BUS 3500 April 28

I just finished the reading and the test for chapter 18, Setting the Right Price. These were all new concepts to me, I had never heard of price skimming before, and it makes sense to differentiate between the benefits and circumstances of that vs. penetration pricing, or status quo pricing. Each one has its place. I can't help but think about the introduction of the iphone and the high prices we were paying then - and gladly. My daughter and I stood in line for 2 hours to get one of the limited number that was shipped to Logan for that product launch. We gladly paid the $800 approx. for it - and today my friend was able to buy one for $199. A perceived shortage driving the price up, or was it that the manufacture of them during start up was more costly and that evened out over the last several years? I can see the flow on both scenarios though. And it makes sense to me now. I really related to the example of Parker Hannifen and former pricing at cost plus, vs their new strategy of segmenting products based on demand and pricing for affordability on some, while pricing higher on others due to market demand and perceived higher value. Very smart. This is something I will use when pricing conference management services. Base price vs. value added services. Thanks for this.

I really appreciated the glimse into unfair or illegal practices too and the laws that govern that. I had heard of price fixing but I had never heard of predatory pricing or price discrimination. I can see how these regulations are needed to protect the public and also smaller retailers from unfair practices. I find that I was actually pretty naive when it comes to what is legal vs. illegal in pricing. And I really liked the info on odd-even pricing (psychological pricing). I had not considered that putting something at a whole even value could give it the perception of higher quality. I'll use that too.

BUS 3500 April 21

Sales Promotion and Personal Selling were the topics of this week's class - I had some experience in this sort of thing, promoting with point of purchase advertising, coupons, online - so I was probably more confident and less open minded than I should have been. What can I say - I had room to learn and grow. I had never heard of push money, for example. And personal selling took on a negative tone for me, with images of used car and vacuum cleaner salesmen. I can see now that it's a crucial element in the high involvement products and can be used to counsel and guide the buying decision, providing information, advice, meeting objections with knowledge and awareness. It's a rather complicated process and maybe even an art - hard work and very strategic - definitely a system to be respected.

The concept of premiums always makes me think of the free dishes my grandmother and my mom used to get in boxes of laundry detergent. And I can remember the times of dumping out an entire box of Cap'n Crunch cereal to get the toy buried inside. We talked about coupons vs. rebates - and I do see more consumers preferring the instant rebates or coupons over the mail in kind. They are more difficult to do and  can see why a percentage of consumers never follow through on them. I was driving home through Brigham City yesterday and at the Sprint store there was a huge sign: "No Mail-In Rebates: All rebates are instant this weekend!" That sign probably brought some people in who otherwise would have waited.

BUS 3500 April 14

There was no class on April 7, but I got to meet our instructor Daniel Allen at the USU Conference Center where I work. That was nice. Also had breakfast with Lisa from the class. We've become Facebook friends now too, thanks to this class, and I'm going to help her girl scout group with some social networking pointers.

Advertising and Public Relations is the topic of this week's class, and it's pretty special to me because I am a journalism and PR major with business marketing as part of my interdisciplinary degree. I had not really considered the difference needed in PR when looking at the stages of the product life cycle though. I'd be inclined to keep hitting that introductory stage over and over and I really should be considering the growth, maturity and decline stages. All PR strategies are not created equal - or they shouldn't be, anyway. I like the AIDA model - and it's a good concept to follow and keep in the forefront of campaign planning. Attention - okay, get their attention - but next, you have to keep them interested... then create a desire in them for the product, and finally, importantly - call them to action. This is something that I will use as I move forward in this field. It's good to look at National trends too, but also we have to look at local influences. Here in Logan we have a newspaper that is still widely read, unlike some larger cities. Newspaper advertising and PSA's may be more effective here than magazine ads would be. And now that the Valley Channel has moved to a less accessible station, the local TV ads there are not as effective as they used to be. But local radio is still a good vehicle here, if you choose the right station to advertise on, and the right time to place those ads. Local festivals too, like Summerfest and Cruise In, that involve the whole community are good sources for sponsorship exposure - the point is that there is no one "right" formula and each product and campaign takes some evaluation and selection before deciding on the advertising to use.

BUS 3500 March 31

This week's topic was Integrated Marketing Communications: The elements of the promotional mix, and the role of promotion in the marketing mix. It's probably a key point that we have the power and maybe the responsibility to inform consumers while we are trying to persuade them, and the fact that consumers need to be reminded about a product in order to keep them buying, keep them responding. It's coming down to communications, and the LO3 explains that if you have a message you want to convey to a target audience, you need to use language and symbols that target audience will relate to. I was thinking that sometimes companies try to "sell at" people rather than "sell to" them - and that they are missing the point of reception - that the target will receive the message and relate to it, hopefully act on it. The integrated marketing concept comes from combining approaches and getting a stronger result because of that synergy. I remember when I worked at Eagle Direct in Denver, my boss made me read a book called Integrated Direct Marketing. It was the first time I really considered the impact of using several promotional and advertising approaches to work together, and planning it that way, timing it that way. A print ad followed closely by a radio ad, and then a direct mail piece hitting immediately afterward - I guess this is probably what is meant by a promotional mix. It's about planning and strategy and really thinking about the receiver, rather than just throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing how much of it sticks.

BUS 3500 March 24

The reading of Chapter 12 for the March 24 class has been of great interest to me, and I am seeing some connections to my time working at The Shingo Prize and also my husband's management insights as a global director at Autoliv. I had never seen it spelled out this way in an overall teaching though - Marketing Channels and Supply Chain Management. First, the pull system concept - I learned this at Shingo - and many examples of the benefits of taking the cue from the customer rather than producing and pushing it onto the customer. I see the benefits to this concept in all kinds of business - sell them what they want and need, not what you want them to want and buy. The customer will pay for the things that they feel have value to them, so as the Shingo principles say, don't add cost without adding value - otherwise it's waste. Excess inventory is waste, and also waiting is one of the eight wastes... and this chapter on Supply Chain Management emphasizes that with references to JIT. I love the example from my Autoliv that my husband shared with me: The Brigham plant produces the inflator module that is needed to complete the airbag assembly that Ogden produces. Autoliv reduced wait time and managed inventory with JIT, by calculating when the line in Ogden would need product from the Brigham plant, how much, and scheduling a truck to bring that product directly to the line, every 36 minutes. The line got what they needed, when they needed it, exactly where they needed it - and you can set your clock on that truck traveling down I-15... every 36 minutes.

BUS 3500 March 17

March 3 was midterm exam so no class, and March 10 was spring break, no class again! But over spring break the reading of chapter 10 was due for the March 17 quiz and class... and I really enjoyed this chapter on product development and management. I could not help applying these teachings to my former and current jobs at USU in event management. The educational products we developed and marketed at the Shingo Prize as part of the business school were affected by the economy during the past several years, as customers weighed the advantages of further training and development of their people over the bottom line expenses and costs in the face of low sales and economic downturn. No amount of sales and marketing could change the fact that the money simply was not there for that type of investment. There is also the aspect of saturation - with only one basic product (Operational Excellence training) - at which point does the market become saturated - and in this economy, there are less new organizations with these needs than there are existing organizations downsizing or going out of business entirely. It's probably not a question of the product having achieved its end in the life cycle, but more of a temporary decline stage, brought on by economic conditions. In my current job though at University Conference Services, there is potential for new product development and growth, by introducing meeting services to the other various departments at the University. With reductions in budgets come staff cuts and emphasis on downsizing, and that is where we can come in, by offering our event management services as an "in-house outsource solution." Rather than pay an internal person in a small department to be a full time event organizer, it makes sense to partner with my department to do the job on an "as needed" basis - and I am seeing the potential for a product launch targeting departments in need of exactly that.

BUS 3500 February 24

Chapter 9 - Product Concepts - DEFINED: a product is defined as everything, both favorable and unfavorable, that a person receives in an exchange. CLASSIFIED: The types of products range from business or industrial products (used to manufacture other goods/services, or re-sell to other customers), to consumer products (personal wants), convenience products (inexpensive, little shopping effort), shopping products (which require comparison shopping) - to speciality products which require extensive search behavior and substitutions are not acceptable - and to what is called an "unsought" product - things not actively sought but needed eventually - such as insurance or burial plots. AND FURTHER DEFINING: The chapter went into defining product items in categories including product lines, product mix (in width and depth), talked about product modification, planned obsolescence and product line extension. I was most interested in the sections on branding and packaging - strategies for domestic vs. international marketing of a product. As a marketing/pr person, I like to consider the potential impact of persuasive labeling - using the package to help sell the product. I designed a package for a seafood salad product when I worked in Denver and the considerations of packaging shape, design, graphics, color, all came into play. Had I read this chapter prior to that I could have done a better job at it.

BUS 3500 February 17

The chapter on market research opened my eyes to the methods that organizations use to garner data and insight on product preferences from consumers. I can see the value in these methods although they are often annoying to me as a consumer. Mall surveys especially are irritating when you're being accosted by eager pollsters while in the mall for a purpose other than being someone's research project. The point of sale data collection also gives me a twinge when I consider that Big Brother is tracking my purchasing preferences, and using them perhaps to send me more propaganda (aka advertising) that I did not request. But if I look at it as a benefit, the targeted methods of offering me products that have the propensity to appeal to me does have value to me - if there is a product type or class that I am prone to purchase, then offerings of those products that fit my criteria are possibly a service to me - a convenience, and a benefit. In the meetings and convention industry, I am eager to participate in surveys because I want my voice to be heard, I want changes to be put into play that will make my job and my industry better. I actively participate in these surveys and look forward to seeing the results published. Sometimes there is an incentive, but most often the incentive is in the betterment of the industry, my livelihood. I did appreciate the tips on creating survey questions and data collection. I will use those immediately.

BUS 3500 February 10

I love the topic of market segmentation and especially geodemographic segmentation. I was happy to read the entry about the Claritas PRIZM system because I was exposed to this when I worked at a marketing firm in Denver. I didn't really understand the unique functions of geodemographic segmentation over the other methods of market segmentation at the time, but now after this week's exposure I can see more of a realistic context for what we did back in Denver. We used the Cluster Coding system to conduct target marketing for companies like Vail Associates, Steamboat, the Colorado Tourism Board, and Comcast Cable. We also cluster coded their existing customers so they would know what groups responded best to what product groupings they offered, and then launch marketing to attract more members of those groups. One example was Vail - they assumed that their customers (and therefore future targets) were highly affluent cluster groups - but when analysis came in, they really had a much larger set of mid-level groups - families with kids for the ski packages, fixed income seniors for the golf packages. They dropped their focus on high end offerings and beefed up their offerings to these other groups, customizing each offer and package to fit that particular target. We ended up with eight specific smaller campaigns, rather than just one really glitzy one meant to reach everyone. Then we used database marketing to reach out to the customers with offers that fit their specific wants and needs. It made for smaller more affordable mailings, took the shotgun approach down to a rifle approach. They were also able to drive yield by reaching out to a specific group with a special offering on days (or hours) that were under utilized, or if a unique opportunity came up, such as a last minute booking of a pro skier to do a technique clinic, or room availability at the Inn, etc. Word could get out fast and in a more affordable, personal message format too. Geodemographic segmentation really opened their eyes and also opened the door for expansion into areas they had not previously considered. Then database marketing kicked in to put this new insight to work in making targeted offerings that had a high propensity of being accepted. In "lean" this is referred to as a "pull system." I worked in lean at Shingo Prize for 2 1/2 years. It's providing something in answer to a need by the customer. My old boss in Denver would have said it's Marketing 101: "find out what the customer wants and give it to him." But you first have to find out who the customer is... and these lessons in segmentation and next week's market research topics are a valuable starting point.

Bus 3500 February 3

This week's class went fast - and I can see the importance of understanding consumer behavior, thinking about their decision-making processes. A lot of this subject matter made so much sense to me but I had never really considered it before. The concept of the evoked set, for example, and the criteria that differentiates between a limited decision vs an extensive decision. A really interesting aspect to me was the concept of cognitive dissonance, and what can be done to prevent that from reversing a buy decision. Lots of high end examples were given, such as automobile purchases - but what really came to mind for me was the Snuggi that my family felt compelled to buy for me at Christmas. All the ads said it was the perfect gift, and it was a quick, easy decision for them in choosing a gift for me, apparently - but my perception of it, its questionable usefulness (or lack thereof) and it not fitting with my lifestyle (am I really a Snuggi person??), proved to be a case of buyers remorse - or was it recipient remorse - what in the world were they thinking? A blanket with sleeves?? The ads may have matched the lifestyle and needs of somebody's mother, but not their mother - not me - I would never wear such a thing, the whole idea was ludicrous and a little humiliating. I folded it back up and put it back in its box. But... a day or so later - checking out the box to see where I could take it to return it, considering just donating it if nothing else - I could not help but see the graphics on the package - and I read through it. There were ideas and benefits, photos of features, color photos and descriptions printed on the side of the box - I pulled the thing back out of its box and actually tried it out for an evening - I found that it has some redeeming qualities and have to admit that it serves a need  - was quite cozy and I did not feel conspicuous or lame as I had expected to. I had no idea the thing had convenient pockets for your hands or your tv remote or cell phone - the box description told me so, and so did my "test drive" of it. So, I decided to keep it. Good marketing decision for those guys - countering cognitive dissonance with their packaging.

BUS 3500 January 27

I really enjoyed Chapter 3 – breaking down the categories of Gen X vs Gen Y, tweens and Baby Boomers, really did shed a lot of light on behaviors and focus of those groups. I was probably most surprised though by the emphasis on the power of women in the marketplace. Women heads of household, women with discretionary spendable income, being primary decision makers in the purchase of a wide range of products… I had not realized it was that powerful of a group. I don’t think marketers really give the group as much weight or respect as they should, in that case. The differentiation between morals and ethics was also helpful to clarify – Dr. Jay Black in my mass media ethics class says an easy way to think of it is that Ethics are from the neck up and Morals are from the neck down. Finally, the Method campaign, and overall corporate message – was so impressive – corporate social responsibility without losing the aspect of economic responsibility. As in the definition of exchange, people are willing to pay a little more for something they perceive to be of higher value to them… including the effect a product has on the environment… value to them personally in their homes and also to the generations of the future.

BUS 3500 January 20

I felt better after taking the Chapter 1 quiz – I missed two questions and when we went over the quiz results in class, I could see where I was off base – so I do hope we go over the quiz answers weekly – that really helped. There was so much to do and discuss in class that we were running out of time, and nobody seemed to mind. There is an issue in the Logan classroom in that we don’t have ready access to the microphone – it’s a delay thing, maybe to avoid noise, but as a result, it’s harder for our people to chime in quickly and participate verbally. I sent a question through on blackboard, asking if we could perhaps give more people a chance to chime in by alternating locations, for either the questions or for the opportunity to volunteer for special assignment projects. This week’s readings look interesting – the whole topic of ethics/morality in marketing is intriguing. I’m currently taking a Mass Media Ethics class and there is some overlap, but marketing has its own special applications and challenges. This is a class topic for which I really do see applications in business and also in academic and personal aspects of my life. The concept of social responsibility is something that I don’t know if I would have really considered before examining the potential application of ethics to the subject.

BUS 3500 January 13

A snowy night, the first class of the semester, and a glimpse of what is to come – I spent the evening wavering between dropping the class and sticking with it – moments of positive anticipation but also moments of dread, unsure if I’m up for the challenge. I’m excited about the aspects of social media in marketing – I have a basic understanding of facebook, twitter, linked-in, for business and personal use, but have only viewing experience for you tube. The quiz that was handed out left me pretty shaken. I knew virtually nothing – and feeling very inadequate, I almost left then and there. I decided to stick it out though and by the end of class had decided that perhaps my lack of knowledge on that subject matter was exactly why I should stay – there is much to learn, and much from which I could benefit. Using that class time after the quiz to walk us through the semester schedule, the grading process, and the class assessment process we do each week online helped bring me back down out of panic stage – and now having done that myself at home today, I am ready to proceed – First order of business: read Chapter 1 of the text and do the Chapter 1 quiz. Maybe I can do this after all.