Recently, the gas price all over the world has gone up, up, and keeping up. How does it affect to your life or your lifestyle? I have heard a news that after the gas price gone that in an Asian country, the traffic jam issue has been reduced in the major cities, because people cannot afford the gas price. It will cost more money if there is traffic jam on the road in terms of wasting gas. Before the price gone up, the government was the subject to be blamed. Now, the problem solved, but people is starting to blame the high price. In my opinion, this is good for the environment and faster transportation by taking advantages of public transportation. However, on the other side, these might not a good new for the family who has to rely on car to transport, especially for the people who live in North America, the public transportation still not very much due to the lack of demand. A news from the MSN.com indicates that people might not travel to far away from home this summer due to the high gas price. More details here
Some of commercials are really good, people love it, and will influence consumer to make a positive action on it. However, there are many commercial are not so well as it supposed to be. For example, the commercial from Bud light Platinum was quite a impressive one. High quality, cool environment, nice background music have demonstrate the product effectively.
Another bad example is General Insurance, they could have not done such poor quality. because of such commercial, it made me hate this company and sometimes I would make fun of it.
Updates on JC Penney's new movement. I saw an Ellen's commercial with JC Penney this afternoon, which noticed that the company is using a new strategy called "No Games, Just great Prices". The commercial starts with Ellen DeGeneres noticed that nowadays seller prefer to set a price with the end of .99 or 99cents, for example a $7 dollar shoes is $6.99 on the list price. However, JC Penney choose not to trick the customer, just round up to a dollar. Does it work? How customer feel about it?
When people started using 99cents strategy because it could boost the sale for 15% more decades ago. Now, when we go to every shop in the world, the price is ended with 99, 98, or 95. It is tricky, but sometimes people just feels like it is cheaper even it is one penny less.
I checked the price on JC Penney Website, and it looks good, but I do not feel it is cheap, well, I am not sure if this is a right strategy to use.
JCPenney just made a big change in its marketing campaign. What do you think about it? What was JCPenney in your eyes before?
Comared at Macy's, I barely shop at JCPenney. I think I have only bought two things from there in the last few year, a sweat-pant and a jeans. JCPenney always gives me a type of impression of old fashion and old people would buy from there. So, they were quite suffering on their sales because everyone had the same feeling on this as I do.
Now, after they got there new CEO, who worked at Apple. Inc. before, brought a new change to the company. First thing I noticed that hey hired Ellen Degenereous for their speak person which lead a series controversial discussion on homo sexual issues and the company image. Second they made large amount of graphic advertising improvement, which use large size of picture instead of too many products shown on one page. It looks pretty close to the idea that Apple is doing. From the marketing perspective is really impressive to me. How does the change in the store, may be I will take look on it.
In addition on the new logo, it seems it is telling me to buy America, or they are selling American stuff? not sure, but it does look like American national flag.
Have you realized that Apple product is all around you, especially, when iPhone become a phone that everyone is using. People used to dream to have an iPhone, every time when Apple introduce a newer version of its products, they will be covered by all medias. Last Fall, iPhone 4S comes out with same looks of iPhone 4, and the company create more channels to distribute product through Sprint, and its official website. The sales of iPhone boost super fast, it hits one million at first day for pre-orders, and I was one of them. After a few month later, I have seen everyone on campus or wherever is using an iPhone, some times I felt too many iPhone around me. I am tired of the design of its look, but I have tied up with the 2 year contract. Something else dragged my attention, on media, they are talking about Nokia Lumia 800 had ranked number 1 in European market for hottest cellphone, I thought it was just some marketing promotion tricks, but when I really look up into it, I love it. Do you have such issue because of you are tired of the look of iPhone and wanna try something different?
Here is the phone of Nokia Lumia 900, which is cheaper and looks great. The graphic user interface is a lot of different than iPhone or Android, may this is the next phone I will use, cause I wanna be different. What about you?
In 2008, Pepsi decided to redesign the logo which comes out as the photo above. The reaction that I saw this logo at first moment was 'Eewww, this is so ugly, why would they want to change it?' Personally, I still like the old logo which shows more balance than the new one even after almost four years already. Some of my friends were joking the new logo looks like Obama's logo, which I thought was very hilarious.
Last year, when I was joining the class of principle of marketing by Professor Micheal Kroff, he mentioned that this is a type of marketing campaign to let customer notice the new movement about Pepsi-Cola, Inc. As Kroff said, due to the bad economy right now around the world, people need confidence and encouraging sign to drive the economy back on the right track. The new logo goes up from lett to right, which gives customer a feeling this looks like the chart for stock price. They hope the good economy could come again, and drinking pepsi would make you feel good and 'lucky'. After his speech, it refreshes the way how I think about pepsi, which is more positive impact to me. I don't know what the company really thinks, but they did suffered a while for letting customer to accept this logo. Different customer think differently.
Recently, there is an all new design camera attracted a little bit of my attention. It is non traditional camera called Casio EX-TR100. It came out in early month of 2011 at a price about 350 dollars, but it turns out the US market react as not what the company expected, then it drops to 249.99, after a few month gone to 199.99 online. The design of the camera allows to take pictures of yourself at any angle. There are two model available, white and black. However, they are very popular among Chinese buyers, especially the white one.
The reason why TR100 is not so popular in US I guess are the culture and demographic differences. American consumer does not really understand this Japanese style products, it does not look professional nor tough. The quality of the camera isn't so good and does not even professional. The lens is really small just like a webcam. The shutter button is not at a regular place. In general, it looks and feels like a cheap toy.
(photo: From Casio international Website)
During the Black Friday, Staple had this camera on sale at price $100. Before the sale start, I saw a lot of Chinese were sharing such ad at Chinese social network, it soon gets really popular and the price in China gets really high, up to $400. I bought four of them from local Staple store, and sold them online through Amazon market place for over 300 dollars. According to the buyers' name, they are all Chinese. (because the way they spell their name is exactly how Chinese spell the name in letters).
The reason why TR100 is SOOOOOO popular in China is influenced by Chinese online and offline culture. Girls like taking pretty pictures and post then online, and rumor spread out really fast online said the TR100 is the camera built for taking pictures for girls. So, many girls from rich family bought it without research too much details. After shooting with TR100 and post it online, it looks pretty. This stimulates other Chinese girl would want to have one. The other thing about the camera is the built in software could adjust the quality of the picture just like the function of photoshop. So, it helps them to cover the defects on their faces, which turned out looks pretty good. On a social aspect, once you got a TR100, you can show off to your friends and makes then jealous.
As a Conclusion, this is a very typical case of consumer behavior, very interesting to be shared with you. Same products could be very successful in one country and very such in another one. The company really needs a good marketing team to do all the research before entry to the market.
Here is a video from youtube, it shows you how this camera works.
