Group items tagged

A short list of some new forms of advertising in South Korea. While social media has been used for this purpose for awhile, things like the interactive ads and image-recognition ads are fairly new, and certainly more advanced than billboards or magazine ads. What do you guys think of this? Is it the way of the future for marketers everywhere, or an ineffective use of technology?

Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg Meenakshi, one of hundreds of young women who zip around India's dusty streets on scooters promoting the dairy drink Yakult, says health is her best sales pitch. The 22-year-old student knocks on doors two days a week to tell stay-at-home mothers, washing ladies, and residents living in makeshift shacks how Yakult's microbes can help cultivate their "intestinal flora."

Interesting article, it reminds me of some of the issues raised in Global Pharmaceuticals about how medications are regulated differently in different countries. It's funny how these drinks can be called healthier in Asia than in America or Europe, as if the location makes a difference in the contents of the product. Wouldn't it be nice if these companies had to make the same claims everywhere regardless of regional policies?

This article makes me suspect that the regulations for marketing certain foods and drink in the U.S. and Europe is more strict than in Asia. The FDA has fairly strict regulations, which prevent advertising products with effects that are not proven to be true. The article never really says if the probiotic drinks actually help in the way they are said to, so I can understand if U.S. and American markets are less inclined to allow the companies to advertise the claims.

Apparently China is kind of being hit with a mini recession at the moment. This recession is affecting the fast food industries. In another article http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-23/china-s-stock-index-futures-decline-on-earnings-concerns.html most of China's top earning corporations has decrease in stock prices. One of China major corporation Volatility droped 22 percent in the markets today. Fast food sales growth in decrease to 6% from 19% last year.

The comparison of the two articles is really interesting. Especially since the linked article focuses primarily on the sales of US franchises in China. It would be interesting to compare whether equivalent Chinese 'fast food' chains are also suffering or whether these companies with such strong American associations may be suffering due to the tension in US-China relations.

This article describes a case the US is planning to file against China for subsidizing cars and car parts, mostly in developing countries. The reporter does mention that the rise in automation and the global recession of 2008 probably have effected employment numbers as well. International economics and business is pretty fascinating (ok, maybe, not to everyone), and it's worth noting that increased revenues for Chinese companies will allow China to pursue broader areas of research and development, as well as specilization in a lucrative market: auto sales in developing countries. Once a company has a market, it can give quite the fight to keep it, which provides the country and company a long term source of R&D funding. The article also raises the question of the timing of the case against China, and whether it's filing by the incumbent Obama administration is politically motivated. This question is more fully explored in an article from today's New York Times that goes well with the discussion from class today about government action on science and technology issues, and when it takes that action. Here's the link if anyone's interested in incumbent electoral advantages: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/us/politics/obama-exploits-familiar-junction-of-policy-and-politics.html?pagewanted=all

An affordable new way to find your stolen motorbike. People continue to find new ways for technology to provide efficient help when needed. I wonder if anything like this has already been implemented in America.

Two major corporations in Japan has just formed a partnership. Stratus Technologies and Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Corporation announced on October 2nd that they will be merging and working together ftServers. Now they they are combined and sharing information the new servers it is easier to access information needed from the host system. ftServers is run on Linux, which is a sort of open source software for development and distribution. They will also use ftservers in their products.

This article predicts that China's Unicom customers will be able to purchase and use Iphones in 2013. The only issue right now is that the prices Apple is offering China is "too high". While a guy name Ramachandran said that apple should give China some sweeteners or incentives to work together. Which doesn't make sense to me because if China wants to be a efficient nation, why not add as many smart phones as you can? Apple is one of the most prospering companies in the world. The logical thing to do is work with apple before they decide to up the price.

Part of the reason apple would add incentives is because there ARE many smart phones available in China, but non-pirated apple products are under-represented. When apple set up their flagship store in Beijing they regulated people to one phone per person because there were so many problems with people trying to buy multiple phones and then re-sell them for a profit.

For years Apple has been trying to make a deal with China Unicom to carry the Iphone. Unfortunately for China, neither companies have reached an agreement yet. Even though China Unicom has the largest customer based with 688 million people, Apple Iphones are not available with their services. I was surprise since the Iphone is assemble in China.

To know that 688 million people might have access to the iPhone in the next few months is probably going to boost their stock; however, it will have to be seen if they can keep up with demand, since Apple is already struggling to do so; I won't be receiving my iPhone for another 4 weeks or so.

It seems as if the only concern Apple had was the task of meeting the consumer demand for a particular product, then Apple would surely not have too much to worry about. Apple chose not to manufacture iPhones in America because we are no longer efficient manufacturers in most instances (including the iPhone). China manufactures all types of products for Americans. Now I wonder how much China will need us when they begin to manufacture for their own enormous population. Also, I wonder if we would be ready to manufacture for ourselves if that were to happen.