Week 8 EOC Subliminal Advertising

 What is Subliminal Advertising all about ? Subliminal Advertising is a way of communicating with the consumer and the audiences. We see those subliminal advertising everywhere we go, such as the movie theater, the mall, stores and other public places. Although that subliminal advertising is considered illegal because it plays a persona's subconscious. But after all, brand in all types of industry use subliminal advertising all the time. 

The phrase subliminal advertising was coined in 1957 by the US market researcher James Vicary, who said he could get moviegoers to “drink Coca-Cola” and “eat popcorn” by flashing those messages onscreen for such a short time that viewers were unaware. Subliminal advertising is actually not such a bad thing, usually those subliminal advertisement are memorable and a lot of time it related to our daily lives.  Researchers found that briefly displaying words and images so quickly that people do not even consciously notice, does nevertheless change their thinking. It seems those subliminal advertising are waste of time but those subliminal advertisement does work for the people who are in the industry. And most important of all, it leaves a trace or a mark in the audiences memory.

There has been much speculation about whether people can process emotional information unconsciously, for example pictures, faces and words,” said Professor Nilli Lavie, who led the research. “We have shown that people can perceive the emotional value of subliminal messages and have demonstrated conclusively that people are much more attuned to negative words. As we can see here, with images people have better memory to remember them and to remember it unconsciously. 
 

Source:
Subliminal advertising really does work, claim scientists
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6232801/Subliminal-advertising-really-does-work-claim-scientists.html
  

Week 7 EOC Retail PEST

Retail PEST - Zara

ZARA started the brand began in 1975. Within a a decade ZARA's approach to fashion became very famous and its magic began to spread to other major cities of Spain and sooner acriss Europe. In 1985, Inditex took hold of group of businesses in which ZARA was also included. The vertical integration system, ZARA's philosophy, which helped it to maintain its fast fashion among the masses was started around 1986-1987. In 1988, ZARA decided that it would spread its magic of fast fashion around the world and it started a store in December 1988 in Oporto, Portugal.The home furnishings market was enhanced by ZARA's entry in to the sector. ZARA opened its stores in India in 2010. It also started online stores in 16 European countries in 2010.In 2011 its online retail spread to united states and Japan.

ZARA has been in the fashion industry for a long time. Personally I think people didn't really know the brand that well because at the time people were only crazy about some brand such as lLouis Vuitton, Dior and other big wellknown brand but consumer and other retailers didn't really notice about this brand but of course with it's growth ZARA has became the largest retailers in the world. From 1975 to 2012, Zara has grown from 1 store in Spain to more than 1540 stores in 73 countries. this shows it acceptability by masses.  These number will for sure continue to grow. 

Zara shows its revamped image based on four guiding principles: beauty, clarity, functionality and sustainability. Simplicity is the byword throughout the store as part of Zara's mission to bring customers into direct contact with fashion. ZARA's brand status is stable and continually growing  strong. More and more consumer will like this brand and also I believe ZARA will provide the target audience more amazing designs. 

Source: 
1.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-into-the-worlds-largest-fashion-retailer.html?pagewanted=all  
2.http://ranjithaballa.blogspot.com/2012/09/about-zara-history.html
3.http://www.inditex.com/en/who_we_are/timeline 
4.http://www.uniquebusinessstrategies.co.uk/pdfs/case%20studies/zarathespeedingbullet.pdf
 

 

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Week 7 BOC Largest Retailers

3 Largest Retailers !

Thousands of retailers are competing with each other everyday. But only three are the largest in the world. The U.S's Wal-Mart Stores, France's Carrefour and the U.K's Tesco are the world's top three piblicly listed retail groups.

The world's largest retail company, Wal-Mart was founded by Sam Walton in 1962. Incorporated on October 31, 1969, Walmart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries. 

Carrefour 's headquartered in Levallois-Perret, France opened on January1, 158, in suburban Annecy. The group was build by Marcel Fournier, Denis Defforey and Jacques Defforey. In 1995 it merged with Promodes, known as Continent, one of its major competitors in the French market. 

Tesco is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It was founded in 191, it has store in 14 countries across Asia, Europe and North America. 

While the global ranking of the largest U.S. retail chains remains relatively unchanged from year to year, there was an atypical number of shifts, and dramatic moves both up and down the global retailing ranks on the 2013 largest U.S. retailers list. There are tons of business relationship between companies across the globe. A lot of famous and large company came from America. Slowly these stores starts develop even bigger and more consumer will approach these stores.

Also recently another brand, Zara has also becoming the largest retailers.  The Zara headquarters is a huge airplane-hangar-size open space, with regional sales managers sitting at a line of desks running down the middle, designers on either side of them. The managers field calls from China or Chile to learn what’s selling, then they meet with the designers and decide whether there’s a trend.





Source:
1. http://retailindustry.about.com/od/topusretailcompanies/a/us_2013_worlds-largest_retail_companies_chains_retailers_biggest_American_globalpower.htm
2. http://retailindustry.about.com/od/topusretailcompanies/a/us_2013_worlds-largest_retail_companies_chains_retailers_biggest_American_globalpower.htm
3.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-into-the-worlds-largest-fashion-retailer.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
4. http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/63236-battle-royal-how-the-top-us-retail-brands-compare-on-social
5. http://www.stores.org/2012/Top-100-Retailers

Week 6 EOC Rocky Ford - Restoring The Brand ?

Restoring The Brand ?

 

Rocky Ford Cantaloupes were pulled from store shelves in the summer of 2011 after reports that 

 people were getting sick. The illness was eventually identified as listeria and traced to Jensen Farms in Holly. At least 30 people died, hundreds got sick. Now, the Colorado Department of Agriculture is the recipient of an Award of Agricultural Marketing Excellence form the North American Agricultural Marketing Officials conference for helping Rocky Ford revitalize.   

After trying to restore the brand, Rocky Ford has try their best to show their consumer that their cantaloupes are safe and knowing that people are not going to die from eating cantaloupes again.  "Farmers and ranchers strive to provide safe, nutritional food to their own families and friends as well as the consumer," notes CDA chief John Salazar. "This tragedy could have spelled the end for Rocky Ford cantaloupe. 

Some farmers who had raised melons for decades decided to stop growing Rocky Fords this year. Only about a third of the land devoted to growing the cantaloupes last year is now growing this year's crop, according to the USDA's Farm Service Agency. "Quite a few people just dropped out," Knapp said. "They had no interest anymore in dealing with the risk."  What the farmers did right was to restore their brand and having people to trust their brand again. But at the same time, there are farmers that are not willing to take the risk anymore. It was said that a lot of farmers that were growing cantaloupes were in the risk of their business and lost many too. At the end, they took responsibility and took time to figure out how and when to restore their brand.

Source:
1.http://farmprogress.com/story-big-effort-restore-colorados-rocky-ford-melons-wins-prize-9-101426
2. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/colorado-cantaloupes-retu_0_n_1670660.html
3. http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-320266603/rocky-ford-renaissance-colorado-cantaloupe-growers

Week 6 BOC Tylenol Scare 1982

Tylenol Scare 1982 !

Tylenol is a well-known American drugs brand. It is use for relieving the symptoms of types of pain or fever. The medical products company owns the brand Tylenol McNeil Consumer Healthcare and it is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. In October 1982, this well-known pain killer medicine faced an extremely crisis. Seven people in Chicago were reported dead after taking this medication the extra-strength Tylenol capsules. What happened was it was reported an unknown suspect put 65 milligrams of deadly cyanide into the Tylenol capsules. As soon as the news was out and reported deaths, the public announcements were everywhere warning people about consumption of this product and the medication was removed from the shelves across the country, infected with cyanide and retuned back to the shelves. Johnson & Johnson said

Following one of our guideline dos protecting people first and property. Second, McNeil Consumer Products, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, conducted an immediate product recall from the entire country, which amounted to about 31 million bottles and a loss of more than $100 million dollars. Additionally, they halted all advertisement for the product.

Johnson & Johnson didn’t run away from this issue, they deal with it and fix it. At first they faced with the many situations and coming up with a good solution in order not to destroy their reputation of the company and their brand. Johnson & Johnson came up with the first thing and that is protecting people and second, their property. Johnson and Johnson took the risk of loss of $100 million dollars, they immediately recall from the whole U.S and amounted about 31 million bottles. And of course, they stopped the advertisement temporary. 

The company didn’t lose their head out; they took their steps carefully. Once the product was removed from the market, Johnson & Johnson had to come up with a campaign to re-introduce its product and restore confidence back to the consumer. The company took the responsibility for this issue and dealt with it well. Personally opinion, many companies around the globe don’t really care about their brand like Johnson & Johnson does. A lot of time people just throw their brand out there and not trying to protect their own brand.

It illustrates a strength of Johnson & Johnson that is nearly unique, their expertise in medical devices and in pharmaceuticals, and their convergence," said Scott Davison, an analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffrey. I feel that after this issue Johnson & Johnson had a better knowledge and experience facing harsher issues. Nothing is easy when your brand is well known and you have to take big responsibility at all times. 

Source:

Website 1: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/terrorists/tylenol_murders/index.html

Website 2: http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall02/susi/tylenol.htm

Website 3: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/23/your-money/23iht-mjj_ed3_.html

Week 5 EOC Trend Predicting

Trend Predicting ? 

There are varies trend across the world. Trend forecasting resources help to predict trends in the industry they're in. Tend predicting is knowing the behavior, buying habits of the consumer at a particular season or time. It is no longer a question of finding your markets or consumers by age, geography or income, but looking into how and what they buy, based on their culture, mood, beliefs, occasion & geographic locations. People no longer look at the surface things but really get to understand the industry and knowing the future of that industry. 

Such as the fashion trends. Fashion trend forecast calculates as season, target, market, consumer, colors, fabrics, silhouette, texture then last usage. Understanding the trends forecast is one of the most arduous and calculative work for all. There are people who are working behind the scenes, day and night to make things appear easy and affordable to us. Question which often comes to our mind is which trend forecast to use and how we can understand it better. Many technological forecasting methods have been reported in various forecast related books & mentioned in literature of many countries, and they have been successfully applied widely.  As trend forecasting results are mainly influenced by the forecasting method used by the end user, it is of utmost importance to determine the method that will be most appropriate to a business model you adopt.

Each season, the design and merchandising departments worldwide are waiting whats in trend for coming seasons. They rely heavily on creating a new line using these valuable data collected by professional agencies. Trend forecasts are based on seasons Spring, Summer, Fall &Winter like we connect certain colors with holiday and seasons, they expect to see earthy tones in fall season, jeweled colors for holidays, the pastels of flowers in early spring, and refreshing white for the summer.  People might see fashion as just clothes, shoes and other things you wear. But think about this, people behind all these fashion shows and fashion magazines. How do people know what their consumer likes and how they make it to their market. Because there are people behind that works hard and understand the trend for each season and try to predict what's going to happen next season.

Web Sources:

1.http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/inspiredby/2013/05/a-beginners-guide-to-fashion-trend-forecasting.html
2. http://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/9/836/pink-is-out-but-blue-is-in-understanding-fashion-trend-forecasting1.asp
3. http://www.trendforecasting.org/Trend_Forecasting.htm

Week 4 EOC McDonald's Response To Supersize Me

McDonald's  V.S  Supersize Me ?

Super Size ME ! Everyone loves fast food but what do people really think about this movie ? Does it really affect people's mind and prospective towards fast food ? Especially towards with "McDonald's" People who have seen this movie or clip of it knows that fast food does really affect our health. But what does McDonald's response about this ? They had to be astonish to know that there are consumer experiencing themselves by eating their product everyday and film it then publish it to the public.
In response to Morgan Spurlock's controversial documentary "Super Size Me", which depicts McDonald's as a source of poor health and obesity, the fast food giant has released the in-house-produced documentary "Salad Without Dressing Me". This man has done all kinds of research and health check up to know how his body is changing and what sort of heart diseases they could might have. Morgan Spurlock is not playing, he is serious about this research on himself and he wants to tell people that McDonald's IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU. But of course, there are people wouldn't care about his opinion and still continue to eat McDonald's. 

"I had to prove a point," wheezed Caputo from his hospital bed in a recorded statement. "If I gave in and ate just one chicken McNugget, I would have corrupted the data and my pancreas might have been in near-working order by the end of the experiment." Doctors compared Caputo's condition to that of someone who had spent a month in a Soviet gulag.
"We are pleased with the results," said Janet Thayer, President of McDonald's Marketing Division. "We have paid Mr. Caputo with a lifetime of free McDonald's certificates for himself and anyone else he chooses to give them to – and I must say, they make great stocking stuffers."


Through this conversation, we can all see that the President of McDonald's Marketing didn't really handle it quite while. Personally, I think that kind of a fraud because McDonald's are telling people that there's nothing wrong with their food but in reality there is. People are having health problem and this is no alright at all. This is not how a business should be handle. When I talk about business, it's not just about McDonald's making money but they need to think about people's health and plus McDonald's is international so people across the globe can say they want to stop having business relationship with them and McDonald's could be in a deep trouble for that. I just think if today, they handle this situation better, people would take it differently. 
He hasn't been back inside a McDonald's since the end of his experiment  
At the end, I think if you really love fast food, you should know what you are eating and knowing what is in your food. Also what's more important is to workout and stay healthy if not you could become worse than Morgan Spurlock.

Source:
1. http://www.enduringvision.com/news/business_010404.php
2. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/jul/16/foodanddrink.shopping
3. http://tanzia02.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/effects-of-the-supersize-memovie-on-mcdonalds-reputation/