Test, 914-0214 Name, Janitor Kurt Date, April 5th, 2018 Total items, one box full of old keys from before the site switch over to electronic locks Input, roughly one kilo of assorted keys, setting rough Output, cubes of various metals stacked in the form of a padlock Input, one large brass key, setting 11 Output, one brass padlock, locked, unknown lock pinning Note, a key I'd never found a lock for, now a lock with no key, Kurt Input, one key chain, seven keys total, plus one key ring, setting fine Output, key ring with TSA, transportation security administration of the USA, issued travel bag opening tools Note, these will help with opening the bags and lost and found, Kurt Input, the former access key to the janitor's closet, setting very fine Output, one metal credit card, Visa number 4 8, belonging to JP ████, the CEO of Amazon Note, I guess money can buy you access, Kurt Note, you're not keeping that, Chief Security Officer right Test, 914-0215 Name, Dr. Hadean Date, May 5th, 2018 Total items, a piece of paper, depicting various proofs and postulates in simple symbol form Input, the aforementioned paper, setting very fine Output, a complex cellular diagram Basic deciphering has shown the original postulator still present, along with no fewer than 15 others, with meanings that are not readily apparent Secured for further study Note, requesting a copy of this for personal records, once we know there's no memetic effects tied to it Dr. Hadean Note, take it, that thing gives me a headache Dr. Veritas Test, 914-0216 Name, Dr. F. Baskham Date, May 5th, 2018 Total items, 4 granite stones, 2 kilograms each, 1 Kalanite geode Input, 1 granite stone, 2 kilograms Setting, rough Output, very fine sand, sorted in piles of identical minerals Input, 1 granite stone, 2 kilograms Setting, coarse Output, 1 hollow stone, and 1 extracted seashell fossil Note, how did it do this without breaking the original rock? Input, 1 Kalanite geode Setting, 1-1 Output, 1 opal geode of the same mass and size Note, turning boring grey rock into a beautiful opal, I'm liking this thing Input, 1 granite stone, 2 kilograms Setting, fine Output, 1 miniature volcano with a single lava flow 1100 degrees Celsius Object cooled rapidly and the lava hardened in seconds Note, I'll need to test this with a larger rock later I should also make some x-rays of this volcano to determine its internal composition Input, 1 granite stone, 2 kilograms Setting, very fine Output, 1 miniature replica of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial However, the faces have been changed George Washington with Andrew Johnson Thomas Jefferson with Bill Clinton Theodore Roosevelt with an unknown female and Abraham Lincoln with current sitting President Donald J. Trump The significance of these alterations is unclear Note, I don't understand, who is that woman, a future president? The statue is very detailed though Test, 914-0217 Name, Researcher Blay Date, May 5th, 2018 Total items, 2 pairs of standard UV protection sunglasses Input, 1 pair of sunglasses Setting, rough Output, 1 tinted pane of glass dimensions 50 by 50 by 3 millimeters When pointed at a light and looked through, the pane generates extreme hallucinations from the light source Such hallucinations have included dragons and smoke monsters to birds with blue flaming wings and horns like a goat Hallucinations vary from subject to subject, and seem to have no correlation to the viewer's mental state or personality When the pane is turned away from the source, the hallucinations immediately cease and reset until turned back to the light Note, multiple D-class subjects have reported seeing a deer with enormous antlers and crazy floating orbs when looked through the pane of glass Investigation to a possible connection to SCP-2845 is underway Input, 1 pair of sunglasses Setting, 1-1 Output, 1 pair of aviator-style sunglasses with mirrored lenses Mimetic effects occur when a person views another individual wearing the sunglasses Subjects will exclaim and persist that the glasses are the most extremely stylish and hip they have ever seen Further testing is in order Note, definitely the most sexy pair of sunglasses I have ever seen in my life I have to keep them if I'm ever going to get a date Researcher-Blay Note, sure, Blay, of course I'm going to let you keep an anomalous object for your personal gain I stored it in the anomalous item link for study Don't ask where, I'm not telling you Dr. Veritas Investigation to a possible connection to SCP-2845 is underway Mimetic effects occur when a person views another individual wearing the sunglasses Subjects will exclaim and persist that the glasses are the most efficient and hip they have ever seen Input, 1 pair of sunglasses Mimetic effects occur when a person views another individual wearing the sunglasses Subjects will exclaim and persist that the glasses are the most stylish and hip they have ever seen Note, the knot has no apparent seams or welding spots This is beautifully made Canter Input, 1 printout and 1 spear Setting fine Output, 1 collection of 5 intercepted in tetrahedra Warming on a chysahedron with a paper origami woven between the tetrahedra To spell out 1 of the numbers 1 through 20 on each of the 20 chysahedron faces The 1 and 20 faces are inked completely black The other numbers are white paper Rolling the D-20 had no observable anomalous effects Note, 3 kilos something makes for a heavy D-20 Canter Note We'll use it for special occasions House Dwarf Input, 1 printout and 1 spear Setting very fine Output, 1 origami climb bottle Inscribed with SCP-3669-2 Function unknown Awaiting O5 approval for the creation of an SCP-3669-1 to discern the meaning of the inscriptions 1 or 2 iron spears It is unclear if the spears are truly two separate objects, or one object simultaneously in multiple locations The spears are solid only to matter, that is not the other spear. They phase through each other when they touch The sum mass of the spears when separate is 6 kilograms When fully phased into each other, the sum mass is 3 kilograms Note, I don't understand these arrows, and why is the paper climb bottle shaped? Canter Note, I'm still unsure if we solved the Ben Oktarsky paradox with these iron orbs. I do know that they are giving me a headache. House Dwarf Test 914-0219 Name Researcher Thompson Date May 12th, 2018 Total Items 3 character sheets for the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons 3.5th Edition Build up a Researcher Thompson Input 1 character sheet for the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons 3.5th Edition Build up a Researcher Thompson Setting 11 Output A log detailing the character's adventures including their victories in combat Interaction with other characters Skills they've learned And treasure they found Input 1 character sheet for the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons 3.5th Edition Build up a Researcher Thompson Setting fine 1 character sheet for the tabletop role-playing game Call of Cthulhu Edition 5.5 Researcher Thompson, who is familiar with the game, remarked the character design to be highly creative and original Input 1 character sheet for the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons 3.5th Edition Build up a Researcher Thompson Setting very fine Output A sheet of paper promoting the non-existent tabletop role-playing game Fear in the Foundation First Edition The paper repeatedly makes claims about the fun factor of the game, but gives little information as to its actual content Upon reading the entirety of the paper, subjects undergo an out-of-body experience in which they perceive themselves to exist in the game world Based on subject reports, elements of the game are taken from several different tabletop role-playing games The game is also noted to contain several foundation and SCP-related characters, items and locations Subjects will exit the state upon either dying in the game or defeating the final villain Note, I gave this a try and ended up seeing SCP-096's faces or rolling a wand on stealth If you don't hear from me within 5 minutes, I blow my brains out Researcher Jacobson Note, Researcher Jacobson was later found dead in the Anomalous Item Storage Wing Access to Fear in the Foundation now requires supervision of at least one armed member of Site Security in case of visual hazards 05-6 Test 914-022-0 Name Dr. Lovelace Date May 25, 2018 Total Items One AIC Artificial Intelligence Construct Server with Integrated Battery Pack and alexander.aic preloaded One Dell Brand LCD Monitor One Dell Brand US Keyboard And One Dell Brand PC Mouse Input The AIC Server, Monitor, Keyboard and Mouse Setting 1-1 Output One IBM Branded Server One Battery Pack External Connected to the Server One Samsung Branded OLED Monitor One IBM Branded Keyboard with Integrated Trackball A copy of Glockon.aic was found running on the Server Transcript Dr. Lovelace Alexander, are you ready? Yes, let's do this Turning the key Let's see what we got I'm ready to begin the test doctor, please continue What? Who are you? I am Glockon.aic version 1.9.4 A second generation artificial intelligence construct Note, right Dr. Lovelace Test 914-0221 Name Dr. Hazard Date May 23, 2018 Total Items One AP Calculus Textbook Input One AP Calculus Textbook Setting Rough Output Large Shreds of Paper and Plastic in a Pile Note, what? Don't look at me like that School's over Dr. Hazard Note, Hazard? If I catch you using 914 as your personal paper shredder again I'm reassigning you to cite ██ Yes, the one on Antarctica Dr. Baratos Test 914-0222 Name Researcher Bunsen Date May 23, 2018 Total Items Six Sets of DVDs Each set containing all 94 episodes of Himitsu no Akuchan 1969-1970 An all copy from DVDs imported directly from Japan Two Japanese English Dictionaries One printout of an article from honeysanime.com Input One set of Himitsu no Akuchan DVDs Setting 11 Output The DVDs now contain all 109 episodes of Sally the Witch 1966-1967 Input One set of Himitsu no Akuchan DVDs Setting 11 Output Two smaller sets of DVDs Each containing all 52 episodes of Magic Angel Creamy Mami 1983-1984 Note I won't say no to free anime, but this isn't quite what I was looking for P. Bunsen Input One set of Himitsu no Akuchan DVDs Setting fine Output The episodes have been reanimated in the style of the 1988-1989 reboot Input One set of Himitsu no Akuchan DVDs Setting very fine Output The episodes have been reanimated in the style of the 1998-1999 reboot Input One set of Himitsu no Akuchan DVDs One Japanese English Dictionary Setting 11 Output One volume of the original Himitsu no Akuchan manga in Japanese One set of DVDs containing a video curriculum on how to learn Japanese Input One set of Himitsu no Akuchan DVDs One Japanese English Dictionary One printout of an article from honeysanime.com on how to create fan subs of anime Setting very fine Output DVDs and dictionary remain unchanged Printout of honeysanime.com article replaced with a printout of an article from themoves.com Entitled, 5 reasons no one ever helps you out when you ask for favors Spoiler, it's you Test 914-0223 Name Dr. Gold Date May 23, 2018 Total items One interlocking metal ring puzzle Input One interlocking metal ring puzzle Setting course Output The ring puzzle Fully disassembled into its separate rings Input One disassembled ring puzzle Setting 11 Output One disassembled ring puzzle of different make Pieces fit together into a separate puzzle Note, dang it, I thought I was onto something there I was going to try Injun's next if it had worked One more thing to try though, Dr. Gold Test 914-0224 Name Dr. Gold Date May 25, 2018 Total items One disassembled interlocking metal ring puzzle Input One disassembled ring puzzle Setting fine Output One disassembled ring puzzle Object is notably more complex in input Featuring multiple small pieces in gray with spiraling contours Object described as Somewhat unsettling But still very interesting Note Well, that didn't work At least we got something nice out of it I don't know why it feels so… weird Maybe it's some kind of low level cognitohazard I suppose I should get it looked over Dr. Gold Test 914-0225 Name Junior researcher Martin Date May 24, 2018 Total items Two 300ml beakers Built with 100ml of distilled water Weighing 200g each Input One beaker of distilled water Setting 1-1 Output One bowl of distilled water Measured mass was 200g Input One beaker of distilled water Setting fine Output One glass spear decorated in fractal patterns Water was stored inside spear Total mass was 200g The glass spear broke into 7 separate pieces When retrieval of water was attempted Test 914-0226 Name Dr. Alice Forth Date May 28, 2018 Total items One tachyon emission device Functional Output One tachyon emission device Item displayed approximately 700 years of accumulated wear And was entirely non-functional Setting Dial rotated back and forth repeatedly until a relevant item was inserted Input One tachyon emission device Acquired from the Department of Temporal Anomalies Following identification of the output Note I'm not questioning it And neither should you Consider this an informal caution against using SCP-914 to alter ChronoTek Dr. Forth Test 914-0227 Name Dr. Crocker Date May 30, 2018 Total items One smaller replica of SCP-914 As created on December 17, 2017 Input SCP-914 replica Setting 11 Output A 0.5m x 0.35m x 0.15m copper pad With 12 4x5 rectangles of 20 pins Roughly resembling a UK electrical plugged earth pin Arranged in four rows of three Upon one of its 0.5m x 0.35m faces Nearing one of the long edges of the same face Three 4mm wooden conduits Each containing a solid copper dial protrude While neither SCP-914 nor any of its smaller replicas Show a viable pair for either kind of connector Its design and means of creation imply That both machines may connect to an intermediate device Or piece of machinery Test 914-0228 Name Dr. Crocker Date June 1, 2018 Total items Three unassembled IKEA Stiffon Black Pack chairs Two IKEA Stiffon assembly manuals One encouraging note written by Dr. Crocker Input One unassembled chair Setting fine Output One assembled chair Having had its components connected together in a random useless configuration Input One unassembled chair One IKEA Stiffon assembly manual Setting fine Output An assembled chair Albeit with the front legs and back of the aforementioned chair switched in places Its seat has been heavily damaged Seemingly by a hammer or other blunt instrument Note, we've all been there Dr. Crocker Input One unassembled chair One IKEA Stiffon assembly manual And one posted note with a sentence You can do it Written on it in H.B. Pencil by Dr. Crocker Setting very fine Output A 60 centimeter wooden automaton resembling a humanoid figure that shows an obsessive interest in IKEA products and their assembly While showing extreme enthusiasm towards being allowed to assemble furniture itself, it has failed to make any progress beyond aimless movement of furniture components and tests. Object is thus presumed to be non-sentient Test 914-0229 Name Dr. Hassid Date June 4th, 2018 Total items Four old papers from the notice board in Site cafeteria Input One logistics tip flyer from the Foundation Logistics Department Filling every nook and cranny Tips for efficient transport Setting course Output The same flyer as the input Cut into a continuous ribbon following the Hilbert curve Seven iterations Note The flyer seemed unchanged at first But upon pickup, it was revealed to be cut into a continuous ribbon following the Hilbert space-filling curve Dr. Hassid Input One ethics committee advisory against workplace romance Setting 11 Output One wedding RSVP between Dr. ██ and Agent ██ With SCP-173 as the Efficient, depicted in the background Of note is that Dr. ██ and Agent ██ were unaware of each other when questioned Note The first test stuck with the theme of filling space I have no idea what the theme here should be and find the prospect of SCP-173 officiating a wedding to be deeply disturbing Dr. Hassid Input One pen drawing of SCP-914 on A4 paper No known author Setting fine Output One folded pop-up origami replica of SCP-914 Seemingly made by separating the individual layers of fiber in the original sheet of paper Blue ink accentuates the outer edges of the origami The object was damaged when attempting to fold the paper fold Note Now this is more like what I thought it would do The detailing on this thing is amazing Too bad it crumpled when we tried to close it again Dr. Hassid Input One printed presentation slide, Funnels and You, by Dr. Gears Signed by Dr. Kondracky Setting very fine Output One paper funnel With an intake diameter of 5 cm Output diameter of 5 mm Any matter fitting to 5 cm input Can be pressed through the funnel with minimal effort Regardless of the material density or composition Note My department doesn't have the budget to push a diamond through this thing But I did manage to thin out a 4 cm steel bar down to 5 mm with my bare hands Dr. Hassid


Good evening, guys. Good evening. I was asked to give a little presentation tonight on solar, and I'll try to keep it brief. I'm going to slant it towards it being one element of preparedness. I'm not going to talk about big solar farms and all that kind of stuff. I'm talking about each individually and how this might be a nice piece in your preparedness toolkit. So that's my slant. Why solar power? Basically because it, set up right, can be available. The grid goes down. By the grid, I mean hammer and U.E. or whoever you buy electricity from, whoever, whoever.  Well, this is a way to have some electrical power. And furthermore, it needs no fuel. We have generators that help us out in a pinch when power goes out for a few hours or maybe even a few days. But if it were to go out for months, you'd soon be out of fuel and you're not going to be generating your electricity anymore. So it doesn't need any fuel. So let's start with, well, could I power my entire house with solar panels? PV stands for photovoltaic. The answer is sure, you've got lots of money. But for most of us, I think the answer is no. I mean, if you took your electric bill and looked at how much electricity you use each month, and then figured out how big an array of solar panels you would have to have to provide that much, it would be big and it would cost a lot of money. And it would cost so much that it would probably take you 20 years or more in what you pay on your electric bill to pay for that.  That's not going to happen. So okay then, from a preparedness viewpoint. I mean, what are the critical things? I'm talking about, let's say the power is going to be out for a month or six months or a year or more. What would you consider to be the most important things that don't consume a ton of electricity that you might like to power with solar? So I just put a few of my thoughts up here. You might have things of your own. But LED lights, they're really efficient. Don't take much power. We use little batteries for all kinds of things. But you can't have enough of those on the shelf to last forever. So you want some rechargeable small batteries for your flashlights and your radios and all that. And you'd like to be able to recharge those. Communications, ham radio, scanners, weather radios.  The more you've got a big enough tank full of water that you can collect it and store it. A grain mill, a little, I'm not talking big size by size, but maybe a little refrigerator or freezer. They make them in 12 volt power or you could use an AC power, a little chest freezer or something and run it from a battery to an inverter. I'll talk about that in a minute. A ceiling fan. Then that's, you know, if you were powering it directly 12 volts off of a battery. You could also run some of your normal 120 volt AC stuff in your house. If you're not using it all the time, there might be a few things that are really handy like some power tools. You're only going to use them for 15 minutes. Well, that's not a lot of electric. It sucks your battery down quickly, but if you're not running it 24 hours a day, you could do that. But don't consider an electric hot water heater, your air conditioner, the things that use those 40 and 15, 60 amp breakers down in your pan on the basement. Don't think about doing that with solar. So how does solar work? We call photovoltaic. Here's a little example. Each one of these is a little 15 watt panel. 15 watts ain't much, folks. And that's how big it takes to get it. So this is 45 watts all together. Sunshine's on this. It generates a voltage, goes into a little charge controller. That's what this guy is. And that's smart enough to get the optimum use out of this to charge your 12 volt battery. That's the part I'm showing up here at the top. You could cut this stuff off and just do that. In fact, that's what I do for my AM Radio Shack. Or you've got enough panel and enough battery. You could have what's called an inverter. And that battery through this inverter can change this into a 120 volt AC. That's what you're using. That's how it works. There's two different kinds of systems. One's called a grid-connected system. And one is a grid-independent system. This one is called grid-connected. And there's a lot of folks out there trying to sell this these days. And with all the government socialism rebates and credits that we all pay our taxes and our amour and bills, and then they take our money and they give it back to folks that want to put on solar panels. This is what they're selling.  And then you connect that just through an inverter right into your electrical panel. And when the sun's up, the panels are generating. And whatever you're generating is that much less you have to buy from AMON. And if you have to be generating more than you're consuming right then, you basically send it back on the power line to AMON and they have to pay you for it. We don't pay as much as you pay them. But the problem with this system, it's really not good for us when you're thinking about this form of preparedness. Because if the grid goes down, now you're left with some solar panels and an inverter. And so you're only going to generate electricity when the sun's up. And what if you want to turn some lights on? It doesn't really work too well at night. And there's no place to store it if you don't have batteries. So this is not what you want to think of for personal preparedness. Now a grid independent system, it is not connected to your AMON panel as well. It could be but that would give you more expense. So that's basically what I got sitting on the table. This is a solar panel. It's a little charge controller. It's a deep cycle battery. And you can cut it off there. Forget about this. And just power 12 volt stuff. Radius, lights, things like that. And if you want, you can have an inverter so that you can run that circular saw once in a while or a meat grinder or whatever. So that's the difference between a grid independent and a grid dependent system. So I'd recommend grid independent. That's what's sitting on the table here. And it can get bigger and bigger. But this is just a little show and tell. Next. So the angle matters. The best thing is for this thing to point directly perpendicular to the sun. The sun should be shining right at it. Not at an angle this way. Not at an angle, you know, this way. But right at it. That's the best. You're going to get the most power out of it from it. Now, for that thing without you being there to move it around to track the sun as it moves across the sky and everything gets pretty complicated. So what most folks do is they just point the panel due south. So if south was that way, that's the way I would set this panel up. Now sun's going to come over there, come up in the east. It's going to track across the sky. It's going to set in the west. But when it's up the highest and doing the most good, it's going to be pointing pretty much at the panel. Pretty much perpendicular.  It comes up. Listen to me. You know what I'm talking about. It comes up low and it tracks lower across the horizon. And in the summertime, it comes up further north from east. It tracks way up high. It sets over there north of west. And the daylight hours are, you know, 15 hours long. And in the wintertime they're only 8 hours long or whatever. So there's a compromise for that. What you can do, and for St. Louis, is you can tilt this thing you can just go out there in August and tilt this thing to a certain position and then go back out in November and tilt it to a different position and leave it until February and March and then maybe in the summertime you'd take these legs off the back and you'd have it tilted pretty flat like that because in the summertime it's real high. So you don't have to go out there, let's see, four times a year. And that would make it collect a lot more solar. That happens to be the angle of the solar. If you built a little bracket that would hold this thing at 12 degrees, which is way down near flat, or at 36 degrees or at 64, which is about like this, three positions would cover you for the whole year and do a pretty good job. That's what this guy's done at the end of his house here. Got this panel hinged up at the top and he's got these telescoping legs and he's just showing you how it could be moved from here to here and sit there pretty sturdy. Okay, now I'm going to get into a little bit of math. I'll try to keep it simple and I don't want you to memorize any of this, but I'm just trying to make a few points. First of all, some electricity basics. DC means direct current. That's what you get out of a battery. A little diesel battery. It's got one and a half volts from one end to the other. A little nine volt batteries. We used to put in our transistor radio. It says nine volts. Our car battery has 12 volts, but it's all direct current. You connect something up to it and it's just going one way. Alternating current is what you have in your house and in this room and the voltage is just going up and down and the current is going this way and this way and this way and this way 60 times a second. So there are two different things. You can't hook batteries up to something that's AC and expect it to work and you can't hook AC up to your flashlight battery or whatever. I mentioned earlier an inverter. That's a box that basically can convert DC. It can take 12 volt DC off that car battery and generate 120 volts AC which you can power up. Velocity and fan or whatever. So that's the thing you plug in your car or your lighter to plug stuff into? Yes. Yep, exactly. That's an inverter. And they come in little, big and bigger. That's an inverter. Lots of RVs have them. Okay, now the math part. Electricity. Volts times amps equals watts. So I got 12 volt battery and I hooked something up to it and there's two amps floating in the wires. 12 times 2 is 24. That's 24 watts. That's how much power the thing is consuming. Same thing on 120 volt. It can be AC and it still volts times amps is watts. So 120 volts plugged in the wall if you're sucking two amps down the same wire now you can talk about 240 watts. So 24 watts. And then if you know what a kilogram or a kilometer or kilometer means that just means a thousand. So a thousand watts is one kilowatt or a kilowatt. And then if you have something that's using one kilowatt of power and you run that thing for two hours it's going to consume two kilowatt hours of electricity. So it's using 10 kilowatts and you run it for half an hour it's going to use five kilowatt hours. Does that make sense? So that's what you're buying from Amherst kilowatt hours. Yeah Jeff. When you buy a battery like a deep cycle they talk about amp hours. Do you expand on that? How that will be? Yeah if you can hang on just a minute I'm going to talk about that at the end when I get all the batteries but that's a great question and it's well I'll answer it real quick if it's a 12 volt battery and it's got 100 amp hours of capacity amps times volts 100 times 12 volts is 1200 amps times volts which is watts. Watt hours. So I'll get to it in a minute. You just take the amps times the 12 volts and that gives you the watt and get there. Okay sorry for the wars I threw this together yesterday and you got two verbose. So let's take this pretend this panel is 100 watts it's not it's only 45 but let's say okay how many kilowatt hours can I get out of this panel in a day or a month or a year because that's what I know I'm buying from Amherst. So on average the sun comes up and tracks all the way across here and you get the equivalent of about three hours worth all the way through the days of the year. Three hours a day of its peak output when the sun first comes up it's not going to generate 100 watts because it's coming at such an angle when it gets up in the middle of the day it is and at the end of the day it's not generating much anymore even though you had a 12 hours worth of daylight you didn't get 12 hours worth of its peak rated output. So let's say this is a 100 watt panel times three 100 watts would give us 300 watt hours 100 watt panel divide by a thousand and you get it's 0.1 kilowatts and that 0.1 kilowatt panel which is 100 watts gets about three hours worth of that full output a day and you get 0.3 kilowatt hours per day. That ain't much folks. We don't do this to save money we do this to save lives and I spoke out it might take 20 years to pay back 100 watt panel and a little controller like that might cost about 200 bucks and it's going to generate about 3 cents a day worth of electricity or about 10 dollars a year or 20 years you buy that thing and you think you're going to save money because you're not going to buy electricity from Amher you're fooling yourself you're not it's going to take you 20 years to get your initial investment back and that's not why we do it we do it because we might have a little bit of electricity there when things go bad so if that 100 watt panel generated 0.3 kilowatt hours per day which ain't much what could I power with that so 0.3 kilowatt hours if you want to convert it back to watts multiply times a thousand and you get 300 watt hours so what that means is I could power a 300 watt widget for one hour and this would have generated enough power or I could power a smaller 100 watt widget 100 watt light bulb and hold it in a condescal for 30 hours or a 60 watt device for 5 hours do you see the math there it's just the watts that's being used times how many hours it's being used that's the watt hours so you know a 100 watt panel which is going to be about twice the size of this not quite would power a 100 watt light bulb for 30 hours and then the next day you'd have to charge up your battery again that ain't much LEDs are a lot better a 12 and a half watt LED would probably look like a 600 watt bulb still ain't much but that's how you do the math or we could turn this all around the other way and say what is it that I want to power and how big a panel would take to generate enough juice day after day after day to do that so let's turn it around lots of numbers but hang in there with me this is just an example I made of let's add up what we want to power let's say alright I've got a ham radio I'm going to run that thing 3 hours a day where it's just receiving and listening if you look up in the front of your ham radio it says your radio takes 0.65 amps when it's just receiving and it takes 12 volt battery and I want to run it for 3 hours do you know math you get 3 watt hours now I want to key the mic and transmit talk now the radio takes more power now it takes 10 amps instead of 0.65 amps do the math 1 hours worth of talking on that thing use a lot more juice how about we want to run a few little LED lights at 9 watts a piece for 2 hours in the evening there's the number how about a grain mill how about some miscellaneous power tools but you're only going to run that circular saw for a little bit when you cut through the board this is all made up but let's add that up 297 watt hours that just my coincidence happens to be for example 100 watt panel if I had a 100 watt panel and that battery sitting there I could run all that stuff that many hours a day come out about even so it's practical to generate a lot of power but it might be a few things that are really important like a little bit of LED lights a ham radio some power tools I think that's the end of my math would I ask for math? yeah here's the battery thing we talked about the solar panel that was all about how many watts does this generate and how many watt hours a kilowatt hour will generate you're basically putting that energy into the battery think about it this way this battery is a 5 gallon bucket of water this thing is producing a little trickle of water when the sun's up it's pouring a little bit of water into that bucket now when you're going to use that power to turn on lights or radio or power saw you're going to take water out of that bucket you turn on one little LED light this is going to trickle a little bit of water out of the bucket when you pull the on switch on your circular saw it's going to run a lot of water out of the bucket but you're going to let go of the switch on the saw so you're not going to run the thing for 24 hours that's kind of what's going on here this thing is trickling a little bit of electricity into the battery whenever the sun's up and then you're going to take it out either a little at a time with whatever you're using so then how big of a battery do I need to store that stuff that's what I'm talking about here but Jeff asked the perfect question they're rated in amp hours not watt hours to make it nice and confusing for us this is a bill of trolling motor battery in this box I bought a Walmart for about 80 bucks it's rated at 100 amp hours of capacity well if you take the amp hours times 12 volts amps times volts is watts so you get watt hours now if you want that battery to last a long time you don't want to take it all the way down to zero every day and charge it back up you'll wear out that battery once or less so they recommend you only use about 25% of its charge before you recycle it again and then it'll last 5-10 years so here's our example a 100 amp hour battery 100 amp hours times 12 volts is 1200 watt hours of storage but we only use about a quarter of that so that we don't kill our battery we want to drain the fuel tank from full down to three quarters and then fill the tank again I'm about to lose my battery so it's time to shut up perfect so for 25% of that it says I should only drain 300 watt hours out of this battery every day and then put that 300 watt hours back in there well that just had to work out just about right with a 100 watt solar panel so nice round numbers if you can't remember anything else I said we had a 100 watt panel and a 100 amp hour trolling battery you could power some of that stuff I talked about ham radios and lights it won't hurt too so they would not use the battery no good question I'm going to use some of it will this thing overcharge it and the answer is no that's what this little charge controller does when this thing is all the way peaked up it will quit charging it so it doesn't overcharge it and cook the fluid out of the battery and all of that last slide I had a few more but I forgot to write them down some useful websites there's a place down I think around spring field or Joplin they got a kit on there with a 100 watt panel and a charge controller and stuff for about $200 that's pretty cheap and I think the panels themselves if you wanted to buy two or three they're only about 100 bucks for a 100 watt panel I mentioned little charging up little batteries this is a little battery charger for D's, C cells AA's, AAA's and 9 volts you can charge it any and all let me put four in here at a time and this thing has a little cigarette plug adapter on it so you could power that up with your 12 volt battery here into here and now you can charge any kind of little little big batteries pretty handy those are simply just for the rechargeable batteries themselves yes you can't put a Dura cell in here it wouldn't work I don't know what I'm doing I have both kinds of battery chargers I have one that I have one that you can do Dura cells and one that you buy the rechargeable one really I didn't know you can even recharge the Dura cells it's not very efficient it's not these little guys, I use them all the time in my LED flashlights and everything else by the time you buy about two or three Dura cell batteries you've paid for the rechargeable battery a hundred times do you run them completely down I try not to just like they said on these it's better if you don't run them all the way down yeah Jeff if my LED when I'm just listening probably one amp I got a hundred amp battery does that mean I've got a hundred hours in the area exactly that's what it means and then you would have run your battery all the way down yep but if you said I don't want to run the fuel tank down to three quarters you got a 25 you can run that thing all day and you only drain 24 hours with one amp and then you ought to recharge the battery well the system is going to charge you didn't mention in one thing not to take over John but that little unit between the battery make sure that your battery doesn't on a cloudy day discharge back out through your panels because it's got diodes in it and diodes only let current flow on the way so it's really important so overnight this won't try to discharge your battery or on a cloudy day your battery will start to discharge so that's why you need that thing in the middle to keep your batteries and discharging through your panels so this little website here is where it's only about 30 bucks nowadays and it comes with an AC plug so now when it's available you can charge your batteries out of the wall and a cigarette plug 12-volt DC so you can charge it off your car or this battery or whatever very handy for about 30 bucks and then go buy you some rechargeable batteries for your stuff that's a good thing to invest in this is a little bitty solar panel got a bunch of little adapters in here but it's got a fitting on it that'll charge my cell phone I can lay this on the dash of the car and it's got an oversized battery in here for a cell phone this little guy charges this battery and then I can plug this into my cell phone pretty cool so where did you find that? I knew somebody would ask that hell I don't remember we got one my parents gave all of us for Christmas one year they gave up all the kids so that if something happens maybe as long as the you know the as long as there's service we can still talk if the grid power goes away probably cell phones are gonna go away if it's long term at least you can see what your point is this is another little toy this is a little light stick I think they're intended for NRVs but these are little LEDs on here and this thing is amazingly bright let's try to show you here if you turn the lights off in a room you can work at a desk easily with this and I think it's about one and a half watts or something like that and they got little plugs on them you can strain them end to end and you can light up something put it over your kitchen sink one last point you can certainly run more than one battery in parallel in your storage capacity absolutely something like 234 in parallel and you can have three, four, five hundred amperes or whatever you're right you just got a bigger gas tank you don't have to fill it up as well all the stuff still uses gas at the same rate or uses electric at the same rate but if you have five of these batteries all in parallel you'd have five times as big of a gas tank it might be nice to get through some cloudy days in the wintertime because there's some times when we don't get a lot of sun or you could run theory and put more things but if you're not putting as much gas in the tank that you're using eventually that tank's going to go dry and the batteries will go dead so you have to have enough solar panel to keep pouring water in the bucket or gas do you think that's outside of your round yep does that charger tell you when you're about 25% down under charge I mean no when you're almost out it's got a little digital display which you can turn off so you don't waste power and it says 12.9 volts or a little chart I wish I had anything written but if you're I think a 12 volt battery full charge is 12.6 or 12.7 oh it was 13 13.3 it's over 30 it's not that high that's what this thing will try to keep charging at that point and this will display 13. something but as soon as you disconnect it and put a little load on it it'll pretty quickly go down about 12.6 or 12.7 and that's basically 100% and then to answer your question that little chart says okay at 12.7 volts it's let's say 90% charging at 12.6 volts it's 80% charge and when you get down to about 12.2 or 3 you're getting kind of low so that's kind of your gas gauge that voltage readout along with the little chart will tell you how far down your battery is getting is this the harbor freight this is the little harbor freight 139 bucks when you catch it on sale 45 watts that and a battery this comes with it the battery does not come with it I'm sorry it's just the solar panel the charge controller and a couple of little light bulbs for 130 converter come together I just built a PVC stand that came with it too and that's got a couple different angles you can set it up just by moving the screw it's pretty handy these are kind of mounted on a little they're older ones this is like a molded thing around it outside to kind of protect this glass panel and it can take some pretty decent size hail that's covered glass panel this is glass it's covered oh no, the glass is right there it's just covered around the edges so you leave the whole everything out year round do you cover the converter of the battery put that in your house long wire that makes more sense yeah drill the hole in the wall or something around the wire from outside into your house you want this to face due south depending on how your house is maybe you've got to put it on the roof to avoid some trees from shading it maybe you're lucky enough you can set it out on your back patio that faces south and you can just have it right on the ground let's see if this is a degradation I think they say they're supposed to put out 80% of the rated wattage after 20 years so they last a long time they'll last a long time so did you get the battery from Harbor Freight 2? I bought the battery a Walmart I bought the little case you don't need that case this thing by the way has a little button on top you can push and see a green light or a red light or tells you how charged it is but you can just set the battery there 12 volt battery get a 12 volt deep cycle battery don't get the battery that you used to start your car get the one that the fishermen used to power their trolling motors a marine battery they're designed to get sucked way down and recharged your car starting battery you don't take much juice out of it every time you start your car can you upgrade that meaning could you add another panel or two they even got some slick little plugs you could put three of these side by side by side and plug them together daisy chain where did you find the case for your battery? he could find them anywhere on loan I think I might have bought that from Sportsman's Guide which is a little catalog I get in the mail hey John how did that protect the I mean that's good for getting electric but what happens if there's an EMP did that go get fried in your out before you even put them even if you got in the shed in the box if you got in the shed in the mail box and all sealed up I'd say the chances are damn slim it's going to be damaged I actually believe everything I've read this thing will probably survive an EMP what really gets stuff is a long long wire like air and UEs electric wires that are on the poles out there that's a huge antenna and when you get an EMP it sends a huge voltage surge down the line and it'll fry anything you've got plugged in in your house but if you've got 20 feet of wire going from here to here I don't think that's that big of an antenna and I think there's no guarantee I'm leaving mine out all the time I'm not packing away for when things go bad I'm using it so you're saying normally you think if it's in a box just a regular box in a shed or something it wouldn't get hurt what works really good for EMP protection is a galvanized trash can believe it or not and then if you bought some metal tape and sealed a lid it'll be even better there's some YouTube videos on it so if you really want to protect something from an EMP you can't use it when it's in the can where you ought to store it but can it touch the inside of the can or just be a space between probably the space it has to be insulated best if you have some foam pads or some bubble wrap works really good wrap that stuff in that so it's not touching the metal can


اسلام علیکم خواتحیم حضرات، وصین ایساً ویلکھمس you لیکٹر number 38 of the brand management MKT624 at a virtual university of Pakistan. We are into pricing. I started talking about strategic pricing in order to leverage your brand in the previous lecture. And I talked about how the brands can charge a premium, but there are certain conditions which are to be fulfilled before the brand is in a position to start charging premium. And those conditions could basically stem from the strength of the brand. In other words, if the brand is strong, you are in a position to charge premium, if the brand is not strong, you are not in a position to charge premium, it is a very simple relationship. But then the question which really arises is what is the right model for the one company to undertake its pricing strategy. And since the whole discussion is all about strategic considerations when it comes to the brand management, we have to look into all those things. And there are certain drivers which we considered are very important and that allow us to go for a good level of pricing and especially premium. Back to what should be the right model for the one company to go for pricing its brands. The model which generally is in practice all over the world, most of the businesses is cost based. And I did point out for the one fact that there are companies that really are not very careful about working out their pricing while they work with this model only because they work with something which is bare minimum. And the reason they work with bare minimum requirements is that they would just like to make sure that as long as they can generate the right returns in a net profit to sales ratio and net profit to investment ratio and so on and so forth. And they end up having a positive cash flow. Everything is fine and we don't really have to do anything with pricing. Let us be conservative and let us not go for something which may be perceived by the customer as something very aggressive and something unacceptable. Companies resort to those standards which are very conventional and traditional. What really happens under this model is that could you work out your costs at a certain margin and then through all the successive stages of the channel system. Margin's are added to the costs to different members of the channel and the final price is bugged out by the time the product gets into the hand of the final consumer. So in other words it is like you have bugged out cost as X. X plus one is your pricing and you sell at that price to your distributor because he adds to his margin which is going to be in your price which is his cost plus one and so on and so forth down the line at every successive stage a margin is added and price relating to that particular phase is bugged out and get a sold to the next party and that becomes next parties cost. So this is the way the traditional model works. I shall be talking about the different strategies under the cost based model just to see how we can make the right most decisions by taking into consideration the right strategic elements so that we do not end up making any mistakes in the working order of prices. But I will start with the other model for the time being which call the market based model. Market based model refers to the pricing which is worked out in the model.  But what is important under this model is that you've got to have the very good knowledge of your customer and your competition. Well you can go through the different kinds of research models in order to identify your customers profile and the buying behavior and the buying criteria. Why they buy and how they buy and what they buy and what are the preferences and so on and so forth. But when it comes to competition it offers certain complications and certain challenges which are to be surmounted before you really can build that element into your pricing model. Understand your competition really calls for a lot of market intelligence which you may not be able to generate to the level that you are satisfied with in terms of taking into consideration various factors for your pricing. So therefore we can say that unless our understanding of the customer and the competition is complete we can but we may not be able to go for the right market based price. In general you can put it like this that if your competition is selling something for 150 and you start considering a market price of something like 140 or 45 meaning in the neighbourhood of your competitor's pricing and then you could work it backwards all the way through the margins and back to the cost and then work out what is the net margin that basically is what market based pricing refers to. So in other words the market based pricing has an inverse relationship with the cost based pricing whereas the cost based pricing starts within the company and you start working with the costs first and then add up your margins and then be satisfied and content with a certain level of pricing. And then market based pricing starts in the market by taking into account what competition is doing and by taking into account what the customer is willing to pay or may be willing to pay and then you work backwards right down to the company level and then decide the pricing. Under the market based model you take into account what your customers needs and take the sensitivities and the competing products. On the basis of all these you create is superior value to your product and offer that your customer at a price acceptable to him or her. Customer sensitivity is one of the fundamentals in this pricing model because it is not that we follow competition only for the sake of following it. It is done on the basis of a certain method and it has to be that way. If the customers are sensitive to paying beyond a certain point but you must not go beyond that and that is where the market information and market intelligence comes into play and the significance of that can hardly be emphasized at this juncture. Let us now discuss few strategies for the market based model one by one for your renewed understanding. The reason I say the renewed understanding because you might have learned these strategies in one of your basic courses but how these strategies fit into the model here in a very strategic context let us talk about that. First of all we have the strategy of what marketing people call skim pricing. It works under the circumstances of higher differentiation with the meaning the product has got to be very highly differentiated and it must offer the company a very strong competitive advantage. They prefer to be sustainable advantage. You keep on charging that premium until the time competition really catches up. When competition catches up then the pricing model changes and you might have to do something with your pricing in terms of certain adjustments. The second model which is involved in relation to the market based strategy is the value in use pricing. Now this model basically relates to the consumer goodables basically and by value in use what really means is the value of the product right from the time you buy it to the time you buy it. To the time of the completion of the life cycle of the product. So in other words this strategy really relates the product life cycle and the fact is that all the strategies that I'm talking about relate the various stages of products life cycles and therefore have got to be taken into that particular light. So this value in use the pricing strategy relates to consumer goodables and what you do is because you take into account the value of the product from the time that it is bought to the time the product completes its life cycle. Now what this essentially means is that there are certain costs which you have to incur meaning which customers could have to incur in terms of using the product throughout its life cycle and that cost is incurred in relation to the maintenance. You have to pay to people who come to service those products for example air conditioners or you have to pay for the spare parts which you have to buy from time to time in order to maintain those products cars for example motorbikes. So there could be a long list of these kinds of products. The objective here is to understand that the cost which customers incur during various phases of the use of the product until the time either the product is discarded or resold there is a certain cost and that cost keeps on accumulating. So if customer thinks that the economic benefit which the customer is going to enjoy more in case of one particular product as far as the value in use is concerned in comparison with competition then the customer would go for your brand. So in other words you as the marketing people must be aware of the value in use concept which basically relates to not only the initial price of the product at which you sell the product but also the costs which keep on incurring during the life cycle of that product. And if you think that the value in use of your brand offers superior economic benefit to customers in relation to your competing products then your pricing is right. You can take examples of those cars which have a very good resale value for example and the cost of maintenance which you require in order to maintain a certain model. There are the models which are very attractive and which are durable which also have the design appeal but then the value in use may not be that high only because of high maintenance costs. So with the help of these examples I believe that the concept of value in use VIU pricing is clear to all of us. Another pricing strategy is segment pricing. This basically relates to the market segments and that is something which I have been talking about very frequently. Different customers within the segment even can have different needs and I will tell you with the help of an example why. So therefore you have got to have different types of pricing packages for those customers within one particular segment or for that matter what you can do is you can divide the segment into sub segments in relation to pricing and you can classify as segment A, segment B, segment C and can offer those customers different pricing packages. Let us take the example of a cell phone company which sells connections. Why is it that the cell phone connection companies that cell connectivity offer the various packages in terms of incoming calls and terms of outgoing calls for the meaning that there are customers who really emphasize on making calls and there are customers who really have their basic concern about incoming calls and then there are customers who like to use their telephones or their connections during the night time. So knowing your customer and knowing your customer's needs and knowing what competition is doing and knowing the sensitivities of those customers you come up with the different packages within the same segment and that is what you call segment pricing. What is important in segment pricing is also the fact that the economic value which you offer your customer must not be compromised. If the economic value or the economic benefits which the customer is deriving out of the service that you offer are outweighed by a competing offer then there has to be something wrong with your pricing. And you must start reconsidering your pricing strategy or the method for that matter all over again. Now this doesn't really mean that you have to bring about a strategic change. Your customers never get bored of the strategies which you have and by the same token the you people as managers within the companies should not be bored by the strategies. It is the execution or it is the tactical side which offers the boredom to your customers at times. And whenever you think that that stage is the setting in that you should be sensitive to that and going to get into a reconsideration of your tactical moves. Another method is what marketing people call strategic account pricing.  You are into industrial selling for example and you have various kinds of customers and various levels of customers. And you can segment the market by the good old principle of 80-20. Let us talk about that that 80% of your volume is constituted by 20% of your customers. What you can do is you can bring about certain classifications within that 80% of the volume meaning 20% of your customers. And going to go for those customers which are the prime prime customers. And you develop a relationship on long term basis with those customers by offering a price which is a better price than the one you offer others. Now you may start questioning that this is not the premium price because you are charging others a higher price. Where as you are charging these top most parties are something which is the lower in price and you are offering that for the sake of relationship. Well you do that because you have to develop a long term relationship and what happens is in down times when things may not be as the rosy for the industry. You may talk those customers into either going to keep on giving the same price or maybe convince them into offering you a better price because you have been good to them all along your relationship period. This again is very strategic in nature. What you are trying to achieve is a long term strategic relationship with your prime buyers. And again I would say that the concept of economic value must be taken into consideration that you have to offer value to your customers which cannot be surpassed by your competition. And that is how you maintain a good relationship with your customers. Now it is not only a better pricing level which keeps your customers very loyal to your company or towards your brand. It has to be so many other considerations because had it been only for the price then the drivers towards loyalty would not have worked the way that they do work. And the way I explained those with the help of a market research model. So relationship marketing comes in and takes a very important seat here. If not the driver's seat a very important seat which really allows you to look into the right most considerations why and when to go for this kind of pricing method. The other one under the market based model is what marketing people call plus one pricing. Plus one pricing applies in mature market conditions under market conditions in which all products carry good benefits for customers. What could be those conditions? Well you can take the example of the car market. You can take the example of other consumer doodibles like electronic equipment, the computers, the musical equipment and so on and so forth. There are so many different brands offering a good customer value and it only is a question of choice. Why you choose the one brand over another one is a separate kind of a discussion which we've been holding every now and then. But the fact remains that the plus one pricing works under conditions in which most of the products offer good customer value and good benefits. What happens under these conditions is that very strong brands they become very sensitive about the positioning they have in the market. They know that the positions they have are fully occupied in the minds of the customers and therefore they are in a position to charge a premium under this pricing method. And I would like to draw your attention back to the car model which I talked about and one of the lectures about positioning. Well there's a car which appeals to safety and there's a car which appeals to very high performance and there's a car which appeals to comfort and luxury. When that is considered very sensitively by the marketing people they start thinking in terms of plus one meaning everybody is offering what is a plus. But we certainly have something which is plus one. So even if other models or other brands are charging premium pricing our pricing has got to be the market premium plus one. And it is because of that reason they charge a price which is much higher than the price which comparable models are competitive offerings to carry in the marketplace. And the fact is that if you draw a comparison in terms of the specifications there may not be very great differences. So the only difference which is there is in the minds of the customers and that certainly has a background. The company has succeeded in occupying that position. So if you have achieved that position you are in a position so to say to charge what they call plus one pricing. In other words it is just the one feature which is the extra in terms of one product or one brand which really allows that brand to go for the price premium under this method. So these are a few of the strategies which the marketing people are going to have to themselves while they work for pricing under the market based pricing model. Let us now move on to the cost based model meaning the strategies that we have to ourselves while working under this model. Before I start talking about what cost based model is let us look at a few of the fundamentals that we have to be aware of and we have to be very sensitive to before we work out of a pricing on the basis of cost based model. First of all look we have to have a very clear understanding of the cost drivers and the value of the product. Now these are the two strategic elements which are of very high importance I repeat of very high importance when it comes to the cost based model. Because remember one thing under the cost based model there is no one fixed price. And I gave you the example of a product which you sell for over 100 and maybe shortly after launching of the product you may start realizing that you should have launched that at 110. So this is one example which says it all why cost based model has to be given extra consideration while you work with the different pricing strategies. You must know what the cost drivers are and you must know what the value of the product is. It is the value of the product of which most of the companies are not really aware of. You'll be surprised to know that many companies are not really aware of the fact as to how good their product is. Now this is not to say that every time every company or any company coming up with a certain product or a certain plan that does come up with something out of this world. What I'm saying is that in most of the cases what happens is that you create a quality product and then you hesitate to go for the right most price. Only because you are very sensitive to the market reaction and you may not take into account all the opportunities which may present themselves to you in terms of charging the right price only because you do not fully realize the value of your own product the way it is realized by the customer. So in other words the realization on your part has got to be very compatible with a rather congruent with the perception of the customer. You must assess the product the way the customer assesses it. You might be wondering how is that possible that there is a gap between the customer's perception and the company's assessment of its own brand. But that's the way it does happen in the market only because like I said companies like to be or prefer to be conservative. My lesson to you here is not to be extra aggressive. All I'm saying is that you do not really have to be extra conservative when it comes to pricing. So in other words the attention to the product benefits and the customer value really enables you to charge more and earn more and then be able to achieve all your objectives and that is what pricing is all about. Market based pricing may look like the preferred approach to pricing but the fact remains that it may not be very ideal under many circumstances and in many situations and that really calls for the need to have cost based model. The cost of the base model has to its core the manufacturing costs which we incur during the process of manufacturing and we add to that our margin and then come up with a pricing at which we sell to our distributors or dealers for that matter. And what happens there on is that at every successive stage of the channel the mechanism of added margins takes place and the process goes on until the product finally reaches into the hands of the final customer. So this is what cost based model is but I will repeat that we have got to be very careful with the elements of the customer value. Not only the cost drivers but also the customer value that we have to keep into account while working out of a pricing strategy on the basis of a cost based model. The cost based pricing model is generally applied in those markets where the differentiation is minimal. The meaning is that it is not as high as it is in those markets which are premium price markets and where consumer doodables really call for a great differentiation or even consumer consumables call for a very high level of differentiation. It is because of the low level of differentiation that are going to become very sensitive about any price increase or about any increment of price that we may start considering in terms of finalizing the price. The first strategy that we can talk about is the floor pricing. Now floor pricing as the name suggests is the lowest possible price a company can charge. What happens under this pricing method is that the companies come up with a bare minimum price meaning by adding a bare minimum level of margin to the costs and come up with a pricing which keeps the company some pre considered and preconceived returns like the 20% return on investment. This is the one example or 15% on sales and companies think to themselves as long as we are in a position to achieve all this because we are doing okay and the price is right. Such a price and such a policy is not a reflection of the reality in the market. This is just a benchmark which we use in order to generate certain results and this is the pricing strategy which may deprive the company of certain attractive opportunities of better pricing and therefore floor pricing is a pricing method which should be avoided. The next one is cost plus pricing. Cost plus pricing basically is what the cost based method is all about. The meaning you add certain margin to the cost and pass it on to the next stage and the process goes on until it reaches the final consumer. What is important here is that we should not go for cost plus pricing by compromising number one the company profitability and also customer value because when we get into this pricing method the chances are we are compromising quality here and there. If the company is convinced that quality is not compromised meaning the customer value is offered to the fullest in relation to the pricing level and the profitability is also decent then cost plus pricing may be the right strategy under circumstances that dictate that strategy. I am not saying that this should be adopted but every time we start looking into the pricing method reduce costs mean higher margins and under this kind of pricing strategy what the companies generally do is they like to go for high volumes and lower costs and it is because of the objective of achieving lower costs that at times we start compromising the performance of the brand. If the performance is not compromised everything is fine and if high volumes are achieved and also performance is delivered then it is not a bad strategy. But if the high volumes are achieved at the cost of performance and also at the cost of profitability then this may call for a reconsideration. Yet another method of pricing that we consider under the model of cost based pricing is the penetration price. Penetration pricing this method is employed mostly under those conditions when you have a lot of growth taking place in the market. What happens is you want to be a part of that growth and in order to grow fast you lower your prices in a bid to post the very high volumes. The high volumes give you the high and the share of the market and going by the scale economies what happens is you lower your costs. When you lower your costs that really offset the impact of the lower pricing to some extent but then you've got to be very sensitive about not getting into the zone which is kind of a gray zone and which is just about the border of being profitable and not being profitable. So if you want to go for penetration go for a pricing level which is not dangerous. This pricing method is employed in markets where the level of differentiation is the minimal and in which customers are very highly priced. Sensitive because if the customers are not sensitive there's no reason for you to go for a lower price for the sake of high volumes. There are other methods to increase the volumes even at a price which otherwise could be higher than in a prescribed by this particular strategy. So another character of this particular market in which this strategy works is a lot of manufacturers and easy entry. It is not very difficult for people to enter the market which essentially means that this market doesn't really deal with high tech things. It deals with the level of technology which really allows so many different entrants or potential entrants to enter the market. Under this pricing strategy the powerful companies of that matter the dominant players always have an advantage because they have a leadership role and they have a very high share of the market. They are selling high volumes. They can further lower the price and cause a shake out because if the industry is not really a high technology industry and it attracts so many different players the chances are not all the players are financially very strong and therefore the powerful one or the major ones can really bring about a crowding out in this kind of a market and when that happens it really rationalizes because there are so many marketing practices within this kind of a segment. The other one as part of the cost based pricing strategy or pricing model is what you may call harvest pricing. Now this kind of pricing method is undertaken when you are dealing with a brand which is almost dying and which is making the way for another brand or some improvement meaning an innovative product. What happens is that you have a brand which is going down, it is declining and you still have to have it in the market because you cannot have disgruntled customers. Whatever customers you are left with and you are going through all the complications of the supply chain but you are manufacturing it in the first place and then making sure that the brand gets into the warehouses and to the hands of the distributors on to the retailers and then on to a select few customers. So in order to hasten the decline of the brand and create the stage for its successor you increase the price and you increase the price by a fair way in a big margin in order to discourage the customers from buying it. What happens is the volume goes further down but the contribution improves. It is automatic when the price goes up the contribution margin has to increase and that increased margin really justifies the existence of that particular brand at whatever level it exists and then it only is a question of time when that is overtaken or that is replaced by an improved version and naturally you would like to go for an improved version when you are fully prepared with all the preliminaries. So that is all about the different strategies which you can bring into play in relation to the cost based pricing method. We have learnt market based pricing and cost based pricing. We should be in a position to relate the different strategies to our situations whatever those are and wherever we are. What I am saying is that 8 or 9 different strategies that fall under the two respective methods should be able to drive us towards the solution to the pricing problem. But at the same time I would say that there is not one particular answer to the situation that we might find ourselves in. So it may be a combination of the different strategies that you may have to employ in order to come up with the right most pricing. But the fact remains that the market based pricing starts from the market where you give a very high consideration to the competition with your customers with the sensitivities and your brand positioning and work all the way back to the margins and to the manufacturing process. Whereas under the cost based method the costing starts at the end of the manufacturing process where you take into consideration all the cost drivers and then go through a successive process of adding margins and keep doing that until you reach the final consumer. It is wonderful to have premium pricing because that offers you the better profitability and high margins. But then the volumes may not be very high and you might start pondering what to do because you may like to go for very high volumes. Conversely if you go for the cost based pricing the volumes may be very high but the profitability may not be in that zone where you really want it to be. All you have is the very good benchmarks which allow you to go for the financial returns which are bare minimum for the company to achieve its objectives. Therefore there is no one set answer to the different situations in which you will find yourself while you are working in a practical field for your different brands and it has to be based on meaning the decision for pricing has to be based on a few fundamentals and those fundamental considerations are summarized in the following form. And of course these fundamental considerations are based on the understanding that we already have developed. I am just going to summarize for you so that you are in a position to make the right most decision for pricing. Why? Because the most important objective is that you do not undervalue your brand, you do not undersell it and you do not really deny yourself the opportunity of charging the right price. Even if it is not the premium price you must not deny yourself the opportunity of the right price. So with that objective let us now take a look at the fundamental considerations which I am going to summarize for you in the light of the discussion that we have had so far. First of all differentiation is the guide. Level of differentiation defines for the company the kind of pricing it should go for. And here I would like to say all over again that it is the strategies of segmentation along with differentiation to define your pricing patterns. If you go back to the illustration that I gave you for the fast food product with the meaning sandwiches you will immediately realize what I am talking about. So with the help of that graphic illustration you can look into the various pricing points in relation to differentiation. If a market calls for a very high level of differentiation then of course you have to come up with something very innovative and you are going to charge the price accordingly and the chances are that you will go for a premium price. If you are operating in a segment which really is not very sensitive to the elements of differentiation then you will go for a price which is cost based and you certainly would like to go for a very high volumes and still would like to make sure that there is a balance between those volumes and your profitability. You really have to as a point of summary apart from differentiation you really have to touch base with both the models and then see which situation really is the most appropriate for you in terms of your pricing model. Like I said earlier you have something like eight or nine different strategic ways of going about pricing. One of the ways has got to fit into your requirements and you make your decision accordingly. The other point of the summary is the contribution margin. Contribution margin keeps popping up again and again because this is something extremely important.  Brand managers and marketing managers certainly are going to be very important in terms of suggesting the right level of pricing but then the decision is going to be taken collectively by the marketing people and by the people in finance and then you also have to have the ok from the top management for the final pricing but it is extremely important for you to understand the strategic implications of the level of contribution which a brand offers to the company. So therefore you've got to be very sensitive to the different price points where they offer different levels of contribution and the level has got to be very compatible with your strategic goals. So in other words a combination of volume and contribution margin has got to be achieved in a way that it really fulfills all the strategic objectives that is the lesson. Another point of summary is that high volume and low price must not affect contribution margin negatively. Well this is an extension of the point which I have just discussed. Meaning that you should not be carried away by the concept of high volumes to the point that it starts affecting your contribution margin negatively because if you have negative contribution you are into an outright loss situation and what is the beauty of business if you are into a loss situation only because you are getting into that because you want to trade very high volumes with profitability. So never do that however if there is a very pressing argument given by the sales people that you have to have very high sales volume because you would like to have a very high share of the market and thereby will have a leadership role which is going to fulfill certain strategic maneuverings which will lead to fulfillment of goals that you might consider it to a certain extent but not definitely at the cost of profitability. Another point of summary is that you have to assess the perceived value on part of the customer. So whatever model you are going to employ you have got to fully realize what really is the level of value which you are offering. So do not create a gap between the way the customer perceives your product and the way you assess the value of that product. Meaning the customer value which you are offering has got to be very equal to the way your customer is perceiving it because otherwise you are going to miss the opportunity of charging the right most price. May that be the market based model or may that be the cost based model. In both the cases instead of charging 150 why should you charge 145 or in case of cost based model instead of charging 110 why should you charge the 100. So you have got to be very sensitive to the pricing level in relation to the market sensitivities and the profitability of the company. Having said all that the last point of summary I would tell you is that you have got to stay within the mainstream pricing and that is something which is very easy to comprehend and that is you have got to stay within the two limits meaning the lowest limit of pricing within that particular segment and the highest the limit of pricing in that particular segment where ever you fit in make sure that you do not under sell that is the greatest lesson of this topic on pricing. With this our lecture on pricing comes to a conclusion and we have fulfilled one more strategic phase of the brand management process. Thank you very much for your listening and patience and I look forward to talking with you in the next lecture. Allah Hafiz


I'm super, super excited. I'm super excited he's gonna be here in Japan, so I'm so excited about it. Marcelo, of course, you know, one of the best defenders in the world, you know, able to play make. And of course, Cristiano Ronaldo, you're the best player in the world. What can I say? And also the whole team, of course. I'm so excited. He's coming to Japan. I cannot believe it. I wish he could take a picture with me and I want to show it to my friends. We'd like to go if I can get the ticket to see the Real Madrid. This is a really precious chance for me, for us. We like Real Madrid, especially Cristiano Ronaldo. Best!