CAPSTONE!

New is good. Different is better.

To date in my career, I have largely worked on consumer-packaged brands.  Many were brands that I used on a regular basis (Pampers, Clorox, Hershey’s) or they were brands that I knew of, and working on the brand made me a smarter consumer (Fiberglass insulation). 

A piece of feedback that I heard somewhat frequently was that I needed to be careful to not place my experiences as that of our target.  Even in a class this past fall, I commented on my interaction with a brand and product, and what I believe to be the “problems” with a product and it’s marketing even though I am not even close to the target, the target is college-aged men.  I “jumped” to the situation and felt that my experiences with indicative of the category interactions.  Clearly, I still have room to improve in this area of development.

However, working on a product that is targeted to the opposite sex is eye-opening to me, and very refreshing!  I have never used a product like this, I never will.  I’ve talked to my friends and family about the product and I have learned about how it is manufactured, marketed, and sold.  However, talking to men and hearing the preferences and experiences and learning something new with every potential target is great for me!  I find that I am asking a lot more questions, making fewer and fewer assumptions.  I ask more, think more, dig deeper, and look and think and contemplate.  Additionally, I act less, meaning I make fewer assumptions and jump to fewer conclusions.  I believe this will make me a better marketer.

This may seem a small to some people, but this is a significant insight for me.  As I look to take the next step in my career, I was looking to roles that are related to experiences in my past as that is where I am more comfortable.  However, I am now thinking that I need to look further outside my comfort zone. 

week 4

Last week I had our second meeting with my client Jordan. Prior to the meeting, the charter doc was sent out for Jordan and Steve to review and look over. And they also sent me a doc about their current marketing strategies and their expectations of my job.

The goal of the meeting was not only to walk through the charter’s contents step-by-step and make any adjustments, but only to give me a deeper understanding of their company and clear my mind up.

The charter makes me feel like the real work begins. Because their company is a very young startup and they don’t have many marketing strategies and they don’t know the current market very well. And they even don’t know who their competitors are. My jobs are to help them to create a categorized data base about their competitors, in order to know how are those company talking about themselves and what they do. And I need to help them to look at potential client categories and organize them in groups. I can foresee that a bunch of marketing researches are needed to be done in the following month.

They also want me to do something with their brand equity and brand identity, because of the unique definition of their company, which is not a traditional or typical design agency, neither an academic institution.

However, I never have a clearer thought of what should I do, what will I do ever before. Two months will be gone really fast. I need to be much stronger to face the challenges and get things done step by step. 

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.

week 3

Everything is going back on track this week.

The initial client meeting was completed via Skype with my new clients—Jordan and Steve, who are co-founders of a 1 year old design agency. So great! They are both professors are DAAP faculty and they did a very clear introduction about their company and were very kind to answer all the questions I have. What’s more, Jordan also has a MS Marketing degree and took the capstones project before, it is so great to have someone who has experience nearby and gave me a lot of confidence to complete this project.

Back to the project itself, it will be heavily based on qualitative research, because our clients’ business is a new set-up agency and it is very unclear that who the target audiences and competitors are, and how to approach a broad target of audiences with limited resources and time. The research scope is broad which means there will be a lot of work to be done.

Because this topic is related to the design industry which I am not very familiar with, I spoke to some of my friend in the DAAP program to get deeper thoughts from the insiders. The conversations we had inspired me a lot and gave me a lot of ideas about how to create the current big pic.

There'll be a lot of things to figure out and challenges to deal with, but I insist on being positive on the final outcomes. Academic knowledge is not the thing that matters the most. Everything is becoming interesting and keep working!

week 2

Lots of things happened during this week and they changed my capstones project a lot.

During the first half week, everything run very fluently. my partner Samantha and I was working on making our charter to clear up what we should do next.

However, because of some specific reasons, my capstones project client was changed from the UC Alumni Association to a new set-up design agency and I will be a team to complete this project, which makes me to change all my previous plans and it is a huge challenge to me. Right now I haven’t got connection with my new client yet, but it is on my schedule and I will do it ASAP.

I am very nervous not only because this is my first time to take and complete the whole project by myself, but also because now I need to put myself into the real world, and face the real client directly, instead from the previous academic environment. Everything is so changeling, but I will put my most effort into this project to make it as prefect as I can. I hope everything will become better. Also I will keep working to catch up other students’ project process.

Week 1: Excited and Overwhelmed

I am completing Week one of my Capstone today.  The week has been rough, between extra work at "work", a blast-class, and everything to be done at home, I am feeling more than a bit overwhelmed.  Right now, I am questioning my belief that I can finish my Capstone in 15 weeks (13 weeks remaining).

In addition to feeling overwhelmed, I had to "meet my client" this week.  She seems nice, a bit intense, a bit driven, more than a little busy, and somewhat scattered.  I should mention, I am my client.  I find it an interesting position to be both "client" and "vendor".  As "client", I have a million and one things that I feel should be accomplished, but as "vendor", I keep placing everything on the "to-do" list into a calendar... What needs to be accomplished, how long does it take, what needs to occur first, second, can anything be dual-pathed, who can help, what kind of help do I need?  All of these questions jolt me back to reality and I start a list... What do I want done?  What needs to be done?  What can be done in the time allotted (to my satisfaction)?  What can I do that will serve the need for evaluation?

On the positive side of the angst I am feeling this week, I am excited!  The idea of starting my own business intrigues and terrifies me.  I tell my proposition to everyone who asks, and the large majority are interested, supportive, and wish me success.  It is interesting to talk with men (and women) about the topic and gauge their response.  Many men begin by saying "I don't use beard stuff.", but then go on to tell me how the do use "some", they simply don't use it regularly, or as a routine, and my impression is that they do not want to be seen as metro-sexual.  This is interesting, and I need to be sure to dig more on this topic in research.

My two key deliverables for the upcoming week are:

1)  Consumer Target:  Outline, plot, and begin execution on the plan to identify the target market, and within that, my core consumer/persona. 

 2)  Scope of Work:  Finalize a draft of realistic deliverables that can be achieved in the given time-frame, and will be the basis of a "go/no-go" decision for Mom's Care.

Note to self:  Suggest that all projects be assigned to two people.  This acts as both driver and support which I believe will be necessary by the end.

 

 

The initial client meeting

As I begin my final semester of the MS Marketing program, it’s still hard to believe how much I've learned and changed during the learning journey. I am excited and anxious about the Capstone project. I already knew the Capstone project is a tough but interesting project before I selected it, and I chose it as my last course in my MS program, because I wanted to put all my effort to work on it and finish it perfectly. And luckily, I get a very interesting topic—working with UC Alumni Association.

Before the initial meeting, I was quite unsure what I was required to do and what was expected from me and my partner. However, I was glad that my partner, Samantha Wheatley, is a very nice guy and gave me some help with preparing the initial meeting. Even if because some reasons, my partner can’t be in Cincinnati and meet the client with me in person the whole semester, I still think we can cooperate with each other very well and do a good job in the end.

Our client, Kim Burdett, helped clear most of our doubts in that first meeting, even some unexpected technical problems happened during our online meeting. She explained her ideas of the current problem that the association has and provided us with a lot of reference materials, so that we could understand the project directly. What’s more, Kim was very nice and friendly to answer all the questions I asked and explained them very specifically. I am so glad I can work with her during the next 3 months.

The very first thoughts

So here I am on the Capstone journey. It's still hard to believe looking back and see how much I've learned and changed in just 6 months staying in the US. Nothing better than the feeling of working on something I really want to. Nothing more anxious than diving in the sea of ambiguity while all I have is a belief. 

The Capstone project begun and I was back to the track with a mix of excitement and nervourness. Heard of Barefoot Proximity previously, I'm so glad that I have the chance to work with them. Back to the project, the picture seemed much clearer after the initial client meeting. Me and Ted was provided with a solid foundation of knowing what the goals would be. The project is to gain customer behaviour insights for a reputable CPG company. Sounds great! The project will be heavily based on qualitative research, and one of the questions for now is how to approach a broad target of audiences with limited resources and time. Plus, the research scope is broad which means there will be a lot of work to be done. 

As I did some background research, the topic starts to shape. My mind was loaded with a lot of questions of 'why' and 'how' that keeps me reading and digging deeper and deeper. My partner - Ted and me had a good start working on the Chatter. He was really nice and helpful in listening and keeping us focus on the project. We are all busy balancing work, school, and personal life, but I believe we have the cooperative attitude as one key to success. 

There'll be a lot of things to figure out and challenges to deal with, but I insist on being positive towards the final outcomes. Academic knowledge is not the only thing that matters. Drew and Dianne have offered support since day one with lots of tools and useful advices. Blog post is an awesome idea to foresee what would come up and self-motivate. Kudos!

Mark Leach: Nashville Country Artist; Blog Post #1 - Meggie Lynn, Brandi Berkemeier, Kaitlyn Stewart

Our initial meeting with Mark and his team began with introductions and then went into expectations, both on their side and our side. We came to the conclusion that Mark’s primary goals are to expand his fan base nationally and have a distinguished strategy for certain situations like the release of a single or entry into a new market. Mark does not want to limit himself to a certain target audience, but as consultants, if we come to an idea of who his audience is, it would be beneficial for him.

Additionally, we proposed a revamp of Mark’s social media accounts and website to contribute to making Mark Leach’s brand appear cohesive from all aspects. He has a decent fan base, one in which we hope to develop even more. We have also been in contact with Arlene Foster, a Community Relations Manager at the university. She suggests we go through Conference & Events Services. We have also come to the conclusion that we need to speak with some of the PAC students to get the insights on how to host a campus concert. After an informal chat with a PAC member, he shared some overlooked key points. For instance, where the concert will be held, how we would acquire a stage, who will set the concert up/take down, potential construction, weather conditions if outdoors, grounds rules and regulations, security costs per attendance, etc.

We also discussed with Mark and his team about his long-term goals as an artist and what is important to him currently. Things such as strategically figuring out how to establish some radio station relationships, connecting with the right kind of listeners, digging into the audiences he already has in northern Ohio and some surrounding states and translating it to a broader audience, and lastly having a plan of what is going to happen every time he releases a single, has a concert, and more will be important factors for our team to consider going forward with our marketing strategy for him as an artist.

Advice

I believe when giving advice you should never give to much. You should give the guidelines but then it is up to the individual on what they want to make of the information because in reality as a parent/teacher/coach/mentor you can tell people a million different things but it all comes down to that other person's attitude on what they want to make of the situation. So for me that's my advice. You can either decided your going to kick ass on this project or not. Believe in yourself that you are going to get it done and stick to your guidelines. Roll with the punches because that's your journey. Good Luck and remember enjoy that process because the end route to anything is just the end and the process is what makes you, you!