LEGO-Build Plant in China

When I read the posting from Xingye Cui’s Blog called “Lego’s expansion to China,” I realized that Lego planed to build its first factory in Shanghai, China.  The main drivers for the strategy is an increase demand in Asia and an attempt to save time during the process of ordering and delivering.

LEGO CHINA-GOOGLE

LEGO CHINA-GOOGLE

What Lego does well is its diverse approaches to both current and potential consumers such as lego homepage is available in 21 languages and its creative outdoor advertising . Today’s marketing becomes more complex, I believe how effective is the shopping experience becoming more and more important.  Lego takes the form of recognizable approaches to draw consumers’ attention, such as in-store displays and firsthand experiences. These arise consumers’ interests by imagining how wonderful it would be if they bring it to home and enhance potential sales by enabling consumers to touch and feel the products before purchasing. In addition to usual forms of promotion, Lego adds Chinese elements to its products. Since Chinese parents pay more attention on their kids’ education and they try to let kids learn more other than play more, Lego emphasizes its products as the function of educational toys.  Besides, Lego is still hard to dominate the toy market in China. The main challenge is its expensive selling price compared to other brands’ toys. Not many parents want to pay that much money (¥400+ in yuan) on purchasing lego toys while they can easily find similar toys in the market. Another issue is that consumers are able to find lego stores in shopping malls but seldom in supermarkets(I guess because its relatively high price.) Overall, Lego has great market in China.

 

Reference: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323415304578368161124637122.html?KEYWORDS=lego

Starbucks-not just a coffee shop

image from google

Starbucks is not only recognized as a cafe shop, its more like a lifestyle brand. Other than fast food restaurants like McDonald’s which provides low-cost coffee beverages, Starbucks positions itself with experience of convenient environment and premium beverages. With its welcoming environment and soft music, Starbucks is always a good option for me to spend a few hours with friends or enjoy a cup of coffee sitting in a comfortable sofa by the windows, or concentrate myself on study. By contrast, McDonald’s consists with fast-paced modern environment with bright lighting and gay music. I can imagine myself just grab a fast meal and leave soon. I am not saying McDonald’s is bad. It’s just different market strategy. The way why I like Starbucks is its contribution on “human connection” while it values engaged user experience. Nowadays, people trend to focus on quality of life. I would like to value Starbucks as a symbol of lifestyle-the way to relax from stress. As The article “Why Starbucks’ customer loyalty is more lucrative than any Ad campaign ” stated, “Starbucks goes out of its way to make each location feel uniquely yours, and that builds brand loyalty.”

image from google

 

Video: People love the Starbucks experience (Youtube)