2010년 10월 29일 금요일

Blog assignment 5 : Book + Toaster

" a BOOK + a TOAST "

* First word: (book)


    When I think of a book , it’s a square shaped object bunch of papers that is the most simplest format but has the most enormous imagined world behind it. Knowledge , story, history, communication, words, ink, black and white, imagination, thoughts, tool, treasure, paper, heavy.
    A book is like a coding of imagination and stories. We made the sets and rules of codes to translate our imagination and dreamed world. A book is always and usually rectangular shape which has longer height and shorter width. It’s always the same shape with a bit difference in sizes and we naturally accept it’s consistent shape and design. The first person to create the book maybe had made it in that shape with some important values, such as efficiency of holding it, printing it, binding it etc. and we don’t suspect that fact.
Everyone uses and has books and it’s the most important tool of communication. We produce a tons of books everyday and millions of people purchase millions of books everyday. When a person buys a book, it’s read once, few times or none and kept in somewhere around house for long time. The story inside just stays wherever it is placed.  
   Reading a book makes me think of peaceful ambience like sunny afternoon by the lake or the river. The feeling of a book is more emotional to than rational to me and more thoughts than facts. A book itself as a object is just a square shaped, hard covered or not, thick and packed papers. After done reading, they are put on shelves for long time and piled up together with other similar looking books. It seems like it has no use after being read by a person, and just stacked up in some place without used for long time. But we reuse the book for many ways. We recycle it, resell it, lend it to others, share it, give it as a gift, use it as a prop for pots, decoration, umbrella.Usually we don’t rip a book. It’s maybe because we tend to think it has such a worth values that we feel bad if we tear it.

* Second word : (Toast)



     A toast represents a image of morning to me. It’s not because I eat toasts in the morning, but I used to dream my busy and successful career life eating toast in the morning for saving time, in my cozy and luxury house and going to work. Toast is just simple bread toasted in a toaster and a main meal or snack for some people. It’s easy to make and substituted as meal and most of the people use toaster. It’s our basic source of meal made out of wheat or mill, and it’s cooked in various styles and methods.
    We hate when a slice of bread is burnt in a toaster or not toasted enough, since a toast is meant for quick and time saving meal. We usually eat it with orange juice or milk and butter, jams. Even it’s just a slice of bread toasted in a toaster, it has different kinds and diversity of taste regarding who makes it or how it’s made. For example, French toast is a popular menu for people. Every household has different kinds of making a toast, and I especially love my mother’s way of making it which a slice of bread is wetted with milk and egg, toasted on the pan and sprinkled sugar at the last.
     It’s popular selection of menu these days, and there are many cafes or restaurants selling toasts as a morning menu with different kinds of it. A toast is also evolving. Mixed with other ingredients, and hundreds of different cooking recipes invented by people, it’s regarded as a potential and profitable element for many entrepreneurs.

* Ideas combined
- A toast that has book looking shape 
- A book that has a cover with toast picture on it and has toast shape design
- A cooking recipe book with different kinds of making a toast
- A café that sells coffee and toast, and provide books for customers to read it with them
- A slice of bread that has stories(from the book) engraved on it with special elements, that becomes visible when it is toasted through toaster, people can read it like a book while they are eating it
- A toaster that is book looking shape and makes a slice of bread into book shape when it’s toasted
- You can promote a special product combination of a book and a toast, and use it as a marketing tool when promoting a new book, people can eat toast at the same time when they buy a book 
- A store that gives you toast for exchanging with your old books. Your old books act as a money and you can exchange it for a toast (like a charity shop)
- A book about the history of toast
- A book made out of papers that can be used as a wrapping toast, it has stories written on papers but originally intended as a toast wrappers and looks like a book
- A toaster that only works after you read certain pages of a book, it’s energy comes from how much knowledge you gained from a book, and it depends on how many pages you read it. It’s somehow connected your brain and electricity is gained as you read more. A toaster is heated as you read along, and it shows how much power you have earned and how much left to read for gaining full energy for a toaster to be toasted. You can only eat a toast when you finish reading certain pages of book assigned for a day(eligible for children like a toy toaster that makes children read more
- Sell a toast and give out a stamp or customer points that can be exchanged for buying a book


* Most viable product
   “Bread that has message one it”
It’s same as normal slices of breads, but some messages are engraved on the sides of bread and it only shows up when it is toasted. It’s engraved with special elements, and it is visible when it’s heated. It could be fun activity for children or adults too, and it’s more fun than just white bread. They get to read some messages on the bread when it comes out of a toaster.

    “A reader gets a toast!” - a toy toaster
It’s like a toy toaster for young children. The idea behind this toaster is that its energy to toast a slice of bread is generated only by the energy of a person who reads a book. It’s kind of a motivator for children to read books and in exchange, they can get a toast. The idea that they can generate the machine by their energy put into reading a book is fun idea for children, and it can motivate children to read more books. In psychological backgrounds, children are more tend to do things that they don’t want to do if they get something in return as a reward. And when the reward is something that they like, they tend to be more passionate about achieving the goal. They feel fulfillment by getting the reward, and it can successfully motive a child to grow their concentration and efforts. It’s somehow connected to children’s part of body, and shows how much energy to be gained to heat up the toaster. A child get’s eager to generate the machine, and they concentrate better on the reading to gain more energy to make toaster work. The toaster shows how much power it is gained, and it’s normally just simple system of displaying light that goes up regularly based on certain amount of time range. When it becomes full, the toast is done and a child successfully has generated machine to get a full toast. It could be a fun playing event with parents and good habit for children.


2010년 10월 11일 월요일

Blog assignment 4 : Green consumer

"Green consumer", turning into new sustainable lifestyle

   

Ethical shopper
 Sustainable consumer
Eco-friendly product consumer


For doing this research, I really wanted to use advantage of the assignment that I can choose the topic which I want to look further into. Many concepts and words came up in my mind that I want to research about, and the most intriguing word to me was ‘green’. I was always interested in the phenomenon where many companies and products starting to advertise them as green, and sustainable. To be honest, as a consumer, I wasn’t very influenced by those catchy words and phrases and the design and quality of products were the priority factors for me when choosing the product. However, I began to think about the values behind those green products and reasons why business world is turning toward the word ‘green’. And more than green products, it’s affecting consumers’ lifestyle and consuming habits.

Being eco-friendly and green has been a seething issue among every aspect in our world for a long time. And this issue is deeply reaching into business world too. Efforts to protect the environment and to minimize the harm on the nature are basic principle for business and how to approach this theme is a question that companies should solve. Many companies and manufacturers have developed various and unique approaches that suit their business concept and brand story to step into better market place, which we call ‘sustainable growth’. It is definitely obvious phenomenon that there are increasing numbers of consumers who want to consume green and sustainable products. It’s a trend and change in consumers’ thoughts and behaviors and early movers accept this change as a good opportunity. It is unquestionable that everyone wants to be a good member of society and in globe community. That is why being green can help more people to be involved in good conducts by giving them chances, which is purchasing greener products.

The word green or sustainable consumer appeared pretty long time ago, but it’s definitely becoming a recent and popular trend in business world. Green consumer is also segmented as a target market that is profitable enough for companies to enter. The representative examples that I started thinking about was the handmade cosmetic brand ‘lush’ and ‘The body shop’. Both of them are well known for providing organic and eco-friendly cosmetics which are both beneficial for cosmetic users because they are made out of natural ingredients, and also for the environment because they put much efforts to protect environment by having environmentally responsible conducts as a business leader. I think these two brands generate positive effects that they are being environmentally responsible as themselves, and also giving consumers chances to become an environmentally responsible consumer by purchasing their products. I want to research more about that kind of businesses which try to generate customer experiences as being a responsible consumer and creating more values for customers by putting more special stories into their products.

 As we’ve learned in class, the marketing is for creating valuable customer experiences and products should be focused on customer’s values and experiences. Companies that are targeting green consumers are also aimed to create valuable customer experiences by providing eco-friendly missions and values of their companies. And I think that the green products can create more valuable consumers’ experience in terms of their desire to consume greener products, and fulfillment that they will get after purchasing them as being a responsible and ethical member of community. And surely, there are more values and experiences that consumers will get through buying the certain products from various companies.

The question that I will answer through research is
ü  What’s particular about being a green consumer?
ü  What change is there in terms of consumer behavior that more consumers are trying to purchase greener products? Is it a trend? Or it is just new marketing strategy?
ü  Beside just purchasing the green products, do they form a new lifestyle?
ü  What kind of insights did companies found out when they started to target green consumers?
ü  How companies look for consumers needs and wants for green products?
ü  How do companies create more valuable customer experiences by providing green products?
ü  What kind of values and experiences are created by purchasing green products in particular? (specific brands and products examples)
ü  Is it even important to produce green products when fundamental goal and mission of product is being cheaper and convenient?
ü  Is being green competitive for companies who could be more profitable without it?
ü  How being green affect the brand and company in terms of brand equity and image?
ü  How can we inspire more people to involve in becoming a sustainable consumer? (In the premise that all people want to be helpful to environment and become a ethical member )
ü  How marketing approach can be used to generate synergy effect both in sales and protecting environment?

The link attached is a paper defining about factors that affect green consumption and analyzing about consumers’ sustainable lifestyle. Writer tries to give political suggestions to enhance better conducts of having sustainable lifestyle. It contains bit professional and statistical information which was done by theoretical framework, but it includes helpful information about buying habits of green consumers in the broader context of sustainable lifestyle.
The second link is a news article which generally talks about marketing for green consumers and where to start looking at their insights. http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/mar2007/sb20070305_213937.htm

From doing this research, I will learn about what changes and trends are happening in consumers’ behavior regarding environment aspect, and how companies are trying to create values for their customers. Also this paper will enable me to understand about various and interesting marketing approaches that companies are doing.