• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.239-248
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• 2010

This paper describes a collaborative project between academia and industry which focused on improving the marketing and product development strategies for two private label apparel brands of a large regional department store chain in the southeastern United States. The goal of the project was to revitalize product lines of the two brands by incorporating student ideas for new solutions, thereby giving the students practical experience with a real-life industry situation. There were a number of key players involved in the project. A privately-owned department store chain based in the southeastern United States which was seeking an academic partner had recognized a need to update two existing private label brands. They targeted middle-aged consumers looking for casual, moderately priced merchandise. The company was seeking to change direction with both packaging and presentation, and possibly product design. The branding and product development divisions of the company contacted professors in an academic department of a large southeastern state university. Two of the professors agreed that the task would be a good fit for their classes - one was a junior-level Intermediate Brand Management class; the other was a senior-level Fashion Product Development class. The professors felt that by working collaboratively on the project, students would be exposed to a real world scenario, within the security of an academic learning environment. Collaboration within an interdisciplinary team has the advantage of providing experiences and resources beyond the capabilities of a single student and adds "brainpower" to problem-solving processes (Lowman 2000). This goal of improving the capabilities of students directed the instructors in each class to form interdisciplinary teams between the Branding and Product Development classes. In addition, many universities are employing industry partnerships in research and teaching, where collaboration within temporal (semester) and physical (classroom/lab) constraints help to increase students' knowledge and experience of a real-world situation. At the University of Tennessee, the Center of Industrial Services and UT-Knoxville's College of Engineering worked with a company to develop design improvements in its U.S. operations. In this study, Because should be lower case b with a private label retail brand, Wickett, Gaskill and Damhorst's (1999) revised Retail Apparel Product Development Model was used by the product development and brand management teams. This framework was chosen because it addresses apparel product development from the concept to the retail stage. Two classes were involved in this project: a junior level Brand Management class and a senior level Fashion Product Development class. Seven teams were formed which included four students from Brand Management and two students from Product Development. The classes were taught the same semester, but not at the same time. At the beginning of the semester, each class was introduced to the industry partner and given the problem. Half the teams were assigned to the men's brand and half to the women's brand. The teams were responsible for devising approaches to the problem, formulating a timeline for their work, staying in touch with industry representatives and making sure that each member of the team contributed in a positive way. The objective for the teams was to plan, develop, and present a product line using merchandising processes (following the Wickett, Gaskill and Damhorst model) and develop new branding strategies for the proposed lines. The teams performed trend, color, fabrication and target market research; developed sketches for a line; edited the sketches and presented their line plans; wrote specifications; fitted prototypes on fit models, and developed final production samples for presentation to industry. The branding students developed a SWOT analysis, a Brand Measurement report, a mind-map for the brands and a fully integrated Marketing Report which was presented alongside the ideas for the new lines. In future if the opportunity arises to work in this collaborative way with an existing company who wishes to look both at branding and product development strategies, classes will be scheduled at the same time so that students have more time to meet and discuss timelines and assigned tasks. As it was, student groups had to meet outside of each class time and this proved to be a challenging though not uncommon part of teamwork (Pfaff and Huddleston, 2003). Although the logistics of this exercise were time-consuming to set up and administer, professors felt that the benefits to students were multiple. The most important benefit, according to student feedback from both classes, was the opportunity to work with industry professionals, follow their process, and see the results of their work evaluated by the people who made the decisions at the company level. Faculty members were grateful to have a "real-world" case to work with in the classroom to provide focus. Creative ideas and strategies were traded as plans were made, extending and strengthening the departmental links be tween the branding and product development areas. By working not only with students coming from a different knowledge base, but also having to keep in contact with the industry partner and follow the framework and timeline of industry practice, student teams were challenged to produce excellent and innovative work under new circumstances. Working on the product development and branding for "real-life" brands that are struggling gave students an opportunity to see how closely their coursework ties in with the real-world and how creativity, collaboration and flexibility are necessary components of both the design and business aspects of company operations. Industry personnel were impressed by (a) the level and depth of knowledge and execution in the student projects, and (b) the creativity of new ideas for the brands.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.109-153
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• 1992

This paper estimates a translog cost function for the Korea's banking industry and derives various implications on the prospect for the Korean banking structure in the future based on the estimated efficiency indicators for the banking sector. The Korean banking industry is permitted to operate trust business to the full extent and the security business to a limited extent, while it is formally subjected to the strict, specialized banking system. Security underwriting and investment businesses are allowed in a very limited extent only for stocks and bonds of maturity longer than three year and only up to 100 percent of the bank paid-in capital. Until the end of 1991, the ceiling was only up to 25 percent of the total balance of the demand deposits. However, they are prohibited from the security brokerage business. While the in-house integration of security businesses with the traditional business of deposit and commercial lending is restrictively regulated as such, Korean banks can enter the security business by establishing subsidiaries in the industry. This paper, therefore, estimates the efficiency indicators as well as the cost functions, identifying the in-house integrated trust business and security investment business as important banking activities, for various cases where both the production and the intermediation function approaches in modelling the financial intermediaries are separately applied, and the banking businesses of deposit, lending and security investment as one group and the trust businesses as another group are separately and integrally analyzed. The estimation results of the efficiency indicators for various cases are summarized in Table 1 and Table 2. First, security businesses exhibit economies of scale but also economies of scope with traditional banking activities, which implies that in-house integration of the banking and security businesses may not be a nonoptimal banking structure. Therefore, this result further implies that the transformation of Korea's banking system from the current, specialized system to the universal banking system will not impede the improvement of the banking industry's efficiency. Second, the lending businesses turn out to be subjected to diseconomies of scale, while exhibiting unclear evidence for economies of scope. In sum, it implies potential efficiency gain of the continued in-house integration of the lending activity. Third, the continued integration of the trust businesses seems to contribute to improving the efficiency of the banking businesses, since the trust businesses exhibit economies of scope. Fourth, deposit services and fee-based activities, such as foreign exchange and credit card businesses, exhibit economies of scale but constant returns to scope, which implies, the possibility of separating those businesses from other banking and trust activities. The recent trend of the credit card business being operated separately from other banking activities by an independent identity in Korea as well as in the global banking market seems to be consistent with this finding. Then, how can the possibility of separating deposit services from the remaining activities be interpreted? If one insists a strict definition of commercial banking that is confined to deposit and commercial lending activities, separating the deposit service will suggest a resolution or a disappearance of banking, itself. Recently, however, there has been a suggestion that separating banks' deposit and lending activities by allowing a depository institution which specialize in deposit taking and investing deposit fund only in the safest securities such as government securities to administer the deposit activity will alleviate the risk of a bank run. This method, in turn, will help improve the safety of the payment system (Robert E. Litan, What should Banks Do? Washington, D.C., The Brookings Institution, 1987). In this context, the possibility of separating the deposit activity will imply that a new type of depository institution will arise naturally without contradicting the efficiency of the banking businesses, as the size of the banking market grows in the future. Moreover, it is also interesting to see additional evidences confirming this statement that deposit taking and security business are cost complementarity but deposit taking and lending businesses are cost substitute (see Table 2 for cost complementarity relationship in Korea's banking industry). Finally, it has been observed that the Korea's banking industry is lacking in the characteristics of natural monopoly. Therefore, it may not be optimal to encourage the merger and acquisition in the banking industry only for the purpose of improving the efficiency.

• The Journal of Natural Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.83-121
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• 2004

This study was carried out to examine how solid the production foundation of rice in Chung-Nam Province is, and, if not, to probe alternative measures through the size of farms specializing in rice, of which direction would be a pivot of rice industry-oriented policy. The results obtained can be summarized as follows : 1. The amount of rice production in Chung-Nam Province is highest in Korea and the size of paddy field area is the second largest : This implying that the probability that rice production in Chung-Nam Province would be severely influenced by a global trend of market conditions. The number of farms specializing in rice becoming the core group of rice farming account for 7.7 percent of the total number of farm household in Korea. Average field area financial support which had been input to farm household by Government had a noticeable effect on the improvement of the policy of farm-size program. 2. Farm-size program in Chung-Nam Province established from 1980 to 2002 in creased the cultivation size of paddy field to 19,484 hectares, and this program enhanced the buying and selling of farmland and the number of farmland bargain reached 6,431 household and 16,517 hectares, respectively, in 1995-2002. Meanwhile, long-term letting and hiring of farmland appeared so active that the bargain acreage reached 6,970 hectares, and farm involved was 7,059 households, however, the farm-exchange-and-unity program did not satisfy our expectation, because the retirement farm operators reluctantly participated to sell their farms. Another reason that had delayed the bargain of farms rested on the general category of social complication attendant upon the exchange and unity operation for scattered farm. Such difficulties would work negative effects out to carry on the target of farm-size work in general. 3. The following measures were presented to propel the farm-size promotion program : a. Occupation shift project, followed by the social security program for retirement and elderly farm operators, should be promptly established and also a number of types of incentives for promoting the letting and hiring work and farm-exchange-and-unity program would also be set up. b. To establish the effective key system of rice production, all the farm operators should increase the unit area yield of rice and lower the production cost. To do so, a great deal of production teams of rice equipped with managerial techniques and capabilities need to be organized. And, also, there should be appropriate arrays of facilities including information system. This plan is desirable to be in line with a diversity of the structural implement of regional integration based on farm system building. c. To extend the size of farm and to improve farm management, we have to devise the enlargement of individual size of farm for maximized management and the utilization of farm-size grouping method. In conclusion, it can be said that the farm-size project in Chung-Nam Province which has continued since the 1980s was satisfactorily achieved. However, we still have a lot of problems to be solved to break down the barrier for attainment of the desirable farm-size operation work.. Farm-size project has fairly close relation with farm specialization in rice and, thus, the positive support for farm household including the integrated program for both retirement farmers and off-farm operators should be considered to pursue the progressive development of the farm-size program, which is key means to successful achievement of rice farming enforcement in Chung-Nam Province.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.59-88
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• 2008

Digital Convergence means integration between industry, technology, and contents, and in marketing, it usually comes with creation of new types of product and service under the base of digital technology as digitalization progress in electro-communication industries including telecommunication, home appliance, and computer industries. One can see digital convergence not only in instruments such as PC, AV appliances, cellular phone, but also in contents, network, service that are required in production, modification, distribution, re-production of information. Convergence in contents started around 1990. Convergence in network and service begins as broadcasting and telecommunication integrates and DMB(digital multimedia broadcasting), born in May, 2005 is the symbolic icon in this trend. There are some positive and negative expectations about DMB. The reason why two opposite expectations exist is that DMB does not come out from customer's need but from technology development. Therefore, customers might have hard time to interpret the real meaning of DMB. Time is quite critical to a high tech product, like DMB because another product with same function from different technology can replace the existing product within short period of time. If DMB does not positioning well to customer's mind quickly, another products like Wibro, IPTV, or HSPDA could replace it before it even spreads out. Therefore, positioning strategy is critical for success of DMB product. To make correct positioning strategy, one needs to understand how consumer interprets DMB and how consumer's interpretation can be changed via communication strategy. In this study, we try to investigate how consumer perceives a new product, like DMB and how AD strategy change consumer's perception. More specifically, the paper segment consumers into sub-groups based on their DMB perceptions and compare their characteristics in order to understand how they perceive DMB. And, expose them different printed ADs that have messages guiding consumer think DMB in specific ways, either cellular phone or personal TV. Research Question 1: Segment consumers according to perceptions about DMB and compare characteristics of segmentations. Research Question 2: Compare perceptions about DMB after AD that induces categorization of DMB in direction for each segment. If one understand and predict a direction in which consumer perceive a new product, firm can select target customers easily. We segment consumers according to their perception and analyze characteristics in order to find some variables that can influence perceptions, like prior experience, usage, or habit. And then, marketing people can use this variables to identify target customers and predict their perceptions. If one knows how customer's perception is changed via AD message, communication strategy could be constructed properly. Specially, information from segmented customers helps to develop efficient AD strategy for segment who has prior perception. Research framework consists of two measurements and one treatment, O1 X O2. First observation is for collecting information about consumer's perception and their characteristics. Based on first observation, the paper segment consumers into two groups, one group perceives DMB similar to Cellular phone and the other group perceives DMB similar to TV. And compare characteristics of two segments in order to find reason why they perceive DMB differently. Next, we expose two kinds of AD to subjects. One AD describes DMB as Cellular phone and the other Ad describes DMB as personal TV. When two ADs are exposed to subjects, consumers don't know their prior perception of DMB, in other words, which subject belongs 'similar-to-Cellular phone' segment or 'similar-to-TV' segment? However, we analyze the AD's effect differently for each segment. In research design, final observation is for investigating AD effect. Perception before AD is compared with perception after AD. Comparisons are made for each segment and for each AD. For the segment who perceives DMB similar to TV, AD that describes DMB as cellular phone could change the prior perception. And AD that describes DMB as personal TV, could enforce the prior perception. For data collection, subjects are selected from undergraduate students because they have basic knowledge about most digital equipments and have open attitude about a new product and media. Total number of subjects is 240. In order to measure perception about DMB, we use indirect measurement, comparison with other similar digital products. To select similar digital products, we pre-survey students and then finally select PDA, Car-TV, Cellular Phone, MP3 player, TV, and PSP. Quasi experiment is done at several classes under instructor's allowance. After brief introduction, prior knowledge, awareness, and usage about DMB as well as other digital instruments is asked and their similarities and perceived characteristics are measured. And then, two kinds of manipulated color-printed AD are distributed and similarities and perceived characteristics for DMB are re-measured. Finally purchase intension, AD attitude, manipulation check, and demographic variables are asked. Subjects are given small gift for participation. Stimuli are color-printed advertising. Their actual size is A4 and made after several pre-test from AD professionals and students. As results, consumers are segmented into two subgroups based on their perceptions of DMB. Similarity measure between DMB and cellular phone and similarity measure between DMB and TV are used to classify consumers. If subject whose first measure is less than the second measure, she is classified into segment A and segment A is characterized as they perceive DMB like TV. Otherwise, they are classified as segment B, who perceives DMB like cellular phone. Discriminant analysis on these groups with their characteristics of usage and attitude shows that Segment A knows much about DMB and uses a lot of digital instrument. Segment B, who thinks DMB as cellular phone doesn't know well about DMB and not familiar with other digital instruments. So, consumers with higher knowledge perceive DMB similar to TV because launching DMB advertising lead consumer think DMB as TV. Consumers with less interest on digital products don't know well about DMB AD and then think DMB as cellular phone. In order to investigate perceptions of DMB as well as other digital instruments, we apply Proxscal analysis, Multidimensional Scaling technique at SPSS statistical package. At first step, subjects are presented 21 pairs of 7 digital instruments and evaluate similarity judgments on 7 point scale. And for each segment, their similarity judgments are averaged and similarity matrix is made. Secondly, Proxscal analysis of segment A and B are done. At third stage, get similarity judgment between DMB and other digital instruments after AD exposure. Lastly, similarity judgments of group A-1, A-2, B-1, and B-2 are named as 'after DMB' and put them into matrix made at the first stage. Then apply Proxscal analysis on these matrixes and check the positional difference of DMB and after DMB. The results show that map of segment A, who perceives DMB similar as TV, shows that DMB position closer to TV than to Cellular phone as expected. Map of segment B, who perceive DMB similar as cellular phone shows that DMB position closer to Cellular phone than to TV as expected. Stress value and R-square is acceptable. And, change results after stimuli, manipulated Advertising show that AD makes DMB perception bent toward Cellular phone when Cellular phone-like AD is exposed, and that DMB positioning move towards Car-TV which is more personalized one when TV-like AD is exposed. It is true for both segment, A and B, consistently. Furthermore, the paper apply correspondence analysis to the same data and find almost the same results. The paper answers two main research questions. The first one is that perception about a new product is made mainly from prior experience. And the second one is that AD is effective in changing and enforcing perception. In addition to above, we extend perception change to purchase intention. Purchase intention is high when AD enforces original perception. AD that shows DMB like TV makes worst intention. This paper has limitations and issues to be pursed in near future. Methodologically, current methodology can't provide statistical test on the perceptual change, since classical MDS models, like Proxscal and correspondence analysis are not probability models. So, a new probability MDS model for testing hypothesis about configuration needs to be developed. Next, advertising message needs to be developed more rigorously from theoretical and managerial perspective. Also experimental procedure could be improved for more realistic data collection. For example, web-based experiment and real product stimuli and multimedia presentation could be employed. Or, one can display products together in simulated shop. In addition, demand and social desirability threats of internal validity could influence on the results. In order to handle the threats, results of the model-intended advertising and other "pseudo" advertising could be compared. Furthermore, one can try various level of innovativeness in order to check whether it make any different results (cf. Moon 2006). In addition, if one can create hypothetical product that is really innovative and new for research, it helps to make a vacant impression status and then to study how to form impression in more rigorous way.