Category: Marketing

To answer Mandy Chow‘s question, “are vending machines suitable for cosmetic products”, I would definitely say YES!

For most of the girls, make up has become a daily essential, and girls shop for makeups on impulse. Picture a situation where you realize you didn’t bring your mascara or lipstick to the destination of your trip, and now you are about to go on a very important date, what would you do? Probably panic in the hotel room?  But what if, you have a cosmetic vending machine down the hall of your hotel room, wouldn’t that be just fantastic?

The question might be what is the incentive for building such machines? I would say, because cosmetics industry is in its maturity stage, where competition is fierce, and every brand is trying to come up with new line extension to survive this battle.

So in order to get more market share and extend the product life cycle, companies should consider using vending machines to sell its products. This approach increases customer base, could potentially increase the frequency of use, and most importantly, this is an innovative way of stimulating demand.

Wandering around the supermarket, couldn’t help to notice that junk food aisle has some new members – Doritos A and Doritos B! I was really amazed by how the packaging color changed from red to complete monotone. To be honest, I was quite disappointed at first. But curiosity hit me, and I actually googled about change.

It is a newly launched campaign that aimed at the junk food lovers to vote for a new flavour of the Doritos, and also encourage voters to submit a creative idea of how to destroy the other unpopular option. The most creative idea will be shot into an ad, and also winner will receive $2,500 and 1% of the sales revenue.

This campaign has allowed customer input to create its new product,  and also increased the perceived value of every purchase of Doritos, because you think you are a part of something big and meaningful, and you might get a chance to win that grand prize!!

The industry is almost at its maturity stage with fierce competition, and constant launch of new product lines. And now, Doritos has made its bench mark of being the leader of this industry, since it was able to understand how to increase its product depth with customers input, and clearly deliver the message of how they care about its valued customers’ opinion!

I don’t know if you are getting tired of receiving flyers in Sauder? But I AM! Probably budget is a big concern for clubs and events, however, delivering ineffective and boring flyers is wasting money as well!

So I found a marketing campaign Unicef was doing, although it is 2 years old, but I still want to review  it, simply because it made me become super aware of the fact that marketing isn’t about spending big bucks to get your brand on the most popular TV channel.

So basically, Unicef had a very unique strategy in making people become more aware of landmines. What they did was to design self-adhesive stickers that has a top coloured as the floor, so people would step on it, and have the stickers sticked on the bottom of their shoes. On the other side of the stickers is a picture of a landline and a message from Unicef.

This is a very creative way of letting people experience how easy is it to step on a landline. So, I guess this is a big step up from traditionally flyers that have text and image. Like what we saw in class today, the NIKE wall has provided the opportunity for potential buys to experience. And this, Unicef has done a great job in creating a cheap and yet effective experiential marketing campaign!

Cool. Another ipad.

For some of you, it might just be an ipad. But for some of you, that means a whole new level innovation and advance in technology.

For most of you, YOU WANT IT, BUT it depends on if the bang worth the buck. So does it?

Currently, the ipad 2 is priced at $499 compared to an refurbished ipad 1 is now priced at $399. From value point of view, the ipad 2 does offer 2x faster processor, 9x higher resolution, and a 1/3 less in weight, but do all these values add up to the price? I guess not. The ipad itself offers no more function than an iphone, and still not able to substitute laptop, why would someone spend almost $500 for such a luxury toy?

From pricing point of view, I agree with Jessica,  Apple should lower its price when its still on the peak. At this moment, Apple still have chance for gaining more market share, but when the Apple fetish is over, even lowering price won’t help.

Currently, Apple is using odd pricing strategy with value orientation through communicating its product value to customers on website and through commercials. Unfortunately, when rational consumers are making a purchase, they would eventually compare values between products. Apple will eventually lose on this one if the price persists high in comparison.

High heels, make up, and sexy dresses might make a regular person famous, but how can a celebrity develop his or her sustainable competitive advantage?

I guess the ultimate celebrity Lady Gaga has her own way of sustaining herself in the entertainment business.

1. Never call her fans “fans”!

Lady Gaga named her fans as her little monsters. Oh, don’t get her wrong, they are different from those ORDINARY fans. She loves her little monsters so much that she even tattooed it on her arm and expressed on twitter of how much she loves them. Obviously, since those little monsters have the attention and “love” from the superstar, they will worship Lady Gaga till death!

2. Distinguish Yourself

Lady Gaga doesn’t only sing! Her bizarre outfits and her creativity has made her so distinguishable that probably your grandma even knows her! And plus, her generosity made her share everything with her fans, from her music to her personal story. She is constantly making up something new from the meat dress to Grammy’s Egg. It is always extremely hard to not notice her.

3. Stay Connected

Lady Gaga talks to her little monster through social media. She has about 29,895,203 people like her Facebook page, it is even more than Obama. When she got the tattoo of her little monsters, the first thing she did was to tweet a picture of it. It truly made her little monster feel like she cares about them, and loves them.

Nowadays, probably coffee and Starbucks are synonyms.Going to Starbucks for a coffee is a daily activity for coffee lovers. And now the question is – why Starbucks is playing with its well-established logo?

Lots of companies are going with the market trend, which is somehow playing its role in the betterment of the environment, whether it’s a marketing strategy to increase its revenue or simply doing “good deeds”. However, Starbucks is heading towards another era – brand transformation.

The original Starbucks logo is consisted of a siren and its name in a circle, and now its dropping Starbucks Coffee and the circle in its logo, leaving a simple image of the siren.

Some think that Starbucks is playing with fire- messing around with its well known logo is a death sentence; others say that Starbucks is so big that they don’t need to have their name on the logo to promote itself anymore.

Well, I have to admit that it’s a bold move. In the beverage industry, lots of companies are emerging, maybe they are not as big as Starbucks, but certainly their cheap prices and convenient locations have lots of local loyal customers. So what makes Starbucks think that changing its logo will possibly assist in winning its battle?  First, because Starbucks is unique. It is not selling you a cup of coffee, but selling you the STARBUCKS EXPERIENCE. Therefore, by removing the text provokes the concept of ‘Starbucks’ rather than a cup of ‘Starbucks Coffee’. Second, the fact that Starbucks chose to omit its title on its logo suggests some future possible marketing strategy, such as establishing new product lines (something other than coffee).

What do you think about it? Is it a good thing or a bad thing for Starbucks to drop the name from its logo?