The Oscar stage seems to become a place for prominent people to express their indignation. Last Sunday night during the Oscar ceremony we saw Patricia Arquette, who won the Oscar for the Best Supporting Actress, give her speech to express her desire to finally see equality between men and women. The Internet is booming with Feedback. Follow this link. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/02/22/patricia-arquette-calls-for-wage-gender-equality-in-show-stealing-oscar-speech/
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Health benefits of chocolate
Chocolate lower cholesterols level, reduce heart disease risk, prevent stroke, and so many more.
For many years, chocolate has been considered unhealthy food which caused obesity, acne, diabetes, etc. However, according to some studies, chocolate contains elements that help to maintain a good health. Don’t feel guilty and go for it.
Here is the link of the article:
The Bay Area, the best place to do an internship
The Bay Area owns the three best companies to do an internship. According to a report from Glassdoor the technology companies that have their Headquarters in this part of California is a great place to initiate your work life. Facebook, the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg, is on the top of the list for second year in a row. The popular social media is followed by companies like Google and Chevron.
Here is the link: http://blog.sfgate.com/gettowork/2015/02/25/25-highest-rated-companies-for-interns/
One terabit per second in your hands
Would you like to download a Blue-ray quality video in your smartphone in less than a second? In five years we will have access to this technology. It seems that researchers at the UK’s University of Surrey’s 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) achieved – under laboratory conditions – the record-breaking 5G speed, which is over 65,000 times faster than current real-world 4G LTE. This has the same capacity as fiber optics but the researchers are doing it wirelessly.
In our opinion, people should be aware, because it will revolutionize the way we live.
Here is the link http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31622297
Welcome Back!
Happy 1902, I mean, 2015!
Please find your class resources in the new menu items above. Feel free to use these resources whenever you need them.
Otherwise, welcome back and may this be the year where you conquer the English language.
-Hyde Street Journal Editorial Staff
Waves
Brand positioning Statement:
To wealthy and innovative people, our brand is the newest and most cutting-edge product in the beverage market, being an approach to fulfill your drinkable desires or even needs in one bottle – whenever and whatever.
Our target audience
Based on criteria of current customers usage patterns and general goals, Waves is a brand focused on a wealthy clientele and cutting-edge product lovers; for those who can financially afford innovative high tech devices and have attractions for differential, either because of their functionality or the image involved by using it. Besides, it’s simply a drink that is suitable for everyone.
Pathos
The Waves ad mostly uses pathos as a mode of appeal inasmuch as it gives the audience a context it can relate to with certain emotions: most people know the feeling of being in a group where everybody wants something different, but because they have to share, someone eventually has to give in. In the ad, the product becomes the solution to a well-known problem, thus providing the viewers with the idea that not only does it solve problems, but also it gives everyone a sense of satisfaction. By creating a setting with a group of people, the advertisement also has an element of social belonging, which most people seek in their daily lives.
Also, the part where Christmas is mentioned provides the viewers with an easy choice – most adults want something practical, but not boring. Waves – again – becomes the problem-solver, which could appeal to the viewers’ sense of comfort.
Elaboration Likelihood Model/ELM
In our commercial to advertise “Waves”, a bottle that is capable of transforming a liquid into another liquid, we used the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) as the main persuasion theory.
By using the peripheral route of the ELM, we try to convince potential consumers to buy the product through low level communication based on attraction and visual stimuli. We try to establish this mainly via the liking principle and social proof. Therefore, people who are similar to everyday people are used in the advertisement to promote the product. In that way, not only is the product made more accessible to a broad target audience, but it also creates the assumption that if a lot of other people are using the product, it must be okay. We believe that this method is the most effective one to market our ingenious product in a saturated market of sodas.
Priming
In the last segment of our commercial, we show our bottle under a Christmas tree. We explain to the audience that our product “Waves” is a special and original gift suitable for Christmas. In this way, we hope that our given idea stays in the viewer‘s mind. That way, when those people go shopping for Christmas presents they have to think about ‘Waves’ and will take a look in one of our selling points. It’s a good technique for this kind of occasions and so we hope that they’ll buy the product.
Marketing project3 Moonbucks ad’s theory
Marketing project 3
Takeshi
Zoe
Yuma
●Identification of target audience and brand positioning statement.
For a busy business person who needs comfortable space to discuss about their business, Moonbucks is a high quality cafe with VIP rooms furnishing necessary facilities for their meeting such as projectors and whiteboards, you can spend valuable time through the meeting here without being annoyed.
●Which Aristotle theories [Pathos, Ethos, Logos] you have employed in your ad.
We have employed [Pathos] in our ad. Our movie focuses on how customers imagine our products. We would like to suggest how our products work for customer’s needs through the ad. For example, high quality services, quieter place and the equipment for their meeting. The customers who watched our ad might think our products [will] make them relax because they can see a lot of smiles in our movie. Our strategy of the ad makes customers think our café is going to be the most comfortable place [in] all of the cafés for them to spend time for their meeting after they watch our movie.
●Which main persuasion theories you have employed in your ad [Social judgment, ELM, Cognitive dissonance, Narrative paradigm or Conditioning].
Narrative paradigm is our main persuasion theory that we have in our ad. Our story will tell them why our café is established and what kind of needs we can satisfy through our ad. There is a story about a woman who wants to create such a café in our ad. Our story telling in the ad is going to make people who watch our ad understand what we provide them and they will want to go to our café. As I mentioned above, there is a woman in the ad. She likes coffee and deserts. She is a worker. She doesn’t have any special things except those things. However, she really hopes that there will be a café, which is suitable for business and also has high quality of coffee, deserts, and services. So she decided to open a café, which has facilities suits business situation. For example, projectors, white boards, private rooms, and so on. She established the café for business people who seek comfortable place for business meetings. meeting of their business. It will satisfy their demand.
● Which additional persuasion theories you have employed in your ad.
Our additional persuasion theory we have in our ad is Conditioning. We put words in the beginning of our ad. Customers will hear a lot of the words through their experiences which they watch our ad many times. And then, they will hear the same words with a real voice from the waiter and waitress in the café when they visit our café. After the experience, customers will associate it with special lives that will be imagined by them while they are watching our ad. So they will be addicted through the words. The words are “Hi master, Welcome to Moonbucks”. It’s wired for general people to hear the words in a café. Usually the words don’t suit in casual situation. However, it could be special for them. And also, we can show them high quality of hospitality that will satisfy them.
Case Study Malaysia Airlines
Malaysia Airlines has gained unintended brand recognition recently, which has weakened its position in the airline industry dramatically. With the disappearance of flight MH370 and the downing of flight MH17 just a few months later, it dawned on the airline that misfortune never comes singly. One might even think that Malaysia Airlines is simply jinxed. Indeed, misfortune has played a major role in Malaysia Airlines’ apparent downfall, but the problem is more complex and widespread than that. Malaysia Airlines has always had trouble keeping up consistent profits, perhaps as a result of mismanagement. Thus, questions are rising on how to save the company from a seemingly inevitable bankruptcy.
The story of Malaysia Airlines starts on October 12, 1937, when the Ocean Steamship Company of Liverpool, the Straits Steamship of Singapore, and Imperial Airways proposed to run an air service between Penang and Singapore. The company was initially called Malayan Airways Limited (MAL) and was only a domestic carrier. Ten years later, in 1947, MAL operated its first flight as an international airline between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. After that, MAL’s fleet kept expanding and their amount of employees kept growing year after year.
The company was only growing until 1997, when Malaysia Airlines (their name changed over the years) went through their first period of unprofitability, connected to the Asian Financial Crisis that year. Their losses were 260 million RM, about 77 million dollar. To get their profits and losses back into black, they cut some of their less profitable routes such as Brussels, Darwin, Madrid, Munich, and Vancouver.
Only two years after recovering from its losses, Malaysia Airlines experienced a new period of unprofitability. They blamed the increasing costs on staff and higher handling and landing fees for these losses, but a later statement revealed the main reasons were poor yield management and an inefficient route network – both internal causes.
Before they could even pay their debt, there was a new difficult period for the company in 2011, again due to internal problems: mismanagement. This time there were also external factors. The higher fuel price made this period even harder for the company. They removed some routes again and tried to make up for their losses in this way.
March 8, 2014, every airline’s worst nightmare occurred. Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared from the radar, and it still hasn’t been found. The company hadn’t made a profit since 2010, but after this crash, their ticket sales declined dramatically and their losses were higher than ever. Besides that, Malaysia Airlines had to compensate families for the family members that were on flight MH370, which made their costs even higher.
Only a few months later, another flight crashed on July 17, 2014: flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. After this, their bookings declined with another 33% which made the company sink even deeper. Besides that, there have been claims that about 500 employees resigned after this accident, but that has never been confirmed by the company itself.
Malaysia Airlines has been struggling with competitiveness for a while, but the two crises that hit the airline in March and July 2014 have worsened the airline’s economic position considerably. The airline is a good example of how external influence – the disappearance of one plane and the downing of another – has caused big internal and potentially national problems. The leaders have come up with a plan they think will save the company long-term. This plan involves cutting back on staff, spending more energy on Asian flights, having fewer flights, and replacing the chief executive in order to re-create the company from scratch . Whether or not this plan will work is hard to say at this point, and the company admits that the effects will show long-term, not immediately.
However, the airline’s problems could be more urgent than any five-year solution can solve. The company had already admitted losses of $96.5 million before in June and therefore doesn’t know the full impact of the damage to its reputation that the two (assumed) plane crashes have caused. However, recent improvements suggest that the airline might be working on its customer retention. As of November 2014, exclusive members of the airline flying domestic flights are able to enjoy a newly renovated lounge offering a buffet, a spa, and an extensive improvement in service. Also members of the airline’s frequent-flyer program Enrich will benefit from improvements. These come in the form of bonus points that customers will be able to earn by staying at selected hotels. This is made possible by a collaboration MAS has made with Rocketmiles. These new offers might work, especially if the main focus is being moved to Asia – because both frequent flights and the Golden Lounge improvements will occur mostly on a domestic basis – but because they are so recent, that their outcomes are hard to determine now.
Problems with competitiveness could potentially have a negative effect not only on the airline, but also on the Malaysian government and the country’s economy. Previously, Singapore Airlines was MAS’s only big competitor on the Asian market, and MAS’s popularity mostly managed to exceed that of the other airline’s, but now that the financial issues of MAS are increasing, it is bound to have an effect on the company, as well as the tarnished reputation has. Malaysians are proud of their airline and do what they can to save it, but even though this might improve the situation for domestic flights, problems still remain with international flights because Europeans and Americans especially have become increasingly suspicious of the airline. Because MAS is government owned, this ought to have some influence on the Malaysian economy in general. It isn’t hard to imagine that with fewer tickets being booked internationally, it will affect the amount of tourism in Malaysia eventually. Thus, the two incidents this year could have quite big consequences for the country’s management and economy.
The consequences will not only be measured in the world outside. In August 2014, evaluations showed that employees were deserting their employers within the company, mostly due to pressure coming from friends and family who didn’t consider the airline safe or trustworthy anymore . At the same time, part of the company’s plan is to cut back on employees and the amount of flights, which means that 6,000 more jobs are at stake within a near future . As a result, employee loyalty is failing: people don’t trust the airline enough to stay, and those who don’t choose to leave voluntarily could potentially risk being fired later on. Therefore, if neither customers nor employees trust the company, it will be hard for it to start over with a clean slate.
Part of the plan is also to find a new chief executive, but other cases have shown that hiring a new leader is not always the right way to solve a problem. Sometimes the new leader doesn’t have the right know-how or doesn’t understand the overall structure of the company. This could lead to even bigger internal problems than MAS already has.
Prior to the double tragedies of the Malaysian aircrafts MH370 and MH17, the Malaysian airline company was already aware of the need to restructure the company’s operations due to weak financial performance. The two tragedies only accelerated it…
The company operates in a harsh business environment with stiff competition from regional and global carriers and suffers from high operational costs. This causes the company to undergo a thorough re-examination and re-evaluation of the company’s business plan and come up with a solid action plan, an action plan that both entails the achievement of sustained profitability and sustained competitiveness through consistency. In order to reach these targets, the action plan involves cutting back on staff, spending more energy on Asian flights, having fewer flights, replacing the chief executive, regain the confidence of their staff and shareholders and, above all, rebuild a safety reputation – which has been destroyed with the disappearance of MH370 and the downing of MH17 in July – in order to re-create the company from scratch and start over with a clean slate.
The new action plan requires fewer staff, which implies that about 6,000 people are expected to lose their jobs and pared with that a reduced flight network, focusing on the Asian region to handle their cost structure.
A decrease in the number of flights could potentially work for a few reasons. One is that in September 2014, the airline’s load factor (capacity compared to amount of passengers/load) had decreased by 12% compared to the year before. This means that there are too many planes in comparison to the demand for these , so fewer flights might diminish the amount of wasted space on the planes in the future.
Replacing the CEO with someone chosen by the majority shareholder, Khazanah Nasional Berhad – the state national fund- might just be what the company needs right now. The current CEO Ahmad Jauhari will remain on the job until June 2015. Furthermore, Khazanah Nasional Berhad intends to take full ownership of MAS and delist it from Bursa Malaysia – the stock exchange – in that way, getting the company back on track.
Due to the fact that a lot of the staff members lost their confidence in the airline company, it is important that MAS addresses this problem and tries to restore the confidence among its staff members through boosting the morale the use of regular briefings and discussions. Besides that, they also have to focus on restoring the trust among their passengers. MAS uses aggressive advertising campaigns, service enhancements and cheap fares.
Last but not least: rebuild their safety reputation. By having embraced the public sentiment using sensitivity and compassion during the crises, MAS was able to help raise the possibility of continuing to do business. Furthermore, they need to continuously highlight their on-time performance and that safety is their number one priority through social media
In conclusion, Malaysia Airlines has (literally) hit rock bottom. The company now has to face a number of challenges to insure its future. Most of these issues, such as the airline’s lack of competitiveness in its global business environment, already appeared before the MH370 and the MH17 took the media by storm. From there on, however, the situation took a turn for the worst. Existing problems were magnified and new difficulties occurred one after another. Today the company is dealing with a besmirched image, a lack of competitiveness, loss of employees (and customers) and many millions in financial losses. With a new action plan, MAS is going back to its roots as a more regional airline; and while discretely being delisted from the Malaysian stock market and being appointed a new CEO, Malaysia Airlines might just get the opportunity to start over and (in time) restore its reputation. However, every action plan has its drawbacks; thousands of jobs are likely to be lost and there will be a definite impact on Malaysia’s economy. Thus, Malaysia Airlines’ future remains unstable, yet not without a chance.
Sources: http://ir.chartnexus.com/mas/doc/os/Website%202014_09.pdf
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/malaysia-airlines-flights-left-rows-4114263
http://worldairlinenews.com/category/malaysia-airlines/
http://www.travelweekly.com.au/news/interview-malaysia-airlines-on-the-questions-you-w
Toyota’s Recall Crisis Case Study
- INTRODUCTION
In 2009, Toyota has recalled nearly eight million vehicles in the United States for two mechanical safety defects that can cause unintended acceleration: ‘sticking’ accelerator pedals and a design flaw that can cause accelerator pedals to become trapped by floor mats. These recalls were triggered by a car collision in August 2009 that took the lives of four people. When NHTSA(National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration) first identified the two defects more than a year ago, the agency pushed Toyota to conduct recalls quickly. Toyota later paid nearly $33 million in civil penalties as the result of investigations into whether the company notified NHTSA in a timely manner about these defects. During Congressional hearings on the Toyota recalls in February 2010. Members of Congress asked NHTSA to study whether electronic or software problems in Toyota vehicles could be to blame for unintended acceleration. In March 2010, NHTSA enlisted top NASA engineers and experts in areas such as electromagnetic compatibility to study whether electronic flaws can cause unintended acceleration. In its final report, NASA engineers found no evidence of an electronic defect in Toyota vehicles capable of producing dangerous, high-speed unintended acceleration incidents. The two mechanical safety defects originally identified by NHTSA remain the only known causes of dangerous unintended acceleration incidents.
Consumer attitudes toward Toyota began to change. Prior to Toyota’s historic recall in November 2009, over three-quarters (83%) of U.S. adults surveyed were positive about the brand while fewer than 1 in 5 (17%) were negative.
- CASE ANALYSIS
- Toyota Brand
Toyota Motor Corporation is a Japanese automotive manufacturer headquartered in Japan. In 2013 the multinational corporation consisted of 333,498 employees worldwide and, as of November 2014, is the twelfth-largest company in the world by revenue. The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937. Toyota is the world’s first automobile manufacturer to produce more than 10 million vehicles per year.
Consumer Reports’ Car Reliability Survey finds that Toyota dominates the industry when it comes to the most reliable cars. The findings come from Consumer Reports’ 2012 Annual Auto Survey, which is based on subscribers’ experiences with 1.2 million vehicles. Toyota is one of the top-selling brands in America and Toyota is committed to safety and dependability and to creating the most reliable cars. It strives for continuous improvement in everything it does, along with creating breakthrough products for the future.
- Products Quality
Some say that Toyota grew too fast, and its quality decreased. On the other hand, quality experts say that in spite of Toyota’s rapid growth, quality has remained at better than industry average levels. In fact, Lexus, a Toyota luxury brand, often leads the industry in quality.
All makes and models of automobiles are found to have issues from time to time. The only way that these issues can be put in perspective, however, is to compare them to competitive makes and models. As the media fueled the notion that Toyota automobiles had serious defects, the actual data did not support this notion. A definitive joint study by the National Highway Safety Administration and NASA found no electronic flaws in Toyota vehicles that would cause dangerous self-acceleration issues.
For 2012,Toyota topped the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety’s list with 15 models in 2012. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave the 2012 Toyota Camry a 5-star rating. This is not to say that individual vehicles did not have flaws that caused problems. Any electro-mechanical device made by man can malfunction. There seems to be no definitive data that shows that there was a systematic problem with Toyota vehicles.
- Investigations and Results
There is absolutely no evidence of sudden unintended acceleration caused by electronic problems in Toyota vehicles. The only causes NASA found were improperly installed floor mats and sticky gas pedals that can be slow to return. There has been only one documented accident caused by the floor mats — the one involving the loaner Lexus, where the dealer had used the wrong floor mat and failed to attach it properly with the provided restraining clips — and there have been no documented cases of accidents caused by the very small number of sticky pedals. Most accidents have been attributed to driver error.
Reaction
When complaints of self-acceleration were first reported, Toyota did not know how to handle them. Rather than say that they are investigating the complaints and will issue a complete report at the conclusion of their investigation, Toyota representatives reacted to the complaints in ways that confounded marketing and crisis management experts. They confused everyone by jumping to conclusions and suggesting different causes in rapid succession. First, they attributed the problem to operator error, which is the most frequent cause of self-acceleration problems in automobiles (the issue that nearly triggered demise of Audi in the US market during the mid-1980s).
Then, Toyota suggested the cause of the problem was floor mats that trapped the gas pedal. Some engineers blamed “sticky” gas pedals. This was followed by the suggestion that faulty electronics caused the unintended acceleration. Instead of reassuring the marketplace, Toyota acted in a way that caused owners to fear for their safety and prospective buyers to look for other makes and models. For example, Jim Lentz, president and chief executive officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, went on the Today Show and looked like a “deer in the headlights” in response to Matt Lauer’s cross-examination. In a poll taken before Lentz spoke, 37% said they were less likely buy Toyota cars. The negative numbers jumped to 56% after he spoke. The uncertainty created by Toyota representatives triggered a series of costly recalls, lawsuits, and lost business – causing Toyota and their dealership network to incur further losses from hefty discounts and implementing the recalls.
Feb. 24, 2010, Akio Toyoda, the president and CEO of Toyota, issued the following statement in regards to the recalled vehicles:
“Toyota has, for the past few years, been expanding its business rapidly. Quite frankly, I fear the pace at which we have grown may have been too quick. I would like to point out here that Toyota’s priority has traditionally been the following: First; Safety, Second; Quality, and Third; Volume. These priorities became confused, and we were not able to stop, think, and make improvements as much as we were able to before, and our basic stance to listen to customers’ voices to make better products has weakened somewhat. We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should sincerely be mindful of that. I regret that this has resulted in the safety issues described in the recalls we face today, and I am deeply sorry for any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced. Especially, I would like to extend my condolences to the members of the Saylor family, for the accident in San Diego. I would like to send my prayers again, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again.”
- Market share
- Criteria
- Quality, Safety
- Brand image, Reputation
- Responsibility
- Management
- Customer supports
- ACTION PLANS
Toyota got into a crisis that drove it to reflect intensively and to make dramatic changes to improve its responsiveness to customer concerns — but lost billions of dollars of value in the process.
- Proposed a solution so the defects are unlikely to reoccur
- Providing sufficient, independent, and credible data
- Making ads to back up historic quality and safety
- Getting in touch with every customer
- Improving the communication channel with other companies
- Create and monitor database of repairs and concerns
- Improve technology to communicate with customers
- Bring back the customer loyalty
APPENDIX: Timeline of Major Events
March 29, 2007: NHTSA opens a preliminary investigation into pedal entrapment on MY’07 Lexus ES350 models based on five consumer complaints alleging three crashes and seven injuries. The all weather floor mat is identified as the possible cause of these incidents.
July 26, 2007: A fatal crash occurs in San Jose, CA involving a ‘07 Camry in which the driver suffers serious injuries and the driver of the struck vehicle is killed.
September 13, 2007: After determining the fatal San Jose crash was caused by floor mat entrapment, NHTSA tells Toyota a recall is necessary.
September 26, 2007: Toyota recalls 55,000 floor mats in ’07 and ‘08 Camrys and ES350s.
August 28, 2009: A fatal crash occurs in Santee, CA. The vehicle is found to have an all weather floor mat from another Lexus vehicle. Investigators find that the vehicle’s previous driver had reported an entrapment incident to the dealership.
September 25, 2009: NHTSA tells the company that the floor mat recall is insufficient and the agency expects a recall for the defect in pedal design. Three days later, Toyota tells NHTSA the company will recall the gas pedals.
October 5, 2009: Toyota recalls 3.8 million vehicles for pedal entrapment by floor mat and sends an interim letter to consumers telling them to remove floor mats.
January 21, 2010: Toyota recalls 2.3 million vehicles for the sticky pedal defect.
March 30, 2010: The U.S. DOT(Department of Transformation) announces two studies into unintended acceleration. One looks at possible electronics causes for unintended acceleration in Toyotas; the other examines unintended acceleration and the safety of vehicle electronics across the automotive industry.
April 5, 2010: NHTSA demands the maximum, $16.375 million, civil penalty on Toyota for its failure to notify the agency of the sticky pedal defect for more than four months after discovering it.
December 20, 2010: Toyota agrees to pay the maximum $16.375 million civil penalty as the result of another NHTSA investigation into whether their recall of 5.5 million vehicles for pedal entrapment was conducted in a timely manner.
Y.K, Z.L, T.H
the newest way for start up company to fund investment
Introduction
There are several ways to raise funds for startups; for example, receiving a grant, asking an angel investor, winning a contest, and funding through crowd-funding. If the startup is planning to make a creative or an innovative product, a crowdfunding is the best way to accomplish it. The basic advantages are that you don’t risk losing money if your products failed. Also you can get useful feedback about your project from backers even if it failed. In addition, you can have 100 % ownership of the product. However, the most important advantages of crowd-funding is that you can use online connections with inventors all over the world and apply your marketing method to spread your plan even if you live in the USA.
Because backers, who invest products, usually don’t invest a large amount of money in projects, it is necessary to acquire as many backers as possible. Consequently, when you post your project to a crowdfunding site, the ads should be attractive and allow the backer to dream.
Evidence
We will show three examples about startups which successfully received funds on a crowd-funding page. Firstly, Oculus RIfts*1, which is a new virtual reality headset for video games, their successfully funded in 2012. It has achieved 9522 backers and pledged $2,437,429 of $250,000 goal. This startup used kick-starter in order to make it at a price everyone can afford. It said convincing phrases to make the audience dream with this product such as; “the Rift provides a truly immersive experience that allows you to step inside your favorite game and explore new worlds like never before.” It also posts comments from experts of game companies to make it trustworthy like “…the effect of using the Oculus Rift as you play is mind-blowing.” by G4TV.
Secondly, we picked up Formlabs*2, they provided an affordable high –resolution 3D printer for professional creators. They also succeeded in getting a big investment from backers through Kickstarter. This is one of the best examples to show us how much Crowd funding is an effective way, when we compare the various ways. As we mentioned in the introduction, because they can have 100% ownership, they can make introductions of their products to backers. They said that they made a 3D printer for all creators in the movie. They showed us in the movie how their products will work with real quality of their products. It is going to be persuasive to backers that they can show the backers that they will never betray expectation from backers. So, there is a big advantage in the several ways for obtaining investment. They can attract people because they can make the movie whatever they want to show.
Thirdly, the last one is Ouya*3who developed a new video game. This is known as the most successful case in kickstater. It has a new service that enables people to play the video games without any disks for players. Therefore, customers do not need to have space for disks. People who have Ouya can get games through the internet. They can play all of games for free. In addition, they succeeded in using kickstarter as an advertisement and building a connection to the world. Because they fund big investment from backers, and then, they got a lot of reservation to buy their products from customers before they release their products.
Conclusion and Action Plan
As we mention above, Crowd funding has several advantages over other ways to gather investments. That’s why, we think it is the best way to fund money from backers.
Startup companies have several problems or challenges. They are that they don’t have enough money to produce their products or to put advertisement on the website. In addition ,they don’t want to have big risk.
But if they decide to use crowd funding, it will be solved.
Therefore, we would like to advise startup companies to use crowd funding.
To use crowd funding will be an advertisement, saving money or to be able to decide how they show their products to backers for startup companies.
Using crowd funding also allows startups to communicate with people from all over the world, which will connect to increased popularity of their companies.
In addition, they don’t need to pay back investors because they can decide what they are going to provide stakeholders something as a stock dividend. It means they can provide stakeholder with something that is not money.
Furthermore, they can show customer their products attractively. Crowdfunding has a role that is kind of an advertisement. Simply put, they can share information of their products all over the world through kickstarter. Anybody who looks at kickstarter can know about their products or their company.
To use crowd funding is not only to connect to saving money, but it also connect to be successful for startups.
As mentioned above, there are lot of advantages to use kickstarter.
That’s why, we recommend using crowd funding to startup company.
*1: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game
*2:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/formlabs/form-1-an-affordable-professional-3d-printer
*3: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console
Yuma
Takeshi
HYDE STREET JOURNAL 