Services and Nonprofit Organization Marketing

Nonprofit organization marking is the effort by nonprofit organizations to bring about mutually satisfying exchanges with target markets .As I mentioned before, Muji's no-brand strategy (generic brand) means that little money is spent on advertisement or classical marketing, and Muji's success is attributed to word of mouth, a simple shopping experience and the anti-brand movement. Muji's no-brand strategy also means its products are attractive to customers who prefer unbranded products for aesthetic reasons, and because it provides an alternative to traditional branded products.To the nonprofit foundation,MUJI's effort was in their display cabinet leverages their brand power,popularization of their idea for attracting potential customs.

In an effort to increase customer interaction, Japanese homeware and fashion retailer MUJI have introduced a new mobile app dubbed MUJI Passport, which will allow users to earn shopping points and MUJI Miles from both store visits and purchases. This point system will then lead to coupons, discounts, and special promotions that can be redeemed both in-store and online. Additional features allow for customers to search specific store's current stock, gain awards for their birthdays, and share updates through various social networks. MUJI will also be able to use the apps data to track buying habits and popular products, allowing them to improve their service and offerings. MUJI Passport will be available for both Apple and Android mobile operating systems.

Ch. 11- Developing and Managing Products

           “No Label. Good Products”, which is at the core of what the business is about.

Delicate products for a simple lifestyle

The quality more than quantity

Product development and management is significant but difficult part for marketing strategy. Once the company has the objective, they have to find a good method to promote the product into the marketplace, and the products represent the image of the brand.  MUJI always wants the products to have good coordination with their philosophy because the all the products are the media to promote the abstract philosophy and improve the individual life and society. 

At beginning, Muji sold only 40 household and food products, and 3 years after they provided additional product line; now MUJI has various merchants in the retail store such as home products, fashion products, and foods. MUJI adds new products because they know what customers want. Simplicity is the point to start stretching out and provide what people want within affordable price. In idea generation, MUJI product developers would survey 1000s of customers to understand what they needed. And then they would try to meet these needs in the simplest, cheapest ways possible. The slogan for “R&D” was to “make what you want, as a customer”. As well as, they are not only get the idea from customers but also their own employees. MUJI has a systematic way to constantly harvest the best ideas and present them, ultimately to the design team, for he creation of new products. The process makes use of all touch points. In stores, employees are encouraged to make and collect notes. MUJI.net has almost 500,000 members and is used as another source of ideas. To get even more ideas, the Muji Award has been running for 3 years. The entries are solicited globally and have resulted in a number of products that have found their way into stores. After, for test marketing, MUJI takes advantage of many opportunities to figure out what people want. But it goes a step further. Even when MUJI has a design, it takes the final step of checking who will by it, before it is produced. It is an easy way to avoid a complete flop. Sometimes, they will cooperate with other company as an integrated marketing communication in product development because they want more people use their idea to create more meaningful products.

For example, the products of the Muji manufactured by Thonet collection are available in Europe at selected Muji Stores from Spring 2009. Thonet, the oldest furniture brand in the world and the German manufacturer of high-quality furnishings, is producing a simplified form of bentwood and tubular steel furniture for the Japanese retail chain Muji. The products are manufactured completely at Thonet’s headquarters in Frankenberg, Germany to the company’s customary high quality standards.

Segmenting and Targeting Markets

  In today’s Experiential Economy, Muji is successful at targeting its first and second segment of customers; they are demanding authenticity.
Muji's products is practical, affordable yet stylish.
Muji’s products are made from natural materials, possess originality in their designs, exceptional pursuit of its brand values for excellence, make referential to the Zen minimalist, and exerts influential authority to pursue environmental sustainability.
 Muji’s “no-brand” is accomplished because the customer pride themselves as being sophisticated to recognise quality choice which is encoded in the item.
In Japan, “Muji is staggering cheap as it achieves cost leadership through production efficiency and saves on  building efforts .” This allows them to be popular among the price sensitive customers – the thrifty target market.
Muji is distinguished by emphasis on recycling, avoidance of waste in production and packaging, and conservation of natural resources.
Aside from this, simplicity in design is Muji’s forte. Muji cultivates a niche with its minimalism design using standard nutural colours and clean cut lines which embody creativity .

Ch. 15- Marketing Communications

Integrated Marketing Communication is the coordination of all the promotion methods which are planed carefully in order to enable to communicate with the consumers.  The right encoding message with the proper channels of promoting the product is important, and the customers are able to decoding the idea and aware it. After the customers have the knowledge of the product, and they are going to like it and purchase it.  IMC is planned with various media to establish promotional and advertising strategy which can be acceptable to the customers and the community.

MUJI is created by the team Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd. which is the sender encoding their philosophy of the brand to the receiver; the receiver is everyone. They are targeting the people who like simple life and protect the environment. Everything they do is basic on this brand image which shows people their idea of life and how to protect the whole society; the customers are the member of environmentalist when they can correctly decoding the message.The MUJI philosophy are simplicity and "lower price for a reason".

Ch. 10 - Product Concepts

The main idea of MUJI's products are no-brand,and good quality.MUJI concept is most main value for their branding. Basically the Muji is selling the concept when they sell the products. Muji's main kind of product is consumer product which the meaning of consumer product is bought to satisfy an individual's personal wants or needs,and MUJI's products are covered the many kinds of people's life.The philosophy of Muji is minimalism and simplicity throughout individual lifestyle products, using the natural mater products and  protects the environment.

Tasty and healthy foods. Comfortable clothing. Household goods that are, above all, easy to use. For MUJI, the materials we use to make such products are of the utmost importance; consequently, considerable attention is given to their selection. We search worldwide for the most suitable raw materials. We use many industrial materials as well as materials discarded by others because of their appearance – items that can be acquired in bulk at low cost. The overriding selection criteria is always quality. These activities underpin our ability to create low-priced, high-quality products.

The processes by which each product is manufactured are subjected to careful scrutiny at MUJI. Processes that have no bearing on a product’s quality such as sorting, sizing, and polishing are eliminated, leaving only these processes that are truly necessary. Even items that have been discarded because they do not meet certain standards of size and appearance are turned into products for sale. Focusing on true quality, MUJI’s manufacturing processes eliminate waste and reduce costs.

Ch. 17 - Personal Selling and Sales Management

MUJI is a Japanese retailer selling everything from fashion to furniture, and is distinguished by its design minimalism, emphasis on recycling and no-brand policy.For the personal selling to the target market, MUJI often do research about what kind of product  which people seek for collecting selling information.Personal selling involves a two-way flow of communication between a buyer and seller, often in a face-to-face encounter, designed to influence a person’s or group’s purchase decision.For this purpose, MUJI always contact with the customs online ,collect and analyse those custom purchase records.
Numerous tasks are involved in managing personal selling including :setting objectives; organizing the sales force; recruiting, selecting, training, and compensating salespeople; and evaluating the performance of individual salespeople. The custom who live in the crowd city ,such as New York ,and like the simple style thing and decoration. And they would make a decision about the sales.As a dead fans of MUJI,the most interesting thing which was found by me is that their salespeople's style ,working behaviour ,and treating to customs are really suitable for their company, therefore,I think MUJI spent much effort on training their employees.

Ch. 16 - Advertising, Public Relations and Sales Promotion

 Ch. 16 - Advertising, Public Relations and Sales Promotion       

  

    Advertising is one of strategies in Marketing. Advertising presents the image of a brand and  core value of the brand.It is important way to let large region of people know their products.

On the one hand,the media MUJI uses are divers. They have direct advertising from the retail store, also, they have print advertising.MUJI does not to pay a billion dollar for a spokesman,and their are advertising just like album to promo their idea.They think their good quality of products is the best advertising. Due to the progressive and technology blast age, MUJI develops the bran through the website and public communication tool like facebook in different countries with their own languages to establish the interaction between the brand and the consumers. By the public communication tool,  they can promote the goods and get the feedback which helps improve the idea of branding system. Also, nowadays, they combine their networking with ipad which provides the convenience for the customers.

  On the other hand ,Muji's basic approach to advertising and promotional communication such catalogs,merchandising tools and magazine advertising is to use meration without being influenced by the times or their trends.We are strongly committed to producing photographic images that eliminate redundancy and clearly highlight the characteristics of the product design.The copy,brief and to the point,states only the facts,including specific points about the way the product is devised and background information about how it was brought to market.