Reflection: Week 15

It is hard to believe that the last week of the semester has already approached. It feels like not long ago we were brainstorming bugs/ pain-points that would turn into our SMART projects. This week we did not cover any new material. Rather, we spent class time reviewing all we have learned this semester and preparing for the engineering exposition that took place on Thursday.

Tuesday:

Tuesday we were given the 4Ps assessment. The 4Ps assessment is meant to capture everything we have learned this semester. It is a one page case that details the current situation of a business. It is our job to state how the 4Ps relate to the given case and give suggestions as to how the business can improve their marketing campaign. In brief summary, here is what we have learned about the 4Ps throughout the semester: 

In addition to learning about the 4Ps, we also talked about the consumers, competition, and performance. These are all things we considered each time we watched a Shark Tank episode throughout the semester. They include things like: 

 

At the end of class on Tuesday, we were tasked with designing a mind map that reflects the entire semester. This map should include all course concepts discussed, all elements of the smart project, and the Shark Plan that we completed independently. This mind map was very challenging to create. Not only were we restricted to a particular sized paper, but we have learned so much throughout the semester that it was hard to prioritize what concepts should go into the mind map.

Wednesday:

Wednesday our group met to practice the pitch and finalize our ThermoWheel! 

Thursday: SHOW TIME!

Thursday we did not have class. Instead, we participated in the engineering exposition that took place in the HLC from 9:30 am to 11:30 am.The exposition was a rewarding experience because we were able to talk to the judges confidently about our product, which we spent all semester studying. Once the nerves of giving the pitch to various judges faded, our team had a lot of fun. We were able to answer more questions than we thought and impressed a lot of people with our knowledge of the market and technology. It was nice to see how our classmates' products turned out and how they delivered their pitch. Here is a picture of our set-up at the expo: 

In closing, this semester has taught me a lot. I have learned more marketing concepts than I thought was possible. Overall, I feel like a more well-rounded business student because of the concepts I have learned in this class. I am excited to see what I can accomplish with this newly found knowledge. Additionally, the SMART project has taught me how to work with people that think differently than I do. Engineers are technical, narrow-minded people and trying to get them to look at concepts in a broad scope was very difficult. I feel that this project has prepared me to work with different people in the future. Overall, thank you for a great semester, Dr. Spotts!

Reflection: Week 14

This week’s blog entry is going to be different than the past couple of weeks. This week was very centered around the SMART project and less centered around learning marketing concepts. There are, however, several marketing concepts that relate to what we accomplished this week.

Sunday:

ThermoWheel is an explorer

Sunday evening, we conducted a team meeting to revise the brand strategy memo, start the pitch, and continue working on designing the product. Our marketing consultant, Sam Heffer, attended the meeting. First, we revised the brand strategy memo. Sam greatly aided us in making the necessary revisions. She taught us that it will be more effective for our brand to embody one or two brand archetypes rather than three or four. Embodying two brand archetypes will allow for our brand to have a stronger personality that will become more identifiable over time. Sam also helped us revise the “promises” section of the memo. Sam suggested that we add something a satisfaction guarantee in our promise. We noted all of Sam’s suggestions and took time to implement them.

ThermoWheel is also a rebel

Additionally, Sam was very helpful in designing the pitch. She helped us figure out how to establish our credibility and introduce our product. Sam suggested that we include our value proposition in the pitch—or something close to it. Including our value proposition will help us stay consistent in the features and benefits we highlight. We tried to think of a creative way to engage our potential investors such as asking them what the first thing is that they do when they get in their car in the winter. We were unable to make a creative statement like this flow, however. Instead, we decided to talk about our brand using language that aligns with the brand archetypes we established. We plan to end our pitch by asking our investor if they are ready to join the revolution ThermoWheel is leading.

Tuesday:

The business students met with Dr. Spotts on Tuesday during scheduled meeting times instead of having a traditional class period. During our meeting with Dr. Spotts we went over the brand strategy memo. In discussing the brand strategy memo, we realized that we made several errors. Our team did not include a buyer persona or positioning statement. Aside from those errors. Dr. Spotts approved of our brand essence and brand voice. Dr. Spotts also liked the promises we created for our brand.

After going over the brand strategy memo, Dr. Spotts discussed some upcoming assignments we would need to complete before the engineering exposition, which is next Thursday. One of those assignments is a fact sheet. Another one of those assignments is creating business cards for every team member to give out during the engineering exposition. Our team is planning to discuss how we want the fact sheet and business cards to look.

Once the meeting with Dr. Spotts concluded, we headed over to the library and made the necessary revisions to both our brand strategy memo and customer discovery memo. We feel that we are now in a good position to earn full credit for both of these memos at the end of the semester!

Wednesday:

PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE! Wednesday I carved out some time to practice rehearsing our pitch and value proposition.

Thursday:

The pitch is how we will attract potential investors!

Thursday’s class was a joint class period with the business students and engineers. We were given time during class to work on and practice our pitch. We were also tasked with learning the engineering side of our project. It is important to know the technical aspect of our product so we can talk about it at the exposition. When listening to and learning from the engineers, I noticed that it is hard for them to put technical terms in laymen’s terms. Our engineers were particularly frustrated with the fact that the business students did not know how a circuit worked.

Thursday night we had a team meeting to further prepare for the engineering exposition taking place next Thursday. During the team meeting, we worked on the fact sheet, practiced the pitch, and the engineers took time working on finishing the product. With a little more practice on the pitch, we will be ready to go for the expo!

Shark Plan:

My SharkPlan is about a product named GreenBox

I have been working on the Shark Plan assignment since Spring Break. It is hard to believe that the end of the semester is here and it is almost time to turn the assignment in. This week, I focused on completing the target market strategy section of the assignment. I am glad that I waited to complete this section because the research I have conducted along the way has greatly helped me answer the required sections.

Reflection: Week 13

Tuesday:

Marketers can communicate through many different channels

We began Tuesday’s class by recalling what we know about the marketing communication process. A few weeks ago, we analyzed a Burger King advertisement and identified the sender/encoder, signal, decoder/receiver, and noise. Then, Dr. Spotts showed us a series of advertisements and asked us to decode the message. We were able to decode the message for a company like Apple, but we were unable to decode a series of advertisements for Silk Cut, a British cigarette company. The reason we were unable to decode the messages of those advertisements is because we did not share a field of experience with the encoder. Ultimately, the encoder/sender and the decoder/receiver must share a field of experience in order for the message of the advertisement to be understood.

We then switched gears and watched a commercial for Old Spice body wash. The commercial used incongruity, which is seeing things that should not be seen together, to grab the viewer’s attention. The commercial featured three main scenes: (1) a bathroom/shower (2) a boat, which is a testament to Old Spice’s history and (3) a horse on the beach. The man on a horse at the end of the commercial is an example of a tactic known as recency. People will remember the man on the horse because it is the last thing they saw related to the product. Old Spice uses this tactic in the hopes that when a customer is walking down the hygiene product isle at a store, the customer will try the produce because they recognize it. If you are interested in viewing the video, I have provided it below: 

In thinking about who the commercial is trying to reach, it is obvious that Old Spice is trying to appeal to women. Old Spice is playing off the stereotype that women do the household shopping. Old Spice tried to gain the interest of women by emphasizing that “their man will feel like a man” when they use Old Spice. The commercial also makes several comments that are directed towards women. For example, the man in the commercial makes mention of the tickets to “that thing you really want to go to”. Then, the tickets turn to diamonds, stereotypically a girl’s best friend.

After concluding our discussion about the Old Spice commercial, we transitioned into a discussion about the three main purposes of marketing communication. The three main purposes are:

Informing

Persuading

Connecting

We achieve these marketing communication goals through tools that deliver messages to our target market. Those tools are known as the Promotional Mix. The Promotional Mix includes public relations, personal selling, direct sales, advertising, branding, and many other tools.

The four P's of marketing are product, place, price, and PROMOTION

In introducing these tools, we distinguished between advertising and publicity. Advertising is promotion of a product or service created internally. Advertising is always positive because it is created by the company, for the company. Publicity is, classically, media coverage such as the news and magazines. Publicity is outside an advertiser’s control. Because of that, it can be positive or negative. Public Relations can be thought of as the balance between advertising and publicity. Public Relations are managed internally in a company and try to respond to negative publicity.

The final concept we discussed in class is the AIDA Model, which aids an organization in achieving their promotional goals. The steps of the AIDA model are (1) awareness (2) interest (3) desire and finally (4) action. It is important to think about how the AIDA model impacts our SMART project because we are introducing a new product to the market place. If we are unable to gain interest in the product, how will it ever succeed?

Thursday:

Thursday morning before class, the business students in my SMART project group met to work on the Brand Strategy Memo due next Tuesday. We also plan to meet with our marketing consultant over the weekend so that she can provide us with feedback. 

Thursday’s class was a workshop. We were given autonomy to work on our projects as we saw fit. We did, however, have to make sure that the poster was complete by the end of the class period. After playing around with the color scheme and format, we have finally finished our poster!

Looking Forward:

We have a lot of work to do on the SMART project and only two weeks before the engineering expo takes place! As mentioned, the business students are going to be working on finishing up the Brand Strategy Memo with the help of our marketing consultant. The engineers are going to finish assembling the product. Together, we are all going to come up with a 60-90 second pitch and practice, practice, practice!

Reflection: Week 12

Tuesday:

Tuesday morning my SMART project group met with Dr. Spotts in replace of a regular class period. During the meeting with Dr. Spotts, my group discussed insights we gathered from our customer discovery surveys. Some of the important insights we gathered include:

• Our target customer is someone who drives at least 3-5 times per week and for 20-40 minutes at a time

• Our target customer is someone who does not wear gloves when driving because they do not like to wear gloves.

• A cold steering wheel bothers our target customer, but they find it a mere nuisance rather than extremely bothersome.

• Our target customer is willing to pay between $25-$50.

Dr. Spotts also helped us define what type of product our steering wheel cover is. ThermoWheel is a convenience product. It enhances the driving experience. ThermoWheel is comparable to the heated seat feature in newer cars. People do not think they need heated seats. But, once people use heated seats they become a necessity. ThermoWheel, like heated seats, is a product that serves no functionality. Rather, ThermoWheel has an emotional aspect. It makes people comfortable while driving in the cold weather. Ultimately, distinguishing what type of product we are designing will help our group create a thorough poster for the engineering exposition.

ThermoWheel is considered an aftermarket part

After our meeting with Dr. Spotts, my group spent time in the library completing the remaining parts of our customer discovery memo. Using IBIs world, we learned that ThermoWheel is part of an industry known as the auto parts accessory manufacturing industry. Overall, this industry is highly competitive and earns low profit margins because of the number of substitutes available for different car accessories. The good news for ThermoWheel, however, is that there are no direct substitutes for the product unless the consumer wants to pay the car manufacturer to install a heated steering wheel—which we think most people are not willing to pay for.

Wednesday:

This was an important topic discussed in the videos posted on Kodiak!

Wednesday I carved some time out of my day to watch the market sizing vides Dr. Spotts posted on Kodiak. Some of the concepts introduced have been briefly mentioned during class or in the textbook throughout the semester. Here are some of the concepts I found the most interesting:

Top-Down Methodology: This is a way to determine your market size that starts with using secondary research. When analyzing secondary research, you are not looking for data that exactly answers your research question. Chances are, your exact research question has yet to be studied. After gathering assumptions and statistics from secondary data, you can begin to look at other credible research such as industry reports and government websites. After that, you can determine a rough estimate of your market size. This is the method we are using to determine the market size for our SMART products and our Shark Plan products.

• You should always check the statistics you find in secondary research with someone else

•  A shortcoming of this method is that it tends to lean towards high estimates of your market size.

Bottom-Up Methodology: This is a way to determine your market size using primary research. There are three primary steps to this method.

1.    Roll-up market participant sales—this may be hard to do as it can be difficult to find product sales data and there is usually a lot of it

2.    Conduct a weighted analysis of industry leaders

3.    Develop a customer survey

Overall, this method will lead to a more accurate estimate of your market size. This method, however, can be very costly as it requires primary research to be conducted.

Thursday:

Thursday was our first joint class with the engineering students in nearly two months. While we have been away from each other, the engineers have been working hard on ordering the parts to build our ThermoWheel and learning how to actually put it together. Meanwhile, the business students have been concentrated on the customer discovery process. The business students were tasked with becoming experts on our customers, which is something we feel we have achieved!

In class, the business students were able to explain the customer discovery memo to the engineers and discuss the insights our secondary and primary research provided us with. After discussion the insights, we created an empathy map that detailed our target customers’ thoughts and feelings. During class, we also completed a customer journey diagram. The customer journey diagram walks through each step of the pain-point that our customer faces without using ThermoWheel. It is our job, when pitching the product at the end of the semester, to state how our product enhances the customer journey.

There is still a lot of group work to be done!

Another important topic we discussed during Thursday’s class is the value proposition. The value proposition is a statement that explains how your product solves customer pain-points or improves their situation. In the value proposition statement, it is important to explain the specific benefits your product offers. Ultimately, your value proposition should convince your target market to buy your product instead of your competitors. Here is an idea our SMART project group generated for a value proposition:

            "Conquer the Cold! Every ThermoWheel is guaranteed to enhance your driving      experience in under 3 minutes! ThermoWheels are manufactured with a high resistance nichrome wire, ensuring heat is evenly distributed throughout your wheel. ThermoWheel comes with a non-slip grip cover to help you stay on top of your driving game while providing the utmost comfort"