Marketing guru says... #1

This is the first of (hopefully) a series of real life Marketing case studies that moi has come across or experienced personally. Some are good, some are bad, some just leave you scratching your head. Hopefully, those of you who are or hoping to be in Marketing can learn from all those who have gone before you and come out of it alive...

So on with the first lesson.

Your product is a new kid on the block. You decide to mimic a promotion that your competitor (who has been in the market waaaaay longer than you, like since 1930) carried out successfully 15 years ago. Mechanics are simple: consumer collects your product packaging, redeems them for a special premium at less than half of its normal RSP. Unlike your competitor before you, you can't convince the retailers to work with you to set up redemption booths in their stores and you are not willing to spend moolah on paying for a few redemption outlets (e.g. post offices, etc). So you engage a courier service to send the premiums to the consumers' homes and collect payment from them after they have sent in their packaging.

Sounds complicated? It sure as damn hell is. From the word go there are several issues that plague this promotion:

• 15 years is a long enough time for consumer tastes and preferences to evolve. How can you be sure that this same premium used 15 years ago will appeal to consumers now?
• Nobody with a sound mind would collect your packaging, mail it out and wait for someone to call them to arrange delivery. Singaporean consumers are an impatient lot and demand for INSTANT GRATIFICATION all the time. Unless of course your prize is damn enticing.
• What happens if the courier service does not deliver (heheh, deliver, geddit, geddit?) on its promise? Consumers start calling 'Where the f**k is my stuff?', courier says 'Wah lau! We go there nobody at home mah!'. Other similar scenarios start becoming normal occurences during the promo period.
• What if the stock forecasted, which is customised specially for this promo by the suppliers, is over-indented for? Can't return to the suppiler so bring to Batam and sell??

At the end of the day, true enough there was A LOT (and I mean A LOT like in the thousands) of stock leftover from the promo. Supplier says they can't take it back 'cos it was customised specially for this promotion. Meanwhile, the stock just sits in the warehouse collecting dust while the people responsible for this fantastic idea continue scratching their heads.

*Moral of the story: If you can't think of any fantastic promotion ideas, the last thing you should do is copy something your competitor has done. It undermines the creativity of the Marketing personnel and leaves your competitor feeling full of themselves (imitation is the best form of flattery, remember?). Just do a damn lucky draw and give away something. Cash, holidays, gadgets. Anything! Never make you consumer pay for anything UNLESS you are cock sure you can convince them they are getting a jolly good deal (not unlike the Chatuchak market kind).*

Our day at the zoo

One sunny Saturday morning, we felt lazy so the missus and I gave our jogging session a miss (despite making a pact earlier to embark on a weekly MacRitchie run). So we decided to go to the zoo since it’s been quite a while when we were last there. Vel was ecstatic of course. Shouting ‘Zoo! Zoo!’ when she saw the road sign just as I was turning off the BKE. When we reached there we hung around the outside area as we wanted to get a shot of Vel to submit for the FACES! Search being organised by MCYS now.

Just as we were milling about the entrance, we chance upon a little sign publicising a ‘behind the scenes’ tour of the Reptile Garden! Woo hoo! But, crap, we missed a live appearance by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cowabunga!) a week earlier. Apparently, it’s reptile month the whole of March.

So we sign up and follow this little lady to the Reptile Garden to show us the Komodo Dragons. And we learned a few other things along the way. Like Gila Monster is pronounced as ‘yee-lah’, because it’s Spanish so the G is silent, which debunks the myth that the poor creature is actually crazy and goes around eating people. But still dangerous nonetheless. Also learned the difference between poisonous and venomous, though most people don’t really care and use the two terms interchangeably.

And the most amazing of all, I learn from a bespectacled, 10 year old girl (whom I’m damn sure will grow up to become a doctor, lawyer, architect, Wall Street stock broker, or some other high-flyer of some sort) what on earth is a ‘vertebrate’ and what constitutes a ‘cold blooded’ animal. Not that I didn’t know what it means to begin with, but it’s just some of the words that you know in general and never really stop to ponder in detail what it REALLY means. To end it all, Vel and I got to take a snap with a cute little python. Mummy was scared to go near the poor little misunderstood creature so she volunteered to take the photo (you can tell from the shot that her hands were shaking. Haha!).

The tour took us about an hour to complete and by then we were starving. So we head back out to the entrance for some pizza and KFC. But being the insensitive, irritating Singaporeans that we are, we bring our Hawaiian pizza (with ham!) into the KFC restaurant without realising that they were Halal. The manager was nice enough to give us a box to pack the pizza instead of chasing us out. That’s service for you.

We were quite zonked out by the time our lunch was over, so we head for home. As usual, Vel KO’ed in the car. Mummy and I fell flat on the bed the instant we reached home. More proof of our need for exercise instead of vegetating at home watching Korean dramas and playing video games. But it was a satisfying morning nonetheless.

508 words

*DISCLAIMER: This is written to look like a composition with intro, body and conclusion. All the ingredients that go into making a great composition. So all my students who are reading this, PAY ATTENTION! And Kevin, stop forgetting to count your words!*

Can't move house, so move office lor...

Our company has finally shifted our office premises after waiting for so many months. From a far end of Singapore to an even further end… we are now in Tuas! Getting there is a bitch due to the morning peak hour traffic and going home is equally as bitch! I’m staying in Jurong and it takes me 30 mins to drive to office, can you imagine that?? Pity my colleagues who live even further…

And that’s not all. Our premises don’t have sufficient parking lots so small fries like yours truly have to park at the roadside, jump across a drain and crash through some shrubs (like the ninja-in-training I am) to get to the main building. So far I haven’t gotten any parking fines but two of my colleagues kena already. Suay only…

We were so spoilt in the old office ‘cos we had our own toilet. But now, any urgent matters that need attending to is a 50m dash away. And look at the looooong corridor. Reminds me of Stephen King’s The Shining. Next thing I know there’ll be two girls chanting ‘Redrum, redrum’ and it’ll be flooded with blood. Better not work late lest I get the heeby-jeebies…

But the good thing is that I have a nice big desk now, although I have no partitions to display my toys on. And at least we’re not flanked by karang gunis and heavy sand-blasting industries…

So I guess we’ll be stuck here for another 1-2 years before we decide to move again…

Ushering in the year of the Pig. Oink!

Time flies when you're having fun. The CNY holidays have come and gone. And we haven't even watched Ghost Rider yet. Now it's back to reality... Work.

Came back to a huge chunk of emails (mostly spam), a pile of CNY greeting cards in my 'In' tray, a jar of cookies from some company I don't know (and spelt my name as REENNIE) as well as a lovely trail of ants marching around (probably attempting to pick up all the junk food lying around).

So what have we done? Steamboat on the first day with a SHITLOAD of food (cold dish, veggies, abalone, cereal prawns) that we could barely finish. Grandma's house at night Blackjack-ing with my cousins and more food (lobsters! woo hoo!).

And the rest of the days we were just chilling. Mainly because we cancelled our HCMC trip (stupid birds!)

So there! One whole week of holidays gone! Now we can move on with our lives and look forward to, er, Christmas and our year end bonus (if any).

Wishing one and all a prosperous and healthy year of the pig.

P.S. : Pearl Harbour on TV... again! Free to air TV sucks! Fortunately I have cable. At least I get to watch re-runs of Spiderman 2 and Season 7 of CSI. Woo hoo!

The Spirit of Vengeance has risen...

Vroom! Vroom! Today is Ghost Rider day. A movie that I've been waiting for since 2001. Check out the official website for wicked shots of the Hellfire bike and (yucks) Nicholas Cage in his leather bike suit. Fans of the comic book would probably not be very pleased with the Blackheart and Mephisto in the movie though... And Nicholas Cage?? What the hell were they thinking?? No offense to his fans, but I think he's too old to play Johnny Blaze and he looks weird with his hair implants/wig/whatever hair thingie they put on him...

And comic book fans, watch out! There are a slew of other comic-to-screen movies coming this year. Spiderman 3 (the black symbiotic Spidey, Venom, Sandman and the young Green Goblin!! Wah lau!!), Fantastic Four 2 (with Silver Surfer!! Yippee!!), Frank Miller's 300 and Incredible Hulk 2, among others. Spoilt for choice man!

Valentine's Day... again

It's that time of the year again. Where roses and chocolates are waaaay overpriced, kids in school uniforms are walking around proudly lugging all their 'gifts of affection' from their boyfriends/girlfriends/secret admirers/stalkers, restaurants will charge you an arm, a leg and one of your your buttock cheeks for a 'special dinner menu' and a half dead rose.

Crass commercialism at its peak. I'll be at home cooking a nice meal for my wife and daughter. Happy Valentine's Day.

4 hours and 33 minutes later...

Never knew that setting up a profile could be so tiring. Uploaded some photos, added a few friends, went for lunch, uploaded somemore photos and added somemore friends.

What a day. And it's pouring outside. Lucky didn't wash my car...

Greetings earthlingsss...

Finally! This has been a long time coming! My procrastination has finally come to a grinding halt and what you see here is the end (pun intended) result... Not much, but it's a start. Now I can join the gazillion others who already have thier own fancy blogs!

And because I am a typical Singaporean and absolutely refuse to part with my hard earned money to pay for something I can get free, I decided to go with the free option and setup this cheapo blog. But this will have to suffice for now.

If you, like me, are voyueristic by nature and love to pry into other people's lives, feel free to browse through the (many) photos which I hope to put up soon. And you will soon come to realise that I, like many of you, are also narcissistic and love showing off my life, along with the many knick-knacks that come along with it...So have fun. Come back soon. Happy Lunar New Year. Don't ask me for ang paos.