A new product from Burger King “Satisfries” — the healthier substitution for regular French Fries. According to what Maureen Storey, president and CEO of the Alliance for Potato Research & Education, “per capita consumption [of potato] has declined over the years, prompting efforts to make [fries] healthier and easier to market. But “it’s actually not an easy thing to do to because consumers want the same taste and the same texture.” Nowadays, consumers are more concerned about their health issues such as obesity. They wanted to eat a hamburger that has no steroids and hormones in it. Burger King strategically grasp what consumer wants, the “Satisfries” has 40% less fat, 30% less calories than McDonald’s while not compromising its taste. Burger King North America president Alex Macedo has indicated that people are not willing to change their routine of eating what they used to eat, so definitely a new product such as veggie burger won’t be as good as “Satisfries”. Not surprisingly, Burger King’s stock market had some “fat returns” with “skinny fries”, the shares increased for 18% in 2013 so far. Value proposition and the customer segmentation have placed a significant impact on the success of Burger King, and gaining a “fat returns” for the company.

Source:

http://www.bnn.ca/News/2013/10/4/Burger-King-tries-to-fatten-margins-with-skinny-fries.aspx

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/07/3676111/bks-new-fries-fail-to-satisfy.html

We have discussed that “if customers want more leg room and space, why do airlines not exclusively fly large aircraft?” in our earlier class. WestJet is now providing customer larger aircraft with more legroom, simultaneously with the rising of price. However, the recent news and customer’s complaints have reflected that this may not be a good choice.

WestJet has admitted, “it had a greater proportion of empty seats on its flights last month as increases in the airline’s capacity outpaced its growth in passengers”. WestJet has purchased 65 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft last month, which shows that WestJet is changing its marketing strategy. In this transitional period, WestJet is increasing their output because the larger the aircraft, the higher it costs for maintenance and fuel. Hence, they will definitely charge customers more. It might turns out that they will lose some consumers, as cost performance was one of the dominant factors that made them so successful. The Toronto Stock Exchange has indicated, “WestJet’s shares lost 35 cents at $25.70 in Thursday morning trading”. From my point of view, WestJet should do a much further marketing forecast. Moreover, the customer’s negative feedback has reflected that they did not have a good value proposition of satisfying what customer’s really wants.

Source:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/westjet-s-increase-in-capacity-outpaced-passenger-growth-in-september-1.1481764

Silk Road, a black-market website dealt with online drug trading were seized and its owner Ross William Ulbricht was arrested by FBI this week. All the illegal transactions were paid through Bitcoin, a virtual currency used to trade illicit products anonymously. The disclosure of Silk Road had a steep fall of roughly 20% for the value of Bitcoin. “But others argued that Silk Road’s closure would actually be good for the currency”, because the government’s suppression of Bitcoin will lead to a termination. Over the past years, the amount of Bitcoin in circulation has a total value about $1.2 billion in USD, and the site was making a profit of 80 million through the transactions. Nevertheless, we may ask will the demise of Silk Road become the collapse of black-market or it is “seemed to heat up” other trade market. The latter are tend to be more likely, a competitor Atlantis is now “aimed at eating away at Silk Road’s market share”. Personally, I think it is still a hardly controllable situation for the government, but things will eventually bring to justice.

Cites:

http://business.time.com/2013/10/04/online-drug-markets-are-alive-and-thriving/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24371894

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=optdfUhQIG8