Week 15

We've made it!! The year is coming to a close and all that is standing between us and summer is our final mind map exam, team ratings, and a marketing consultant case.  These fifteen weeks have gone by so quickly, and I feel as though I have truly learned a lot about the marketing concepts we have discussed.  The combination of our mind maps, these blog posts, our SMART Project: OK2DRIVE, the Shark Plan, and our class discussions have really furthered my understanding of what marketing involves.  Going into this class, I assumed marketing was only advertisements like fliers, commercials, and billboards. Now I realize it is so much more than that.  Marketing involves distribution channels, knowing your target market, conducting research both on and with your market, understanding your product, as well as knowing where to sell it, for how much, and how to promote it, and so much more. Our Shark Plan and 4 P's assessment was able to bring a lot of this together, and these assignments were able to show what knowledge of marketing we have accumulated this past year. 

On Tuesday in class, we were given the 4 P's assessment. In a one page case, we were to connect an example business to each aspect of the 4 P's: Product Place, Price, Promotion. We were then to give recommendations and suggestions to Mr. McMillian on how he should market his company. 







On Thursday, we were finally able to show off what we have been working on all semester.  We had practiced our pitch, made business card, printed out out fact sheets, borrowed beer goggles from Public Safety, completed our memos, and created our final memo in our binder.  From 9:30 to 12:30 in the HLC, our group along with many other Engineering groups, pitched our product to three judges.  Other students, people from the public, and professor came by to learn more about our product, as well.  We were hit with challenging questions and ere forced to provide answers on our feet.  This Expo really showed ow much knowledge we have on our product, and I think that we all impressed ourselves.  We had worked so hard developing our product, and understanding it and our target market, tat it was nice to see everything finally come together, although we did not win. Both us and the engineering students in our group came across confidently and were able to speak about our product with ease, because we truly believe in it. Many people that came by seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say and what value our product provided to the our consumer, and to the safety of our communities, as well. 

Leading up to our final meeting/exam on Tuesday of this week, we were given instructions to make one huge final mind map, of everything we have covered thus far.  This includes our Shark Plan, Shark Tank Videos, class discussions, and any concepts from our textbooks.  As of now, I am about half way done created this mind map, and it is proving to be a struggle.  Choosing the most important concepts to fit on this piece of paper is difficult, especially since they all connect one way or another.  But just like these mind maps, Marketing and its concepts all connect one way or another. This course was able to teach me more than just concepts, but also how they relate, and how I can use these skills i different aspects of my life.  Even if I am not pursuing a career in marketing, being able to work with people who think differently than I do will surely arise. Working with the engineers, although difficult, has proven worthwhile ,and I feel more readily equipped to work on projects like this in the future.  It has been a great 15 weeks! Thank you to Dr. Spotts!

Week 14

This week was all about preparing for the Expo! It is nice to see how far we have come from week one. As I look back at all of my blog posts and mind maps, I am physically able to see my personal growth, as well as that of my teams.

Our team has had our ups and downs, and I believe this is mostly due to the varying personalities and mindsets of our business students and engineering students. Our team often focuses on the differences between us business majors and the engineering majors.  And there is a lot to talk about.  We business student focus on the big picture. We seem to have a broader sense of the SMART Project and where it is going.  We focus on the value that the product has and how it is going to satisfy some want or need of the consumer.  We see the consumer has our bosses.  Engineers think a lot differently, though.  Engineers are wired(ha) to focus on the technical side of the project.  They get into specifics and could talk about the programming of their Arduino board and 2 RF Transceivers for hours. They tend to think that the consumer is interested in this programming and wiring and how it is done.  They think tangible. However, in the majority of cases, consumers want the final product.  They want the benefits from their product, not the sensors and scanners.

This Thursday though, I felt as if we had a breakthrough.  Dr. Spotts and Dr. Gettens asked us to do an exercise. The business students were to explain the business side of OK2DRIVE to the engineers, while the engineers were to explain the engineering aspect of the product to us.  I feel as though this really helped us.  Noah and Mike explained to me the wiring and the programming of our breathalyzer activated lockers, and it really helped me understand our product more.  I feel as if someone at the expo were to ask me about the engineering side of the product, I would be able to give them a brief yet broad explanation of how our product was made.  It won't be perfect, but it will get the idea across. I learned that the Arduino is connected to a transceiver, a fingerprint scanner, and a breath alcohol sensor through a breadboard.  If one was to scan their fingerprint and it was already in the system, they would be given instructions t o use the breathalyzer. If they were not in the system, a locker would automatically be assigned to them. It was interesting to learn about the tangible product, as it is typically my job to focus on the value of this product.

It was then Chad and I's turn to teach the engineers about the value of our product.  We tried to get The fingerprint scanner will be wired to ground and a 5V Vcc, the two other pins of the fingerprint scanner will be wired to Tx and Rx ports of the Arduino using 1k and 560-ohm resistors as a voltage divider means, we gave an attempt to figure it out.  When our team came together to try and understand each other, it worked much better than before.

them to understand our value proposition, as well as our brand essence and target market. They seemed to grasp our target market quickly, but the value proposition was a little trickier. It was difficult for us on both sides.  Us business majors and the engineering majors had a hard time explaining the other's part. This made us not only understand our product more, but also forced us to appreciate what the other major was doing.  Both sides of our project think that we are more important than the other, and we both think we are doing more work.  But what we have learned from doing this, is to not focus on that or our differences, but instead our product.  Although I still do not completely know what 

After this enlightening exercise, we practiced our pitch. Although it is still a work in progress, we have to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! However, it is not important for us to know this word for word, rather than it is for us to understand it. Understand what we are conveying to the judges, and we will be golden.  We are trying to make it entertaining to listen to, while still keeping it serious, as it is a serious matter we are dealing with.  We can't joke about our pain point, another groups can.  But, at the same time, we want to keep it interesting and upbeat.  This will be our hardest thing to convey during the Expo. It is important to do this so we can attract potential investors.  We have created a flier and business cards to sell the deal, but our pitch is what we are focused on now.  I think that if our team can accept our differences in mindset, then we will be golden. 

A lot of this boils down to what we are promising our consumers. A brand promise is the statement that you make to customers that identifies what they should expect for all interactions with your people, products, services and company. It is often associated with the company name and/or logo.Why should bars, restaurants, and event venues purchase our product?

We promise to provide our target customers with an ability to get home safe. We promise to provide our target market with a way to keep their businesses out of liability and legal troubles, while also promoting safety for their patrons. Safety is so important, and that is why we are trying to provide it with this product. No one should drink and drive, for it causes accidents when there are multiple alternatives to this heinous action. We will make sure that you are OK to drive, and if you aren’t, we will find someone to drive you home that is. We promise not to let the temptation to operate a vehicle while being above the legal limit overcome you. It will not be an option for you to drink and drive with our product.

In order to come across as though we will fulfill our promise, we need to make sure that out attitude expresses this promise. We need to convey that our brand essence matches up with his.  OK2DRIVE is caring, sympathetic, a hero, a leader, protecting, passionate, authentic, and life changing. This is a lot to convey in 90 seconds. Will we be able to do it. I certainly think so!

Week 13

As we are nearing the end of the semester, we are beginning to focus even more on our SMART Projects. This week we edited and finished our posters for the expo and discussed concepts related to marketing communications.

Poster
The poster is split up into two portions: Market and Technology. Under the Market we include the value and benefits of our product, as well as the initial market size in Massachusetts. The Technology side explains the ease of use and aspects like the breathalyzer and finger print scanner.  Our Headline can be seen at the top of the poster, STOP Drinking and Driving, Sober Driving Made Easy. At the bottom we included our sponsor who prints each poster n or class, the names of the members of Team OK2DRIVE, and a labeled diagram of our quad stand.

Marketing Communications

Without effective promotion, few goods and services van survive in the marketplace, no matter how well developed, priced, or distributed the product is. This is why communication by marketers that informs, persuades, ad reminds potential buyers of a product is so important. This exchange connects the consumers wants and needs and creates value. We want people to talk about the product and create "buzz"! The three purposes of Marketing Communications are:

1. Informing

2. Persuading

3. Connecting

Decoding Messages

During class we took a look at a few different advertisements, discussed them, and tried to decode their message.

NIKE

Smoke 'em: Run faster than the competition

APPLE

Think different: This is a unique product that is either for those who think differently or it is a product will make one think differently.

OLD SPICE AD

If you use this body wash, you will smell like a man. Perhaps this would be the type of ad that primary recency would play into.  A person is shopping at the store and goes to the shampoo/body wash aisle. They see the bottle of Old Spice and quickly remember the weird ad with the horse they had just seen on television before they left, and decide to buy the product. This is a memorable device, especially when the ad uses incongruity, things that are not usually shown together.

AIDA Model

The AIDA Model, or AIDA Concept, stands for attention, interest, desire, and action.  This acronym represents stages of consumer involvement with a promotional message.  The ultimate goal of any promotion is to get someone to buy a  good or service, and this model helps to each that goal.  We will describe each portion using the Old Spice advertisement, mentioned above:

Awareness

This would be the recognition that Old Spice is no making body ash for men, and could be found in advertisements online, in articles, etc.

Interest

Interest in this advertisement, as well as the product, may occur because the viewer finds it cool, weird, or memorable.  These ads can be found in newsletters, social media, blogs like this, and email-campaigns.  I was surprised to learn that E-mail Campaigns are extremely productive in advertising.

Desire

In this case, desire would be both men and women wanting men to smell like a man.  That is, not flowery and fruity, like most fragrances for women are. Ads may include white papers, brochures, and microsites.

Action

Finally, this step is actually buying the product.  The pain point and value motivates you to take action. Forms of marketing communications include case studies, data sheets, and testimonials.

After finishing the final draft of our posters, we continued to work on our Brand Strategy Memo, which is due this Tuesday.  This week we will also finalize our marketing pitch for May 4th.

Week 12

This week was quite busy in Marketing Concepts.  On Tuesday, instead of class, each SMART Project Team met with Professor Spotts individually for about thirty minutes. During this allotted time we discussed IBIS World Data, went over the, answers to one of our surveys, and focused on how we would get all of our work done for Thursday’s joint class with the engineers. I was in charge of collecting the surveys analyzing them, and compiling the data into an excel document.  I was then tow write a 2 page memo discussing the findings of our patron survey. During Thursday’s class, we discussed Consumer Journey Maps and Empathy Maps.  

THE CONSUMER JOURNEY MAP

This tool helps us to identify steps consumers take before, during, and after the painpoint of using our product.  It is extremely useful in that it allows us to find thing to focus on that our team may not have been aware of.

During this process we were able to incorporate in some of our survey-based data.

BEFORE

• 35% of our survey participants drink 5 to 8 times a month
• 36% of our survey participants use a designated drive
• 19.8% of our target demographic go to night club and bars

DURING

• 4.3% of our target demographic do not want the responsibility of driving, they want to be told what to do
• 9.4% of our target demographic strongly agree with often drinking at restaurants
• 3.8% of our target demographic believe that the point of drinking is to get drunk

AFTER

• 100% of our participants believe that there are no positive impacts of drinking and driving
• 70% of our participants indicated that getting home safely was their top priority
• 7.3% of people in our target geographies enjoy taking risks
• 11.7% enjoy doing things in the spur of the moment

These last two things may indicate behavior that can transfer into drinking and driving. Those who do things in the spur of the moment and take risk might make reckless, quick decisions without thought.

EMPATHY MAPS

Empathy Maps combine emotions, thoughts, beliefs, behavior’s and quotes or key words surveys into one chart.  Our chart combined words like “drunk” and “hassle”, as well as many of the statistics mentioned above.

Next, we quickly touched on Value Propositions. These start with a headline, which a short statement about the end- benefit of your offer.  The point of this is to grab the attention of the potential consumer.  A two to three sentence explanation of what we offer and why it is useful comes next, including 3 bullet points listing the key benefits of the product. These should include a visual showing the product. Our headline is, Stop Drinking and Driving, Drive Sober and Safe , Made Easy. Value Propositions are, as their name suggest, a promise of value to be delivered.  It is the primary reason a prospect should buy from you. We should be asking ourselves, Why are we relevant? What is our quantified value? Why are we uniquely different? These questions will tell our customers why they should choose us over our competition, and what value we will deliver.

Right now, each group is focused on making a poster regarding our SMART Projects which will be on display on May 4th when each group pitches their projects.  Each group is also to solidify and memorize our Headline, which will be important when explain our product on May 4th.

SURVEY FINDINGS

The Ok To Drive Team survey consisted of 24 questions, mostly geared toward determining the likelihood of use, potential problems, and safety prerogatives of our product.  The answers to these questions regarding our breathalyzer activated lockers varied, but seemed to follow patterns as well. To accurately analyze each open-ended question, the answer to each question was categorized into topics.  Some categories consisted, simply, of “yes” and “no”, while others contained up to nine possible outcomes.  Because the answers to some questions were so varied(especially regarding foreseen issues and emotions pertaining to the product), some assuming on my part had to be done.

Some important findings from our surveys include:

• 35 % of our participants would be agitated by our product if it was to be implemented in a bar:
• These people would walk to other bars(probably the competition) to avoid the hassle and wait
• 60% would feel safe in their community if this product was implemented
• 80% believe that it would prevent/diminish Drinking and Driving in their community
• 28.6% prefer drinking at home
• 22.3% like entertaining in their home
• 60% would not rent our product for house parties or graduation parties
  

Week 11

This week, we focused on Distribution Channels, while discussing supply chains, as well as different types of products. 


Fresh Patch


We began class by discussing Fresh Patch in terms of a Specialty Item.  Barbara and Mark want to turn Andrew Feld's product into a product sold in retail.  As a specialty product, we can expect that Fresh Patch will be sold in pet supply stores like Petco and PetSmart, as well as Home Improvement stores like Home Depot and Lowes.

Distributional Channels and Supply Chains

Supply Channels details where the product comes.  This includes receiving from raw materials and manufacturing the actual product. Distribution Channels, on the other hand, are a set of interdependent organizations that ease the transfer of ownership as products move from producer to business user or consumer.  As businesses expand and become larger, the distribution channel becomes more complex. Every time part of this channel handles a product, it costs the business money.  These intermediaries that the product goes through until it reaches the product cost money, but if dealt with efficiently, can drive down costs of the business.  Someone has to do jobs like transport and receiving products, but Distribution Channels are places where a business can generate a lot of savings.  However, costs can only be driven down if and only if the business is efficient in doing so.

Three fundamental functions of a Distribution Channel:

1. Logistical
Logistics is how businesses transport their products, either to other businesses,

or to retailers and customers.  Examples of logistical operations include UPS, Amazon, FedEx, and Wal-Mart. Amazon, for example, is a platform for small businesses and other people to deliver their products to customers.  They may use Amazon because it is well-known, trusted, and easier to get their product out there than if they were to put it up on their personal website.

2. Facilitating
Facilitating involves making efficient relationships with channel members.  Channel members are those in the marketing channel who negotiate with each other, buy and sell products, and facilitate the change of ownership between buyer and seller in the course of moving the product from the manufacturer into the hands of the final consumer. Agents and brokers facilitate the sales of products downstream by representing the interests of wholesalers, manufacturers, and retailers to potential customers.


3. Transactional
Activities involving transactions involve banking responsibilities. This includes actions like using a company credit card or obtaining a loan.



Distribution Intensity and Product Type(Review of classifying products)
Different product types have different distribution types.

Twinkies: Twinkies are a convenience product, as they are available most anywhere and identify with routine response behavior.  Their distribution type is intensive, because Twinkies are made to be available almost everywhere, including gas stations, vending machines, and grocery stores.

Suits/Televisions: Suits and televisions are shopping products.  When you are buying these products, you often compare the prices between similar brands.  There are different options, and you can accept their substitutes, but they are usually somewhat expensive. These are selective products.  they are available in different stores, like department stores, but are not as readily available as Twinkies are.


Rolex Watch/Jaguar Car: These are specialty products as they are in a narrow market and have few substitutes.  These might be found at a specialty jeweler and a luxury car dealership, not at a Macy's and mom and pop car dealer.

Week 10

This week, we focused on a Shark Tank product called Fresh Patch. We applied this product to a multitude of new and review terms including income statements, pricing objectives, discounts, and distribution channels 

Fresh Patch
Andrew Feld created this rectangular patch of real grass, that is produced in Ventura, California.  He wanted his dog to be able to have a place to use the bathroom in his condo.  By having this patch of grass on the patio of condo, he would not have to walk his dog outside every time it needed to use the bathroom.

Type of Product

Because this product is so unique, it would be considered a specialty product.  Those who seek buying Fresh Patch will mot likely not seek out or accept a substitute for this product.


Target Market

By analyzing cities across the country and the price of the product we were able to assume the target market. Fresh Patch is intended for higher income pet owners who live in cities.  These people are most likely busy and do not have much time to devote to their pet, but feel guilty for this.  These urban dwellers have an emotional attachment to their pets.

Competition

Competition for this product would be pee pads and synthetic grasses of sorts.  The advantage that Fresh Patch has over these products is that it is real grass, and can be used more than once.  Not only this, but it also decomposes the elements naturally and without smell for at least about two weeks.  Pee pads begin to smell very quickly and are not as easy on the eyes as Fresh Patch is.  Dogs and other pets who are already trained to go to the bathroom on grass outside would better understand and would more easily go on the grass patches.

Pricing Objective

Because Fresh Patch is a specialty product and there are no direct substitutes for it, I would suggest a Profit Pricing Objective. The goal of this type of pricing objective is to maximize the gross margin and net profit, while the Sales Pricing Objective tries to maximize revenue and the Status Quo Pricing Objective prices to compete.  In our case, the produce would be inelastic, as it is price insensitive.  Because the subscription users are mostly of higher income, they would most likely not stop buying the product if the price went up, to say $30.


Income Statement

When analyzing Andrew Feld's income statement, we found that Subscribers make up a significant amount of his net income, and account to a large majority of his money.  Although, only 25% of his customers are subscription users. So how can we increase this percentage?? By using a seasonal discount, they could lower the price during the off season(in this case, it would be during the summer, when owners are more likely to take their pets outside because of the warm weather, especially in the north east where winter weather is more prevalent).  They could also create a discount for a longer subscription period, or make it so that the longer subscription they purchase, the cheaper the price of it would be.

"Accelerate Growth"

Mark Cuban wanted to accelerate Fresh patch's growth.  By this, he means getting past the intro stage of the Product Life Cycle, and into the growth stage.  This entails getting past the innovators and the early adapters on the Diffusion of Innovation Chart.  Getting beyond this chasm is extremely important in maximizing both sales and profits.


Elements of Value Pyramid

This product can be seen as "feel good" product.  For a pet owner to buy it, they need to feel guilty for not giving their animal the attention that they deserve.  The owner will buy this to make themselves feel as if they are treating their pet.  This hits the EMOTION sector of the Elements of Value Pyramid.