The concept of mass customization makes sense. Why wouldn’t a consumer want a product tailored to suit their individual desire? In his book, Mass Customization – The New Frontier in Business Competition, Joseph B. Pine defines mass customization as “developing, producing, marketing and delivering affordable goods and services with enough variety and customization that nearly everyone finds exactly what they want” (1993). Simply, the goal is to provide the consumer what they want when they want it.
Long before the Industrial Revolution, products were produced by specialized craftsman and custom-made for each consumer to their precise specifications and needs. The Industrial Revolution gave way from the individual artisans to the mass-production of standardized goods that met basic needs. Customized products remained available, but were reserved for the wealthy and elite (Goldsmith & Freiden, 2004). Advancements in technology and the Internet in the Information Age have made customized goods available to consumers at a reasonable price in this phenomenon known as mass customization. Lampel and Mintzberg explain that, the internet’s capabilities for manufacturer and consumer to interact and communicate combined with the just-in-time inventory model made possible by robotics have made mass customization possible (as cited in, Goldsmith & Freiden, 2004). While mass customization was made possible advancements of the technology and the manufacturing process, it is driven by the consumer's desire to be unique but varies from generation to generation.
Individualism and Conformity
In his book Denial of Death, Becker discusses the individual’s need to fit in but desire to stand out (1973). As humans, we search to be...
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Consumers become more interested in what brand they buy, and that what they want does not reflect their needs. While there are different products having the same features, people are still giving attention to the brands’ name. When people go shopping at the mall, they do care how the stores present their commodities, which brands use to target their consumers, especially women, and teenagers because they spend more time at the mall, so they are more likely to spend money on useless features’ commodities. Shopping at home, the salesperson explains the features of the product so that another will offer to buy it. Also, at home is the easiest way to buy useless
In Chuck E. Cheese's Latest Tune: an Ode to Millennial Moms, the author, Craig Giammona, describes how Chuck E. Cheese is using target-marketing skills to reach a certain demographic. Giammona illustrates how the firm must reach the parents as well as the children because it is the parents who are actually taking their children to the facilities. Chuck E. Cheese’s new target market is based on age and family lifecycle, as discussed in lecture for chapter eight. Our generation, Millennials, is just recently becoming parents, and marketing to them is still a learning process.
Szakonyi, Mark. "Different Generations Require Different Feedback, Motivation." Jacksonville Business Journal (2008): n. pag. Web.
Steinhorn, Leonard. The Greater Generation-- in Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy. New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 2006. Print.
Obviously the television isn't a new technological development; it's been around since at least the turn of the 1920’s and was readily available for public sale by the late 1930’s (Stephens). After the Second World War, the television expanded with its introduction into the commercial mainstream, and by 1955 it was estimated that roughly half of all American homes had at least one (Stephens). Although certainly impressive, this statistic would only continue to burgeon throughout the decades with the rise of color TV and cable b...
The early 1960s saw the expansion of television. The television had become a common household
Traditionally, Dansk Designs followed a strategy of differentiation. When a firm follows this strategy, they create differences in the firm’s product or service by creating something that is perceived as unique and valued by customers. Differentiation can take many forms, including prestige or brand image, which Dansk decided to implement. Their product line consists of eight product categories, which include flatware, china, linen, glass, decorator cookware, and wooden bowls and trays. Their products are of high quality and are highly priced. Dansk was able to achieve a differentiation advantage because their price premiums exceeded the extra costs of being unique. Dansk is able to create these unique products because of the talented designers they employ, including Jens Quisrgaard, Niels Refsgaard, and Gunnar Cyren. Another competitive advantage of a strategy of differentiation is the ability to deal with supplier power. There is a certain amount of status associated with being the supplier to a producer of differentiated products. Dansk’s principal supplier, Richard Nissen, has enjoyed working with Dansk because he believes they have been able to “preserve the handcrafted nature of the products”.
The baby boom generation’s first memorable contribution to Canada was to raise the Canadian economy to a higher stage with the emergence of greater number of people with varying abilities. With the sudden increase in the population, more demands for more products and services were undoubtedly created, helping the economy to strive forward and advance Canada to be competitive in the global market. Before the baby boom period, Canada was suffering from the aftermath of the Great Depression. There was a lack of jobs and people did not have the sufficient funds to spend on any extra luxuries and this created a vicious cycle of economic crisis. However, due to thou...
As might be expected, the millennial generations as a whole are passionate about the technological and communication advances in the past decade with the internet and social media. “A new Pew Internet Project report reveals that 93% of young adult’s ages 18‐29 are online” (Andrew January 14 to 27, 2010). This allows access for marketer’s access to the generation in a different way than previous generations.
The ‘Golden Age of Television’ is what many refer to as the period between the 1950s and 60s when the television began to establish itself as a prevalent medium in the United States. In 1947, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and the Du Mont Network were the four main television networks that ran stations with regular programming taking place. (Television, 2003) While regular television programming was a new innovation, the television itself had been commercially available for over twenty years prior to the 50s. It was conceived by many worldly innovators and went through several testing stages before it was finally completed in the late twenties. The three main innovators were Niplow - who first developed a rotating disk with small holes arranged in a spiral pattern in 1884, Zworykin - who developed the Iconoscope which could scan pictures and break them into electronic signals (a primitive form of the Cathode Ray Tube) in 1923, and lastly Fansworth - who demonstrated for the first time that it was possible to transmit an electrical image in 1927. (Rollo, 2011) However, one of the many reasons why this medium was successful in the 50s was due to the fact that it became more accessible to the public. Television sets were more affordable to middle class citizens which created further interest in the new technology. Through an historical account of the medium, the spread of television across America throughout this particular decade will be examined.
earning years, Baby Boomers' economic influence is reaching its peak and, as in the past,
Today's young people are generally unresponsive to traditional brand marketing messages. Teens spent $12 billion dollars last year according to a recent study of Teen Marketing Trends. Teens not only use their money on small purchases such as music, clothes and food but also have the power to influence high-end purchases of their parents. Every year younger teens are being marketed because that they are the future teenagers and brand loyalty is an important thing to many companies. If you can get an older child hooked on a product, they’ll generally love it for life. These younger age demographics are being marketed to because more and more kids have increasing spending power and authority over what is purchased in their household.
As Generation Y, we are 63 million members strong and spend more than a billion dollars annually (Marketsource). With such spending power it is easy to see why companies choose us as their target market. We have grown up in a "'consumption culture" are "taught that (we) will be satisfied if we purchase products to fill our wants and desires" (Youth in the Third Millennium). Perhaps this need to buy things is only a progression ...
graphic designer Mehmet Gozetlik project entitled ‘Minimalist effect in the maximalist market’ experimented with the reduction of supermarket branded products likely to be in every household
The other day I walked into the supermarket to buy a box of Kleenex. I was faced with a variety of colors, textures, box designs, and even the option of aloe. All these features designed for a product to blow my nose into! Selection wasn't limited to the Kleenex section, either…I found abundance in every aisle. We seem to always want more - more choices, more variety, more time. In fact, even the word "supermarket" implies a desire for more than just a simple market.