Comments by "" (@advancetotabletop5328) on "Modern MBA" channel.

  1. Should mention that Japan has USA beat with IP-theming. Instead of multi-million dollar theme parks, they have Disney-levels of merchandising, manga-anime-CD tie ins (eg. CD audio dramas, and CDs of songs not in the anime sung by the characters), and fan-created content, from doujinshis (fanmade comics) to cosplay (fans dressing up as anime characters). Anime even has ‘pop up” cafes, where the anime du jour has a temporary cafe with character-based menu items and drinks, with limited edition merchandise you can only get with these menu items. Even that pen-pineapple-pen guy had a cafe themed after him, with, you guessed it, apple and pineapple-based desserts and drinks. Kami bless SoraNews24! (:
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  2. I grew up with KFC, but stopped going when KFC introduced its crispy chicken, although the buttermilk biscuits were infinitely better than those tolerable wheat buns. By the time I tried going back, the prices were too high, or at least the dull same menu items cost more. The sides, such as rice, were the worst. At home, we still had chicken, and you could cook it many more ways than what KFC offered. Now, I use the air fryer to cook frozen chicken from the grocery, frozen fish fillets, and big burgers with bacon, cheese, and mushrooms. I’d go back to KFC if they sold deep fried turkey during Thanksgiving by the individual piece, though! :D
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  3. 7-11 is another USA company that is doing just okay in its original country, while doing well overseas, in Japan. See also “KFC Japan Christmas” for KFC‘s amazing marketing that Americans eat fried chicken for *Christmas*. It’s too bad that KFC doesn‘t (or can‘t because of special kitchen equipment) “import” menu items “for a limited time” from other countries. Novelty has often been a part of fast food overseas, while only McD’s has tried “limited time” foods, such as the McRib (only sold when pork prices were cheap enough).
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  4. Interestingly, if you know a boomer gamer geek, the last gasp of the collectable card game glut (cf. Magic the Gathering) twenty or so years ago was that new games had to have an IP attached to them to stand out, as the market matured. Eventually, the market was unsustainable, and many game lines died out. I will say that IP is not new. Marriot‘s Great America, forty years ago, did not need IP to be a popular SF Bay Area park, but adapted the Warner Brothers IP for costume characters, and movie IP for rides (eg. Top Gun). As for Disneyland, theme (and park cleanliness) was actually more popular than IP. If you took out Fantasyland and the parades, not much of Disneyland was IP-themed (although some Disneyland content, such as Pirates of the Caribbean would later become IPs in themselves).
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  5. I find it ironic that Mom has been buying the VIA “$1 a packet” instant coffee, and has been “making” coffee at home for years with half a packet of coffee and no barista. I‘ll go further. I take the other half, add some sugarfree syrup and Fairlife, and make a sugarfree drink with a fraction of the calories of the store stuff. If Starbucks goes the way of A&W, I’m sure Mom and me will be supporting their mail-ordered packets of instant coffee. :P
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