Fumiya's blog

Through this practical course, I have learnt the fact that I am not so good at communicating formally. I always thought I was friendly and good in communication because I have lived in different countries and thus understand many cultural backgrounds. However, when it comes to communication in business manner, the situation and atmosphere is very different, so I definitely need to improve my communication skills in business manner. Through resume and interview, I got to know what I am good at and  bad at more clearly. I am willing to improve my good further and attempt to enhance my bad in future.

Summer is going to start in a month or so, and I see many students including myself, in suits trying to get our desired job or internship. One thing that bugs me the most when about wearing a suit is the fact that it is not washable… I have put on dry cleaning 3 times this term and it costs more money as well as time.

To solve this problem, I was surfing internet and surprisingly, there exists a “washable suit”. Apparently there is a big demand in Singapore and many other South East Asian country. UNIQLO, one of the Japanese clothing retailers have started selling washable suit for male and female consumers.

To analyze this product line, I described it with 4P / Marketing mix. To be specific, I have chosen Male washable suit from UNIQLO.

Product – Main added value: Washable. Some argue that most of washable suit available have unattractive design looks odd. To solve this problem, UNIQLO cooperated with few other clothing firms to make sure, it fits the current trends. Here is one picture of washable suit.

Price – Relatively cheaper than the average price of suit in Japan, which is approximately 200 to 300 Canadian$. Can be targeted to lower income population as well as people who value the product.

Place – Available only in UNIQLO and KONAKA. However, now UNIQLO has more than 50 retailers in Japan. In addition, there are UNIQLO retailers in different part of area such as HK, Singapore, Malaysia and USA.

Promotion – Advertisements are done through many social media as well as Newspapers and Magazines. Here is one commercial that has been playing in Japan.

When attempting to grab consumers’ attentions,  one of the most efficient ways is to create an unique / eye-catching packages. I decided to share few packagings that are interesting and unique, through a blog/website that I found on internet called “best design options”. Some of the packages that are introduced on the website, have won Pentawards, a worldwide competition exclusively devoted to packaging design.

1. This is the packaging for water. It mainly promotes environmentally friendliness and convenience; this paper bottle is 100% recycled and also once you open it, you can close it just like normal water bottle. One possible weakness that, because it is purely made from paper, the package may tear and water may leak.

2. This is one of my favorite packaging out of all 50 that were displayed and it had also won the pentaward. This is the packaging for hair-styling wax. As you can see, there are 6 types of gel, depending on which style you prefer. The special thing about this packaging is that you can touch and feel the surface according to the type of wax. For example, if you choose the rough styling wax, the surface of the package are made so that you can feel the “roughness” – I think this is pretty cool.

3.This bad is the answer to the environment’s needs. They are biodegradable carrier bags made out of flax-viscose non-woven fabric. There are two main benefits that I would like to share. Firstly, this is purely made from industrial waste that we want to get rid of. In other words, the scare natural resources are not used at all. Secondly, this bag is called “60” bag because in approximately 60 days after started using, it decomposed itself, meaning it does not require any recycling process! More information about this bag can be found on this website – Check it out!

Product Replacement as learned in class, is one of the ways of advertising a product. It advertises the by including the logo or symbol of the product into the social media such as clips/movie/TV show ect. I have been seeing a lot of product replacement on social media especially on youtube clips. I have been surfing on internet quite a lot on youtube recently (as mid-terms are over) and I found a music video clip by LMFAO. The name of the song is called Party Rock Anthem. Here is the video.

If you can skip it to 1.35, you can see the BOSE (Company that sells music related: Speaker, headphones ect) headphones, given to the Artist of Lmfao, the DJ, Stefan Kendal Gordy and Skyler Gordy. There are two main benefits that the BOSE Company gained through advertisement on this clip.

Firstly, this music video is widely known and currently, it has more than 4.5 million views though it was only uploaded on 8^th of March 2011. More views means that more people subconsciously remember the logo of Bose, increasing the brand awareness.

Secondly, in this video, it is used by the famous artist, creating an image of what a person must buy to be considered as “cool”, which fits in to the majority. One of the marketing blog, responsible marketing, states that Bose compete against other companies by the quality and thus the price is usually over priced (at least from my point of view),; however it has high reputation due to its competitive advantage. From this information and the way the replace a product, it is almost like Bose product is like a prestige product, where it has positive correlation between price and quantity.

Twitter has been increasing its fame as a social media, where a user can casually update your status. Moreover, even by some large firms and co-orporations, twitter are being recognized and used to enhance the communication links and brand association. For example, on the previous post that I made regarding Adidas new technology, twitter was installed into the virtual  footwear wall(1:39 to 1:45 on the video) so that consumers who come into the store will be able to obtain third view from other twitter users who are also interested in the product.

There are interesting statistics and benefits of using twitter on one of the marketing blog, named Top-rank. Here is the link to the blog ===> Top-rank blog on twitter According to Harvard University, only 12 percent of companies surveyed felt their organizations were using social media effectively. In addition, 75% of the companies in the survey said they did not know where their most valuable customers were talking about them. This shows that social media is still definitely underused.

There are 3 main benefits of using a twitter ; 1) Able to listen to consumers 2) Use as a marketing tool. In other words, firms are able to provide more information and benefits on the new product.(ie. promotion) 3) Get a feedback of the product from consumers and improve on anything that lead to consumer dissatisfaction.

However, twitter can also ruin the image of the companies. One of the UBC blogs recently made by Christina, mentions that when a company uses twitter it is important to be maintain consistency in brand messaging.  She also gave specific example when use of twitter lead to a negative brand image. Here is a link to her blog. UBC blog – Christina’s

Since I was very interested in one of the video about Adidas new technology, which was shown in class today, I decided to do more research and share it with you guys. For people who missed it or forgot about the clip, I have attached the vidoe of the virtual footwear wall innovated by Adidas and Intel.

As explained briefly in class, it is multi-touch screen on the wall, where you can search for the pair of shoes that you are looking for. Not only that it also has the ability to advertise benefits and background of the products. For example, one of the model shoes called F-50, the virtual footwear wall explains, its comfortability, strength and weight of the shoes. In addition to that it displays available size and color that the Adidas currently have.

Some argues that Adidas is just spending money on useless technology when we can just go inside the shop and try by ourselves. However, I feel that it is a good way to display a product as it is interactive, fun and also it tells you more about the product that you are interested in and all the available benefits that a product can offer.

Moreover, there are more than 8000 pair of shoes produced by Adidas. In most cases it is highly likely that a consumer does not have a knowledge of all the products that are offered by Adidas. With this technology a consumer can learn more about the product that they are interested in and also find a new product that he/she was not aware of.

Recently I found an article on the SMH website about a couple having an unique style of marriage in HongKong. Believe it or not, it was held in MacDonald in HongKong.

MacDonald have been inventing new products depending on the countries that are located, so that it  fits with the culture. However, this is definitely the first time where MacDonald offered this “service” to a new market segment. The idea is very unique, though personally I would not want to get married in MacDonald.

According to Ashley and Kevin, the first couple to have a marriage in Macdonald, commented that this idea was appealing because they were tight on their budget and did not have much time since both of them are committed to work. It is known that the average cost of the wedding in Canada is approximately 20,000 o 30,000.  This “Maccas” marriage only cost about $9999 HK which is about $1300  US. The cake is made up of apple pies from macdonald and for the meal, all the attendants get a happy meal. Here is the photo.

There is also a video, attached below, interviewing this couple about their decision on why they had a wedding at Macdonald. Maccas wedding interview

If you want to have a “Cheap” and “Fast” happy wedding, Macdonald might be a good fit for you!

When I was going through one of the UBC blogs written by Mise, about Dorito’s strategy, it reminded me of another Doritos strategy that was held in Japan. Dorito, one of my favorite snacks, are available in all over the world. It has many different flavors, but the shape and the crunchiness of doritos were always in common. You can follow Mise’s blog about Dorito’s strategy on https://blogs.ubc.ca/mise/2011/02/22/doritos-amazing-strategy/

This time Dorito has changed the product and invented new type; Dorito air, available only in Japan. The difference between the original one and this new Dorito is that apparently, there is air inside the dorito so that it becomes more crunchy.

The image on the left is the original doritos that are available in most of the world and on the left side is the new dorito air.

Dorito air was introduced in Japan, probably because there exists many other firms that introduces similar snacks. In other words, there is high indirect competition exists in Japanese snack market. It is known that there are more than 100 types of similar snacks available in the market!

Therefore, in order to increase a sale in such a high indirect competition,the taste or the food texture has to be something new, unique or interesting. Dorito air has new texture; its extra crunchiness and flavor.

This week, I will be introducing a new piece of technology that I found interesting. I was back in Japan last winter holiday, and while I was using a subway, I found paper poster that was electronic. It is quite hard to explain, so I found this clip with “electronic paper ads”. I will attach it below…

As you can see this clip, it seems like TV, or some sort of electronic device, but in fact this cool Mascara ads is made on a piece of paper, kinda cool. Apparently, it allows paper to be written and rewritten repeatedly. So what you’re looking at is essentially a paper poster hanging from the ceiling of a subway train in which the image changes.

From Marketing perspective, this will be categorized under ” Technology” in CDSTEP. This new technology have few benefits or advantages.

1. Offered at low cost – Unlike electronic device, since it is just a piece of paper, its light and easy to handle. Due to this reason, the cost is much more cheaper.

2. Environmentally friendly – Specially in Japan, they have restriction on how much CO2 are emitted. By using paper, emission of CO2 will be reduced.

3. Catches people’s attention – This is probably the biggest advantage of using this type of advertisement. Compare to just a normal poster, it goes without saying that this new printing technology will catch people’s eye as it moves, changes in color, just like TV.

New technologies have been invented to help firms and consumers in the market. I am excited to see what will be invented next!

Third blog is also going to be what is happening in Japan currently. This is related to what we have learned about social trend and since it is marketingly interesting so I decided to share 🙂

An Eco-point can be earned when a consumer buys a product that is environmentally friendly. For example, by buying a fridge that saves electricity more than the normal ones, depending on the price, he or she can earn points. Beneficial advantage for having these points is the fact that you can redeem the points for real money. Although there are some complaints that way of redeeming can be pain in the neck, this is a great strategy especially because there is social trend towards being green.

In advertisement of these eco-friendly goods, the color of posters and ads tend to be green, targeting the consumer that has high involvement in being green. Here is examples of posters and ads.

As you can see, they make sure that they advertise the fact that these products are eco-friendly, targeting the audience that has interest in being environmentally friendly. Not only it helps environment, it also stimulates the economy and yet increases the sales. Eco-point can be earned in almost every shop where they sell electronic goods. People, including myself have tendency to subtract the money that can be redeemed from these eco-points from the original price, which reduces the price lower. Therefore, previously, people who were not able to afford or did not have willingness to consumer may change their minds. This definitely would have positive impacts upon the sales of many electronic shops.

Eco-points – Reducing the effect of global warming, yet stimulating an economy: kill 2 birds with one stone!