CAPSTONE!

Learning is Everywhere!

This week opened my eyes to three key learnings:

1. Learning is everywhere
   This past weekend, I went to in Branston Kentucky (Lake Cumberland), to relax and “vacation”.  I took schoolwork with me, but anticipated work focused on planning, organizing, summarizing, etc.  The waiter who served us at dinner on Saturday evening walked to our table and had a handlebar mustache and slight beard.  What is that luck?  I asked my partner “Do you think I can interview him?”  “Ask if he’s willing to talk to you, the worst that can happen is he says no”.  I debated this question through much of dinner, and as we were finishing, I asked.  The look of pride on his face as he said “I would be happy to talk to you.  When do you have time?”  As we exchanged contacts details, and made plans, he told me a bit about his facial care, including “I’ve been asked to be photographed for a few calendars.”  “John” was wonderful.  Open, confident, brimming with pride as he educated me about everything remotely related to his handlebar mustache.
   I left for a weekend, focused on relaxing and getting some “seat work” done, only to finish the weekend with one of the most insightful interviews I’ve had.
   
   
2. Any product can be sexualized
   Generally, I consider myself to be rather savvy and “aware”.  I know I was raised in a sheltered way, but through work, travel, and personal choice, I have learned there is much in the world different from me.  Because of this I try to stay aware… Political Movements, Cultural Trends, how others live, what else is “out there”.  However, this past week I landed in a world where beards go beyond pride and masculinity and into sex-appeal, sexuality, and blatant sex.  While working through the competitive audit, I found a brand (at TJ Maxx) called “Beards and Beavers”.  At first I thought it a bit crude, perhaps there was slang I was not aware of, then I saw one of the variants “Cherry Popper”.
   This was shocking.  I know this overt branding does not appeal to all men, nor do all men think of their facial hair in this way, but… well… all I can say is “Wow”.

From a learning perspective, I need to remember that different people have different preferences.  While I am exploring this market for one reason, users have a different objective, and different things appeal.  I must remember that all markets have a wide variety of users.

Thank you, universe, for teaching me a few lessons kindly.

BP 1

Laura Hay and I are working with a brewery located on the westside of Cincinnati called...wait for it... Westside Brewing. Upon meeting with our client during the first week of this Capstone course, we were able to quickly understand why our client, Joe, chose such a generic name for his brewery. During our meeting, Joe informed us that he chose to take a generic branding approach in order to separate himself from all of the other breweries throughout the Cincinnati, NKY area. He elaborated by telling us that keeping his beer names and company logo simple was something many breweries aren’t currently doing. For example, his IPA is called Westside IPA, his stout is called Westside Stout, and so on. He believes this represents his business and customers appropriately. During our first client meeting we began to discuss deliverables and things that Westside Brewing is and is not currently doing. This allowed Laura and I to determine objectives for the upcoming weeks. Joe requested that we develop a competitive analysis of breweries on the west coast, as opposed to local breweries, in order to determine trends in the market that could be beneficial to his business. I took the reins on the competitive analysis as well as beginning to develop strategies to increase brand awareness. Laura also started developing ways to increase brand awareness. Next week Laura and I will continue to develop brand awareness ideas and competitive research to present to our client. We plan to meet with Joe next Wednesday. We are both very excited to have the opportunity to work on a project within the brewery market and we are looking forward to helping the brewery expand and increase revenue.

BG #4:

This last week I had a chance to meet with my client in-person over lunch and also conduct a lot of interviews with Cincinnati Curling Club members and board personnel. It has really helped me gain a deeper understanding of the club and the benefit it provides it members. It was really interesting to hear some of the differences between those who are on the board and those who are members of the club. I got to talk to someone who has been a member of multiple curling clubs, so it was a really insightful. This week, I’m looking forward to wrapping up my interviews/analysis and moving to the next phase of the project.

Last week, it was really nice to meet everyone in-person and walk through some of the challenges we all face as well as going through the Attribute Value Mapping exercise. It really provided a spark for me in terms of continuing to keep things moving on my project. Looking forward to another great week of work! I hope everyone has had a chance to check out the Winter Olympics and some of the curling events!

Moving On

After finally talking to someone else at Braxton I feel that we are moving in a better direction. My fear of that they didn't know we were working with them was confirmed but that also allowed us to ask a lot of questions. He provided us with data stuff and directions that we could move in for the project. Anyways, we are basically starting over in week 7 I think we will still get this done on time. Since we at least now know the direction that is a betterment for the project. I wish we could have linked up with people at Braxton earlier but we still almost have a couple of months to put this project together.

 

I have moved forward with putting a lot of thought into the coffee part of their brewery. I think there is a lot of potential there and they haven't really explore any of it since they have been working on the beer end so much. I am keeping to their message of being innovative and their co-branding theme they have been working. I know that they will be thrill with these new ideas, we just need to start collecting research on these ideas to support these messages.

 

As for the beer end, I think we have come up with a few new ideas but I will need to meet with David to see if we can do anything more exciting with that. David seems to be more interested in this end, which is great because I have felt a little lost with working on this end.

 

At least for now we finally have a direction and I know it is one in which we are not just guessing in the dark at what they want for the project. I like that Braxton likes to think big, so as long as we can deliver on that end I think we will meet what they are looking for. Now I just need to go over marketing notes and skills and see how I can cooperate them into the project.

Fieldwork!

We're making progress learning from stakeholders outside the Braxton organization.  I made good contacts with Cincy Brew Bus and Craft Connection (the 2 leading brewery tour operators in the area), as well as Night Shift Limousine, which also considers brewery tours a key component of their business.  I scheduled a meeting for Natalie and I to meet & interview the owner of Cincy Brew Bus tomorrow, which we're excited about!

We have a meeting with Braxton on Tuesday at the taproom.  Unfortunately, it is only our 2nd meeting with them, so we need to be pointed about what our needs are and how we will use what we ask for to deliver value to Braxton, as well as the fact that it will be very difficult to deliver for them without more engagement than we've had so far.  

I also visited Braxton Labs, their experimental brewery that just opened about 2 weeks ago in the back of the Party Source in Newport, KY.  I was able to chat with 3 of the customers about the local brewery scene in general, and the Braxton/Graeter's Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip collaboration.  They were excited to see the expansion, and very receptive to the "Labs" concept of testing new styles and recipes.  The location in the Party Source was an advantage as well, with the variety/experimental concept a natural complement to the unrivaled variety offered by Party Source.  Abundant parking was noted as an advantage compared to several other local breweries.  

As far as Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip beer was concerned, 2 of the 3 people said they had been excited about it then let down that it "didn't live up to the hype".  The 3rd person, who was not from the area, hadn't heard of it.  

So, I'm excited for the week ahead, the insights it will bring, and driving alignment.

From clarity comes kinetic intensity

Natalie and I struggled a bit to find the right angle from which to approach our project.  Our client, Braxton Brewing Co., has only been open since March 27, 2015.  Even though Braxton's fundraising on Kickstarter literally went at a record-breaking pace (reaching their $30k initial goal within 35 hours, before closing the campaign at $71k a short time later), their growth rate since opening has still been much greater than even they themselves imagined possible.  It's the kind of problem every entrepreneur dreams of.  But needless to say, it also means every member of Braxton's small, family-based team is also even busier than they themselves imagined possible.  

The project itself is to develop a strategy to maximize the value of Braxton's relationship with Graeter's, without Braxton losing their own identity and becoming simply "The Graeter's Beer Company" in consumers' minds.

So, in our desire not to be too demanding of our client's time, while trying to ensure our inquiries about Braxton and with Braxton's key partners such as Graeter's don't "go rogue", we ended up being too cautious so far.  The fact that Braxton's core team is so talented also made us second-guess a little bit.  A test of mettle, for us,  Will you leave the shallows and dive down the deep blue, open ocean side of the reef to investigate the vibrant wall of life and color you came here to see?  If so, will uncertainty or doubt tangle you up and sink you like a rogue fishing, or will you and your diving buddy use your gear and your training to methodically cut yourselves free of the tangle, check your air levels and each other's gear, and finding it intact, proceed to accomplish what you set out to do?

After productive discussions on Friday with Natalie and on Sunday with both Natalie and Drew, we have found our gear is intact and our air levels are good.  I look forward to really hitting our stride this week, crafting a tightly focused charter to deliver significant insight and value to our client, and fearlessly applying the skills we've worked hard to develop in order to get here.  

A crucial element of doing this is to understand what Braxton currently has as a "Brand Book".  I just found a key piece of information in that regard. Nelten Small Batch is the designer/studio who did Braxton's graphic brand development, so contacting them, in addition to Graeter's, Brew Bus tour operators, and a 2nd meeting with the Braxton team, are top priorities this week.

 

 

Moving Onto An Idea

After David and I met with Drew I think we are now moving onto a track that seems better for the project. As of right now, we are going to help full out more of Braxton's brand and add things that they can go into their brand book. We think they have a good foundation to marketing right now but we could help them focus in more on connection of that brand promise to the customers. So instead of their brand just telling the customers what they are, the people that are associated with the brand will believe that's who they are when they are with Braxton. We want people to come into Braxton because they are innovators seeking for the new edge; since that is what Braxton's promise is to the customers.

Hopefully, sometime this upcoming week we can meet with Braxton again and join our ideas together. I think after meeting Braxton again we will have a better idea of what type of research we need to start gathering. This week I think David and I should really focus on getting a meeting with Braxton set up and understand where to dig into the research part of the project. That way when we present our ideas we have reasons to believe that the customers will believe in Braxton's co-branding message to the public.

Looking forward to tomorrow's night class to see where others our at on the project and understanding the direction we need to keep heading in as a group.

Capstone:The journey begins

On May 8th 2017, we had our official Capstone Kick off with Drew telling us about the course details like the structure, grading, about past projects, clients and of course how challenging this course is.I think it gave us an idea of what lies ahead and how much effort we have to put in for this course.Capstone had been the most awaited course for me as it is here that we actually get to work on an actual client project where we can apply things that we have learnt.I was eagerly waiting for my project and I am very happy that I got the project of a leading brand licensing company "Ripple Junction", as it was a project of my interest. 

So, after getting to know about our project,I have started to research about the company and industry in which they operate.Also,we have set up our first meeting for Thursday this week wherein we will get a better understanding of what the client is looking for and their problem areas. As Drew had mentioned initially, this project requires a lot of data skills,which I am excited about as I like to work with data.I am really looking forward to this project and hope to come up with some concrete results which would be helpful for our client.

 

Busting the Budget

Last week, Team Behr submitted our survey that will provide the data to back up the secondary research and qualitative interviews we've done throughout the semester. This was a big milestone for us and an important step toward completing the project, and we were happy that our contact Lisa complimented our hard work and dedication in designing it.

Then, the next day, we got another dose of variability.

Lisa contacted us and said the company we had planned to have run the survey would not be charging $4.95 per response, as estimated. Instead, they were quoting an amount that worked out to $140 per response! (Apparently the targeted responses we are seeking could not be accomplished with a simple screening question, as estimated; the survey company would have to do some additional legwork to find people in the target.)

Behr has been fairly free with gift cards to reward our interview subjects, but a five-figure payout for 300 survey responses was a little more than they had expected. Luckily, they were able to pivot quickly. By the time we had responded saying we would investigate other possibilities for collecting survey responses, they were working industry connections with the same goal in mind. The new plan is to survey subscribers to an industry magazine. This won't give quite the random sample that was initially discussed, but it's an efficient (and hopefully inexpensive) way to find our target.

But that brings us to a new round of ambiguity. With the delay in implementing the survey, will we receive the data in time to analyze it, implement it into our report, and make the presentation in the next three weeks? Time will tell, but time is getting shorter day by day.

All Talk

This week, Team Behr went searching for more insights. We interviewed paint store employees, homeowners who have hired painters, and the editor of a painting trade magazine, trying to discover if the people connected to professional painters could tell us anything about our target and whether anything distinguishes them from the rest of the pro segment.

One thing I've noticed about this project is how it has forced me to step outside my comfort zone when it comes to asking people for information. Walking into a paint store and explaining that you're a student who is working on a project and can you ask some questions about professional painters? That is definitely outside my comfort zone!

We also presented another draft of our survey to our contact, Lisa, who met with her colleagues and made final suggestions. Based on the questions they asked to add, it seems the team at Behr wants to know more about: a) why people become painters in the first place, and b) their use of digital tools to run their businesses. This is a more specific focus than we've previously discussed, and we know it's partly because of some research Behr recently obtained. We'll ask Lisa more questions at our next check-in to see what she's thinking.

 

Two meetings with Drew this week have helped us clarify the questions we're asking and given us a way forward. A recommendation for Behr is on its way! Now we just need to see if the survey we've designed confirms the hypotheses we've developed based on our interviews. 

 

Four weeks until the presentation date - time really does fly.