Week 3 has come and gone and now it is time to let the internet know what happened. On Tuesday we presented our mind maps. We laid out all of our maps and we had our own gallery. A lot of us had the same kind of setup. A lot of the maps also had very similar words that were connected which led me to believe we all had a similar understanding of chapters 1 and 2. After our gallery presentation concluded we began to talk about chapters 4 and 8. We focused our discussion mostly on chapter 8 this day. We talked about Successful Market Segmentation. Market segmentation wasn't even a thing until the 1960's. Companies like Coke really only had one soda that they threw into the soft drink market but today they have over 12 different sodas being produced. Through the readings and in class we learned that marketing segmentation is important because it enables marketers to identify groups of customers with similar needs so a company can analyze the characteristics and buying behavior of these groups. Segmentation also provides marketers information to help them design marketing mixes for one or more marketing segments. Marketing segments themselves need to meet four criterion to actually be considered marketing segments: substantialty, identifiability, accessibility, and responsiveness. We learned about the four criterion through and episode of Shark Tank. The product being sold was a device that could control the climate of a bed for you. We learned the product had almost no substantialty because people in this guys market were switching over to upholstered beds which couldn't even fit the climate control device under them! The marketer also claimed that there are over 100 million beds in the US but he didn't really identify his market because how many of them can actually fit the bed device under it? He did well with accessibility because the device was going to be sold in mattress stores along with mattresses so the device reaches part of the market the product would have. We don't really know how the market responded because he had not started producing his product until after the show aired. I feel it is important to have a firm grasp on your market segmentation. The guy on this episode of Shark Tank clearly didn't do enough research. His product was very overpriced and he hardly had a market for his product (he probably could've benefitted from Chapter 8).
In Chapter 4, we learned about the marketing environment. The chapter taught that it was important to understand the external environment of markets. One of the hardest external variables in our environment to get a grasp of is the social factors of a market. This includes age groups like tweens, teens, generation y and x, and the baby boomer generation. Being a teenager, I personally attest that we are HORRIBLE to market for. Trends change so quickly and often its hard to have continuous success in the teen market. I know personally I can hardly focus on a product for more than a week if it isn't essential to get me through my day. Also, the growth of ethnic markets has opened new doors for marketers. The Hispanic American consumer market is now the 14th largest economy in the world. Other ethnic markets such as the African and Asian markets are equally as important to pay attention to because the ethnicity of America is skyrocketing like never before. Marketers have begun to work with ethnic groups like the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies in order to target ads towards these specific groups. Another factor in the marketing environment is the economic factors. Something like the consumer's income is very important because if the group that should be consuming your product cant afford it, how will you make any money? Inflation plays an important role as many customers are not willing to spend more than they feel will still be a value. Marketers try their hardest to keep prices at a steady level despite the level of inflation so as not to provoke the wrath that is the consumer. Recession also plays a role in the marketing environment. People tend to cut out non-essentials and will often buy a generic brand instead of the name brand of a product. The customer will also use their credit less often so as not to accrue any debt. These factors are important to look at so a marketer can get a feel for what the consumer needs and wants and what they are willing to spend on a product.
On Thursday, we met again with the engineers. On this day we presented our three BUGs and our solutions. My fellow marketer Mike and I got to present the technology for our three BUGs I presented the technology on our cell phone device as well as our heated driveway idea. Mike talked about our alarm clock mat. Chun, Brady, and Brian talked about the market for each of our products. Mike and I had no trouble explaining the technology because our engineer counterparts detailed them very well in our memo. The three didn't seem to have much trouble with our market because Mike and I provided them with more information before we presented which helped them out. For the rest of class we listened to the other groups present their three BUGs. After the presentations, I felt we had some of the better ideas in the class. This became more evident after I read our sticky note comments and there were very few that expressed criticism. Our group plans to meet on Monday in order to determine our go and no gos for the project which means our week 4 starts a little early!
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