This is a reflection blog to Pamela. S, which is the following link below:

http://www.ipost.com/blog/fashion-marketing/the-math-of-marketing-womens-plus-size-clothing-there-is-no-absolute/

According to Pamela, the clothing companies should have more larger sizes to increase sales and cater to more potential consumers. For some fashion brands who do not have sizes bigger than 10 made people feel discriminated and disrespectful. I tend to agree with her at this point. However, I think this specific marketing strategy is more than catering people. It is the perception of the public that brought up the conflict.

For example, when an American fashion brand plans to enter the Asian market, introducing more small sizes would be an important strategy as Asian girls tend to be more petite than North American girls. However, people would not usually say it is a discrimination if they do not have smaller sizes. The reason behind this is that the global trend of a beautiful and healthy body shape is slimmer and thinner. Consumers who are petite do not feel themselves inferior in the first place.

To the perspective of the clothing companies, instead of just producing the same clothes from size 0 to 20 blindly, they have to think more about the psychological needs from different groups of consumers. Of course, they have to take consumers’ feeling into consideration and show their respect. However, solely embracing larger size cannot be the panacea. I suggest that clothing companies should have two lines of design, one for petite figure girls and one for plump figure girls. Each design should make all their efforts to express the beauty of each type of figure. This would be a better way to increase the confidence of girls who wear larger sizes and develop a new trend if possible.

Image source: Editorial.designtaxi.com

This is a reflection post to Katherine Cui’s blog:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/katherinecui/2013/10/08/celebritys-appeal-in-todays-market/

Katherine proposed a argument in her blog that the celebrity endorsement in products might be too much. I tend to agree with her point as there exerts many problems in the market due to the celebrity endorsement.

The famous Taiwanese host, Xiao S, recently has been involved in the commercial fraud case. She has been the spokesperson for Top Pot Bakery in Taiwan and mainland China as her husband became a shareholder of the company. She claimed that the bread from Top Pot Bakery is all made by natural yeast and does not contain any artificial flavor. The exuberant popularity of Xiao S increased the sales of Top Pot Bakery immediately. The company enlarged the size of the stores and increased a number of branches in mainland China. However, a chef from the bakery denied the statement. He admitted that they used artificial flavor during the bread baking process. This commercial fraud case posed a mortal threat to consumers’ trust of Top Pot Bakery and damaged the celebrity image and credibility of Xiao S. 

From this affair above, we can say that blindly believing in what the celebrity endorsed cannot be the case in purchasing in the current market. To solve this problem, consumers should take more aspects into consideration before purchasing the good. Celebrities should do more research about the reality of the products before the endorsement to maintain their credibility. The market trend of seeking celebrities to endorse the product should be restrained by the market regulator and more stringent rules should be implemented to supervise the market and protect consumers.

The team project played an very important role in this marketing course. It contains the current situation of the company, segmentation, targeting, positioning and the future plan of the company. By analyzing the CDSTP, SWOT and STEP, we implemented the fundamental theory of marketing into the real-world successful company. This project, especially the video making part, not only deepened my  of marketing concepts and theories, but also brought much fun during the study process.

The company we chose is Air Canada. Before actually completing the assignment, making a video sounds a mirage to us because none of us have filmed before and we knew nothing about editing the video. Instead of worrying and complaining, we made a practical plan with the limited resources we have.

To make the video more vivid, we went to the YVR airport to film the actual scenes. We filmed the departure gates of Air Canada as well as its competitors. The group is made up of five Chinese girls, each of us speaks mandarin as our mother tongue and most of us are from the same faculty. Thus we got to know each other very quickly. Our group is also very productive and efficient. We splitted the task quickly and all of us are very responsible. Instead of having one person take all the responsibility of editing the video, we divided the group and video into two and edited at the same time. Through the working process, we learned to use Final Cut to edit our video and tried to face the unfamiliar task with confidence. I learned the advantage of teamwork from this team assignment and the great importance of cooperation. I am still proud of accomplishing this team assignment and feel lucky of having my great teammates!

Last week, when I was having lunch in UBC sub, two Chinese girls came to me. They gave me an introduction about the Grand Pré milk. They offered me a sample to taste and gave me the advertisement booklet, saying that I can order the milk here for my families in China. Furthermore, with a valid student ID, I can get a 50% discount on the price. This promotion left me a strong impression.

To be honest, I have never noticed this brand before. After their introduction, I actually googled the brand. Knowing that this brand is famous for their 100% cow milk, I find that the introduction of this brand into Chinese milk market is such a smart idea. In 2008, the Chinese milk market went through a rough time. A toxic chemical substance, melamine, has been found in milk from many big milk companies in China. Many newborns got ill after drinking the poisonous milk. Since then, Chinese consumers have little trust in the Chinese milk brands. Serious food safety problem exists in the Chinese food market. Thus foreign milk brands face a great opportunity to come into the Chinese milk market.

Moreover, Grand Pré milk also got a reputation of stability. It is Canada’s first UHT milk and is a shelf stable milk that requires no refrigeration until the opening of the package.This advantage attracts consumers who value longer durability as well.

The two girls specifically target international students from China in UBC who have family in mainland China. We care about the food safety of our family. Among almost thirty different foreign milk brands in the current Chinese market, we consumers here would definitely trust more in the brand we have seen and tasted here. Secondly, the service that they can deliver to China provided great convenience to consumers, as I do have friends who went to the post station to mail the milk powder back to China. In addition, the discount promotion would gave a better price to consumers which is also a strength of Grand Pré milk. I think this introduction plan is very thoughtful and I am looking forward to seeing more of Grand Pré milk in Chinese milk market in the future.

As women care more and more about being beautiful, the beauty industry has become the fourth biggest industry, right after tourism, automobile and real estate. I want to discuss a few things of the beauty market in China.

During the Mao time, Chinese women are forbidden to care much about beauty. Everyone was wearing the same color of the clothes, same hair style and same shoes. Thus beauty industry has not been developed in the last thirty years. In contrast, in the western world where the beauty industry has been growing for around a century, consumers usually follow their mothers’ choice when choosing the cosmetic and skin care brands. Young ladies in China today have to find the brand on their own.

Considering the purpose of being beautiful, consumers in China is also different from the western. In western countries, being beautiful is usually a desire related to one’s emotion. For example, a girl may want to change a hair style when losing a boyfriend or she wants to do some make up to attract someone she loves. Nevertheless, in China, due to the one child policy, women today are taught to be independent, strong and having a desire to be as successful as men in career. Thus, Chinese women today usually pursue beauty to get a good job or the addition in salary. This evident difference in buying purpose would lead marketers to implement different marketing strategy when promoting products to Chinese consumers.

In the Chinese beauty market today, there are myriads of brands from western world, Korea and Japan. However, we barely see strong Chinese brands. Consumers in China believe in the effectiveness of the product, so they don’t have the strong loyalty when choosing brands. L’Oreal has bought Yue Sai (a Chinese cosmetic and skin care brand), in the purpose of developing a line serves particular to the Chinese market. We are looking forward to seeing more strong Chinese brands in the beauty industry in the future.

As luxury brands used to dominate in Asia, the affordable luxury brand tends to surpass the luxury in terms of the pace of the expansion recently. Referred to as “affordable”, “mass” or “accessible” luxury, these labels occupy the space between inexpensive generic brands and high-end luxury like Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Gucci. There are couple of reasons to explain this trend.

Firstly, luxury has been in Asia for a long time. There is no large market space for them to expand. In contrast, affordable luxury is a relatively new concept. It targets the expanding middle class in Asia, especially China, which is fueling the domestic growth of mid-level luxury brands, such as Folli Follie, Coach, Michael Kors, Agnes B and Marc by Marc Jacobs. They offer an attractive option to consumers climbing the economic ladder: a brand name, better product quality and better design, but one that won’t burn a hole in their pockets. This market has been developed in North America for a while and now is expanding to Asia.

Secondly, with the economic development of Asia, consumers also developed a deeper understanding of fashion and it changed their buying behavior. Besides Chanel, Dior and other famous luxury brands, there also exerts the tendency for them to buy more stylish and unique brands which might not be that expensive. This also gives a good opportunity for the affordable luxury to grasp the potential market.

Coach, an American brand best known for its handbags, is considered to be one of the bestselling affordable luxury brands on the Chinese mainland. It entered the market as early as 1988 which gives it first-mover advantage. Furthermore, it has the accurate position for itself. Coach doesn’t set up stores near LV or Chanel. The stores are always located in less upscale shopping centers but are usually the most visible spot thus captures more attention. This is a good example for other affordable luxury brands to learn.

Following is a video I would like to share with you. It talks about the rise of affordable luxury in Asia.

http://live.wsj.com/video/affordable-fashion-surpasses-luxury-in-china/029D9AED-F830-44BE-90BE-FAF50AEF6162.html#!029D9AED-F830-44BE-90BE-FAF50AEF6162

Facebook and twitter are very popular in Western and North American countries. Recently, Facebook also did well in India, Indonesia and the Phillippines. However, no company’s global strategy can be truly complete without China. There has been rumor from two years ago that Facebook was going to corporate with Baidu to enter the Chinese market. However, up till now, it did not manage to do so. How come?

Viewing Chinese social media market, several companies have already occupied it. Sina weibo and Tencent weibo function similarly to Twitter, encouraged people to send short and clever blogs while Renren and Kaixin operate like Facebook, created the platform for people to share opinions with people they know from the real life. With respect to Sina Weibo, it includes the largest amount of celebrities, which is another eye-catching point that Facebook doesn’t have.  As discussed above, the value Facebook can provide to Chinese Internet users now is fairly little in this quite mature market.

Furthermore, in the government perspective in China, myriad aspects of political and social situations are not allowed to publish. Young people in China prefer using Weibo to socialize, gossip, and discuss news as it is relatively safer to them not using the real name. In contrast, Facebook encourages people to share feelings and discuss everything with the real name. Even corporating with Baidu, who has the best relationship with the government, it is unlikely for Facebook to succeed in Chinese market if it cannot manage to explore additional value to provide to Chinese Internet users and adapt the Chinese political environment.

Here is the link of more detailed discussion of this topic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwidvfsvLTU

Politicians in California are taking on the happy meal. San Francisco wants to ban the toys on the unhealthy fast food meal. Some other states have the similar law who are all in the effort to fight against childhood obesity. McDonald’s gives toys to kids to attract them to purchase. The scientists of public interest maintains that tempting children with toys is unfair and deceptive, both to kids who don’t understand the concept of advertising, but also to their parents who have to put up with their nagging children. But there are some doubts that whether tempting kids with toys really pulls them away from healthier food or whether it’s just pulls them away from other fast food restaurant.

To my perspective, McDonald’s did a great job in marketing. They open in almost every street corner which provides such a great convenience. They got the right target to those parents who are busy in work and not have enough time to make food for their children. They offer such a low price and serve so fast that saved parents a lot of time and money.

Furthermore, giving toys to kids in the happy meal is not only in the purpose of tempting children. It is actually an action of adding value to the product. Parents who are busy in work would find McDonald’s very thoughtful to prepare toys for their children with such a low price. Children’s utility would be maximized when they can play the toy and eat at the same time.

If giving toys is the only reason that parents choose McDonald’s but not the healthy food, restaurants which offers healthy food can also try to give toys to children in their happy meal. But I don’t think that could work out.

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