Week 8 EOC: Excel Graph

What I relearned this week doing the Graphs on Excel was that I knew what to do and how to troubleshoot my issues. I also learned how to teach someone how to make graphs and save them. I find it amusing the generational gap between the student I was helping and myself. She was very nervous and stressed about learning how to save images using the "Print Screen" function. What was most surprising is that the skills that I take for granted became something that someone needed to learn. 

Week 7 EOC: Final Project Pitch

Working with the managers of Pinot’s Palette, in Henderson located in The District at Green Valley Ranch, I will be doing a survey to find a solution to a problem that they may have. I was able to contact them on the phone and I followed up with an email to clarify what my intention of the survey is. Essentially I said,”The purpose of this project is to identify a "marketing problem" with a business; usually it is just a matter of getting more customers to visit an establishment or creating awareness. The point of our meeting is to identify specifics and creating a survey that I can ask people.” So my goal, prior to the interview that I will be having later this week, is to increase foot traffic into the building, which may lead to more patronage, all by creating more awareness.

Pinot's Palette is the upscale destination in Las Vegas where you can "Paint. Drink. Have Fun." At their studio, anyone can be an artist and have fun being creative - no art experience required! In two or three hours you can create a festive, whimsical and colorful painting while sipping on your favorite beverage. And here’s why their motto is “Paint. Drink. Have Fun.” This is why I chose to do my project with them, not because I can drink on the job (my drinking days are behind me anyways), because anyone can have fun being an artist and use their creativity. Pinot’s Palette is a great place for a fun date night, group activity, or if someone just wants to gain some experience as an artist. I would consider myself an artist and I would find this to be a fun thing to do.

I hypothesize that more people will attend these classes if they were aware of the place. I intend to prove this with more research that I will conduct in the upcoming weeks. 

EOC week 6: Deeper meaning of the film BIG

The movie Big starring Tom Hanks, is an amusing story of how feeding a quarter to a magical arcade game can change a boy’s life and give him an opportunity to become the vice-president of a major toy company. Ignoring the plot and focusing on the marketing aspect of the film, I noticed how exploratory research was being employed. Exploratory research can illuminate the environment and help advance the aim of the research. The focus groups that were made up of kids that played with the toys and expressed their attitudes toward the products. These focus groups are in an interactive setting, coordinated by the company. This form of longitudinal research examines shifts over time. Casual research was being performed by the president of the company on the weekends. He would walk around the store and observe how the consumers reacted and interacted with the products. This approach relies upon the experiments to establish a cause and effect relationships by controlling external influences in an effort to evaluate the cause and effect relationship between the two variables. Also brainstorming was another way research was being carried out in the movie. Once Josh (Tom Hanks’ character) gave his ideas they rest of the group was able to feed off of his creativity. Had they conducted the research with more people, then they would have had more data to use that would have made a better product. Most of the research done cannot be used in a valid or reliable way, because the professional who was using his knowledge as a child and not as someone who knows what they are doing. I’ll hand it to the kid, he was able to make a success of himself and evade the police for the kidnapping of himself. Reliability in a research context is the degree to which measures are free from random error and, therefore, yield consistent results. The company could have double checked all of the components of the study to make sure there were no data errors, but they probably were wondering what happened to the big guy when he went missing.

EOC Week 6: What did you learn? From your project? From the class discussion?

Overall I leaned from the class discussion and the project as a whole was that instructions are difficult to follow if the instructions weren’t necessarily clear. For the most part I understood what I needed to do for the project. I needed to create a fragrance, design a marketing plan that would be applicable to the real world, and use a sample survey to support my findings. I didn’t do a pitch or make a hypothesis, because I thought it would be covered in my marketing plan. Now I know that producing a hypothesis along with a pitch at the beginning of my project will simplify the analysis product at the end.

From what I gleaned off of other projects, their presentations were slightly stale to me. I could only imagine what the product would look like in the real world, where I actually designed a mock up of the cologne I was pitching. I noticed that everyone that did their project that they probably already had an idea of where they would sell their fragrance was going to be sold. That may be because they are in the fashion and retail marketing industry and have a stronger grasp as to where they would market their brands. As a heterosexual male that tries my best to spend as little time in the mall as possible, I think I may have been at a disadvantage for this project. I am not complaining, however, I am stating a fact that I had to do a lot more research that is different from what my peers may already have as intuitional instinct. It was clear that a majority of us didn’t finish the project until the last minute. I should have done some last minute fixes a day or two before.  

Sample Survey Results

1.       What is your gender?     Male (7) Female (6)

2.       What age group do you fall in?   10-16 (2) 17-25 (7) 26-35 (3) 36-45 (1)

3.       What is your annual salary?         > 30K (6) 30K-50K (4) <50K (3)

4.       Do you think that using cologne would make a man feel more attractive?             Yes (7) No (1) Somewhat (4)

5.       Do you value cologne/perfume as a part of your social life?         Yes (4) No (3) Somewhat (5)

6.       On a single buy, how about much was spent on cologne/perfume?         $50 (3) $75 (3) $100 (3) $125 (1) $150+ (2)

7.       Would you say you are loyal to a brand?                Brand Loyal (7) Brand fluid (3) It doesn’t matter as long as it smells good (3)

8.       How often do you apply perfume or cologne?    Once every day (3) Twice a day (2) Few times a week (5) Every now and again (3)

9.       Who purchased your most recent bottle of cologne/perfume? Man-personal (4) Man-gift (3) Woman-personal (4) Woman-gift (2)

10.   How many bottles do you own?                1 (3) 2 (1) 3 or more (9)

New Product: Analyses in the Real World

Analysis:
In 2015 Latinos make up 20% of 18 to 49 year olds, an age set that is significantly vital to HBC marketers, and will account for a growing segment of consumers of HBC products in the future. Using this information and data collected from a sample survey, we have a pretty clear idea of how to market Cal Blue cologne. Considering the results of the survey, the key demographic, aside from Latinos, is middle class American men between the ages of 18 to 50 years old willing to spend around $75 on a bottle of cologne. Our secondary demographic are the girlfriends and wives of these men who would buy Cal Blue as a gift.

Fragrance:

Cal Blue is the new cologne made to make a masculine man smell fresh and ready for whatever the night brings.  Cal Blue fragrance for men has a light blue to medium blue shaped bottle with a blue cap. Cal Blue fragrance has fresh top notes of cedar, cherry, and lime, the floral middle note is lotus, and woody base notes are sandalwood, amber and musk. Cal Blue is available in a bottle of 100 ml Eau de Cologne. Cal perfumes have a history of making great Southern California inspired fragrances. “Compared to men on average, Latino men are as likely to use after shave/cologne products. However, they are more likely to be frequent users of after shave and cologne. Latino men are 41% more likely than men on average to have used these products 14 or more times within the past seven days.” (pg. 10) Cal Blue is targeted towards Latino men because they have a huge impact on the market for Health, Beauty and Cosmetic (HBC) products in the United States.

Marketing Plan:
 Cal perfumery is associated with various distributors to maximize the products’ availability. The company is planning to eventually have its own distribution system in the near future. Promotional samples for Cal Blue will appear in magazines for men such as GQ and Maxim, we are promoting the new line through several Macy’s in malls nationwide, and we are increasing awareness for our website www.calscents.com with internet advertisements. The price of Cal Blue cologne range may vary depending on distribution channels, however, it should stay around $75 USD. The strength of the product is its simple design and attractive color, as well as its availability.  Its weaknesses are that it’s new to the perfume industry, lacks awareness, moderate pricing, and there is not enough stock for large orders. The opportunities include special offers, plenty of room for innovation, and a chance for a celebrity endorsement. Cal Blue’s threats are the growing competition and the short product lifecycle. Our positioning is against our competitors, product class and quality and the gender symbolization in advertisements.

Cal Blue aims to be a promising cologne regarding the quality and providing the best product for our consumers. Marketing this product on a large scale for it to reach a peak level and saturating the market.

Brown, Dr. Robert, and Ruth Washton. "The Latino Health and Beauty Care Shopper." Packaged Facts (2011): 10. MarketReasearch.com. Web. 9 May 2015. 

Week 5 EOC: The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets

Privacy is a fallacy in this day and age, unless an individual cuts ties from the modern world and goes completely off the grid, living in a cabin on a mountain somewhere.  Being a recluse is not the lifestyle most individuals would choose. So now we have to deal with all of our information being tracked, stored, and used for or against us. As upsetting as this might be to the average citizen, I find it incredibly beneficial. Having a Global Community that doesn’t sit idly by and actually interact with each other. Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying, “Three people can keep a secret is if two of them are dead.” That is a dark commentary on the nature of human beings. Now that it is relatively impossible for secrets to stay that way, I think it opens the world to the ability to be more honest and act with more integrity. Human beings will always act as they have, but now with this over sharing society we can easily decide whom we would associate with.

                In regards to the Wall Street Journal article, our personal information and internet activity being sold and used for marketing purposes seems to be on the intrusive side. Using cookies and other technological means to track our every move can sound insidious and to invade on privacies. I’m sure the Average Joe doesn’t want his porn searches to be in some sort of database that will outlive his existence, but that information is stored and will live on once he has passed. It is one thing to willingly disclose information, but to unknowingly have personal data be collected to better sell something to me is annoying. I’m sure in the market place, having the right information for mass amounts of people can be invaluable. However, I feel my privacy is worth more than a tenth of a penny…It has got to be at least a quarter of a dollar. Though thoughts are sold for a penny, but then someone has to give two cents in return. Someone is doubling their investment and I can appreciate that sort of business model. 

Week 4 EOC: Primary and Secondary Research

-Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using secondary data.

“Secondary data are data that have been gathered and recorded previously by someone else for purposes other than those of the current researcher.” The principal benefit of secondary data is that they are almost always cheaper to acquire than primary data. In general they can be gained swiftly and may provide info not accessible to the researcher any other way. This would be a great advantage because receiving a lot of the information that is needed without much extra work is a good first step for the researcher or be used to support the research that has been performed separately.  The disadvantage of secondary data is that they were not anticipated particularly to meet the researcher's requirements. The researcher must scrutinize secondary data for accuracy, bias, and reliability. One of the ways to do this is to cross-check an assortment of existing sources. Thank God for Google.

-Define surveys and describe the type of information that may be gathered in a survey

“A survey is defined as a method of collecting primary data based on communication with a representative sample of individuals.” Associates of the delegated sample are known as respondents. The expression sample survey is often used because a survey is estimated to obtain a representative sample of the target demographic. “Typically, surveys attempt to describe what is happening, what people believe, what they are like or to learn the reasons for a particular marketing activity.” The archetypal survey is part of a descriptive research plan with the aim of measuring knowledge, product awareness, brand usage behavior, judgments, attitudes, opinions, purchasing behavior, and identifying personality traits of target markets. “Because most survey research is descriptive research, the term survey is most often associated with quantitative findings.” The factual information that is found in some surveys may also be qualitative.

Week 3 EOC: 9 to 5 @ 25 Documentary

Now that I’ve seen the documentary of the making of the movie 9 to 5, I can appreciate that the film is a true classic comedy and has a universal message that holds up even today. Before the film even had a script 9 to 5 only had a cast and later it was revealed through Jane Fonda’s interviews with actual secretaries that “Secretaries want to kill their bosses”. These interviews were examples of the exploratory research that we use in marketing research. “Exploratory research is conducted to clarify ambiguous situations or discover ideas that may be potential business opportunities.”(pg 45) It is true that many employees have fantasies of making their bosses disappear; I am included in having those particular thoughts. The opportunity, to have these actors use their acting talents to play out these scenarios for us, is clear but not conclusive evidence that this be the course of action they should take.

Now the descriptive research that was done before they did the interviews, in my opinion, is going about the process “back-asswards”.  Descriptive research covers the “who, what, when, where, why, and how questions” to paint a picture of what the office dynamic would look like before they actually knew what they would do. I’m not saying that they went about this the wrong way, because, to paraphrase the Dalai Lama, the only reason I “learn the rules so [I] can break them properly”.  Jane Fonda wanted to create this movie to communicate to the real world problems that were happening in the business world and the unfair treatment of the women at the time; she succeeded in this task and that is why this story still rings true today. Misogyny, sexism, unfair wages, discrimination, the balance of power, the glass ceiling, and other gender issues are still topical.