HONB 200 Reflection

This week in Marketing the concepts revolved around brand imaging and pitches. The first major concept that was worked on this week was brand and brand imaging . This means my group, HydroFit, had to construct a plan for what we want our brand to be and who we want as part of it.  HydroFit plans on having a positive brand image, one that pertains to the health and well being among our users. We intend to motivate our users to pursue an overall healthier lifestyle. Benefits include losing weight, having more energy, and being sick less often. Positioning Statement for my product would be: HydroFit is the most user friendly advanced bottle among all smart bottles on the market because HydroFit reminds the user through smartphone or FitBit vibration, which is more direct and subtle than competitors. The Value Proposition from my product would be: For modern workers in hectic job environments who are too focused on work to remember the last time they drank, HydroFit is a smart bottle...

The first major concept discussed this week was the differences between Strategic and Marketing Plans . Strategic plans are longer term plans that provide a general direction for the business. This means that these plans are more than a year long. It is also very generalized. This planning style also allows the firm to indicate what they want the business to look like after the time period. Marketing plan is nearly the opposite. Marketing plans are shorter terms with a one year max for time frame. Also the plans are very specific and act as a road map that gives step by step directions. Finally, this plan clearly indicates what you wish to achieve and how you want to achieve it. Companies will use both strategic and marketing plans at the same time in order to create structure for their future. We can look at these plans through the simulation of AllStar. The strategic plan can last through the entire simulation and the goal can be simple such as increase stock price to at least 15 do...

This week, marketing concepts focused on the idea of generating demand. By doing this, the concepts touched on simplistic economic theories and graphs. This of course is the notion of S upply and Demand . First we can discuss supply, which is the supplying firm or seller's willingness to sell a product at a particular price. When price is high, supply is high, and vice versa. On a graph, it will look like a downward sloping curve. The exact opposite is true for demand. Demand is the buyer's (customer) willingness to purchase a good. In almost all cases (disregarding such unique modifiers like the Snob Effect) demand is high when price is low, and is low when price is high. On a graph, it will appear as an upward sloping curve. In both perfect competition and monopolistic competition market structures, the intersection between these two curves is quite important. This intersection, the Market Equilibrium, will set the price and quantity of goods sold in these market structur...

This week, while we did not receive new lessons and material, we were given the opportunity to apply previously learned concepts to a large memo and in class. One concept that was used heavily this week was the PEST Analysis . In the memo, we were tasked to use the PEST analysis as well as other tools in order to give an industry outlook. In my case it was to the smart bottle market. PEST stands for Political, Economic, Social, and Technology. If there is negative trends in any of these categories it will make it very difficult for a company to succeed. In PEST, Political refers to the regulations of a business in that particular marketplace. This includes any laws passed by Congress or by any administrative agency. Additionally, if the government is controlled by a particular party the future outlook for politics could be different. Economic refers to the ability to pay for services, equipment, or anything else. If the going price for a particular job is very high, then it becomes d...

In week 10 we were introduced to yet another mix, the Promotional Mix. This mix is made up of four parts; advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, and public relations. Advertising deals with any form of one-way communication that is paid for by a firm or person. This is what consumers will often use to form opinions and bias towards a firm. Sales promotion refers to methods to increase consumer purchases over a short period of time such as a discount. Personal selling refers to a purchase situation that results from a personal, paid-for communication geared towards a member of the target market. Finally, public relations is the task of building a positive image for the company that supports the goals of the firm. The promotional mix can be seen in full gear from Amazon. Amazon has become a conglomerate due to their ability to incorporate the promotional mix into their business model. They have invested huge chunks of money into both algorithms to advertise specific goods to a c...

What we have learned so far about marketing can be summed up in one word, Value. The entire goal of marketing is to create value for a product so the product can be sold which creates revenue for the firm. From this, we have learned several concepts relating to marketing and the idea of creating value. In order to understand marketing we must first define the word value as well as the similar term of utility . Value is the result of an evaluation of the cost and benefits of a product. If the benefits heavily outweighs the costs then the product appears to have value. In order to buy a new computer a consumer has to determine a few factors. The cost will play an important role as well as deciding if their current computer has become outdated. Additionally, a consumer has to think about what else they could be doing with that money. These are referred to as trade-offs with the next best opportunity being called the opportunity cost. Utility refers to the value or benefit that a consume...