Taiwan Day 3: Vigor Kobo & La New

Thursday, 24 April 2014:

Vigor Kobo, the ultimate 5-senses interactive marketing experience 'machine'!

Upon arrival at Vigor Kobo, we are quickly sifted through the crowds into a pineapple tart making workshop where we get our hand greasy with making our very own pineapple tarts.

Ready for the oven.

The pineapple tarts are ready for the over and we are all put through the marketing mill as well.

Our 'baking' process starts here. The entrance of the pineapple tart factory tour.

Through the Pineapple scented tunnel, where we all smelled pineapple-y at the end. 

'Pineapple plantation' walk-thru with a panoramic screen show.

All of us get to taste freshly baked pineapple tarts, where we end our journey at the display of pineapple tarts artifacts. 

Vigor Kobo showed how important marketing research and trends are. They used guerrilla marketing tactics, such as the use of media to get free exposure of their brand. They marketed pineapple tarts as Taiwan's national product, hence became a souvenir stop for all travelers into Taiwan. With the rise of incoming Chinese tourists, they offered packing services for customers. They even allowed packing for items not sold by them. Using their packing service, Vigor Kobo study the consumer buying trends of their product so as to better cater to their customers. They took consumer feedback seriously and came up with premium products such as the Charcoal Pineapple Sticks. Technically, the new products that they introduce has very similar low food cost as the older products, however, with packaging and branding, they are about to priced them at a much higher premium. 

I found Vigor Kobo to be a marketing guru, there are lots to learn from them, a company that sells low priced food products, similar to Mr Bean. 

The use of mascots to educate the young Taiwanese about their traditional pastries.

The last stop for the day was La New, a custom-made shoe manufacturer. We visited the head office and one of their flagship store. 

At La New, we learnt about the process of understanding the customers needs and measurements to manufacture a custom pair of shoes for a specific customer. After going through the process of getting a custom shoe made, we were brought down to their product quality testing facilities. At that facility, we were first taught about the different qualities of cow hide and materials they used for their shoes. Next, we went into the testing lab, where we were shown industrial testing machines they used to stress test their shoes. They use specific machines for specific tests. This was an interesting place for me as I was a shoe fanatic.

The head office of La New handles the niche customers, whereby the stores in town handles generic walk-in customers. 

Lastly, we went to the store, where we were flanked by well-prepared sales staffs, eager to sell us their shoes. At the store, there were a large selection of shoes, ranging for low-cost work shoes to high-end exotic skin shoes. I nearly parted with my money at this store if not for Johnny, our facilitator whom I had a long conversation with at the store. 

Tonight is the last night in Taiwan, we were all eager to head out to the night markets to experience as much of Taiwan as possible.