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June 2014
IMBA’
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Newsletter
Cultural Branding Case Sharing:
Take
CHUN SHUI TANG CULTURAL TEA HOUSE
a stroll down the street in any city in Taiwan, and you’ll undoubtedly come upon
one of two local institutions; a convenience store, or a
bubble tea shop. Courtesy of Dr. Faye J. Kao’s ‘Cultural
Branding Strategy’ course; on April 22, Jesheng Huang
of Tamkang University came to speak on the topic of
‘Brand as a Cultural Icon’ and to share his experience as
a branding consultant with the originator of bubble tea,
Chen Shui Tang Cultural Tea House.
Dr. Huang began his talk with an explanation of
what a cultural brand actually is. The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a “name, term,
design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one
seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other
sellers”. A cultural brand enhances this distinction by
utilizing a well-crafted story that allows consumers to
identify that brand as having a role within a particular
culture/sub-culture.
This story succeeds when it can be deemed as
‘authentic’ to that culture and when it possesses a strong
charismatic aesthetic. It achieves this authenticity
through showing literacy on the codes and idioms of
the culture, and through fidelity to that culture by sacrificing broad-based popularity to stand for a particular
cultural ethos. The charismatic aesthetic stems from using a compelling style which epitomizes that particular
culture. Dr. Huang cited the incredibly successful exam-
by Prof. Jesheng Huang
(Tamkang University, International Business)
黃哲盛老師(淡江國企)
ple of Apple
branding
itself as the
representative of the youth culture, celebrating innovation and individualism.
Before delving into Chen Shui
Tangs cultural branding efforts, it helps
to have some background information on
Chinese
tea-drinking
culture. The history
of this culture is
over a thousand
years old and
grew about as
a result of the
practice
of
people gathering together
to drink tea
and
socialize. In the past
3 0 0
years in Taiwan,
brewing tea with
a small
teakettle was a
popular
pastime. This practice originated from Fu Jian, but
this was seen
as an activity for old people. In fact, the tea consumed
春
水
堂
from these kettles even gained the nickname ‘elder tea’.
The youth in Taiwan favored shaved ice and drinking
soda, creating a large generational gap.
It was in this gap that the opportunity for bubble tea to
explode came about. The founder of Chen Shui Tang, a
man named Liu Han-Chieh, visited Osaka, Japan and
noticed that the coffee shops made cold coffee with
cocktail shakers. This inspired him to try the same with
black tea back in Taiwan. He found that this method
created a fine foam on top of the tea, or as it is known
today; bubble tea. This was hugely popular with his
customers and Mr. Liu began serving many varieties of
these chilled bubble teas.
Then, in 1987, a manager at Chen Shui Tang,
Lin Hsiu-Hui, added her favorite desert of small black
tapioca ‘pearls’ to the tea with milk and thus created
‘pearl milk tea’. This ‘pearl milk bubble tea’ exploded
across Taiwan as a new way to drink tea, and was particularly popular for young people. From Taiwan, this
spread throughout the surrounding region, and can
now be found in cities throughout the world.
However, Chen Shui Tang did not seek to patent these
creations and thus, by the time Dr. Huang came to work
with them; it was too late to use the bubble tea as the
cornerstone of their own cultural brand. The beverage
itself was widely known, but Chen Shui Tang received
little recognition as the author of the drink. Thus, he
focused their branding efforts on the teahouse culture
itself, not just the tea product
Chen Shui Tang’s tea drinking culture would thus be
formed by the
high quality
of their tea
leaves, the
way people drank
their tea
there in
a very
relaxed
manner,
and
f i nally by
the appeara n c e
of
the
teahouse
itself;
which was
decorated
in a classical
style that varied according
to the season.
They did completely ignore the history of bubble milk tea in their branding efforts though. To establish a story for the teahouse they developed the phrase,
“With a smart tongue, and a great sense of taste, Chen
Shui Tang invented pearl bubble milk tea”. To further
establish their authenticity they highlighted the fact
that the teahouse flavors were crafted by ‘ninety-seven
tea mixing artists’ using only premium tea leaves. Finally, they established a charismatic aesthetic through
the look of the teahouse and their combination of Chinese calligraphy and Western-painting styles in their
promotional materials.
Dr. Huang concluded that Chen Shui Tang
had not yet established itself as a ‘cultural brand’, but
had made some moves in the right direction for
it. In the meantime, bubble tea continues to grow
in popularity throughout the world. While it may
not be referred to as ‘Chen Shui Tang Bubble Tea’,
it can still be found as ‘Taiwanese Bubble Tea’ and
so; some people might even say that it has become
a cultural brand for the island of Taiwan itself.
Written by : Matt O’Neill
Photos by : Danh Duong
Prof. Kao giving note about Bubbleology
Group photo with prof. Huang, Liou and Kao.
It’s
IMBA Dragon Boat Team Competition
t hat
time
again,
everyone. Spring is in the air, the pollen
is causing allergies and midterms are underway. It’s a fun time around NCKU.
But this is also the season of sore muscles
and exhaustion. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for dragon boat. I remember last year watching from the sidelines,
and thinking to myself, “I want to be a part of this, this is a once in a lifetime experience.” The camaraderie, the
fun, the joy, it looked amazing. So, for this year, I put on my Nikes and my basketball shorts and joined the team
to practice for the competition.
There are two coaches, Sayan and Aldrin, along with various assistants who help out with the training. For
those who don’t know- the workouts are very intense. First, you must run a couple of laps around the track. Then
we do pull-ups on the bars and do some other exercises. To close it off we do some planks, pushups, jumping jacks
and other exercises. We also practice synchronization to prepare
for the race. In a couple of weeks we will go on the boat to actually
train in a real boat exercise. There are about ten to fifteen people
that come to the practices. A very eccentric bunch of people, but
it takes a lot of guts to participate. We are students, and not professional athletes, but we volunteered our time to participate.
IMBA will participate in the Tainan international competition. We will compete against different foreigners within our
beautiful city. A lot of our competition is also from within the
NCKU community. Some of them are OIA, CLC, the Indonesians,
Malaysians, and Koreans. Also, there will be people from other schools and other groups such as the STUT team
and the local Filipino workers. Hopefully IMBA will succeed and defeat them and collect the winnings.
As a team, we need to develop into a team. Malerie, a former student at IMBA, helped design a t-shirt for
the dragon boat team, and it looks amazing. My job on the team is to bring comic relief, especially at Kory or Pui
Puis expense. I do this to relieve tension within the group to make everyone feel better. One joke was, I said “why
do we need to practice jumping jacks if were sitting on a boat. “ and I also do impersonations to make people laugh,
to show this is about fun.
The big day will be around June 8th. This will be the national holiday of dragon boat races. People will come
throughout the city to see us race. They will also try to balance an egg on the street to achieve good luck. It will be
at the An-ping River, and if you need help finding it, look for a lot of food vendors and festivities. All in all, I hope
everyone can come out and watch us race. And if we win, the party will be tremendous and lavish.
Written by :
Kris Arceo /
Photos by:
Alex Wu
Ching Jiang
& Jonathan
Moore
On
Monday, May 26th,
the IMBA was privileged to be graced
with the presence of Professor YiSu, PhD. Dr. Yi-Su is an assistant
professor of supply chain management at the University of Michigan’s
Dearborn College of business. She
gave a guest speech in the International Marketing Management
class, which is taught by IMBA professor Tien Wang. Her topic was
“Negotiations and Conflict Management in the Supply Chain.”
Her background includes
an MBA at National Taipei University in logistics and in finance.
Following this, she earned seven
years of industrial experience. After working, she decided to go to
the United States to continue her
studies. She earned her first PhD
in supply chain management and
followed this with a second degree,
in operation and management science. Her experience in the industry is very diverse. She worked in
both the finance sector as well as the
supply chain industry. Her experi-
ence includes working for the very
esteemed corporations of Unilever
and HP.
She shared an experience
about her time in the industry regarding negotiations and making a
deal. One interesting anecdote she
shared was with reference to dealing
with an Indian customer. The Indi-
an customer gave her boss a green
hat as a token of appreciation for
the hospitality. Unbeknownst to the
Indian customer, a green hat in Taiwanese culture represents that your
wife is unfaithful and cheating. After
this mishap, the deal was completely nixed. This highlights that when
dealing with multinational busi-
opportunity.
She then explained about
negotiations and bargaining. She
stated that these two terms are interchangeable in terms of arguments.
She also stated that there are several factors that can alter and affect
a negotiation process. One of these
factors is the marking price and the
offering price. Danny raised a
question about culture, and how
it can alter the prices offered to
different clients. She agreed and
stated that different countries
need different offering prices,
with a range as great as 90 percent
difference possible.
She then discussed conflicts.
She pointed out that if, for example, two parties’ goals and interests are not compatible, a conflict
may arise. There are two kinds of
conflict, referred to as pseudo and
simple conflicts. A pseudo-conflict refers to a lack of understanding, while the latter concerns ideas,
goals, ego conflicts and personal
attacks. Dr. Yi-Su made clear that
through effective communication,
conflicts might be resolved
and/or avoided.
She later played a
game with the class to clarify how negotiation works.
The students were placed in
a supply chain scenario. She divided
Negotiations and Conflict Management in the Supply Chain
by Prof. YI-SU,
(Michigan- Dearborn University, College of Business)
nesses, it is
important to
understand
different cultures,
with
special regard
to the taboos
when doing
business, as
not heeding
notice may
cost your employer a lot of
money and
the teams into three and they had to
use an ERP system to reduce each of
their annual costs. After this, a great
discussion took place between the
students, demonstrating the success of the guest speech and of the class.
Following the discussion, the class had a group picture with the guest speaker. All in all it was an excellent
and very informative presentation regarding what one can expect from negotiations and, in an instance where
conflict arises, how to effectively manage the situation.
Written by KD. Arceo/ Photos by Danh Duong
During the enrollment period, there was one class that caught
my eye. It seemed very interesting
and engaging. Testament to the
popularity of the class was that it
filled within the first hour of enrollment. All classes at IMBA are very
important, but this one I desperately
wanted. After three missed opportunities of open enrollment, I finally got into the class at the 11th hour,
which is a lesson on how perseverance can help get
what you
exams are necessary. However, the
group project is very unique in our
program. It is a handson project that can
potentially be a
real thing. My
alma mater
university
in America, had a lot
of these types
of projects, such
as running the whole
marketing plan
of the
want.
The class that I
am talking about is Cultural Branding taught by Dr. Kao. This class addresses how culture is used in marketing and in business to help reach
customers. One example of cultural
branding was the movie Crouching
Tiger Hidden Dragon. It shows how
with the right marketing a small
project can turn into an amazing
success.
Generally speaking, the
class is very similar to all classes
in IMBA. Attendance is taken, lectures are given, handouts are provided, in-class discussions are held,
guests are brought in to speak, and
s c h o o l ’s
opening basketball game. But in IMBA this is my
first experience of this.
The project is basically that the NCKU IMBA
program will be collaborating with the new National
Palace Museum that will be
built somewhere near Chiayi.
The project will also be a
cooperative effort between
IMBA and another department in NCKU, the ICID
(however, the contributions
from them are still unclear,
and will become more clear
in the near future). Our class
#TheProject
will be in charge of the marketing
for some of the museum’s exhibits.
The class was
divided
i n t o
seum. Our main goal is to attract buzz for the school. Our
goal is to find the opinion leaders of the school. Luckily, a
lot of the opinion leaders of the internationals attend IMBA.
Then, our group is to record a documentary of the other
people in the class, conducting their project. Next, we must
record our interactions with the students of ICID. Lastly, our
group must be in charge of holding an awards ceremony
for the class, and reward the group that
d i d
the best job. Also, in the ceremony’s
attendance will be high-ranking people from the museum will be in attendance.
This will be a very difficult semester because of thisproject. But if it is done well, the school
will be better known because of it.
Written by Kris Arceo/ Photos : Danh Duong & Alex Wu Ching Jiang
roughly
nine
different
groups, with all having a maximum
of four people in each group.
Some groups are in charge
of such exhibits as tea culture, tapestries, and some ceramics. Each
has to make a marketing plan for
these various projects. In my opinion, the workload of these groups’
projects is relatively small to the
work necessary for my group. Our
group has four different parts to it.
First, our group is in charge of the
international marketing for the mu-
Big Data in Little Tainan
On May 15, 2014 Dr. Binshan Lin
of Louisiana State University came
to NCKU to speak on the topic
of, “Crowdsourcing with Big Data
Research Opportunities”. In his
talk, Dr. Lin explained the concept
of big data, expanded on current
trends in the field, explained the
link between it and crowdsourcing,
and gave details on some present
day examples.
So the term big data is used
increasingly across all sorts of fields
nowadays, but what exactly is it?
Basically, it is a term for the massive amount of data available to
researchers and businesses now; so
large in fact, that it has necessitated
the development of new data management and analysis software in
order to handle such large quantities. Dr. Lin explained that there are
three dimensions associated with
big data.
The first dimension is data
velocity, or the speed of data going in and out. The second is data
variety, explained as the range of
data sources and types. The final
dimension is data volume, simply
the amount of data being handled.
This big data is found in all sorts of
fields now such as astronomy, genomics, environmental data, and
transportation data. It’s also used in
the humanities and social sciences
fields with things such as scanned
books, historical documents, GPS
systems, business, corporate sales,
stock market transactions, entertainment, internet images, movies,
and more. Clearly it can be seen that
there are innumerous opportunities
for research and business with the
use of big data. Part of the drive for
all of this research work with big
data comes from the fact that it as its
name implies, it is a big challenge.
That challenge being in how to take
this huge mass of data and turn it
into useable information; or figuring a way to extract meaningful information, knowledge, and insights
from the data.
Dr. Lin gave the example of googles motivations to enter the mobile
market in Taiwan as stemming from
the big data potentials associated
with it. This is also seen with social
media such as Facebook in Taiwan
using its user recommendation system for movies and music. So, some
of the current trends associated with
big data stem from mobile applications, social networks and crowdsourcing.
Dr. Lin explained crowdsourcing as
an online, distributed problem solving and production model; wherein
“the crowd”, or users, submit their
solutions and produce content available on the host platform. He also
showed some searches on cross-referencing for current research in
fields, and the opportunities afford for students to then research
and submit their works with it. Lin
also cited James Surowiecki’s book,
“Wisdom of the Crowds” which
found that the average value of the
crowd’s estimation on the weight of
a cow, was closer to the exact value
than any other individual estimation on the cow’s weight.
While there
are many
opportunities with
c row d sourcing,
it also has
some of its
own problems. Some
of
these
problems
are the lack
of internal
expertise,
the determination
of what is
non-essen-
tial or non-critical, that there is
usually
no
time
con-
straint
associated with
it, and that
while crowd involvement can benefit the project, it can also lead to
errors or increased difficulty. Other problems associated with it are
the risk of intellectual property
leakages, quality control and the
lack of most users control
on the ultimate product, and then
attitudes of employees involved in
the process itself.
Dr. Lin provided a good
example of the difference between
traditional methods and crowdsourcing methods in an evaluation of Encyclopedia Britannica
vs Wikipedia, or a case of ‘expert’s
vs amateurs’. Encyclopedia Britannica has been in development for
roughly 200 hundred years, receives annual updates, focuses on
data, is relatively expensive, and
has a reliability rating of 8.8 out of
10. Whereas Wikipedia had about
five years to develop, receives real-time updates, also incorporates big data findings, is relatively
much cheaper than Encyclopedia
Britannica, and has a reliability
rating of 8.0 out
of 10.
So Wikipedia
applies
crowdsourcing for use in
knowledge
m a n a g e m e nt .
In closing, Dr. Lin provided a
few suggestions for what students interested in big data should
learn about. He emphasized the value
of studying machine learning, statistics
and computer sciences. Skills in these
fields could be utilized for concepts in big
data such as association analysis, supervised
learning classification, regression, and prediction. As booming a topic as it is now, big
data will undoubtedly grow even bigger
as the field develops, and this provides
great opportunities for those willing to
learn the skills necessary to contribute to that development.
Lin provided examples of several
other companies that are using it
as well. Accenture is also utilizing crowdsourcing for knowledge
management in its management
consulting, technology services,
and outsourcing efforts. The wildly successful Netflix company uses
crowdsourcing in the testing and
refining of its product offerings
as well, particularly with its recommendation system. The music
website SellaBand also allows ‘the
crowd’ to supplant record labels in
funding music artist efforts to record a professional album.
Written by Matt O’Neill
Photos By Alex Wu
Never Too Late for Songkran
On
May 18, the Thai
Student Association
hosted their annual Songkran Thai Water Festival.
Though it came a month after the
official Songkran date, it’s never too
late for a Songkran celebration! The
festival involved months of hard
work and preparation by the members of the TSA, and was further
supported by the students successful
fundraising activities and support
from the Thailand Trade and Economics Office here in Taiwan. The
festival itself consisted of a dance, an
explanation and chance to participate in traditional Songkran practices, a performance of the popular
movie, “Pee Mak”, various games
for participants, numerous elephant
jokes, and ended with the big finale of the public ‘water splashing’.
The words Songkran can be
translated as, “astrological passage”.
Thus in Thailand, Songkran marks
the traditional New Year’s Day. The
festival kicked off with an elegant,
traditional Thai dance performance.
Later, festival attendees were able to
participate in the paying of respects
to elders and receiving of a blessing.
Professors and other esteemed elder
guests sat on stage and had water respectfully poured over their hands,
and then, they in turn blessed the
participants with a sprinkling of water over the younger person’s head.
The traditional blessing was
followed with a performance of the
story, ‘Pee Mak’. ‘Pee Mak’ is based
on a legend from Thai folklore, and
the film is listed as the highest grossing Thai film of all time. The story
is set in the mid-19th century, a
time in which Thailand or ‘Siam’ at
the time was involved in numerous
wars with neighboring kingdoms.
The protagonist Mak is drafted to
fight in the war, which forces him
to leave Nak, his pregnant wife, behind. Nak gives birth while Mak is
still away, but rumors circulate in
the village that Nak actually passed
in labor and was now a ghost haunting the house. Upon Mak’s return,
numerous comedic efforts ensue to convince him that
his wife is now actually a ghost. No spoilers will follow
from there, but regardless the performance put on the
by students was fantastic; and did a great job at maintaining the comedic tone throughout the various acts.
Interspersed throughout the ‘Pee Mak’ performance, were several games for the attendees to participate in. The games included various Thai elements such
as traditional clothing, trivia about Thailand, and even
a round of ‘spot the ladyboy’. At the conclusion of the
performance, guests were all invited outside for some
refreshment in the form of snacks and the ever-popular
‘Thai tea’. This refreshment was well needed, as the most
well known aspect of Songkran was soon to follow.
The ‘water splashing’ began with some light play,
with a few participants getting each other wet courtesy of
the water buckets provided for them. A few of the more
experienced participants even brought along their own
‘super-soaker’ guns for the event. However, it didn’t take
long for the event to turn into an all-out water drenching affair. A large group of people ended up participating and all seemed to have a great time ‘blessing’ each
other with as much water as they could manage.
All in all, the Thai Student Association put on a very
successful Songkran Festival and a great thanks goes
out to them for their hard work in hosting this event.
Written by : Matt O’Neill /
Photos by Danh Duong & Alex Wu
Congratulations and Farewell
June 8, 2014 was a busy day for the
IIMBA community. The day began
with the formal Graduation Ceremony, and progressed into the
decidedly less formal celebrations
of the Farewell Party, for the IIMBA masters and doctorate students
graduating in 2014.
Graduates and their guests
kicked things off bright and early,
with the procession beginning at half
past eight. In addition to the graduating students, their family, friends,
fellow-students, and of course their
professors were also there to witness
the ceremony. After a warm welcome from hosts Miguel and New,
our director, Dr. Victor Chen gave
the opening remarks for the ceremony. After his congratulations for
all the hard work completed by the
graduates, an award for Excellence
in Service was bestowed upon
Sophia Chao-Ya Kung and our valedictorian, Yannick Turkier was honored as a member of the Phi Tau Phi
Scholastic Honor Society. Yannick
also gave a speech with this honor,
and successfully navigated that ever
difficult problem we face, in making
humor work in such a culturally diverse situation.
After his remarks, it was
time for the main event; the diplomas were conferred upon the graduates, and many a photo was taken of
course. Following this, several more
speeches were given by students
to represent various regions. Amy
represent Taiwan, Joyce and Sarah
represented South-East Asia, Naoya
spoke
o n
behalf of East Asia, and finally
Heidi spoke for the Americas. The
students had all clearly put a lot of
effort into their speeches, and the
results showed in the great response
they each received from the audience. Finally, it was time for the ceremony to come to a close, though of
course, plenty more photos needed
to be taken.
Later that evening students
met at this years Farewell Party venue, the Tainan Evergreen Hotel. As
many students would be departing
for their home countries shortly
after this, the party was a great opportunity for them all to have one
last get-together. This year’s hosts
were the always entertaining Kris
and Pom Pom. Dr. Chen and Glenn
kicked things off with their opening
speeches, and as dinner was to follow their remarks, they kept things
nice and brief. Whether this was
out of
sympa-
thy of the hungry faces in the crowd, or the eagerness of their
own rumbling bellies, we’ll never know; yet all-involved were
certainly happy to dig in to the diverse offerings the Evergreen
had prepared for them.
Accompanying the dinner, was the wonderful performance of
the aptly titled Oishi Band, consisting of Puii Puii, Naoya, and
Surn. Once most of the guests were finished eating, it was time
for several performances and numerous awards to be given. The
awards this year were for Whiz Kid (Joyce), Party Masters (Kris),
Super Athlete (Sayan), IMBA’s Got Talent (Puii Puii), Eternal
RR Resident (Tor), Dancing Queen (Jojo), Hand Raiser (Glenn),
Where Have You Been? (Rama), Sleepy Head (Pom Pom), Wow
You’re Still Here! (Sam), On Time in Taiwan (Yannick), Coffee
Culprit (Danny), The Megaphone (Yuki), Together Forever (Lee
and Tabby), and finally, the only double winner, Single Forever
(Kris).
The first performance on stage this year was the singing
and dancing duet of Minty and Dolly. Up next the swan-song
solo offering from Erik. Followed by the lively dance numbers,
put on by Angie, Steven, and Rendy. Special guest performers
in the art of ballroom dancing then came to show their stuff,
and instruct a few brave souls in a crash-course ballroom dancing lesson. This was met with varying degrees of success, but it
segued nicely into the date-friendly slow dances. Finally, students had some time to let loose and enjoy the dance floor, to
the tunes that undoubtedly some of them would hear again in
late-night festivities.
Clearly this was an eventful day for the IIMBA group,
and fortunately, it was also a fun-filled and successful one. Many
strong friendships have been formed in the two years here, and
dry-eyes will be in short supply as the graduating students return to their home countries. However, they can take heart in
the knowledge that our world today is becoming increasingly
interconnected; a trend that will only accelerate as time goes
on. While twenty years ago they might have all been saying,
“goodbye” now, hopefully they all can
just say, “see you
soon”.
Written by : Matt
O’Neill
Photos by:
Danny Duong &
Chattraphat Surn
Hemachaisit