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