Month: February 2011

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!