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Mark Manguera came up with the perfect plan to sell gourmet Korean BBQ tacos from a mobile truck in the Los Angeles area. His target customers? LA club goers in search of late-night eats, but sick of greasy fast food. Kogi Korean BBQ truck looked to establish a street culture vibe that would attract this targeted customer base, which has now come to be known as “Kogi culture.”
Manguera’s distinctive delivery method was not only what made the venture unique, but also surprisingly difficult to attract a customer base. He needed to find a way to let people know where the Kogi truck would be at any given time, as it would travel all over Los Angeles, from Venice to Culver City to downtown and back. If you’ve ever been to LA, you already understand how this task might be difficult. There was no way for truck drivers to plan in advance exactly what time they would be at any given location due to the infamous LA traffic, police blockades and other various travel issues. Kogi Korean BBQ needed to come up with a fast way to communicate the truck’s every location at any given moment to their constantly growing customer base.
Twitter provided the perfect outlet for the company to be able to communicate instantly and efficiently with their customers. The Kogi team would use Twitter in order to tweet out its next location, and tell people if and when it may be delayed by traffic. Customers soon realized that they had to be on Twitter in order to get the $2 Kogi Korean BBQ tacos. Once the message was tweeted, Kogi found hundreds of people waiting for them at the next stop.
When Kogi first started, only about 10 people would show up at stops. Today, Kogi serves as many as 300 to 800 people per stop at multiple locations throughout the Los Angeles area. It has also expanded from one truck, to five trucks. Its current success is due largely if not entirely to its use of technology, specifically Twitter, in order to be in contact with its customers. Not only was Twitter useful in providing location updates, but Kogi also benefited from its use of Twitter in two unexpected ways: the use of Twitter helped to create a bond between the company and its customers, and it gave customers a quick and easy outlet to provide useful feedback from food selections to street locations.
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In addition to Kogi's success via Twitter, the Kogi Korean BBQ truck has become a YouTube sensation as well. Hundreds of people upload videos each day of their quest to find the Kogi Korean BBQ truck... Maybe someone should tell these people they could save a lot of time by joining Kogi's 85,000 followers on Twitter!
Wow it is interesting to see how Twitter is becoming such a popular form of New Media. For me, since I am new to the Twitter world, I am constantly discovering the different uses of this website. One aspect of this site specifically is that it is a great way for companies like Kogi BBQ to reach out to their customers. Some people feel that such a rise in technology has extremely detrimental effects on society but instances like these help people see Twitter and other forms of new media a new light . It is funny how new media sites can be helpful for the community yet hurt it at the same time. It provides information yet it could be a major distraction. Once again I will bring this reoccurring question up for debate. Do you think Twitter is seen as a positive or negative new media source? Also, do you think companies would be able to grow as quickly without such advances in technology?
ReplyDeleteTaylor,
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting post. I think it’s really neat how Kogi is using Twitter to market itself in such a positive way. However, I do agree with what Rian alluded to in her post when she said that Twitter and Facebook are being unfairly cast in a negative light. I think this is because more people are becoming addicted to these sites than using them in innovative ways like Kogi. What Kogi is doing made me think about a few things, the first one being what would happen if Twitter was malfunctioning and not working one night? How much revenue would Kogi lose? This may be a bit extreme, but do you think that Twitter deserves some of Kogi’s profit since it relies so heavily on the website to market its products? It really is amazing how this business with one truck was able to expand to having five trucks and over 85,000 Twitter followers. I think that over the foreseeable future, businesses will continue to search for ways to use Twitter and Facebook to positively network their products and services.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI find this to be an extremely interesting post. As someone who uses the internet daily and is constantly being told to get off Facebook and other similar websites, I like hearing that the world of social networking is doing people, and companies some good. I wonder if other start-up companies will go through the same process and use the internet, social networking sites specifically, to their advantage. What do you think? Also, just wondering, where did you find out about this Kogi truck sensation?
Rian, in response to your questions, as I already touched on, I think Twitter is unfortunately viewed in a negative light. I see where it gets its name from as it can be viewed as a place that butchers the english language and many tweets have no meaning or real purpose, but as seen from the Kogi BBQ trucks, Twitter can do good as well. Not only in this way, but it has also been known to spread a lot about the news and what's going on in the world, especially to younger generations, and I don't see how that is a bad thing. Additionally, I believe that companies will most definitely be able to grow faster with advances in technology, as we live in a world where people want fast access and technology will enable to be more and more fast and accurate as time goes on.
Tyler, in response to your question about Twitter malfunctioning for one night, I do not think this situation would cause mayhem. In my eyes, worst case scenario is people need to miss out on some things they may do if Twitter were running, for just one night. What do you think?
I find this so funny simply because my entire night always revolves around where I will go for late night. Regardless of if I'm at my fraternity, a club, or just hanging out, 9 out of 10 nights literally end with a call to Dominoes or a stop to Pancheros. With that being said, I completely understand the new Kogi trend in the LA area. To put it simply, Kogi understands their market very well, as they get that Cali is very into being hip and everyone owning and running their very own twitter. People don't look in the newspaper anymore, they look on Facebook and Twitter, which is what Kogi gets. Great post Taylor. A job well done
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