CAPSTONE!

Almost there!

As we prepare for the second PR meeting with Drew, we also started preparing our phase 2 report and recommendations. We came up with several promotional messages and sales strategies. We used all the influence strategies to come up with a solid promotional base. It was surprising to see how the application of influence strategies made a significant difference in the ads. Apart from that, we have completed our second research that was specifically targeted to the Tide Pod users only.

We are now working on redesigning the website. The website will also have most of the influence strategies. We look forward to meeting with Drew. Just like the first day of the capstone class, I am equally excited and nervous for the upcoming tasks.

Back on track

We are both glad that we met our client again this week. This time, we sat down and discussed our biggest survey together to make everything back on track.

We three, Stephanni, Jay and I,  went through all the questions and choices to make it read smoothly and clear to understand. Moving some questions about time for consumers to attend to the beginning was the best option for us to clarify our purpose and state how the academy tours operate. In the meantime, how to ask participants to sign up or apply for our tours is another tricky question. We tried to make it more easy to accept instead of keeping participants away from us. In the demography part, we added the more important choice for people to choose: "prefer not to answer," which indeed care about their feelings of privacy and comfortable zone. Thus, it means that we also may lose some data to help us build crosstabs between gender and other questions.  

We still kept working on the survey in the rest of week and wished could make it out before April. Designing is not my specialty, but I would never know how I can improve until I learn first. I felt relieved that we are back on track and looked forward to the distribution of our survey in the following weeks. 

The Tide Story

We have moved a step further in the research process. At this stage, we are confident about our big picture and the future goals. We had a meeting today with Professor Drew and he gave us a few insights that we did not earlier focus on. Now we have two different aspects of the same project. The meeting helped us understand the points that we did not consider in the previous phases. Now that we have a mixture of our understanding and Drew’s suggestions, my group and I are planning to work on it today.

We also discussed the persuasion class and I have a good feeling about it since one of our primary goals is to persuade the customers. On a side note, this class has taught me a lot about utilizing the time productively and making the most out of it!

The Phase 1

After getting a clear understanding about the project and the deliverables, now we were going to validate the given hypothesis. My team and I spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the various aspect of the project. We thought about how competitors’ matrix would help us understand how we are different than others and what are our strengths. We also discussed how we can improve the business module. It took us more than two hours to figure out how we should proceed; rather, from where should we start. But after an intense brainstorming, we gained a clear understanding of the scope of the project.

One interesting thing that we are going to do today is the attribute mapping. I feel it’s a great tool to know what our advertisements should focus on and on what variable we emphasize on.

We faced a couple of challenges before we reached the conclusion. We could not decide whether we are trying to stimulate demand or earn share. But as I said, we did come to a conclusion after brainstorming. Overall, I think we are doing well and have the motivation to do even better. Our goal for the next week will be to start with the research process. We plan on doing the research by interviewing a few people as well as using the questionnaire.

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

This week, Team Behr worked on gaining some firsthand knowledge of our client's customers by doing some "secret shopping" at the client's store (The Home Depot) and a competitor's store. We also worked on pulling together some quotes so our contact, Lisa, can establish a budget.

As I wrote last week, we need to conduct market research on a very specific demographic group, and we've been asked not to use any Behr internal mailing lists. That means one of two things: trade organizations, or paying for responses. We have reached out to a trade group and may have some luck getting to survey their members, but otherwise, we're probably looking at several thousand dollars for a statistically significant survey.

Lisa has said she can give us a budget once we provide her with some pricing options, but I can't shake the feeling that she might not have bargained on a budget of thousands of dollars for "just a school project." This, of course, is nonsense of my own invention. There's no reason whatsoever that survey responses should be somehow less valuable when purchased by students, and Lisa certainly hasn't given us any indication that she thinks that's the case. And yet, I'm concerned that talk of a budget might put a strain on our cordial relationship.

It's always difficult to talk about money, isn't it?

But I suppose money is one of the unpleasant topics that a marketing manager must face in the real world. We provide a valuable service (that, if all goes well, will lead to the company making or saving millions of dollars), and we will require capital to do it. That's just how it goes, and so we might as well get used to having the discussion.

Still, I hope the trade organization comes through with their list. That'd be a win-win.

The Tide Story

Imagine getting to know that you are going to work for a company that you have always heard about – P&G! I could feel the excitement and nervousness at the same time. After attending two initial client meetings, I can say that P&G is truly a dream workplace for marketers. Sheer professionalism but a fun workplace was my first impression.

    Being the beginning of the semester, this endeavor was always going to be a challenging one. As expected, the first client meeting (which was the day after our first class!) revealed how great this company was and how we needed to manage our time and resources efficiently! Unlike other internships, here, we were told that only ideas are not enough but an implementation of those ideas should be done!

    We are six people divided into two groups working on two different projects. We all met Uttam & Kristin and they guided us through all the upcoming projects. They gave us an overview about 5 projects and asked us to pick one that we felt was the most appealing one. Baliey, Serkan and I picked the Tide on Demand project.

    I felt that I could personally relate to the project since running out of detergents at critical moments has always been an issue for me! I believe you generate better ideas when you are personally involved in the problem. To get a better understanding of our specific project, we met Rohan, who’d be our guide throughout the project. This meeting solved most of our doubts and we gained a clear understanding of it. Rohan explained to us what they expect from us and how are we going to go ahead with the project.

    So far it has been exciting and a challenging journey but we look forward to exploring the marketing world and learn!

Standing at the foot of the hill, looking up.

My first reaction when being chosen to work with Greater Cincinnati Water Works was one of great excitement. Being from Cincinnati I have heard a lot about the great work being done but I had never done research on the company. This project is going to be providing me with exactly that. Our initial client meeting will be taking place this Friday! It is a little later than most others I imagine, but that is alright. GCWW is assembling a team of bright minds to meet with Cathy and I to discuss the project. 

The time before our initial meeting has provided me with extensive time to do good research on GCWW and what they stand for. I plan to continue doing research and preparing for the meeting. Cathy has also been working on her own research and we are going to meet today before class to discuss our findings and to decide what needs to be done moving forward before our meeting on Friday.

It is crazy to think that this is my final semester of graduate school... It seem like just yesterday I was starting undergrad. Here is to the final large conquest of my college career.

I am excited to finally meet everyone at GCWW!

Currently I am standing at the foot of the hill, looking up. But soon Cathy and I will be standing at the top of the hill!

First step to wait for challenge

When I was told that I would work with Greater Cincinnati Water Works, I was excited but a little nervous to face the future challenge. As I went through the work done last year, the first image of GCWW came into my mind is a healthy water source, excellent service, and reliable protection. Yes, what they are selling is water officially, but what behind their product is more than I thought at the beginning. Their campaigns involve brand strategies, buyer behavior, and distribution channels. After going through the website and social media, my curiosity increases and my anxiety goes up as well. 

Fortunately, Stephanni, who is marketing supervisor in GCWW now and was a student in UC, keeps in touch with us and arrange our initial meeting next Friday. The reason why we postponed our initial meeting is to meet all key members in our project to attain information as much as we can. Also, my team member and I agreed that meeting at GCWW and talking about our project face to face is the best way to help us get a good start. Before our initial meeting at GCWW, I will meet with my team member, Jay, tomorrow to discuss what we searched and questions. Now I understand the ambiguity that Drew mentioned in our first class after my reseaching. In our capstone project, we will face the either-or choice to go to next stage. Our world, the marketing world has not only black and white sections but also has a grey area waiting for us to explore.

It is good not only to know that I will not work alone with capstone but also have such great repeat client to cooperate. When I was asked about our marketing capstone by other people in Linder, I could feel their curiosity and admire, which made me proud of my major and gave me passion toward the future challenge. No matter what it will be, I should keep moving.

Finishing touches

We aren't presenting for another two weeks, but I've been making ad storyboards this week and will probably continue to next week. We have strong suggestions, some of which they've already started working on, so I know we're in line with what they are thinking. However, our client is lacking in static ads, which we will be focusing on. Next week, we are going over our web content suggestions with the web manager to ensure our suggestions are in line with what they are already doing and what they might change. We have a mini presentation prepared to give her, which uses their own competitive market research data interwoven with our own qualitative insights. I've even mocked up a frame sample for social media use.

BLOGPOST 11: The Last Lap

I cannot believe that next week this day I will be giving my final presentation to my clients. It has been an extremely versatile journey for me. From the initial surprise that I will be working alone, to the various stages of the project which were filled with a feeling of nervousness,  quest and triumph, I think that the Capstone project was the perfect end to my journey as a MS Marketing student. I could not have asked for a better project to incorporate all the the knowledge and skills that I have gained in all the classes.

Looking back I can say that throughout this project I have involuntarily taken inspiration from so many classes and professors. Lectures that I thought I had forgotten or class room discussions that I thought had slipped my mind, all of that came back to me during various stages of my capstone project. 

Marketing is a true blend of creativity and technical skills and my project truly encapsulated this essence. I had to push my boundaries and learn new techniques so that I can gain as much and as relevant data as possible but at the end of it all a creative mind has do the final trick. I understood that a marketer does not only have to understand the behavior of the market but also the true emotions of it. And hence to understand my target group I had to understand what it is like to have a family member that has disabilities. This experience definitely changes you as a person. You start seeing the world differently. You want your loved one to be self reliant but you are excessively protective of them. You become a little skeptical of the world around you. My client has to break all these barriers and reach out to such guardians and it's not an easy job. I hope that with my efforts and the little knowledge that I have gained through my experience in UC I have been able to help them to reach out to people who require Acceptance, Attention and Assistance. 

I would like to end my post with the most important thing that I have learnt from my project, and that is Our Society is judged by how our most Vulnerable people are Treated and to reach our full potential we must Integrate people with Different Abilities.

Thank you all.