The international community shares a common ambition of combatting the critical issue that is of global warming. It is a crisis that increasingly affects everyone and their environment. As consequence, people have begun taking immediate action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, some countries making it a top priority. Hamburg, Germany has thus banned large trucks from its city center to realize its twenty-year plan of a “greener” vehicle-free city.

The world’s largest package delivery company, The United Parcel Service (UPS), proudly announced that it will utilize an “electric assist cargo tricycle”. Nikki Abbott successfully outlines the phenomenal benefits of the UPS Green Line, such as decreasing carbon footprint whilst delivering packages at a much faster rate. I fully support Nikki’s positive outlook towards UPS’s new system. The Green Line still abides by the city’s regulations and is able to deliver packages in congested areas that other delivery trucks (competitors) are unable to. The company will function at a comparable rate and efficiently level with the tricycle similarly if they were to use UPS’s traditional delivery trucks. The firm wishes to reduce its “carbon intensity” (amount of pollution emitted per package delivered) by 20 percent by the end of 2020. Through the use of their eco-friendly Green Line innovation, the company will potentially be able to attain their future goal.

I strongly believe that UPS’s Green Line is an outstanding example of business ethics. The company created a system that appealed to consumers, assisted their personal carbon-footprint goal and took a smart step forward to increasing their profitability. This suggestively disproves the common correlation of an inefficient business to an ethical business. With a system as successful as the Green Line, UPS should most definitely look into expansion to their other operating countries.

The UPS Green Line is an innovation that has provided an advantageous edge for the company towards their competitors and has effectively paved the way to a global environmentally-driven future.

Word Count: 322

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Works Cited

Abbott, Nicola. “Nicola (Nikki) Abbott’s Blog | Just Another UBC Blogs Site.” Nicola Nikki Abbotts Blog. N.p., 1 Oct. 2016. Web. 31 Oct. 2016. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/nicolaabbott/2016/10/01/blog-post-2/>.

Muller, Joann. “UPS Is Conducting A Vast Rolling Lab Experiment To Create The Clean Truck Of The Future.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 30 Sept. 2016. Web. 31 Oct. 2016. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2016/09/30/ups-employs-vast-rolling-laboratory-to-discover-clean-truck-of-the-future/#233aa1c81f31>.

Nintendo is one of the most world-renowned gaming companies to date. Timeless classics like Super Mario Bros, Kirby and Pokémon have been childhood favourites for millions around the world. As years passed and technology progressed, mobile gaming became an enormous fad. Despite the popular trends, Nintendo decided to maintain emphasis on the conventional console gaming. As Nintendo introduced Pokémon Go—their first emergence into mobile gaming—the company’s once immobile stocks doubled in price. Jason Tse’s blog post highlights the epic rise of the app, discussing how Nintendo’s surfacing mobile gaming addition has initiated a new demographic to all their other existing segments. With all this being true, I dedicate this post to the unfortunate outcome that followed the launch of Pokémon Go.

It is undeniable that the app was an absolute phenomenon. Nonetheless, after several weeks of actively hunting Pokémon, app users soon grew tired of the game. Many began to criticize the developers—Niantic—as they failed to introduce different features to captivate and uphold user interests. The removal of the tracking system was a vital trigger to the wave of disinterest, which restricted the pursuing of rare Pokémon. These bugs were not treated by Niantic, who was essentially unresponsive to the issue. In addition, people began to “cheat” the game, thereby finding new ways to get around without physically getting up and about. Through these glitches, gamers lost immense incentive to play the Pokémon Go app.

With numerous users still active, the app has not entirely crashed and burned. Nevertheless, I strongly believe Nintendo lost crucial potential to improve Pokémon Go. If they were to act sooner to cater to their consumer wants and interests, they would have possibly kept many gamers intrigued, thus sufficing consumer wants.

As a Pokémon enthusiast myself, I hope to see several improvements in the upcoming “Generation 2 Pokémon Go” which is to be released in 2017. Nonetheless, Nintendo will not cease to disappoint as their presence in the mobile gaming world will only continue to develop and progress significantly.

Word Count: 343

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Citations:

Placido, Dani Di. “The End Of ‘Pokémon GO'” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 30 July 2016. Web. 16 Oct. 2016. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2016/07/30/the-end-of-pokemon-go/#408826a670d7>.

Tse, Jason. “The Comeback of Nintendo? | Po Hong (Jason) Tse.” Po Hong Jason Tse. N.p., 1 Oct. 2016. Web. 16 Oct. 2016. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/jaytse/2016/10/01/the-comeback-of-nintendo/>.

Suffering from a great downfall, famed dessert company Jell-O from Kraft Foods has announced it will return to its classic “food for fun” branding (Schultz 2013). Once popular for their celebrity-starring advertisements, Jell-O had begun an adult-focused approach, consequently causing over fifty percent of sales to decline. The company’s new campaign marketer has future plans to rebrand Jell-O back to its familial, fun approach. The advertising budget is said to double and will include prints, digital and TV marketing.

Jell-O could have potentially avoided their current predicament if they had adapted to consumer tastes throughout the years. We discussed a similar scenario in class about Blackberry, once an extremely popular company that proceeded in a downward spiral. With their recent phone sales declining tremendously, they decided to shift their efforts towards software development (Monica 2016) and eradicate their production of phones for good. Both companies did not immediately evolve their products to suit current consumer wants and tastes.

With several months of debating Jell-O’s new image with qualitative and quantitative consumer testing, the company has ultimately come to perfect their stance among other snack competitors in the market. This ties in to Class eight’s topics regarding positioning and value propositions (Cubbon 2012). Jell-O established the socio-demographic of “familial” with a psychographic of a “fun” lifestyle. It was apparent that Jell-O struggled in the positioning segment, as it is nearly impossible to change a consumer’s perception—in their case concerning the unhealthiness of the snack. Jell-O was popular during the Atkins-diet era, however it failed to essentially keep up with the current healthy eating trends.

Through the use of specific marketing tools (segmentation, targeting, positioning and value propositions) Jell-O from Kraft Foods will theoretically combat their competitors with a re-established, up-to-date successful brand.

Word Count: 292

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Works Cited

Cubbon, Paul. 2012. Vimeo. September 13. Accessed October 1, 2016. https://vimeo.com/49370591.

Monica, Paul R. La. 2016. CNN.com. September 26. Accessed October 1, 2016. http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/28/technology/blackberry-outsource-phones/ .

Schultz, E.J. 2013. Adage. August 12. Accessed October 1, 2016. http://adage.com/article/news/kraft-launches-campaign-revive-jell-o/243616/.