Month: October 2010

Not many people are familiar with Morgan Cars, especially those who are not into the European automotive industry. Morgan Cars is a car manufacturing company that produced hand made cars and is famous for its signature classic cars. The company produced hundred of cars with approximately 163 employees, annually. Comparing the market shares of Morgan Cars to other British based automotive companies – Bentley, Rolls Royce, Mini Copper, Aston Martin, Jaguar Morgan by far has the least market share. But yet, Morgan Cars can still stay in the industry for more than 100 years. How can they do this? The answer lies in its target market. Morgan Cars does not target a huge market like other British automotive companies do. Instead, it focuses on a specific on small segment, which I find quite interesting. This market is formally known as niche market.

A few nights ago I had dinner with my friends in West Broadway, on my way back to the bus stop I saw a Blockbuster store. Coincidently, earlier that day I was discussing about it in class. The business is experiencing a major turnover which is clarified in an article on http://www.bnet.com/blog/retail-stores/blockbuster-scrambles-for-cash-and-stalls-for-time-but-neither-will-save-it/386.

One major reason for their bankruptcy is the change of customers’ preferences. People nowadays like convenience. Another reason is the shift of physical media to online digital delivery, due to advance technology. Linking this to Michael Porter’s five forces analysis, one of their main substitutes is movie downloads which could be obtained from peer-2-peer (P2P) technology. P2P download is more convenient in so many different aspects. It is cheaper (even free), more convenient since you don’t have to leave your sit to get the movie, and no need to provide space to keep all the DVDs.

Forever 21, is a shop a popular clothing shop in the realm of young adults. The store sells fashion forward items in very affordable prices. When it first open in Jakarta a few years ago, it became one of the ‘it’ stores in the city.

Switching gears to Vancouver, as I am here for almost for two months now, I noticed that Forever21 uses a business strategy in terms of their business location. Forever 21 only have a single store in both in Jakarta and Vancouver.

Apparently they also have sub stores such as XXI Forever, Heritage1982, Gadzooks21, For Love21, Twelve by Twelve, Faith 21, Love21, HTG21, 21Men. Relating this to what I’ve learned in class, I noticed that this is actually a strategy of forever 21 to expand its target market. Since the original store, Forever 2, targets women and young adults, they open up other stores to expand its market. Judging from the name, it is pretty obvious that 21Men targets men consumers. Similarly to Twelve by Twelve, it’s a store that sells higher end of fashion trends almost like couture. Such sub store targets the upper class of women.

Who doesn’t know Pepsi and Coca Cola these days? Those are the most popular and the most consumed soft drinks worldwide.

There are actually a lot of unethical approaches in the marketing world. A few days ago I saw two of my friends gave a speech about an unethical advertisement that they saw. As you can guess, this one is about Pepsi and Coca Cola. It was a classic advertisement and I am pretty sure most people have seen it. Basically, the ad was telling that a young boy trying to buy a can of soda from a vending machine. Since he was short, he couldn’t reach the top button that has “pepsi” on it. Therefore he had to buy two cans of coca cola (which button is placed lower) for him to stand on and eventually made him tall enough to reach the pepsi button. At the end of the commercial, he left the two coca cola cans and drinks a can of pepsi can that he just bought.

Luckily this ad was never been commercially used, however there is one on youtube. Here’s a video of it.