The Square: The First Step into the Industry

Netflix has released plenty of original television shows these years. Now, it is aiming at making original films at the silver screen. The Square, a documentary film made by Netflix, is about the political unrest in Egypt. This documentary film won prizes at the Sundance Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival, and will qualify for Oscar consideration.

Why choose to start making Netflix’s original content?

Original content attracts more new subscribers. For example, the original shows, House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, helped Netflix to gain 7 million subscribers in nine months and rapidly boosted the stock price. Now, Netflix has more than 40 million subscribers in the globe.

New ideas

Netflix wants to break the old stereotype that movies only can show in the cinema when first releasing. Netflix’s movies can be watched both on Netflix and in the theatre like what TV does. Also, Netflix tries to make its films based on consumers’ desire. From my point of view, that is a very good point. In order to reach a win-win situation, films firstly are supposed to satisfy more consumers based on their wants. Then, more consumers will be loyal to Netflix and Netflix will gain a good repute, which finally leads to a high profit.

Reference:  http://business.time.com/2013/11/04/netflix-is-making-a-play-for-an-oscar-next/

Single’s day is a popular culture holiday for Chinese bachelors on November 11. The date is chosen because “1” represents single people. This holiday is created by Chinese people a few years ago but quickly becomes even more popular than Chinese traditional Valentine’s day.

However, according to Fengqingyang’s blog, merchants are the happiest people. On November 11, 2011, many unbelievable miracles happened. For example, Taobao reached a new daily on-line turnover record, 5.2 billion RMB. The other miracle was that a low-budget Chinese movie called “Lovelorn thirty-three days” got 3.5 billion at box office partially due to first releasing on Singles’ day. It is thought-provoking question that what the significance of Single’s day is.

For me, Single’s day is for singles to celebrate their bachelor life. For people who want to stop their bachelor life, they can confess their love to their target. However, most people only consider this day as a shopping time, which loses the original purpose of Singles’ day. How to celebrate in Singles’ day? For instance, Single’s day is supposed to be spent like parties and karaoke for bachelors to meet new friends. The day should be more meaningful other than going shopping.

References:

http://xwzm.blog.163.com/blog/static/169088481201310118022715/?touping

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singles_Day

According to Joey Luo’s blog, Drink Evian to “Bring out the Baby in You”, the value proposition of Evian is young lifestyle and pure living attitude. Evian uses its classical theme of babies in advertisements to convey the message “youth is not a matter of age, it’s an attitude.”

Joey uses many interesting videos of the previous advertisements of Evian with its brand history of it to show that Evian successfully established its unique image and status. The unchangeable value proposition helps Evian to become the most popular water brand especially with babies. The slogan of Evian is “Drink pure and natural, Live Young”, which gives Evian a positive image and makes a closer relationship with customers. The advertisements spur an emotion that Evian is youthful and pure.

Evian uses cute babies as a leverage to promote its goodness and catches people’s attention. For instance, in video embedded in Joey’s blog, grown people become small babies in mirrors. It shows that Evian is pure and natural, and drinking Evian makes people younger and vivid.

Joey’s post makes it clear that Evian is an example of success which chooses the right value proposition, leading to its market dominance.

Reference:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/jojoluoo/2013/11/05/drink-evian-to-bring-out-the-baby-in-you/

In June 2013, a lawsuit towards Monster Energy was filed by the family of a girl who was dead after drinking monster energy drinks in 2011. Similarly, Red Bull will get a wrongful death lawsuit since a man was dead while drinking Red Bull energy drinks in 2011. Actually, according to a study in 2009, there were 18 deaths and 13,000 hospital visits due to energy drinks. Those death incidents provoke people’s thinking about risks of energy drinks.

How do death incidents affect energy drink companies? Firstly, the health concern affects people’s preference. Fewer people will buy energy drinks, which negatively influences the energy drink market. More importantly, the death incidents are negative publicity. Deaths have a negative impact on reputations and images of energy drink companies.

According to some foods safety tests, Caffeine in some tasty energy drinks exceeds the safe dose, which causes health incidents. For me, it is not ethical to add too much caffeine to get a better flavor since the people’s health is impaired. Ingredients of some energy drinks should be redesigned so that they contain lower level of caffeine and still keep the good flavor.

References：http://business.time.com/2013/10/28/red-bull-sued-for-85-million-in-mans-death/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Energy