My team chose to work on Unilever.

As the third assignment was summary of the previous two and plus marketing mix analysis, it was a good opportunity for me to review what we learned in the course and know how to apply it to the company. We targeted on shampoo and the segmentation is women suffering from dandruff in the rural area in India. What I found interesting is that Unilever has the biggest share in shampoo in general but not in anti-dandruff shampoo. The Rival P&G has the largest.

By doing research on company selling consumer products, I felt the importance of standing at the point of customers, especially considering marketing strategy. We have to know the needs ahead of time. However, it is not that easy. I felt it critical for   marketers to be always sensitive to market needs.

Thank you!

Nowadays vending machines are everywhere.

In New York, they launched new types of vending machines called L’Oréal Paris’ Intelligent Color Experience vending machines inside the subway.

What do you think they sell? Of course beauty items, as you can guess from the company!

However, that’s not what makes these vending machines special. They scan a user’s outfit to detect colors and style, in turn suggesting beauty products that “match or clash.” The purpose is not only selling beauty products to those who are too busy and lazy in the morning or forget to bring make-up items, but also gathering information used for marketing. According to Marc Speichert, CMO L’Oréal Americas, their new vending machines have the ability to measure the level of engagement based on the number of people who pass by, the number who interact with each screen, the number who leave their information. This could be “automatic marketing machines”, letting us know the preferences of each psychographic segment.

Also, location of vending machines is important for success. L’Oréal’s choice is pretty reasonable because subway stations in New York is one of the busiest places in the world. Therefore, people are likely to buy stuffs from vending machines because they are just on the way to offices, home or somewhere else and don’t have much time. Few people are there just because they have time or they like to be there.

At one of the busiest stations in Tokyo, we have vending machines selling bananas so that they can offer breakfast to people who did not eat anything at home.

The day may come when we can buy anything while waiting for trains!

reference
http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2013/10/31/LOreal-Vending-Machine-103113.aspx

When I was looking at brandchannel website wondering what to write, I came across an interesting post.

It’s about the Japanese company’s new mascot named “Fukuppy”.
However, I don’t even know this company and this mascot seems to draw little attention since nothing but the company’s official page came up when I googled the Mascot’s name in Japanese.

Its name in English caused a debate and consequently the company apologized for inappropriate name on the website. We could never think of it before but in this time of globalization, we have to be consider the cases where it’s brought into other countries or cultures beforehand.

http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2013/10/15/Fukuppy-Japan-Mascot-101513.aspx

Mascots are fairly common and quite effective if you want to people to know your organization, products or brands because they are impressive and easy to recognize.
Quite a few sports teams and companies have their own mascots.
For instance, FIN from Vancouver Canucks, Ronald McDonald from Macdonald’s etc.

We have Thunderbird here at UBC.

Recently, mascots have become pretty common and popular in Japan, especially the ones created to promote the provinces or cities. We even have a contest to decide the best mascot.

Kumamon, as is mentioned in the blog in brandchannel, is one of the most successful mascots. He is a mascot of Kumamoto prefecture, in western Japan.

He has an official blog, goods such as bookmarks and alarm clocks and even Twitter and Facebook account with 289,594 followers and 141,336 likes!
You can also send a letter to him though they say he cannot reply to all of us because he is quite busy.

Here is the link so take a look if you are interested. (They are all in Japanese unfortunately)
http://kumamon-official.jp/

Thanks to Kumamon, Kumamoto prefecture has successfully attracted attention and it is said the total sales of the Kumamon goods last year reached 29 billion.

He’s already traveled to Shanghai, Taipei and Singapore for promotion.
They are said to be aiming to make the “bear” a worldwide mascot.

“Limited time offer” is one of the most effective words to make people want to buy your products. The blog post by brandchannel focuses on Dunkin’ Donuts’ strategy of using the magical words.

According to the website of Dunkin’ Donuts in Canada, they’re now offering “Sunshine Start”. In U.S, on the other hand, they have “Pumpkin Pie donut”, which is obviously suitable for Halloween, and grilled cheese sandwiches as well. You may notice that all of these have the sign “New” in the menu. People tend to be attracted by things that you can get only for a limited time or something new that you never tried before.
The point here is they offer those limited-time items for a couple months so that the customers have enough time to try and become a fan of those particular ones if they like them. Then when the time comes, they stop offering them. After 9 or 10 months, they reappear, which satisfies those who have been waiting for them. This is the cycle of the company’s limited-time items. The fact that you can buy the products for a limited time accelerates your desire to buy them. This is a good example of scarcity principle, which we learned today’s class.

Macdonald’s in Japan also have these limited-time items. We have Teri-tama (teriyaki sauce and egg hamburgers). Some people are looking forward to eating this next fall right after they stop offering them.

I suppose this is also a good way to create customer loyalty as well.

Reference
Blog from brand channel  http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2013/10/04/Dunkin-Limited-Time-100413.aspx#continue
Dunkin’ Donuts in Canada http://www.dunkindonuts.ca/en/index.php
Dunkin’ Donuts in US http://www.dunkindonuts.com/content/dunkindonuts/en.html

How would you feel if you came across the advertisements of dating sites when you are walking in downtown Vancouver? If you visit Shibuya in Tokyo, which has the famous crossing, you can see the trucks advertising that sort of sites with a loud music calling the name of the site. They are called “ad truck” or “ad bus” as you can see below.

Personally, I don’t care about the existence of those sites as they are permitted by law. However, when it comes to advertisement, which is open to public including teenagers, I cannot agree. Advertising by trucks is surely effective in terms of promotion since it can be seen by everybody on the street but this service should be only for adults or teenagers. It is obviously harmful to children and teenagers.
Hence, if we consider ethics marketing and the characteristic of the service, their promotion has to focus more on their target. Advertisement in such way that attracts attention randomly may offend some people because majority of us even never think of using it, unlike consumer goods. Red Bull, for instance, also uses cars for advertisement. I guess few people feel unpleasant when they see Red Bull’s wrap advertising cars.

Therefore, to achieve ethical and effective marketing promotion, we need to take the target of their products or services into consideration and then decide how to promote them. However good quality the products or services we offer has, we could easily lose our potential customers or ultimately could not continue the business if we offend people too much by inappropriate promotion.

photos taken from
http://rimaroom.jugem.jp/?eid=441　（first one）
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/mori44410/46130195.html (second one)

Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!