Month: October 2010

In early 2009, Frito-Lay introduced a revolutionary sustainable packaging for SunChips made with 100% biodegradable material. The catch? The new packaging produces sharp crackling noises unlike traditional packagings. The noise of Sun Chips’ packaging appears to be a reasonable sacrifice for consumers if the bag is completely environmentally friendly.

Maybe not.

Earlier this month, Frito-Lay has annnounced a recall of their biodegradable packaging as they receive numerous consumer complaints for the bags being too noisy. Although Frito-Lay has began a plausible and sustainable initiative, not enough consumers were buying it – figuratively and literally. Since the new packaging of SunChips hit the shelves last year, sales have been on a steady decline. I was extremely surprised to find that today’s consumers are often overestimated to be “green”. Personally, I believe that the biggest reason behind the unsuccessful campaign of biodegradable bags is Frito-Lay’s overforecast of the proportion of green consumers amongst all its SunChips-loving fans. As clearly shown by the large amount of complaints, among all SunChips consumers, the winning mass, unfortunately, is more concerned with noise than sustainability.

Consequently, Frito-Lay’s corporate responsibility to invoke sustainability amongst its consumers is an intelligent strategy because Frito-Lay understand that sustainability is a positive value preposition for any business. However, noisy biodegradable bags may not be the right solution for now as a large portion of consumers have yet to be “green”. Thus, Frito-Lay should continue to  push for its sustainable values while satisfying the other non-green consumers by improving earth-friendly packaging with hopefully, less “noise” – from the packaging and the consumers.

Sources:

Yahoo! News

Wall Street Journal

GAP, an established fashion retail store since 1969, has stealthily changed its iconic blue box to a  a smaller blue exo-box to the right as its logo. GAP’s change of logo reveals its new strategy to change its market positioning from a preppy American image to a modern and sleeker look. On the web, consumers negatively criticized GAP’s stupidity to ruin its classic and iconic brand identity that took it twenty years to build.

Has GAP taken a wrong turn at the fork in the road?

Rebranding is a business strategy in which GAP hopes will resolve its dropping share price and falling sales. Thus, GAP plans on opening a new market of consumers who are in search of more contemporary styles. Unfortunately, GAP has underestimated the power of H&M and ZARA who has strongly positioned themselves in the “modern, sexy and chic” sector of the retail industry. I believe that GAP has taken a wrong strategy because its original reputation of American heritage is suddenly lost as the new logo leaves faithful consumers confused and outraged at GAP’s decision to change without consulting or notifying their opinions.   Now that GAP has repositioned itself in a new territory of the retail industry, GAP may risk losing its current fans while failing to capture the target market.

Through the change of their logo, GAP has abandoned its puzzled customers in the dust by venturing into a different and risky direction whereby consumers are unwilling to follow. From the massive stir of discontent from consumers on the Internet, GAP’s path of choice at the fork in the road will inevitably be a rocky journey.

Sources:

Yahoo! News

CNN Money

Since its launch in 2006, (RED) has collaborated with numerous iconic brands, including Apple, GAP, Nike and even Starbucks. Businesses collaborate with (RED) to produce unique products that give a portion of the profits to invest in Global Fund for HIV and AIDS programs in Africa. 

In the business perspective, having a positive initiative tied to their names gives them a point-of-difference because modern consumers recognize socially responsible businesses. According to Freeman, businesses can only strive to prosper if they take other affected groups in account rather than focusing solely on making profits. Consumers are the ultimate determinants of the future of corporations. By having the ability to address the concerns of conscientious consumers, businesses have competitive advantage in the market.

When Starbucks partnered with (RED) for the holiday season in 2008, my frequentation to this coffee chain increased dramatically, not because of the limited-time holiday beverages, but because I respected Starbucks’ initiative as a global citizen. I drank more coffee and even bought Starbucks (RED) products as Christmas presents because I know I am making a difference with each purchase. Through the collaboration of Starbucks and product (RED), consumers like myself are more likely to support the business because as Susan Smith Ellis, the CEO of (RED) said, “consumers have a chance to do something good every day”.

Businesses that are socially responsible and committed to the community have improving profits and consumer support to mark their smart decision.

Starbucks is no exception.

Sources:

Starbucks Newsroom

Starbucks (RED)

Today, Philipino’s Cebu Pacific Airlines made headlines as their flight attendants danced to Lady Gaga’s music while demonstrating standard safety instructions to passengers airborne. According to Cebu, they claim to be “the leader in low fares but also in innovation and creativity!“.

In my opinion, Cebu has definitely taken a step ahead of other low airfare airlines because it has emerged with a new point-of-difference: exciting inflight safety demonstrations.  Within hours of the posting of the clip by an inflight passenger, the video of Cebu’s dancing flight attendants became an instant hit on Youtube. Cebu is extremely clever in that they did not need to spend on millions of dollars advertising their cheap airfares through advertisements, all they needed was amused and satisfied passengers to advertise for them on expansive social networks like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. 

Although Cebu has successfully made an unforgettable impression for internet surfers, the provocative dance was rather unethical as Cebu has estabished a new standard and expectation for all flight attendants to be sexy and attractive. Interestingly, all Cebu flight attendants are now expected to do more than just serving coffee and tea. In short, Cebu has definitely stood out but they have also turned their flight attendants into trivial dancers with the impression of taking airline safety far too lightly.

Sources:

Daily Mail UK

Huffington Post