Final Reflection

Hello Followers,

Today is a sad day! This will be my last post about Marketing.

I want to wrap up my blogs with some recap on what was learned and how to apply these concepts to the real world.

I am going to focus on 5 main concepts in this final blog.

1. Practice Simulation
2. Marketing Blogs
3. Ted Talks / Ads
4. Teaching moments in class
5. Monday morning quizzes

First off:

Practice Simulation. This assignment was one of the better learning activities I have done in school. Applying the concepts learned in this project to the real world will help me to succeed extremely. It is not often that you get a trial and error practice like this with a product in order to figure out what works and what does not. This learning experience with this project helped bring my awareness outside of the class, to a bigger picture of the real world and what it is like to succeed and fail with designing and positioning a new product on a market. The course had all sorts of connections to what was going on in the game which was also a very helpful tool to use. There was not one moment when I felt lost in the game and not knowing what to do because of the lessons/ chapters gone over in class. Also, when we needed to make a commercial for this project, I became more aware of technology and how to do such things so if in the real world I was ever in charge of something like this, I would know what I was doing.

Second:

This blog! Well, not only can I use this blog on my resume, I can send it out to companies for jobs that I am applying to if I am looking to be their marketing manager. This blog was a great tool to practice marketing and designing, in your own personal way. It shows a creative side to me that I am unable to put on a resume which is why it is an extremely important assignment to have in a marketing class.

Third:

Ted talks! Oh don't we all just love to present! Learning to present to a class for a certain amount of time with no notes is an extremely difficult thing to do, but what do you think you have to do when you get to the real world? This lesson learned was extremely useful, and might have been the most useful thing a class could offer! Presenting in front of the class and dressing up nicely really helped prepare me for future events like this. Television Ads were another form or presenting in class which was another great lesson learned! The concepts it taught me while speaking to my classmates were incredible. Having to present more than one Ad, gave me practice to get better and better at public speaking. It was also a great thing to do because it showed a more creative side to people and humorous side to see what everyone picked.

Fourth:

Teachable moments were an extremely important concept in this marketing class. Sometimes you cannot just teach black and white out of a textbook and that is surely not what we did in this class! There were great teachable moments that had to do with marketing news of the week and more. These interesting facts and videos that Professor Nelson shared with the class were concepts that I will carry with me for the rest of my career because they were actually real life examples.

Fifth:

Last but not least. A lesson learned in this class was to come prepared! Especially every monday for our chapter quiz! This prepared us for the week and the topics we would be covering which helped us participate more in the conversations so that we would learn more. Having these quizzes did not only help us prepare for class but it made us gain knowledge to help during the simulation, or even just in our every day lives. Learning about pricing for example made it easier to understand why certain things were priced the way they were while shopping. These quizzes filled us up with unforgettable knowledge each week!

OVERALL: 
This was an extremely enjoyable class and it is hard to see it end! It's just like the product life cycle, were coming up on the decline stage unfortunately.

Well, I hope that this blog was helpful and I hope you all learned as many lessons as I did!

Farewell for now,
Natalia.


Works Cited for entire Blog:

Kerin, Roger A., and Steven William Hartley. Marketing. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print.

Simulation

Hi followers! 

       I hope everyone is doing well today. 

I want to talk about an assignment that my marketing class has been doing all year. It is called practice marketing.  Practice marketing is a group project where we are placed with at least 3 other team members and have to design a backpack! This assignment has different decisions that we need to make every week about our backpack, whether it is changing the design, the positioning, the price, and well to simplify it up, the 4 Ps. You should all know what the 4 Ps are because I explained them to you in one of my first posts! 

My team is called: 

BADA-BING BADA-BOOM BACKPACKS 

We thought of our name on our first team meeting and it just popped into our heads! So far we are not doing too hot with our sales but its a work in progress. We are hoping to succeed more by the last turn we have to edit our backpack and marketing. 

I really enjoy this assignment because we get to design a product and see how it would succeed (if it does) in the real world! This whole assignment is done online on a website that each team has access to. 

It is interesting that we are able to see what our other competition is doing and what we need to do to keep up with them. 

Another exciting thing we had to do was make a commercial for our backpack. My team and I went to Walmart and filmed us as a team trying to promote our backpack! After we filmed we edited our commercial and then presented it in front of the class! 

I have to admit that every other team had a way better commercial than my team, but we tried very hard and had limited props! 

Overall, I really enjoy this simulation project and I am looking forward to seeing how we end up doing in the race to have the most successful backpack!

Have a good night,

Natalia! 

AMA

Hello readers!

How many of you have heard of AMA, American Marketing Association? Well for those of you who haven't, it's your lucky day because I am going to tell you about it! 

American Marketing Association is one of the largest marketing associations in the world according to their website. State below is their mission: 

"The American Marketing Association is a professional association for individuals and organizations leading the practice, teaching and development of marketing knowledge worldwide.

Our principle role is to serve as a forum to connect like-minded individuals and foster knowledge sharing, provide resources, tools and training and support marketing practice and thought leadership around the globe." 

The AMA has 6 ethical values 

1. 1. Honesty 2. Responsibility 3. Fairness  4. Respect  5. Transparency 6. Citizenship 

They have their own definition of marketing which is: 
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. 
(Approved July 2013)

This website has been very informational and helpful with getting a better understanding about marketing! They have great things to offer and many articles about marketing that are awesome to read! 

I highly suggest you all go check out the website and let me know what you think!! 

https://www.ama.org

Have a great night!

Natalia 

About AMA." About. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2014.

Product Life Cycle

Good afternoon readers! 

Were you aware that all products have a life cycle? Well if you were good for you, but I wasn't! For those of you out there that also were not aware of this, I am going to inform you a little bit about it. 

There are 4 stages to a products lifestyle, they are: 

                                                              1. Introduction 

                                                                 2. Growth

                                                                3. Maturity

                                                                4. Decline 

                                     Introduction Stage 

• This stage occurs when a product is introduced to its intended target market. During this period sales grow slowly and profit is minimal. The lack of profit is often a result of large investment costs in product development.
•  Advertising and promotion in the introduction stage are often made to stimulate primary demand, the desire for the product class rather than for a specific brand.

                                        Growth Stage 

• This stage is characterized by rapid increase in sales; it is in this stage that competitors appear. The result of more competitors and more aggressive pricing is that profit usually peaks during the growth stage.
•  Also during this stage the product is changed around a lot to find what the best fit is for it. 

                                       Maturity Stage 

• This stage is characterized by a slowing of total industry sales or product class revenue; also marginal competitors begin to leave the market. Most consumers who would buy the product are either repeat purchases or the item or have tried and abandoned it. 
•  During the maturity stage, profit declines due to fierce price competition among many sellers and the cost of gaining new buyers at this stage rises

                                        Decline Stage 

• This stage occurs when sales drop; a product enters this stage not because of any wrong strategy on the part of companies but because the environment changes.
• There are two strategies that people can follow when their product is in the decline stage. These two strategies are: 
•    Deletion: Product deletion or dropping the product from the company’s product line is the most drastic strategy.
•    Harvesting: is when a a company retains the product but reduced marketing costs. The product continues to be offered but salespeople do not allocate time in selling nor are advertising dollars spent. The purpose is to maintain the ability to meet customer requests. 

   The next thing I am going to show you are the 4 aspects of this Life Cycle!  

1. Length of the Product Life Cycle 

·       There is no set time that it takes a product to move through its life cycle.

·       As a rule consumer products have shorter life cycles than business products

2. Shape of the Product Life Style

·            ·     There are several life cycle curves each type suggesting different marketing strategies.

·                     ·      The four different types are: high learning, low learning, and fashion and fad products.

•  High Learning:  one for which significant customers education is required and there is an extended introductory period.
• Low Learning: begin immediately because little learning is required by the consumer and the benefits of purchase are readily understood. Can be easily imitated by competitors so the marketing strategy is to broaden distribution quickly


• Fashion:  is a style of the time. life cycles for fashion products  frequently appear in women’s and men’s apparel .fashion products are introduced decline and then seem to return. The life of the cycles may be months, years or decades
• Fad Products: experiences rapid sales on introduction and then an equally rapid decline. These products are typically novelties and have a short life cycle         

3. The Product Level: Class and Form

           ·     A product is often important to distinguish among multiple life cycles that may exist.

• Class:  refers to the entire product category or industry such as prerecorded music
• Form: pertains to variations within the product class. for prerecorded music, product form exists in the technology used to provide the music such as cassette tapes, compact discs.

4. The life Cycle and Consumers 

          ·   The life cycle of a product depends on sales to the consumers.  Not all consumers go out and buy the product right off.

·                  ·   Several factors affect whether a consumer will adopt a new product or not. Common reasons for resisting a product in the introduction stage are

•        Usage Barriers: the product is not compatible with existing habits
•           Value Barriers: the product provides no incentive to change 
•        Risk Barriers: physical, economic or social
•       Psychological Barriers: cultural differences or images

Looking back to before I knew any of this, I can not believe my knowledge on products when I am shopping now. It is a completely different experience when I go to the store with now knowing why some products are still in, and some are out! 

It is also interesting when you look at Apple products for example. The iPhone 5 and 6 are extremely popular items BUT, the first ever iPhone is no longer even on the market!     iPhone 3            vs.            iPhone 6

                

 

Understanding Organizations as Customers

Hello readers!

    It seems like it has been awhile since the last time I informed you on new marketing information! Well it looks like its your lucky day because I am going to embrace you with some new stuff. 

   Today I will talk about Organizations. I want to start off with a simple term first though which is Business Marketing the marketing of goods and services to companies, governments, or not-for-profit organizations for use in the creation of goods and services that they can produce and market to others. 

   Another term to be associated with is Organizational Buyers which are those manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and government agencies that buy goods and services for their own use or for resale. 

   There are three markets that organizational buyers divide into --> 

            1. Industrial Markets 

            2. Reseller Markets 

            3. Government Markets 

They also all tie into a global scale which is the Global Organizational Market. 

Now, looking at demand characteristics. 

This chart above clearly describes the process with organizational buying and behavior. There is also a whole stage process on the buying decision process which is shown in the chart below. 

Organizational Buying Criteria are the objective attributes of the suppliers products and services and the capabilities of the supplier itself. There are 7 common criteria's used which are: 

1. Price.

2. Ability to meet the quality specifications required for the item.

3. Ability to meet required delivery schedule. 

4. Technical capability. 

5. Warranties and claim policies in the event of poor performance. 

6. Past performance on previous contracts.

7. Production facilities and capacity.

Its all about the customers with marketing! Being able to depict what is going to catch someones eye and interest is the most important thing in marketing. It is what sells your product!  

Understanding Consumer Behavior

Hi everyone! 

Im back to talk more about marketing :) 

Chapter five is all about consumer behavior. This is extremely important in marketing because when you understand how consumers go about buying products, you can adjust your marketing to catch their eye and attention, which will help your product succeed. 

Consumer Behavior is the actions a person takes in purchasing and using products and services, including the mental and social processes that come before and after these actions. 

There is a Purchase Decision Process which consists of 5 stages: 

The (1) Problem Recognition: Perceiving a Need  is the initial step in the purchase decision. It is perceiving a difference between a person's ideal and actual situations big enough to trigger a 
decision. 
(2)Information search: Seeking Value After recognizing the problem a consumer begins to search for information the next stage in the purchase decision process. The action is called INTERNAL SEARCH. 

EXTERNAL SEARHC FOR INFORMATION; needed when past experience or knowledge is insufficient the risk of making a wrong purchase decisions is high and cost of gathering information is low.

(3) Alternative Evaluation: Assessing Value the information search stage clarifies the problem for the consumer by (1) suggesting criteria to use for the purchase (2) yielding brand names that might meet the criteria (3) developing consumer value perceptions.

-  These factors are the consumers EVALUATIVE CRITERIA which represent both the objective attributes of a brand (a display) and the subjective ones (prestige) you use to compare different products and brands.
- These criteria establish the brands in your CONSIDERATION SET the group of brands that you would consider from among all brands of which you are aware in the product class.

(4) Purchase Decision: Buying Process two choices remain (1) from whom to buy and (2) when to buy.
(5) Post Purchase Behavior: Value in Consumption or Use  After buying a product the consumer compares it with his or her expectations and is either satisfied or dissatisfied. If dissatisfied marketers must determine whether the product was deficient or consumer expectations were too high.

Now, I will tell you about the consumer involvement and Problem- Solving variations! 

 EXTENDED PROBLEM SOLVING: each of the five stages of the consumer purchase decision process is used and considerable time and effort are devoted to search for external information and identification and evaluation of alternatives.  Exists in high involvement purchase situations for items such as cars
 LIMITED PROBLEM SOLVING: seek information or rely on a friend to help them evaluate alternatives. May be used in choosing a toaster restaurant for lunch etc.
 ROUTINE PROBLEM SOLVING: for products such as table salt and milk, consumers recognize a problem, make a decision and spend a little effort seeking external information and evaluating alternatives

Looking more into the consumer as a person, the chapter discusses MOTIVATION, PERSONALITY, and PERCEPTION 

Motivation: is the energizing force that stimulates behavior to satisfy a need. 

- - knowing the motivation of a buyer is very important because the needs of a buyer are the main focus of the producer. 

      Personality: refers to a persons consistent behaviors or responses to recurring situations 

  - Knowing the personality of consumers is also extremely important because then you can adapt the way you market products, in a way which you know the consumer will buy them. 

      Perception: the process by which an individual selects organizes and interprets information to create a meaningful picture of the world.

-  - There are different subfields under perception which are: 

·      SELECTIVE EXPOSURE: occurs when people pay attention to messages that are consistent with their attitudes and beliefs and ignore messages that are inconsistent.

·      SELECTIVE COMPREHENSION: involves interpreting information so that it is consistent with your attitudes and beliefs

·      SELECTIVE RETENTION: The consumer does not remember all the information they see, read, or hear, even minutes after exposure to it.

·      SUBLIMINAL PERCEPTION: means that you see or hear messages without being aware of them.

    

     Another term to be aware of is Perceived Risk: represents the anxiety felt because the consumer cannot anticipate the outcome of a purchase but believes there may be negative consequences. Companies develop strategies to reduce the consumers perceived risk and encourage purchases

    

   Learning and Behavioral Learning comes into play later in the chapter so I will not enlighten you on this section! 

  Learning: refers to those behaviors that result (1) repeated experience and (2) reasoning,

Much of consumer behavior is learned. Consumers learn which information sources to consult for information about products and services  

Behavioral Learning: the process of developing automatic responses to a situation built up through repeated exposure to it.

            

-Four variables are central to how consumers learn from repeated experience: 

·      Drive: a need that moves an individual to action

·      Cue: a stimulus or symbol perceived by consumers,

·      Response: the action taken by a consumer to satisfy the drive

·      Reinforcement: the reward

  Well, that should give you a good idea and the low down on understanding a big amount of consumer behavior. I hope everyone enjoyed my lesson today and I am looking forward to writing to you all later on! 

  Until next time! 

Natalia