Month: February 2011

A few days ago, I made up my find spending $600 on the Ipad before my friend told me Apple is launching Ipad 2 in a month.  Should I wait?  The question is, there is always going to be Ipad 3, Ipad 4… and many people don’t have the luxury to keep up with the updates.

After learning about the Diffusion of Innovation, I asked myself, “Is Ipad considered to be in its Innovators Stage, Early Adopters Stage, or Early Majority Stage?”  Even though many Apple’s competitors also carry touch-screen tablets at a lower cost and Apple is profiting from a larger group of buyers, the consumers still take a lot of risk since a large amount of consumers purchase the Ipad when it first came out.  Also, every new apple product comes with a new technology that has never been tested in its market, therefore large group of consumers still purchase the product regardless of the risks.

With Apple’s successful marketing strategy, Apple is able to quickly diffuse its products through the diffusion curve, thus time of adopting of the innovation can be neglected.  Apple has established itself as a majority, but also innovators who are able to encourage many consumers to try their new products.

A few days ago I decided to stock up some pop for my party this weekend and I couldn’t believe I had a problem deciding what kinds of Cola to buy.  Isn’t that ridiculous?  When I order a meal from a fast food restaurant, I only had to choose between diet coke and regular coke!  It wasn’t until I stood infront of the Cola shelf at Safeway till I realize there are so many different types of Colas! I asked myself, “Why do some many people buy Coca-Cola and why is it so addicting?”

Other than the irreplaceable taste, its segmentation ,targeting , and position strategy explain how the company is so successful.

Coca-Cola uses a  differentiated segmentation strategy, a strategy through which the firm targets several market segments with a different offering for each.   An example would be the Coke Diet, which is targeted towards individuals want to consume a suger-free drink while still having the taste of a Coke.   For Coca-Cola Zero, the product is targeted towards Women who want to keep fit and remain on a calorie-low diet while still being able to drink Coke.  Although these 2 products are pretty similar, the company tried to avoid too much overlapping between sements to meet segment member’s needs.

Also, the company uses symbols such as polar bears as a positioning tool.  Therefore the brand is distinquishable from its competitors.

With successful segmenting, targeting, positioning strategies, there is no doubt Coca Cola comes to the top from its competitors.  Consumers can drink the Coke best suited for him or her and addicted to this well established brand.

Recently I was looking around to buy a new mouse to replace my old Logitech G9, a high-end gaming mouse with multiple DPI and weight adjustments.  Although already knowing a lot about eletronics and the most recent technologies, I have came across Annie’s blog https://blogs.ubc.ca/annecheng/2011/02/03/catching-up-with-technology/ , and she gave me insights into making post-purchasing decisions.

She mentions how “If technology is increasing at this rapid pace, does that mean that the products in Razar’s BCG Matrix are moving around it at a similar pace?”  Applying this concept to consumption behaviour, a company can develeop a product in a pace related to the demand in the market.  Logitech, a competitor of Razar, has successfully maximized the firm’s profitability by putting more or less money into marketing a specific product.

Logitech offers different mice for different purposes and consumers can purchase the one that is best suited to his or her needs.  Such as the G-series for gaming purposes and the M-series for daily comfort usage.  However, Logitech does not launch new products under these categories annually but only chooses to focus on a specific series from time to time.  Even though Logitech is well known for its gaming mice, the G-series mice do not always remain as “stars” (high market growth and high relative share), due to a higher demand for comfort usage consumers, there would be a high market growth for this category thus a gaining a higher relative share.  Therefore it makes sense how Logitech markets a different series every year accordingly to the market demand.