Week Eight

Crazy to believe we are already halfway through this semester! The past two months have flown by!! Over this past week, I've realized just how much I've learned about marketing so far. I'm excited to be able to put all of that together on one page in my mid-semester mind map. However, for the purposes of this post, I will focus just on what I learned over the last week.

On Tuesday our Smart Project groups had the opportunity to meet with our professor to discuss how our projects were going. I think the best part of this meeting was that our eyes were opened to some potential information sources we would not have thought of otherwise. For example, we were advised to talk to the head of facilities as well as public safety in order to learn about how many people actually get locked out of their rooms and if our product would be feasible for a university to purchase for students. We also were reminded to take a second look at our logo in order to make it eye catching and stand out to our consumers. Below is a picture of the current logo we are working on.

Additionally, during this class we were able to talk about our survey questions. Through this discussion we came up with many more potential questions to ask the people who will take our survey. This helped us to think about many different questions that might not be so obvious at first but could provide us with useful insight into how to make our product successful. Finally, we discussed our value proposition canvas. This relates the product to the consumer in order to eliminate the gap between the two. During our discussion with our professor, I realized just how important it would be to get the engineers involved in this process. Having them understand the way our customer will view the product will help them build the product to ensure it is well suited to their wants, needs, and fears. It also allowed us to think about certain features we may have forgotten as well as consider each aspect of the canvas from a different perspective. All in all, Tuesday's class helped our group progress in our project immensely.

On Thursday, we continued our discussion about products. However, this class focused on two major concepts, diffusion and innovation and product life cycles. To me, these are two of the most important concepts in marketing.

First, diffusion and innovation is all about how a product is introduced into the market. In other words, it is who buys the product over time until it is spread throughout the population of the market. The image to the left displays this theory. The innovators drive change, are adventurous, and are risk takers. They tend to buy a product because of the enjoyment they will get from it. Early adopters embrace change, are influencers, and are inspired by the newness of the product. They often buy a product because of the social acceptance it will give them. The early majority accept change, are practical, and go along with the world around them. They tend to buy a product because it will be useful to them. The late majority are skeptics, need proof of validity, and jump in. They often buy products out of necessity and only after others have it. Finally, laggards do not accept change, like tradition, and reluctantly join in. Often, they buy products because they have no other choice. The most important aspect of this theory is "the chasm". A product mucstget over the chasm, or get the early majority to start to purchase it, if it wants to succeed.

We were able to apply this theory to our Smart Projects by deciding what each group would be relative to our product. My group thought that high tech universities with a lot of money would be our innovators, our early adopters would be those who consider themselves influencial within the university world, and the early majority would be universities such as our own who see the practicality of the product. Our late majority would be more traditional universities with less money, while our laggards would be old school, classic universities who take pride in their rich history.

The other theory we talked about was the product life cycle. In general, all products follow the same life cycle. Right now, our products aren't even in the life cycle because they haven't been introduced or made yet, but they are in a "pre-introduction" stage. Introduction is when the product is first sold in the market. Often times, although sales are growing no profit is being made. The growth stage is when sales grow at an increasing rate, creating profits for the organization. The maturity stage is when sales still grow but at a decreasing rate. At this time, competitive or promotional pricing as well as intense advertising is often used in order for the organization to keep gaining money. The final stage is the decline stage. Sales begin to fall and competitors begin to take over.

What I found interesting in this discussion was that some products never quite reach the decline stage. One example discussed in class was the iPhone. The iPhone as a product may never decline, at least not in the time we can think about right now. Although certain versions of the iPhone have clearly reached, and surpassed, the decline stage (can anyone say iPhone 3G?!?!), the entire iPhone product most likely won't ever reach that stage. This brings up the distinction between a product and a product line which we talked about last week. Either way, it is important to recognize that not all products have the same exact life cycle, but that this idea can be used as a general outline for thinking about products within a market.

As I continue to learn more about marketing, I am looking forward to seeing the progress that has been made on our Smart Projects as a class. Additionally, I'm excited for the opportunity to connect what I've been learning to make a marketing plan for a product that has been on Shark Tank. Although I don't know what product I will be using yet, I can't wait to continue to apply what I've been learning in and out of class to such a unique assignment.

Here's to spring break!! I'll be back with more in two weeks!!

-Kristen