Saewon

A blog about wearable technology from Adobe Digital Marketing provoked me to think about the future of technology field and marketing related to it. The blog talks about the past, present and future of wearable technology. Some of the examples of the latest technology are Google’s Google glass, Samsung’s gear and Nike’s fuel. Wearable technology in clothing industry, especially sports wear, started to innovate early. Nike integrated a few wearable technology with their clothing and shoes. They have shoes that can track how many miles/kilos the person ran or basketball shoes that can track the performance of players in terms of their maximum velocity and maximum vertical jumps and so on.

As more innovation are developed, there are chanced of traditional products falling into the greater risk. However, is it really?

I think unless companies come up with really innovative and practical products just like Apple did with the Iphone, the future of the wearable technology is not too bright. For example, LG and Samsung introduced and worked on commercializing 3D television and broadcasting in South Korea. However,  after a few years of trial, the project is at pause. The reason is primarily because consumers were not ready to accept the product as 3D televisions makes people’s eye tried quickly. I think that wearable technology will also be difficult to get accepted by consumers. I do not think many people will not prefer to have wires and electric magnetic wave all over the body.  There are a lot to be done with the young technology and in order for this technology to be accepted by general public.

As one of BUCS student, the industries that I am primarily interested in are technology and IT. The most interesting company for me was Apple. It is not because it used to produce one of the finest computers and mobile entertainment devices. It is because it was the only company, in my perspective, that can represent them as ‘

However, these days the company is not doing so well after one of the most creative person passed away, Steve Jobs. Some people are even arguing that it might be the fall of the Macintosh computer and all the iPhones and iPods. I kind of do agree with them. In the past, Apple to me was the company that does not only sell products, it showed me what technology can achieve and awed me with such an innovation that they have. However, if you look at the products that they are coming up with… Not so great. One of my classmates from COMM 296 marketing, Sung Ahn, posted an article about how the new iPad Mini was not a great success.innovative’. Yes, people can argue that it is success of its marketing strategy. However, no matter how good those campaigns were, Apple could not have been so successful with their products.

It is depressing to see one of the most innovative company slowly to lose its fame. If I look at their recent product line that they released, it is hard to find an ‘invention’. It is all improvement of previous version. I hope in one day, they will be able to get back their fame once again.

Many baseball fans have been waiting for March to come. It is not because Spring is coming but because baseball season starts at the end of March! This year MLB is trying something that they have never done before. For the first time in its history, they are going to hold one of its season openers in Australia. The two teams that are going to compete in Sydney are Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers. Some internationally famous football clubs have been organizing Asian tour to promote the game of football and their clubs. However, it is rare to have a regular season game in a foreign country.

There are pros and cons to this movement. Of course, the advantage is promoting the game of baseball in a relatively new market. Australia is not well known for baseball. In fact their pro baseball league history is very short. Recently, baseball was dropped from official Olympic sports due to lack of countries participating. These kind of event will increase an awareness baseball in Australia and the popularity of baseball world wide.

However, there are some serious disadvantages for the players. Baseball players, especially pitchers, are sensitive to conditioning and environment that they are in. More than 13 hours flights and 10 hours difference in time zone. One of top pitcher in Dodgers roster, Zack Greinke, expressed his discomfort with season opener at another country. He said that he never had to fly a long fight and there is a high possibility that his cycle can be disturbed by such trip.

As one of a huge baseball fan, I liked their movement to increase popularity of baseball world wide. Big organization like MLB, NBA and NHL should take responsibility and try to promote their sports world wide.

2014 Sochi Olympics has come to the end today. I would like to share an interesting incident happened in Korea with a second-hand advertising. During the period of Olympics, many companies use athletes in their marketing campaign to take an advantage of Olympics.

In this particular advertisement, the Korean energy company, E1, used Yuna Kim in their television commercial to draw public’s attention. I could not find a commercial with an English subtitle but the basic intention was to support Yuna by saying that whole country is supporting her. However, they expressed the message in a wrong way that people who watched this commercial thought that it gives too much pressure to Yuna.

The commercial starts by telling Yuna that “You are not Yuna Kim.” “You are Korea when you are performing for 4 minutes and 8 seconds.” “You are the most beautiful Korea in the world.” “You are the Republic of Korea.” “Korea supports Korea”.

After seeing the ad, many people blamed the company for delivering such a nationalistic message and putting a huge pressure on an athlete preparing for a big game.  In my opinion, this advertisement might have worked if it was 10 to 15 years ago. Back then, Korean culture was very nationalistic and demanded full dedication from people who represent the nation in such a big event. However, as more western cultures influence the country, the way people think is also starting to change.

Superbowl held on February 2nd, 2014. Other than the fantastic performance by the Seahawks at 2014 Superbowl game, one other thing that really struct me was Microsoft commercial, titled Empowering. After watching this commercial, I got a huge goose bump. The clip was not about how Microsoft is great or why they are better than their competitors.  They showed the viewers what ‘technology’ is capable of doing in the future.

I thought that this is really clever strategy to advertise not only technology companies like Microsoft but also the field of technology itself. In the commercial, Microsoft did not say that they are going to do such projects for the people. They were just conveying the message of how technology can be great. I think this message just plants hope into people’s mind.

Everyone loves cheap products, whether it is food, electronics or shoes. However, not many people have taken time to think about how those products were cheaper than normal price. On October 11, 2013, collision of a building in Bangladesh got a lot of attention from western world. In the building, called Rana Plaza, the garment workers were making products for Joe Fresh under poor working condition and with minimal working wage.

Joe Fresh is a clothing brand of a LobLaw, who operates Real Canadian Superstore. When they first entered the market, they were able to gain huge market share quickly with inexpensive price and unique design. No one really cared about how they got their products made so cheap. The biggest reason that the price of their clothing were so low was by exploiting a cheap labour market in Bangladesh.

Until last year, I believe that the reason the company exists was to make profit. Unless the business stay within the law, they should do whatever they have to do to maximize the profit. However, as I see more incidents such as Joe Fresh and current global depression, it is not just about the company. Corporations need to have constant interaction with consumers and if either side of the party is damaged or fouled, the problem occurs.

This is the link that summarizes that happened in Bangladesh

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2013-2014/made-in-bangladesh#comments