Week Thirteen Reflection

This past week was a very productive time period for the HONB200-02 class, specifically in terms of generating the final materials needed to conclude the SMARTProjects. My group in particular, the creators of the BedBug product, was extremely successful in finishing up the development of both the product itself and its value proposition. But in order to determine how exactly we plan to market our product, the entire HONB class further discussed communication through the form of advertisements, and thus marketing products as a whole, during Tuesday's class session. The class meeting began with Professor Spotts showing the group images that were used in British anti-smoking advertisements. These advertisements use the widely known cigarette brand Silk Cut in order to get their message across concerning the dangers of smoking.

Each advertisement that was shown presented a shockingly different image, however, each shared one aspect in common; this being the incorporation of the color purple, the same color that the Silk Cut logo is known to have. Whether the purple took up the majority of the picture frame, or only represented a small part of the entire ad, the same shade of violet was present in every picture as a negative reference to the cigarette producing company. Such a subtle aspect as this was missed by the students in the class, given that we were all unfamiliar with the brand that the ads were referencing, and thus also the point that they were trying to make. This lack of understanding by the students in the class created a failed communication between the source of the attempt and its recipient. The realization of the said failed communication attempt then led the class into a discussion about the process of communicating through advertisements, which plays a large role in marketing itself.

Through this discussion, the class was taught with use of a diagram that a message is initially created by the source, and in this message there lies an encoder. There is then supposed to be a shared code between the source and recipient, so that both have a common knowledge of what the message is about. With this shared code, there follows a decoder, and then the recipient, who will hopefully understand the meaning behind the message, and who will then be able to provide feedback. This communication process is essential for marketers to understand, so that they have the ability to utilize it properly to advertise for products through ways in which potential consumers/viewers comprehend. Following this, the class watched an Old Spice commercial, through which we witnessed an assortment of related marketing tactics take place.

Given that the commercial is geared towards men looking to buy deodorant, it directly addresses and appeals to women, under the assumption that women are typically the ones shopping for households. The commercial is centered around a man doing "manly" and exciting activities, including showering and using the deodorant in question, sailing, and riding horseback. With these images quickly replacing each other, the company is relying on the concept of incongruity to attract its audiences attention. It additionally incorporates the usage of primary and recency tactics. Primary refers to what the advertisement is primarily focused on, in this case deodorant, while recency is the last image that the audience sees from the ad. The importance of these techniques is that primary heavily emphasizes what the entire ad is all about, and recency leaves the audience with a lasting image of what the purpose of the advertisement, and thus the company itself, is. So, in this case, with Old Spice putting out an erratic commercial, the last image shown of which is highly unusual, the viewers will be more likely to remember the advertisement and the product when they see it actually in stores.

The class then shifted its focus from these advertising tactics to the importance of a promotional mix in the marketing communication process. The three main points of the process are:

• Informing
• Persuading 
• Connecting

These points are established and made with the promotional mix, which makes up one of the four P's in the marketing mix in general. The promotional mix of a company involves the public relations, advertising. and sales promotions that are implemented to generate product sales and profit. Upon establishing this insight, we then moved on to talk about the difference between advertising and publicity. Advertising, as it's run by the business in question, is always positive in order to promote the company and its product(s). Publicity, on the other hand, is generated by outer sources other than the business itself and therefore can be either positive or negative. The potential of there being publicity out of a business's control leads to the need for each company to have a public relations team. The purpose of public relations is to seek to manage the company's publicity so that the public typically sees the positive light in any and all press related to the business.

Finally, Professor Spotts presented the class with the AIDA Model, which consists of four levels:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

The newly acquired knowledge of this model will be extremely useful as we continue developing the marketing surrounding the BedBug product, as it lists the steps necessary to perform in order to draw in our consumer audience, and achieve the final step. This step of action, however, typically refers to the investing in our product, as opposed to the buying of it. When implemented correctly, the AIDA model will help businesses gain consumer interest in their product, and furthermore, lead them to their final purchase, or investment, in it.

With all of this marketing information fresh in our minds, we joined the engineers in class on Thursday and were given the entire class time to work on whatever each group needed to complete. In my group's case, this was the Value Proposition poster and the beginning of our Brand Discovery Memo. Upon receiving some helpful advice from both Professor Spotts and Professor Gettens, we were able to alter our poster to depict exactly what we wanted it to, while retaining its aesthetic appeal. Later that same day, my business partners and myself met with our professor privately to go over what we have developed thus far in the project, as well as receive some feedback on any questions we had concerning the upcoming memo. In conclusion, the BedBug poster has been finalized, and my teammates and myself are highly confident in our positioning for the upcoming few weeks. We look forward to completing our Brand Discovery Memo and begin developing/practicing our product's pitch. Leading up to the exposition, it should be an exciting and busy two weeks!