questions

Project: iPic Theater

04/15/2017

EM: Shanghai, China

I believe Shanghai is a perfect place for iPic Theater to develop.

Political/Legal Conditions

As a developing country, China has been making a heroic effort to develop economy for many years. Shanghai, as the most important city in China’s economy, is well known as “The Pearl of China”, and the Chinese government has already started promoting Shanghai’s economic development since 1992.

Economic/Financial Conditions

With Chinese government’s promoting, Shanghai now has the most developed economy in China, and it is the richest city. Talking about Finance, Shanghai in China is just like New York in the United States. People in Shanghai earn much more salaries than people in other cities, so they have more money to spend. According to National Bureau of Statistics of China’s new report, Shanghai’s GDP for year 2016 was 2668.8 billion RMB(423.6 billion USD), which was 6.7% higher than that for year 2015.

Social/Cultural Conditions

A disadvantage for iPic Theater to enter China is also because of China’s development. As we talked, China is still a developing country, Chinese people are all trying to adapt new things, such as modern technologies, new consumption views, and new world views.

Chinese people started watching movies in 1890s, however, former Chinese movies are more like advertising videos, and only Chinese government has the right to play movies for people. The commercialization of Chinese movies was in 2005, it has been about just 12 years til now and hasn’t finish its market stabilization. There are a lot of people do not have the willing to watch a movie, some of them even never watched one. Or, comparing to going to the movie theater to enjoy a movie, some people may want to watch it at home, since it’s really cheap to find a movie online.

Shanghai is the “Youngest” city in China. Different from other cities in China, such as Kunming and Sichuan, most of the people in Shanghai are willing to accept new things and spend more money in entertainment.

Technology/Infrastructure Conditions

Although there are plenty of movie theaters in Shanghai, there isn’t one like iPic Theater. All the theaters are just like AMC and Regal in the United States, those high-end theaters like iPic and Landmark haven’t enter Chinese market until now. People in Shanghai will certainly be interested in iPic Theater’s fully flat beds and in-movie dining.

However, China’s law for intellectual property protection is still not complete, it’s really easy for Chinese people to download pirated films online using their methods, so this is also a challenge for iPic to enter Chinese market.

EM: Honolulu, Hawaii

Political/ Legal Conditions

Hawaii is the 8th smallest and 11th least populous state in the US. Honolulu as the largest city of Hawaii has only 390,000 population, which is 1/10 of the population of LA. This is a hurdle for entertainment service due to the lack of people.

Economics/ Financial Conditions

The biggest part of Honolulu’s economic source is tourism. As the largest city of Hawaii, Honolulu has millions of visitors and approximately $10 billion to the local economy each year. The price of goods is also relatively expensive compare to other tourism cities.

Social/ Cultural Conditions

More than a half of the population is honolulu are Asian. 1/5 are white, and only 8% of the total population are native Hawaiian. High population of tourists also brings Honolulu a slower pace of life. Therefore entertainment service like ipic theater has a certain stable market in Honolulu since most people came to the place to relax and have fun.

Technology/ Infrastructure Conditions

There is only one IMAX theater (Regal) in Honolulu, and three other theaters which are not big. These theaters certainly do have have unique specialities like ipic, including the bar and food ordering while watching the movies.

Project: iPic Theater

Note: Your competitive set (CS) includes your BPS plus two competing branded products or services that have significant share in your EMs. You may not find direct or product form competition in EMs, since your BPS is new to these markets. If that is the case, you may use “indirect competitors” from product category, generic competition or budget competition for your CS.

Produce a cone of competition for your BPS in each EM. Make sure to reflect on your means-end chain to identify these competitors.

Honolulu:

—Product form: None

—category competition: Regal Cinemas, Consolidate Theater,

—generic competition: Hawaii Show Theater, Diamond Head Theater for broadway shows

—budget competition: M night clubs, The beach bar, Waikiki shopping center

Shanghai:

—Product form: None

—category competition: cinema Palace, Cathay Theater, Premiere Cinema

—generic competition: Grand Theater, Zotter Chocolate Theater, Shanghai Dramatic art center

—budget competition: Compass bar at Peninsula Hotel, ifc shopping mall, Muse night club

Identify three critical success factors (CSFs or KSFs) that impact the ability to achieve and sustain a successful business in each of your EMs.

Honolulu:

—stuff need to provide 100% good service

—comfortable interior design

—unique food menu other than seafood or Japanese food like the most of the restuarants in Honolulu

Shanghai:

—Modern interior design

—Student discount for movie tickets just like most of other cinemas in Shanghai and having Membership privillage in the theater

—Healthy food menu including Popular Chinese snacks

3. For each of 2 competitors in each EM and your BPS, identify one CSF/KSF that appears to be in place, and the intelligence or rationale for your analysis

Honolulu:

—The Beach Bar has very good customer review for service. People who work there have been reported as ‘Nice and Kind’. They hav very goo reviews on Yelp. Which makes them one of the most popular bar in Honolulu.

—M night club has very modern interior design and very uniqe, which gives people good mood to have fun.

Shanghai:

—Zotter Chocolate Theater has very interesting theme interior design.

—Cathy Theater has a very good membership privillage including front of line food ordering and coupon for movie tickets.

4. Based on your analysis of EMs from all your assignments: Select your choice of one target entry market (TEM). Provide your reason for selecting that TEM as the better choice among the two you researched

Based on what I have researched so far, I will consider Shanghai as a better choice. One of the biggest reason is that the whole concept of ‘Ipic Theater’ is new to most of Chinese people. To be the very first movie theater that customers can order food and beverages while seated has a pretty good market since there isn’t one even in the whole country. Whereas Honolulu won’t be the first place in the US to start this service, it doesn’t have a market as big as Shanghai. Secondly, Shanghai is becoming more and more modern, people are trying to getting variouble concepts from global. New concepts of service is more than welcomed in China.

TEM: Shanghai

1. Identify two lucrative segments (LS) for your BPS in your TEM

Provide a description using lifestyle, attitude, interests, opinion and behavior information.

Concentrated Targeting: focusing on a specific market of people have big workload (white collar workers), who do not have too much time of having fun. This variable functioning theater includes wine bar, lounge, cinema and restaurant. For those white collar worker who tends to not have too many opportunities or time to go out, this will be the one place that they can get together and have fun. Also, Shanghai is a pretty big and modern city, this theater will be located in the middle of the city center, which has another advantage of ‘being close’. Therefore, these people do not need to drive far. Moreover, white collar people tend to have relatively high demand for wine and going to bars, which can also be an attraction to them.

Multi-segment targeting: separate the market into groups of ‘too busy customer’ and ‘nothing to do customer’. Since the mean idea of iPic Theater is variable, which includes cinema, bars and restaurant, we can see the advantage and specialties can fits different type of people. First is white-collar worker, as discussed above, who would need one place to have the most relaxation. The second group of people could be the tourism. As we known that Shanghai is not the biggest economic city in China, but also contains many Chinese historical elements, which attracts a lot of tourism in the world. iPic theater can also be a nice place to go for tourists to go. The ‘Moderns’, which is also a significant element of iPic theater will attract those tourists who came to Shanghai for its ‘modernist’.

2. Create a descriptive name for each segment to help us quickly understand the motives or behavior of each segment.

‘Ultimate relaxation should be a descriptive name that right next to your segment. This name would be used by those who do not have much time to go out. As the name suggest, it can help us understand the motives as well as behavior of the segment, which is meant to give people without much time a relaxing place, where there can go and relax after a tiresome period.

‘Modern place to have fun’ segment: costumers are initially drawn for tourists who came to Shanghai for its ‘morderness’. As the name suggest, it can help us understand what the place is all about. For those seeking to visit modern places in Shanghai can search for the name.

3. Produce a persona or archetype (PA) for each segment

Include a photo and name of each PA

Ultimate relaxation persona

Modern place persona

Describe of each PA’s life.

Bothe the life of each persona is modern. They both involve modern life.

Include brands of other products and services that help us understand each PA’s preferences, priorities, and the PA’s purchase and use behavior.

In these case, other brands of products and services, which help us understand each PA’s preferences, priorities, and the PA’S purchase and use behavior include drinks and massage services for relaxation segment. On the other hand, for modern place segment some of the brands of brand include tour guide services and refreshments drinks. These brands of products and services would help us understand each PA’s preferences, priorities and the PA’s purchase and use behavior.

Note: You are creating an innovated or locally adapted BSP (IBSP) based on your LS perspective, using a positioning map.

Therefore, some of the competitors to Shanghai tourist sites are Brazil, Australia, India, Canada as well as United Kingdom.

Outcome: Innovation

1. From each of your LS perspectives in your selected EM, evaluate 3 competitors plus your current BPS. Create a positioning map, using 5 characteristics that matter the most to each LS. It may help to use an Excel spreadsheet and the radar charting option, to show each competitor’s relative advantage or disadvantage of these key characteristics. Score each competitor on each characteristic using a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being best.

If you have positioning/image data that is quite complex will has not been analyzed previously, then a radar chart is a good place to start sorting through the data and is often a better approach than a traditional perceptual map. Radar chart comes in very handy to quickly summarize the data. The radar chart shows all product attributes for the brands only .This allows you to quickly compare the brands on all attributes at once, in order to get a sense of where they stand out and how they compete against each other, as well as get a good understanding of what the brand is about.

2.. Identify two innovations or local adaptations to your BPS that provides a more compelling positioning or USP, with the LS in mind.

There are various innovations for BPS, but the most innovations that provide a more compelling position in my selected lucrative segments include ergonomics and aesthetics-design. For relaxation segment ergonomics would provide a more compelling position since this type of lucrative segment is mainly involved in providing comfort facilities to those seeking relaxing places. On the other hand, modern place segment would use an aesthetics-design. This is mainly due to the fact that tourist is based on seeing the environment as you tour places.

3. Describe the adaptations or innovations and their benefits, particularly how they enhance or change the means-end chain

Innovation may be linked to positive changes in efficiency, productivity, quality, competitiveness, and market share, among other factors.

Product innovation:

It consists of changes in product attributes with a change in how the product is noticed by consumers.

Process innovation:

It consists of changes regarding the product or the service production process. It does not necessarily have an impact on the final product but produces benefits in the production process, generally increasing the productivity and reducing costs.

4. Show the innovations – you may use graphics or draw elements (rough drawings are fine)

Innovation has the ability to add value to company’s products, differentiating it, even momentarily, in the competitive environment. Innovation is even more important in markets with plenty of commodities, such as the ones presenting a high level of competition and whose products are roughly equivalent between competitors. Those who innovate in this context, either doing incremental or radical, product, and process or business model innovations are at an advantage over the others.

Innovations are important because they allow companies to access new markets, increase revenues, perform new partnerships, learn new knowledge and increase the value of their brands.