20501034 - Entry 7

'Again' Lotte

Article

Since 2000, The Baseball team, Lotte Giants which based on Busan has been seen at the bottom of the ranking list. Of course, the popularity of the Lotte got desperate. As a matter of fact, the Lotte baseball team was so popular back in the days and they even won the Korean series in 1984 and 1992. As popularity went down, the number of people who visit Lotte baseball stadium also rapidly decreased. In the weekends, many people visited Lotte baseball stadium to see their playing. The problem is that the stadium became almost all the time empty in the week day.

In this situation, the marketing department of Lotte came up with very creative idea. They named it “Again”. In the week day, they create Lotte stadium as it is 1984 and 1992. They played old song which played in their age and even charge the entrance fee as much as 1984. As a result of this, they sold 16,000 tickets out in 2 days earlier than the day actual game began.

My opinion

In my perception, Busan is the second largest and very successful harbor city. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, as a center of logistics and trading, Pusan attained the highest stage of prosperity. However, since 2000, economically and culturally Busan has been falling behind in comparison with Seoul. Their baseball team was also very strong in 1980’s and 1990’s but in 2000’s they are always at the bottom of the ranking list. Pusan people might be missing their glorious age and Lotte marketing team found this needs (to want to see or repeat their glorious age) and applied this fact in a very successful way. I especially like the fact that they applied this idea to fill the empty seats.

In service industry, it is very important to maximize the facilities or given resources. Family restaurants give a discount to customers who come to have a lunch to fill the empty. Disney sells annual ticket which is only available for week day in very cheap price to utilize the facility during week days. However, in sports marketing business, they almost gave up to offer empty seat during week day concerning hardworking Korean people. They rather squeeze the profit only during the weekends than make good use of their resources in the other 5 days. In this sense, Lotte’s marketing team approached in very practical way which never happened before in sports marketing. I hope it would inspire the other marketing area which is inefficient to innovate their business more efficiently.

20501005 - Entry 7

Nike, environmentally friendly marketing
@Beijing Olympic.

Original Article

My Opinion
The slogan of Beijing Olympic is "faster, higher, further." beyond these words. A global sports brand Nike adds one word 'more environmentally friendly' in order to upgrade the brand image.
As you know, China is infamous for "Air Pollution" and many types of pollution. So, several counturies including France boycotted the Olympic. Now, it is very controversial problem.
I think although China is rapidly developing country, they need to consider their environment.
Like Korea did in last decades, they are ignoring the importance of environment.
Anyway, it is good news that many componies such as Nike and Adidas try to use environmental marketing. This article is about the news that last week Nike has shown its new products developed to be good for environment and athletes. The name of product is "Swift" which is made up of polyester from abandoned uniforms and Coke PET etc. "Swift" also helps athletes to make a better record. I think Nike made a great decision. These days, one of the most important issues is 'environment' and Nike caught that! Marketing environmentally. We should consider environment even when we do marketing!! This is a trand we should catch up with.
Be a friend with Environment!!!!

20820014 Entry- 7

U.S. Health Care Spending to Double by 2017, Report Predicts

Spending could hit $4.3 trillion, account for one-fifth of gross domestic product

According to the report of HealthDay news, American`s spending on health care could double by 2017, reach $4.3 trillion and accounting for 19.5% of the nation`s gross domestic product. The main reason causes this big growth is baby boomers begin to enter the medicare system, there will be major shift in health care spending from the private to the public sector.
Health spending is expected to increasing steady within near 10 years, which is 2007 through 2017, at 6.7% per year. At the same time economic growth is expected to slow to an average annual rate of 4.7%. As a result, the combination of steady health spending growth and slowing economic growth will lead to the health care part of gross domestic product rising to nearly 20% 2017, nearly one-fifth of the economy. Due to medicare baby boomers, public spending growth is increasing whereas private spending growth is decreasind.

My opinion
Every year thousands of people require treatment for dreaded deseases like cancer, heart desease, kidney, liver desease etc. People spend a lot of money for their health. This article prove that large amount of money is flowing to medical business.
However, as I read from chapter16, drugstore retailers face big challenge due to low price negotiation with health insurance companies. Therefore they are attempting to make up lost profits by selling nonpharmaceutical products. In mongolian case there are various asian drugstore chains like Tianshi, Dabao, Beichishin, even american Nutrition B12 etc. Nowadays people are seeking low price and high quality medical treatment in Asian countries. It provide for marketers nice opportunity to make medical tourism for medical tourists specially for westerners. According to my research after professor Lee showed video on class, asian world standard treatment costs only 10-20% which is in USA or UK. The most popular destinations are India, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand. Medical tourism is rapidly growing with large numbers of tourists in these countries by 20-30% each year. Currently, number of estimated tourists to be 1.3 millions and asia expected to be earn it U.S.$ 4.4 billion by 2012.

References:

http://www.businessweek.com/

http://www.nchc.org/

http://www.healthtourisminasia.com/

20820007, Entry - 7

High quality, affordable, overseas medical care

/When you're out of quality you're out of business./

In the last class we watched videos about unusually and affordable hospitals in Thailand. It was very interesting for me so I made a research about one of them in order to know how they attract their patients and how they keeping and adding the number of visitors. I found that biggest and high qualified hospital in Thailand is Bumrungrad which founded in 1980. Now hospital offers state-of-art diagnostic, therapeutic and intensive care facilities in a one- stop medical care. Every year hospital serves one million patients all over the globe including clients who live in Thailand. About 400000 of them are international patients from 190 countries. Bumrungrad’s goal is to provide world class medicine and service so patients served by highly educated and professional 945 doctors and 700 nurses. They also offer services like: International Medical Coordination Office, Languages, Airport service and Travel and Visa services for visitors from overseas.

My opinion

According to the number of visitors and offered services I made an inference that they really understood what the people’s need is and what they can do to satisfy these needs. Hospital business is business where you should not make mistakes because target always asks about high quality, safety and affordable price. Bumrungrad fulfilled all of these 3 main categories and plus they offering special services for international patients that they can’t experience in their own countries. Also it offers an opportunity for visitors to get all things they need in one place while you are staying in the hospital for treatments. Things you should not worry about: inpatient accommodation, hospitality residence, food and beverage services, shopping, international patient center and transportation because you can find them in the hospital easily. For example these are the shops available for visitor’s convenience: 99 Minimart(convenience store), AM hair salon, Get the book, Healthy Max(medicine store), Better life and Baby shop( big wallet share in the market). Therefore I want to mention the interior design of the hospital .It designed to be similar to any luxury hotels interior style and it is very unusual compare to other boring common hospitals which are operating in the same field. Also rooms are designed to make people to feel warm hospitality of Thai country. Additionally about price it is very affordable, compare to states it is less by10% so buy the rest of the money visitors can travel and experience hospitality, culture and unique food of Thailand.


High quality always gives people confidence about safety.