducing costs of production.

This post has been a brief one but it was this internet article that made me feel the need to share this! Check it out below:

http://www.businessinsider.com/20-brilliant-marketing-campaigns-that-literally-stop-traffic-2010-12?op=1

“I just want to see a concert that will probably break my bank!”

The ever-famous One Direction boyband sold out its concert tickets this summer for a whopping average of $600 per ticket for some of their shows, but thankfully, in certain areas you are still able to see them for just $50. Why the big price gap between different venues? With teenage girls being the biggest part of their fanbase, One Direction surely must emphatize with the difficulty for girls aged 12-19 to come up with such money at such short notice. But with the small portion of their decently priced tickets selling at such a fast rate (sometimes in under 5 minutes), the boyband and their management team sure are clever in knowing how to generate the $$$$$

The truth is, most of the One Direction fans are willing to pay for a pricier ticket to avoid having terrible seats that only allowed them to witness 5 singing ants on a tiny excuse of a stage. Therefore, taking this advantage, the fact that cheap tickets are limited has allowed this element of an increase in price to work in their favor. This is an act of price discrimination, which means setting a different set of prices for different market segments. In this case the market segments represented are those who buy the tickets at the early bird rate and those who don’t. Price discrimination happens all around the world, but recently with demand for a certain good increasing rapidly, managers of boy bands such as One Direction are beginning to cleverly take this into their advantage. The tickets for some magical reason all get sold out too – which means that although the price is set so high, the demand for it is still there, so it is a win-win situation.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jesselawrence/2013/06/29/one-direction-tops-list-of-most-expensive-summer-concert-tickets/

This is a list of the most expensive concerts. Also from the website above.

Most Expensive Tours

‘image One-Direction.jpg

Boom, gone? In recent years, the South East Asian economy has been booming with active activity with a healthy trade balance – import export ratio. However, a good demand for exports from the ASEAN economy was what mainly held this growth together. As demand for exports begin to decrease, the economy could face a crisis, or a downturn.

Countries such as Malaysia have been affected, with the total trade surplus falling to a low, nearly as close as the last economic crisis in 1997. As a Malaysian, I would hope that the economy gets back on track in order to sustain a better future for my generation, with good prospects and opportunities. With the downturn of the economy, this could have an adverse effect on the children of our generation from various ASEAN nations. Even China, at its brightest, is beginning to experience a slower economy, and along with this the EU is still under bad recession.

Household debts overall have been increasing in South East Asia too, which also impacts greatly on our generation – the ones who will have to fix it. Now we can only sit back and hope that with good policies, the economy will be restored to its best.

http://www.ibtimes.com/southeast-asia-fast-growing-region-may-face-economic-crisis-demand-exports-slumps-1303569

The iPhone 5S was released a week ago, to be debuted with the new “TouchID” scanner. This means that really, there is only one big outlook improvement from it’s predecessor, the iPhone 5, but at a higher price. Why then, are consumers still raving for the latest Apple phone? How did Apple still manage to raise its sales, improve its marketing and attract customers?

1. With the introduction of a new plastic model of the iPhone 5(C), Apple is opening a direct competition with its rival, Samsung, whose newest innovations are also built of plastic. The 5C also brings in a variety of colors for consumers to choose from, meaning that iPhone was no longer just “black/white” dull. It is now colorful, pretty, and appeals to the fashion conscious, or those that simply just cannot stop dropping their phones!
2. Latest iChip: the latest iChip offers even BETTER graphics for gaming and video purposes. Also, due to complaints about the chip in the previous phones being slow, users are attracted to the new software in the 5S in order to have their phones run at better speeds (for loading PDF files, etc.) Apple caters to the business market here as well as gamers.
3. Easy-to-use features: The new iOS 7 software competes very much with the famous Android soft ware. This is because they look very similar, have large icons, colors, fonts and are generally very easy to use for people of all ages.
4. Future-proof feature: Apple has created an iPhone that encompasses many advanced technologies – one that people would be proud to say they own, as it is so advanced that every other company hasn’t come out with the fancy finger print recognition or colorful yet powerful phones. This allows both the function/fashion minded customers to like and want to purchase the iPhone 5S.

In conclusion, Apple has striked again with it’s brilliant marketing structure and scheme. It is only a matter of time before I swap out my existing one for one of their advanced models. (Even though its a little bit over the budget! – Oh the beauty of marketing!)

http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-iphone-5s-release-5-reasons-why-its-worth-price-upgrade-1415386

If you were interested in learning about Apple’s quick paced product campaign over the years, check out this video from the IBTIMES site: (I may or may not be blogging about this soon! *but this video gives away all the spoilers) 🙂

http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-iphone-six-years-stunningly-successful-advertising-campaign-video-1414562

Photo source: iphone5sb.jpg

Snapchat is an ever-popular photo messaging app that appeals to teenagers of modern day. The beauty of Snapchat is that the photo messages users send to one another can only be shown for ten seconds maximum, and then is supposedly deleted forever.

But is this all just a marketing scam that doesn’t really prove to be true? A recent ethical issue raised associated to Snapchat is that the app, and the company, isn’t necessarily deleting these photos ‘forever’. Somewhere, a third party company has discovered that it is indeed possible to recover these Snapchat photo messages, and offers this service at an affordable price. This has proceeded to demonstrate and leak news that Snapchat is being used as a teenage hub for “sexting” which, on its own, is controversial enough. This has concerned parents all around the world and other users of Snapchat that aren’t using the app for such a purpose.

Other ethical issues that have arised from Snapchat include the fact that cyber stalkers could easily retrieve these photos and post them up on the internet for the entire population of the world to see. This has also made consumers angry, because they were guaranteed a ‘deleted forever’ condition for their photo messages over Snapchat. Parents of those involved in ‘Snapchat sexting’ scandals from various parts of the world are beginning to question the reliability and purpose of Snapchat.

Currently, Snapchat has not given back to the media on the situation at hand and the actions they would do to prevent their photos from being leaked again.

http://www.talentzoo.com/digital-pivot/blog_news.php?articleID=17483