#8 Does Coca Cola still need to advertise?

What is the purpose of advertisement such as TV commercial, poster, bill board? I thought it was raising the recognition of a company of its products. However, it is more that that! As the time goes by, company need to create a different brand image.

Everyone knows Coca Cola. Coca Cola has the largest market share; 42.8% in 2011 and 1.7 billion servings of Coke products are consumed every day. Also, I found a data that says "The red and white Coca-Cola logo is recognized by 94% of the world's population."(http://steelmediainc.com/case-studies/22/coke/) Without any doubt, Coca Cola is a leading firm in the world and Coca Cola has enough recognition. However, Coca Cola still keep using a lot of money for advertising, and Coca-Cola spends more money on advertising than Microsoft and Apple combined.(citation) Now that I know this fact, that is true that I often saw Coca Cola TV commercial.

Products do not sell well just because they are known well. Therefore, Coca Cola tries to create a brand image that suits the times. You can see that from the fact that Coca Cola changes its slogan depending on the times. Coca Cola changes its slogan every few years. For example, in 1906, slogan was "The Great National Temperance Beverage." 1906 is during Progressive Era, and there were the movement toward Prohibition of alcohol. Thus, Coca Cola marketed itself as a good alternative to alcohol. Still now, Coca Cola changes its slogan at least  every few years. (You can see the list of the slogans here.)What marketers need to do is understanding the trends and the mood of consumers of the times, creating a brand image that is suitable for the time and that gets a lot of empathy from the people in the times, and sending a message to consumers by advertisement. By spending a lot of money on marketing and advertising, Coca Cola always fits the times, gets brand loyalty, and sells well for a long time. Advertising is not only getting more awareness, but also creating a brand image and sending a message that fits the trend of the time.

Citations
http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-lore-slogans

#7 I encountered an online market research firm, Macromill, Inc.!

From Nov. 7 to Nov. 9, I participated in the Boston Career Forum , a Japanese-English bilingual job fair. As many as 190 Japanese international companies came to the event to hire Japanese students who are studying in the USA and students from any countries who can speak Japanese and English. In the Boston Career Forum, every companies had a small booth, and students visited booths of the companies they are interested in, listened to approximately 30-minute company information and submitted their resume.


In the Boston Career Forum, I found an interesting company, Macromill, Inc., a Japanese online market research firm, and listened to the company information session. I was excited at that time because in our marketing class, we learned about market research. The textbook, "Principles of Marketing," says that "Some large companies have their own research departments that work with marketing managers on marketing research projects. In addition, these companies-like their smaller counterparts- frequently hire outside research specialists to consult with management on specific marketing problems and to conduct marketing research studies."(p.106) This company, Macromill, is the outside research firm!!Main role of this company is listen to a client about their problems, identify what kind of questions they need to answer, conduct a primary research, analyse the data they get for the client, and make a strategy with the client. In today's blog, I want to share what I learned from the company information session.





What I found interesting from the company information session was the difference of sales and marketing. A person from Macromill explained that the act of sales is asking people who do not want to buy and persuade them to buy, on the other hand, marketing is justification; making the system in that people want to buy spontaneously with their own will. He illustrated this difference with an interesting example.

The example is about the Odenplan station in Stockholm.
In the station, there was a escalator next to a stairs, so most people chose escalator, and people really need the escalator, such as the elderly and pregnant, cannot use it comfortably. To solve this situation, there are two possible ways. One is putting the poster saying "Please use stairs so that people in need can use the escalator." This is asking people to do what they are unwilling to do. The other way is to make a system that each stairs makes sound as people step on, so that people enjoy to use stairs and spontaneously choose stairs over escalator. This is what marketing need to do. Marketing is giving a reason, justification or incentive to do something.
Marketing strategy is to make a system to change or affect people's behavior!

#6 the importance of marketing ～providing the same productｓ, but sell differently～

We learned 4 steps for a customer-driven marketing:

1. segmentation, dividing the market into small segments,
2. targeting, selecting the segments you will target and appeal to,
3. differentiation, differentiating the products and creating competitive advantage, and
4. positioning, positioning the products in the minds of customers.


I found some Japanese companies and products that illustrate well the importance of these steps of marketing, so I'll show you.


The first example is "スタジオアリス" or "Studio Alice Co.,Ltd.," which are a Japanese photo studio company, targeting the families who have children.


Customers may use photo studio in various occasions, such as wedding, graduation, coming of age ceremony and so on. However, Studio Alice targeted children and provides the services that fit children. For example, most workers in Studio Alice are women.

Studio Alice provide the service of free costume rental, and it allows customers to change costumes as much as they want, so that children enjoy taking pictures. Also, thanks to the service, not only parents but also grand parents come to the photo studio for grand children and enjoy to choose costume and posing all together. Studio Alice give customers a enjoyable place where all families get together for children. This service also benefits Studio Alice, because grand parents also come to the store, so customers have what is called "six pockets," parents and grand parents pocket money, and photos sell well.

There are a lot of companies whose service is taking pictures, but Studio Alice targeted children, and differentiate its services that provide the place for children and their family to enjoy taking photos, so Studio Alice succeeded.

The next example is "Kit Kat,"a chocolate from Nestlé.

At first, Kit Kat was a just one of a reasonable chocolate brands in Japan.
However, now Kit Kat is a lucky chocolate that brings student　a luck to pass the entrance exam.
This is because of play on words.In Japanese, "Kitto Katsu" means　"You will win," and the pronunciation is similar to "Kit Kat." Also, the entrance exams for college, university, high school, or junior and high are very big and important events for Japanese students.

Therefore, the company market Kit Kat focusing on students who will take the exams that are usually taken place on the spring., their friends and families.

For example, the package of Kit Kat has space to write message, so that people can give Kit Kat to friends who are going to take exam. Marketers position Kit Kat as a perfect gift to the students, because the name of Kit Kat is very good for exam, chocolate gives energy for the exam, and Kit Kat is not so expensive to give friends. This Kit Kat in the picture below has a place to put a stamp and write a zip code, to send Kit Kat as a mail.
 
Also a lot of cherry blossom flower are printed on the package, because the cherry  blossom flower is the symbol of passing the exam.
Because of these efforts, Kit Kat sell better that before, even though Kit Kat itself is the same as before.

Kit Kat also position itself by different way.
Kit Kat has a lot of tastes only provided in a limited region, and regarded as a popular and useful souvenir to give others.
For example in Kyoto, a famous green tea producer, there is a green tea Kit Kat.
In Hokkaido, a famous melon producer, there is a melon Kit Kat.  



Kat Kat target students who will take exams and tourists, differentiate from another chocolate, by its design and tastes.
After these marketing efforts, Kit Kat is not a just chocolate, has a unique brand image, and sell well.

#5 diferenciation

In the class, my group chose apparel industry for the mini-report, and I found that each companies has a different strategy and differentiate the company and position the company differently.

At first, apparel market value keeps growing during 2009 to 2014 moderately, and it is expected to increase about 5.5%. By 2018, total revenues will increase to $1,694 billion.

I was surprised at the fact that the apparel industry keeps expanding because apparel is not a new emerging industry, like animation industry, rather it is old. I could not understand why apparel industry increases because people have been buying cloths, so the industry should be stable.



Our group chose H&M, and looked at it closer.
According to the company profile,  H&M had about $19,708 million of total revenue in 2013 and H&M made 6.4% growth over 2012.

H&M's strategy to expand is
going into new markets, especially Asia, Oceania, and America, other that European countries,(market development)
starting on line sales (market development & market penetration), and
creating a new fashion brand, for example sports collections (product development).

The competitors of H&M are
Marks and Spencer Group plc.,
Otto (GmbH & Co KG),
Arcadia Group Limited, and
Fast Retailing.

Marks and Spencer Group plc. is a major British retailer.
What is different about Marks and Spencer group is that they started food business (product development).

They keep investing on food business by opening 150 new UK M&S Simply Food stores over the next three years, and starting food business overseas especially in Western Europe.

Otto (GmbH & Co KG) is a mail order company mainly based in Germany and France.
It has a notable characteristic as a mail order company.


There are a lot of way to expand. Product/market expansion grid shows 4 different way to expand. Within one way, for example product development, there are a lot of opportunities, like starting new food business and creating a new sports collection. Each companies identify their own growth opportunity. For me, apparel industry seems that there are no way left to expand, but I thought there are infinite opportunities in every industry.

product/market expansion grid

#4 marketing using Twitter

Twitter in Marketing!

Do you remember about ALS ice bucket challenge? That created a huge movement and thanks to it, ASL Association raised $100 million as well as awareness. Now SNS has a tremendous power in marketing. In the class, we also learned that many companies use SNS, such as Twitter, for their marketing research. We saw the video that shows Domino's Pizza collects customers' real and honest opinions from Twitter. So I looked for other companies that use Twitter for marketing.


First product I found interesting is HUGGIES!
HUGGIES is the brand of a disposable diaper marketed by Kimberly-Clark. Kimberly-Clark has the top market share in the baby wipes industry in the USA with 35.4% in 2013. Kimberly-Clark also has a famous brand Kleenex. Procter & Gamble Co.(P&G) has the second biggest market share with 20.9%. Procter & Gamble Co. has the brand Pampers.
 

In 2013, HUGGIES provides a unique service, TweetPee.
If you put the sensor to a baby's diaper, it will send you a tweet to tell you it's time to change a diaper.


By this unique service, TweetPee, HUGGIES got some customers' attention.
The app that cooperates with the sensor also tracks the number of diaper used, so parents can easily know the number of diapers left at home, and order HUGGIES's diapers on the Internet easily by the app. Therefore, Kimberly-Clark keeps the customer buying HUGGIES again.

Here is the link to the article about TweetPee.



Next is about Colgate.
Colgate is the brand marketed by Colgate-Palmolive Company, and it produces 
soaps, detergents, oral products, and so on.

The competitors of Colgate-Palmolive Company are
1. P&G, whose sales in 2013 was $80,062,000,000
(Colgate-Palmolive Company comes here with $17,420,000,000 sales)
2. Kao Corp. $14,593,150,000
3. Sun Products Corp. $11,401,000,000.



Colgate's campaign is "There's Something In your Tweet"

Let Colgate tip off your friends anonymously through Twitter about food stuck in their teeth. They’ll also send them a $1.00 off coupon for a new Colgate Slim Softtoothbrush to help make sure it never happens again.
You will also get access to the coupon once your friend has received their tip.
- See more at: http://www.simplyfrugal.ca/colgate-coupon-1/#sthash.cI60obkj.dpuf

Let Colgate tip off your friends anonymously through Twitter about food stuck in their teeth. They’ll also send them a $1.00 off coupon for a new Colgate Slim Softtoothbrush to help make sure it never happens again.
You will also get access to the coupon once your friend has received their tip.
- See more at: http://www.simplyfrugal.ca/colgate-coupon-1/#sthash.cI60obkj.dpuf

If you visit Colgate's SlimSoft site, you can anonymously send a tweet to your friend and tell him or her that there is some food stuck in the teeth. Then, both you and your friend can get a $1 off coupon for a new Colgate Slim Softtoothbrush. You can use this campaign to tell your friend the embarrassing situation without hurting the friend's feeling or just joke and make your friend surprised for fun.

Here is the link to the article about the Colgate campaign
Another link to the article


Marketing using Twitter has a lot of advantage. Twitter is free, and companies can reach a lot of people so quickly. However, it is difficult to create a big movement such as Ice Bucket Challenge, and if a campaign is not successful, the campaign cannot get a lot of people's attention. Actually I guess many of you have never heard of these two services I wrote here.

Another problem of Twitter is that many older people still do not use it.The figure below shows the number of Twitter users by age groups. It shows that only 5% of people over 65 use Twitter. Now many countries have aging population, so I think the usual ways of advertising, such as TV commercial and billboard, are still very important.

Number of people who use Twitter 

number of people who use SNS 

I got these figures from this web site.

#3 ☆mission statement☆

#3 ☆mission statement☆

According to Kotler and Armstrong's "Principles of Marketing,"
mission statement is the statement of organization's purpose.

It tells "who we are" to the customers,
and the organization sets more detailed objectives based on the mission statement.

Therefore, mission statement should be simple enough for workers to remember,
distinctive in order to make difference from other similar companies,
and customer-focused to always satisfy customers.

I didn't know about mission statement before, so I was surprised that every company has mission statement, and we can find it on the official website of each companies.

In today's blog, I am going to find mission statements of many companies whose purposes I can't imagine!

First company is.... Twitter, Inc.

Twitter, Inc.'s mission statement is
"To give everyone the power to create and share ideas information instantly, without barriers."
https://about.twitter.com/company

I thought that this mission statement can be used for Facebook.
So let's compare with Facebook's mission statement.

Facebook's mission statement is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matter to them.
https://www.facebook.com/facebook/info

Facebook focus on connecting people.
I can also say that Twitter put more priority on immediacy.
And what I feel interesting is that both Twitter and Facebook describes their value for customer as the "power," because in my first guess, Twitter and Facebook provides the place(website) to share ideas.

In the "Principles of Marketing," Kotler and Armstrong explain,
"Mission statements should be market oriented and defined in terms of satisfying basic customer needs. Products and technologies eventually become outdated, but basic needs may last forever."

Both Twitter and Facebook made customer-focused mission statement, instead of explaining their products ,using the word ,such as the place and the website, so that these mission statements can lead their company forever.

My second blog ☆instant noodles in the USA☆

My second blog!

In today's blog, I'll show you the interesting cultural difference I found in Japan, and it is also related to marketing!

After I came to the United States, what I miss the most is Japanese food!
So I went to the super market and looked for instant noodles because it is easy to cook anytime I miss Japanese food.

I found a variety of instant noodles at Shaw's super market.

Then I found an interesting products, "Spoon it."

Can you guess why this product is interesting for me?

?

?

?

I'll tell you:)

Japanese people eat noodles with chopsticks, not with a spoon, fork, nor knife!

 So I was surprised when I found instant noodles named "Spoon it" All noodles in japan are long and we slurp noodles with chop sticks.

 But "Spoon it" is chopped noodles, which are about 1 inch long, so that they are short enough to fit into a spoon. 

I am curious about how American people eat noodles, because "Spoon it" is the only product which is made suitable to be eaten with a spoon. What tool (spoon, fork, or chop sticks) do you use when you eat noodles? Do you feel difficulty in eating noodles with the tool you use?  Or you don't eat noodles....?  

It's so tasty for me! I recommend you guys to eat "ramen," "udon," "soba," and "yakisoba," a variety of kinds of noodles in Japan, when you have a chance to come to Japan!

I found another difference in instant noodles.

It is about a flavor.

These are "CUP NOODLE," a product sell in Japan. We have different flavors, such as curry, sea food, chili tomato, salt, and so on. 

And I found "CUP NOODLES" in the United States, too!

Flavors are chicken, beef,shrimp, and chicken vegetable.

Flavors here are different from those in Japan and clearly named by the kind of meet used in the flavor. This is just my imagination, but I guess this is because in the United States there are alot of people who have different religion, and they care the kind of meet.

On the other hand, Japanese people just care about the taste, such as salt, curry, or tomate, rather than a kind of meet.

The company of  both "Spoon it" and "CUP NOODLES" is NISSIN, a Japanese famous food processing manufacturer, so I felt that NISSIN tried to understand the American market and did marketing in a different way from Japan. 

The last interesting thing about "CUP NOODLES"

Please compare the 2 pictures of "CUP NOODLES" in Japan ans United States.

Do you notice one small difference?　

The answer is S!

In Japan, the name is CUP NOODLE

    and in the USA it's CUP NOODLES.

(Sorry. The pictures are so small to find the difference.)

When NISSIN entered into the American market, NISSIN heard that English speakers thought of only one piece of noodle in a cup when they heared the name, "CUP NOODLE." So here NISSIN use "CUP NOODLES."