Month: November 2010

While looking for commercials on YouTube I came across a toy manufacturing company called Goliath Toys. Goliath has released a rather interesting toy called Kackel Dackel. Please refer to the video above for a better understanding of the toy. Somehow I lack the appropriate words to best describe it.

This toy makes me wonder, is this really intended for the little kids shown on the commercial? Is this some kind of joke? Would you ever give your child this toy? My point is, I don’t think the ones who designed this toy had the true intention of selling these toys to kids. I believe this is what I would call one of those “fun gifts” where you go to a Secret Santa friend reunion and you give it someone and everyone present laughs about it. Even though I’m not that old I still feel i have the right to say, ” In my times, I used to play with Lego and build things, today kids play with somewhat “interesting” toys.”

I was curious enough to look at the website and Goliath is a German company and they actually advertise the product as a children’s toy. Well…I guess I was wrong. The toys are in fact destined for children.

All I can say is that times change…

First of all, if you haven’t seen this video you SHOULD watch this. Chinese engineers have done what no one has ever been capable of doing :

First thing that came to mind was my home back home in Brazil….If i recall well, it took approximately 12 months to build and complete the house. I mean, we have a pretty big house at the beach with a pool , two floors high but absolutely nothing compared to what the Chinese have done. In fact if i use the number of floors as a driver i can say that it would take the Chinese 19.2 hours to build my house. This is less than one day! It took Brazilian workers 365 days to build it. No wonder the Chinese are dominating the world and our GPA’s. Anyway, I thought that it was a very interesting video and impressive planning and engineering. Second thing that came to mind was what the name of this company and how can I invest in it. I actually looked all over google to try to find the name of the company but i was not succesful and probably if i did find it, it would most definitely be quoted at a Chinese stock exchange. Third thing that came to mind, “if i were the CEO or VP Marketing I would try to find ways to show the world and bring forward the company’s image. This simple video can cause an enormous effect and can potentially solve many problems in the world. The technology the Chinese engineers are offering the world is something that can be very beneficial if used wisely. I truly believe this company should try to expand its knowledge and develop these kinds of technology in areas where people need it the most… They could become a very important image and company that could do amazing things to the world. Im sure If i were a big investor and had money I would donate it to them and ask them to build one of these buildings in poor african nations which really need housing. I sure do these ideas benefit society and are used wisely toward good ends.

Close by to where I live, there is a Dog Bakery. Yes, it is literally a dog bakery where they only sell dog cookies and treats. I know for sure because i went in there once just to try them out and they actually taste disgusting and I guess its what dogs like. Anyway, as I walked by it with my girlfriend during the weekend I told her, “I’m am so sure this business is not doing very well…they wont last long.” I apologize for being negative towards them but i just did not see a dog bakery as a profitable business. Interestingly enough I woke up looked at my blackberry (pretty sure its the first thing many people do when they wake up)  and saw the dog bakery in my neighborhood being advertised. I find it amusing in several aspects, firstly due to the fact that business that aren’t doing so well use Groupon to increase volume of sales and hopefully improve their business. Secondly, I find it very amusing because I realized that I was able to apply some marketing concepts I learned in class. I analyzed the market (although not in depth) and was able to assume such conclusion and i guess my hypothesis was proved by this incident.

Well, I actually hope the Dog bakery business turnsout better and is able to increase their business and grow. Unfortunately, all the feedback that I have heard so far from the companies who used Groupon as a marketing and selling strategy were very negative. Meaning, many of these company’s even lost money.

I joined a stock market simulator called Investopedia about two months ago. Since then i have been following some companie’s stock indexes including Apple Inc. and RIM (research in motion) the developers of the blackberry. I bought quite a few stock of RIM and was very content to know that on the morning of September 28, 2010, my RIM stocks went up. I was fortunate that RIM has just announced the release of an Electronic Reader/Pad Gadget that offered similar features of the iPad but it had a camera.  I was very surprised, it made me think, ‘” Will all the Blackberry fans lean towards this new release by RIM? I thought so, but for my surprise, very little advertising was done and very few, if not most of my friends were not aware of that release. It shocked me because “Now” seems to be the blackberry trend phase since most of my friends are blackberry users. On the other hand, as I started to think I realized that Apple has a huge advantage in the sense that they have an App Store with a greater variety of apps to chose from. It is very hard to compete with such a strong competitor. Many people may value it less by seeing it as just an imitation. And if we consider RIM’s competitive advantage, first thing that comes to mind is Blackberry messenger, which enables blackberry owners to comunicate for free as long as they have a data plan. To what extent is the Blackberry messenger useful in RIM’sPlaybook? The answer is, it is not relevant, it doesnt add much value to the Playbook consequently its popularity may be jeopardized along to its success. Well, as a RIM supporter, I really wish they come up with better features and that they are able to build up a succesful marketing mix for their product. And as a consumer, keep up with the war and keep prices lower.