Week Nine Reflection

This past week in HONB 200-02, the class primarily focused on the SMARTProjects and the ways in which we can approach marketing and selling the resulting products. On Tuesday, each team met privately with Professor Spotts to thoroughly review and discuss the survey questions for our projects. Upon receiving feedback, our group was able to successfully finalize our questions and we plan on asking them soon to potential businesses that could carry our product. Additionally, we were given advice in terms of places we could go to implement our surveys in the hopes of obtaining the most accurate results. Such places included Sears and other related mattress stores in the general Springfield area that we can easily approach salesmen in. The results of this should help our group be able to specially customize our BedBug product so that it can be a viable option for future potential customers to enjoy.

On Thursday, the class was divided up into our respective project teams and each student in the teams took turns picking questions out of a hat to go over as a group and devise answers for. Each question was based off of the textbook's chapter 19, Pricing Concepts. This exercise was important to each of the teams as it allowed us to begin generating ideas on how we plan to market and sell our product. Such ideas involved determining the selling price of our product, the pricing strategy that we will choose to use, as well as various other ways in which we can increase the sales of it, i.e. discounts, rebates, etc. When considering these questions, my BedBug group unanimously decided that it would be wise to implement a bundling process when selling the product. Such a process could include bundling it with other related bed accessories, such as bedsheets, mattress toppers, pillow cases, and other similar bed items.

 There would additionally be both a seasonal discount and rebate system in place to encourage greater sales, especially at times when there may not be as large of an amount of sales as in other times of the year. One question that I found particularly interesting during this class activity was concerning the price sensitivity of our future theoretical product consumers. Considering the fact that our product's target market is predicted to be early risers who struggle to get up in the mornings, such as college students and international businessman traveling between time zones, we decided that our consumer base would be fairly sensitive to price variability. College students would be highly sensitive to the product's price, given their typical lack of monetary funds, whereas businessman would be slightly less sensitive to the price in comparison to college students, yet are still sensitive to it.

Overall, I found the class session to be very effective in terms of gaining a stronger sense of what our future price for the product will be, and what strategies we will use to promote the product's sales. We are excited to begin officially constructing our product, along with its various other related sales aspects.

Week Eight Reflection

This past week in HONB200-02 , the primary center of attention was on the class SMARTProjects. On Tuesday, we had a different class setup compared to all of our previous meetings. This involved each SMARTProject group sitting together at separate tables and one by one meeting individually with Professor Spotts to discuss any new updates on the projects in order to receive feedback. Due to Professor Spotts being my group's marketing consultant, we luckily had already had a meeting with him earlier in the week and thus we had a broad idea of what he was going to ask us concerning our project.

Prior to this class session, my group had created a set of potential survey questions that we would like to ask possible consumers of the BedBug. In this way, we would be able to determine exactly how large or small of a target market the product would have, and thus be able to advertise for it accordingly. Additionally, the creation of this survey would theoretically help to enhance the product so that its consumers would be both willing to purchase it and be fully satisfied with it. We then narrowed down these questions to the most crucial ones and carefully arranged them in a well-thought out order so that the survey would appear to be organized and practical. We also developed a value proposition canvas for the BedBug, which displayed the predicted customer needs, wants, and fears, in relation to the product's benefits, features, and experiences gained from using it. The completion of this has allowed our group to be able to see areas that are in need of improvement, such as the addressing of our customers' fears on the product.     

Upon officially meeting with Professor Spotts during the allotted class time, our group presented him with the newly created survey. As he had helped us originate a majority of the questions on it in our prior meeting, the class meeting was relatively quick in comparison to many of the other groups'. He gave us a few tips of ways in which we can reorganize the order of the survey, as well as a few related questions we could consider adding to it. With the completion of the meetings, we each received binders containing feedback on our progress thus far in the class, given that this week signaled the middle of the term. Overall, I considered the class to be a success in terms of having time in our groups to work both together as teams and with Professor Spotts to further develop the marketing of our products.  

On Thursday, the class setup was returned to the typical style, with the class sitting in their respective groups while as a whole discussing new material unrelated to our specific SMARTProjects. This material was specifically centered around the actual buying of products itself, with two main topics being covered. One of these said topics was the Diffusion of Innovation concept, which describes the average consumer's adoption process of a product. This process begins with Innovators and Early Adopters, both of which are the consumers that are deemed to be the most willing to try new products, despite not knowing what the outcome of the products will be. After these consumer types there is a chasm, which serves as an indicator of whether or not a product will be successful. If a product cannot advance past the chasm, then it is a failed product. However, if it does advance past the chasm, then the next consumers in line are the Early Majority and Late Majority, which serve as the middle ground of a product's customers by being mainstream adopters. The final portion of the diffusion of innovation are the laggards, who are known as being the resisters to try new products. In our SMARTProject groups, we then decided who our consumers that would make up each stage in the theory would be.

The second topic of discussion was the largely regarded Product Life Cycle. There are four known stages in a product's life cycle, all of which culminate to show a growth curve. At the beginning low point of the curve is the Introduction stage, during which there are slow sales of a product and no profit is being made. Next comes the Growth stage, through which there is a rapid growth of sales and profits are beginning to be generated. This is followed by the Maturity stage, which is the highest point of success on the curve that a product can reach. At this stage, sales are steadily increasing at a slower rate, there is a great deal of competition from other products, as well as a lot of promotion of the said product. However, towards the end of the Maturity era, profits may start to fall, leading into the final stage of the life cycle; Decline. At the point during which a product is experiencing its Decline, sales are greatly falling, product advertising slows before coming to a halt, and the production of the product may be stopped completely. 

The class largely discussed the iPhone as an example product to be referenced when learning about these two topics. While some students believe that it's possible that the iPhone could soon be reaching the decline stage in its life cycle, others believe that the product will remain in the maturity stage for the remainder of its existence. I personally think that the iPhone will officially reach its decline stage at the point in time in which smartphones as a whole will cease to exist, if that time ever comes. My reasoning behind this mentality is that due to Apple having built up such a well-regarded legacy, especially concerning their iPhone products, consumers will continue to purchase their products knowing that it's a brand used by the majority of people in this day and age, and one which they can rely on for the most part. 

Week Seven Reflection

This past Tuesday in HONB 200-02, the class was introduced to the Gato Cafe, a concept idea that incorporates the standardized cafe setting with a new feline twist. The Gato Cafe idea, which made its televised appearance while being pitched on Shark Tank, was devised to be a sit-down cafe where people would be able to play with free-roaming cats while enjoying coffee and/or related baked goods. The cafe would theoretically be paired up with a local cat adoption agency, so that the cats being played with would also have the opportunity to potentially be adopted if a person chose to. The concept of Gato Cafe as its own brand, while being only a concept of proof while it was pitched on Shark Tank, is already a reality sprouting up in places across the world. The main ideas behind the combination of cats and coffee is to provide people who enjoy the presence of cats with a sense of therapeutic relaxation and stress relief, which can come from playing with and petting the furry pets. 

 Upon watching this episode, the class was given the challenge of further breaking down and analyzing the concept using the Value Proposition Canvas. This canvas provides its user(s) with an outline of how the product itself can be fulfilling to the customers' wants, needs, and even potential fears. While the left side of the canvas focuses primarily on the product using a square shaped diagram that divides up the benefits, features, and experiences associated with the product, the right side displays a circular diagram in which the customers' wants, needs, and fears are broken down into separate sections. The combination of these two diagrams on one piece of paper is designed to allow the user the chance to make the connections between the two in order to determine whether or not the product does indeed meet the said needs. 

Benefits of the product would include the psychological relieving of stress and other therapeutic factors that the petting of cats can provide, having the ability to adopt one or more cats if one so chose to, as well as having the ability to simply go to the cafe and play with the cats without taking on the responsibilities that full ownership of such a pet would entail. Features of the cafe would include the cost that must to paid to simply enter, the food and beverages sold, and of course the cats that roam the cafe. Experiences created at the cafe can range from a variety of options, such as spending time with cats as well as friends and family, being able to search for a cat to adopt, or even just having a place to go to relieve stress incurred by one's daily lifestyle. 

After identifying these aspects from the consumer perspective, the students then aligned these said product factors with the consumer's wants, needs, and fears to determine that the cafe is proving to be satisfying to its customers, as the business itself would realistically do. Furthering this thought process, the students used the value pyramid concept that was introduced earlier in the semester to decipher between all of the possible values and determine which ones specifically the cafe would appeal to. The class was virtually unanimous in the agreement that the cafe would serve to reduce anxiety, provide therapeutic value, be a fun choice of entertainment, and would have a sensory appeal to its consumers, among other value options. 

On Thursday, the class resumed the Gato Cafe discussion, primarily focusing on the marketing concept of positioning bases, which concern the potential consumer's point of view on the brand and its product line(s). In groups, the class decided which bases we deemed to be especially relevant in terms of the Gato Cafe's typical customer perspective. My group determined that the brand would appeal to its consumer's emotions, and thus positioning it based off of emotion would be essential. Yet we concluded that positioning the brand based on its attributes might be more effective in the eyes of a consumer, as the concept behind the cafe is so unique. We then discussed the business terms concerning brand loyalty, as companies specifically design concept ideas/products in the hopes of gaining customers for substantial periods of time. 

With the newly gained knowledge of how to effectively create and use a Value Proposition Canvas, I'm excited to take on the task of creating the canvas with the BedBug concept in mind. This should allow my group to successfully determine whether or not our potential consumers' needs and wants are fully being met by the product, as well as what exactly the unique benefits of our product are. Upon learning this, our SmartProject group should have the ability to alter the product to fit our consumer needs and specifically market the product so that it's particularly appealing to our target market.