Month: January 2011

It was just an ordinary day, I was home during weekend and I was watching television. I got hungry so I got up and grabbed some Korean snack which is called choco-pie. First of all, choco-pie is similar to wagon wheel with lots of marshmallow and there is about 24 wrapped snacks inside the big package. So, I sat down and tried to open the snack and realized they wrote something new on the choco-pie’s wrap. It was about the facts saying how good their product was. But one of the quotes that caught me was the marshmallow quote. Well, just a year ago, there was a rumor about how marshmallow was 100% purely fat and most of this choco-pie is marshmallow. So people started to say, they should not eat choco-pie and choco-pie’s revenue dropped.

(the pink part is the marshmallow quote)

 In the quote, it said marshmallow is 0% of fat. Also, it stated that choco-pie has 0mg of cholesterol, and 0g of trans fat.  This snack’s company, Orion, is providing the facts and new information to correct the people’s negative view on the snack. So Orion is using cognitive component to change people’s attitude.  I thought it was interesting and started to look at the other wrapper. I found out that there are three different quotes. One was the marshmallow and the other one was saying about how safely they wrapped and packed the snack which is another cognitive component. The last one was about how they are being green. They are using different plastic type for wrapping the snack to stay green. Right away, I thought this is using affective part of attitude. Orion is making emotional connection through being green. Also, people feel great about themselves because they feel like they are involved in this ‘being green’ project. I thought it was amazing how marketing is everywhere. I always thought marketing has to be fancy advertisement but marketing is everywhere, even on the snack wrapper.

This summer while I was in Korea, I was surfing internet to buy new shoes and found out about TOMS. At first, I did not even know it was a shoe brand but many of my friends knew about TOMS already. Moreover, TOMS was popular in Korea. I saw many people wearing it. Then, I wondered how TOMS became so popular suddenly when shoe industry is so competitive and dominated by Reebok and Nike.

TOMS was established in 2006 not long ago but they used the idea of “adding value” to attract the customers. TOMS is known for “One for One” which is giving a pair of new shoes to a child in need with every pair of shoes customer purchase. TOMS added the value to each shoes the customer buy and that was the reason TOMS could not only survive but also became successful in the shoe industry.  Also, they are building a long term relationship with their customer by showing the video of delivering the shoes to the children and they even hand place the shoes to every child. There are a lot of loyal customer and advocators wearing only TOMS.

First, I thought the value they added was not a sustainable competitive advantage so other companies can easily copy. But I realized now “One of One” became the trademark for TOMS and people know “One for One” is originally from TOMS so no one can copy it. For example, Ralph Lauren sold co-branded Polo Rugby TOMS, giving a matched pair with every pair sold and Element Skateboards has issued limited edition TOMS + Element shoes as well as a One for One skateboard.

Here is some history about TOMS and their shoe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrKYUf5mNhA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTQsQUu1Ho8&feature=related

So would you like to be involved in One for One?

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