An interesting blog on the Internet about Coin grabbed my attention while I was researching about daily news. From the blog I have known that Coin is a “credit-card-sized device that holds other credit cards, allowing you to swap from card to card and even store gift cards inside its ultra-thin innards”(Biggs, 2013). For people who always forget to bring cards like me, this product would bring convenience. The most thing that shocked me in John’s blog was the rapid speed of people raising funds for the pre-order campaign: over $50,000 in only 40 minutes! Just like what John said, people’s desire for convenience is strong.

My analysis of John Biggs’s blog is mainly focus on the technology used and how it profits consumers. As mentioned, Coin carries out the use of combination of blue tooth and iOS devise, which is indeed a benefit for Apple users. However personally, I believe in order to expand its market to a larger group of people, the company could also break the limit of iOS users only but to Android and others as well. Speaking more generally, the card itself meets people’s demand to facilitate their daily life. And by using this marketing strategy, the company has brought the success of the product.

Reference

Biggs, J. (2013, 11 14)’s Blog – Coin, The Electronic Credit Card, Reaches Its Pre-Order Goal In 40 Minutes

Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/14/coin-the-electronic-credit-card-reaches-its-pre-order-goal-in-40-minutes/

Photo via http://www.nbd.com.cn/articles/2013-11-18/788264.html 

Squinkies is one of the most popular toys in United States and was rated by New York Times as the annual best-selling toy in 2010. After these years its sale record is still superior in today’s market. Manufactory of Squinkies was Blip ToysBlip, a company of only 16 people and was established in 2002. The CEO of the company Bill Nichols was a person with creation and enthusiasm. But how did a small company like Blip ToysBlips become special and different from all other famous companies such as Mattel and etc.?

Here are the analyses that I made:

1. Bill Nichols have found in 2009 that expensive toys would not attract parents’ attention but cheap plastic toys would. Following this idea he decided to sell toys that had characteristics of “3C” －Cute, Collectible and Cheap. In this regard, as Cute and Cheap are the essential part for kids and parents respectively, Nichols had mastered the market in an effective way.
2. In the research I have found that in order to lower the production cost, Nichols chose to produce toys in Chinese manufactories instead of producing sales samples by toy engravers.
3. The third strategy that Nichols had used was his use of Internet (blogs and online communities). Nichols comprehended that through parents, especially mothers, the velocity of propagation was rapid; therefore he visited over 300 blogs of moms, recommending his product and also giving free chances to try out.

Photo via http://www.citypages.com/photoGallery/index/1822642/1/

From the experience of Nichols, we know that small business could also succeed and it is prominent that using suitable marketing strategies is one of the most effective ways of attracting consumers.

Reference

YouTube Video – Company’s business strategy & growth outlook for the Squinkies product line:

While I was reading other COMM 101 students’ blogs, Minqi’s topic of Sanlu Milk event in China interested me, as I had paid close attention to this event since I was back in China. As mentioned in her blog, the poisonous milk has caused a substantial amount of infants sick or even worse, for during the process of producing milk, there were detrimental chemicals called melamine being added into the powder so that the percentage of protein in the milk would increase. In this case the producing cost would decrease and this is the “tricky” way for the company to get more profit. Minqi concluded the issue as the lack of business ethics of Sanlu Company. Indeed, as we learned in class, business ethics is one of the basic principles of starting a company and bring it to market. Here I would like to analyze the event from the perspective of consumers.

Personally I believe the foundation of market economy is trust. Consumers choose to buy products based on their assumption of trust of the product. However if producers and operators of an industry lose the basic integrity, just like what Sanlu Company did, how can consumers expect that they would pay for the quality problems or to be responsible for the health of others. For Sanlu Company, it will take a long time to re-establish their brand, reputation and market credibility, and sometimes there would be no good result. Therefore by combining my views and Minqi’s, lack of business ethics has a direct impact on a company’s long-term development.

Reference

Minqi Pei’s Blog – Sanlu Milk Powder Event: https://blogs.ubc.ca/maggie123/

Photo via http://www.zhgpl.com/crn-webapp/specKind.jsp?coluid=9&kindid=3870&count=125

As an enthusiastic fan of fashion and design, I often spend time researching the selling trend of well-known brands and their newly products. This morning I accidently saw an article illustrating the decline in the sales of one of the most famous luxury brands in the world, Louis Vuitton, which grasp my attention. (Website for the article: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100425902)

The article reflects that the decline of the sale was mainly due to the expansion of LV stores. As mentioned, the chief executive of parent LVMH, Bernard Arnault, suggests that the marketing strategy for the group is to limit the number of shops opening. I personally agree with his point, as LV should keep its brand image as luxury, (can be simply explained as something with high price but still lots of people want), so that rising of the price would not influence the selling. However, expanding opening shops would make the brand more common and decrease people’s high brand value mentally, which eventually detrimentally affect the sale.

Reference:

Less Is More for Louis Vuitton as It Pulls Expansion – http://www.cnbc.com/id/100425902

Photo via http://www.louisvuitton.com.au/front/#/eng_AU/Stores/Store-Locator/point-of-sale/Louis-Vuitton-Ho-Chi-Minh

One of COMM 101 students, Jialu Li, has written about Google’s allowance of users using their online information (including Google+ and YouTube and etc.). She has mentioned that online advertisements also helped Google to earn money. Personally I believe that from the perspective of Google, getting profit by ads is necessary. Though Internet users may be disturbed by the ads, however, people would not stop using the website if they truly want to explore something. That means corporation with ads will not influence the company much because Google is one of the most well known website for searching information.

A few days ago I saw an article about how Chris Dodd, former U.S. senator and now CEO of Motion Picture Association of America, criticized the lack of action that Google takes to prevent the pirated contents on Internet. (Article can be found in http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d088e55e-46c8-11e3-bdd2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2kyHkYqUP) However my perspective after reading the article was that one of the reasons that Google did not deter it was because by providing links for those pirated movies, Google can actually earn more Internet users whereas without the links, users would find other ways instead of searching by Google.

In this regard, by comparing Jialu’s blog and the online article, I found it was interesting to see how Google company earn money and get profit using different strategies in two different articles.

Reference

Jialu Li’s Blog – Quantity or Quality: https://blogs.ubc.ca/jialu/

Google urged to step up fight against film piracy – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d088e55e-46c8-11e3-bdd2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2kyHkYqUP

From my perspective, there are two types of business nowadays. The first type of business is which focus too much on the brand and even overprotect their reputation by monitoring the media and tightly disposing the statements and actions of consumers. The other type however, open their brand and actions to the public and encourage complains and suggestions by consumers. In this regard, consumers also have their different views towards the attitudes and decisions of different enterprise.

McDonalds can be a representative of those enterprises that open their details to public. I accidently saw the website http://yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca on the poster in local McDonalds. It is a community called “our food, your questions”, suggesting consumers to ask any type of question. Though there were unfriendly comments and questions such as “what kind of beef you use to make the beef patty, any additives?” or “Are the milkshakes made with real milk” and etc., McDonalds does not avoid but answer them sincerely. There was once when a consumer asked about why the hamburgers made were different from those showed in the advertisement. McDonalds replied by recoding the process of how hamburgers were made in details and how Photoshop was used afterwards. The video was updated on YouTube and reached 4 million views.  Most reflections from public were positive towards the honest of McDonalds.

Personally I believe enterprises nowadays should also learn this attitude of McDonalds because it is an effective way to earn consumers’ trust, which is one of the most essential aspect of business.

Citations

Our Food Your Questions

Official Website: http://yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca

Youtube Ads.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBm8145-wp4