Month: September 2014

Do not bother trying to win everyone’s favor: what to learn from the growing popular trend of old doll collecting

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http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140613-the-stunning-value-of-dusty-dolls

 

This article talked about how old dolls become something more favorable than before. Doll collectors whose primary intention is not to resell old dolls contribute the most. In the eyes of the majority population, old and sometimes even dusty dolls do not sound appealing, but they do enjoy a growing share of the doll market.

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I take its unique value proposition as the biggest strength. There are values inside of the dolls, values that are appreciated by some people. This can be extended into other companies as well: It is nearly impossible to please almost everyone and talk them into buying the products, and therefore clarifying the value proposition of a firm is one of the most essential steps for a company to succeed. In this case, the value proposition of old dolls is the internal beauty and the inherent value that differentiate those dolls from other toys.

In addition, a clear positioning of a company usually comes with a specific group of target customers, i.e. the customer segment, which, along with the value proposition is vital for a firm to get into the business game and root the brand name into the head of customers.

Netflix growing strong: Is the ‘brand name impact’ always that significant?

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I recently read that Netflix is foraying towards the field of film production (http://www.bnn.ca/News/2014/9/30/Netflix-to-make-big-screen-debut-with-Crouching-Tiger-sequel.aspx).

Starting from renting DVDs, Netflix is acquiring an increasing amount of attention in the field of online TV streaming.

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In many journals or articles, it is stated or implied that it is almost impossible to replace a No.1 brand name. However, I am very confident that Netflix will become the leading company if it keeps going in the same pace, as we can see from the chart above.

So why the brand name effect (that customers tend to remember the first big brand that appear on the market even if it later loses quality) does little work in this case (unlike other leading brand in other field such as clothes and beverage)? Personally, I think it is because that the qualities of different movies made by different companies are highly differentiable, unlike , for example, the same beverage with different brand. Every movie is different, and it is easy to tell which one is one person’s type.

 

Another important point is that, when choosing to watch a movie, one does not tend to look at which company produced it. Instead, before buying clothes, one would most likely look at the brand first. Therefore, I could say that in most fields, brand brings about customers while in the TV field, qualities make a brand popular.

Company Charity and Business Ethics

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The prosperity of business world brings opportunities as well as challenges for individual firms. Under such circumstance, many companies favor sponsoring charity organizations or events to be more competitive.

 

I am not denying the huge benefit many enterprises have given to the society, and I do not think donation to charity is something that goes against business Ethics. Although some insist that such action is actually bad for the society because doing so means to acting like government, a role that a firm should not have played, levying on people and distribute to those in need, I can not give consent to this opinion because it is totally optional weather customers chose to donate ( A company would have to rise price to get more profit to donate) either directly or indirectly.

 

What concerns me is that some firms may be tricky about donation when is comes to giving out its money.

 

Here is a link talking about how some companies may be very deceptive. http://www.care2.com/causes/are-those-companies-charitable-proceeds-actually-going-to-charity.html

 

Some firms claims to support charity and in fact they do, but firms give little clue of how much they have actually given. Companies, after all, are profit- driven, if we put aside the non profit firms, and can be tricky when it comes to money.