Week 9 EOC: creative content

My plan is to script, record and edit a radio commercial using a character in the voice of Phineas. I'm hoping for a old time confidant man talking about how great the product is simply because he his awesome. This would be similar to the worlds most interesting man commercials for Dos Equis.  The music i will search royalty free just for the right sound but im not hearing what it should be yet. I know i was to use a Neumann U87 for the dialog going through the Avalon 737 tube pre amp. This will supply me with one of the best sounds you can get in dialog. I maight also record with the Electro Voice RE20, because it is industry standard for radio voices. The commercial itself will be mostly an unbelievable tale that end with a simple pitch to consumers.

The Adventure: EOC

Phinneas was now traveling through the middle east on his balloon.  He landed in Doha, the capital city in the country of Qatar.  Phinneas was tired from his journey, he needed food, drink and rest.  He found himself at a small cafe on the street, where a beautiful woman came over and sat with him.  He could see her big brown eyes where starring nowhere accept as him.  She said her name was Anja, which meant beauty. Anja told Phinneas how much she loved music and wished Phinneas could play her a love song.  Phinneas, who had his guitar with him, did not have a pick to play with. Anja looked down with a sadness. Quickly, Phinneas looked around the cafe and saw some baked pita bread. He went over and snapped of a piece in the shape of a pick. He then played the most beautiful song Anja ever heard. Afterwards, Phinneas decided to call the small bread chip,  Qatar Picks. The two shared the snack and left the cafe. The rest is up to your imagination. 

Implementation Evaluation Control: Final Project

Now we have our plan need to move forward implementing it. This is the step where we know what we need to do, now we need to go do it. Implementation first starts with production of the product.   “Marketing implementation is the process that turns marketing plans into marketing actions in order to accomplish strategic marketing objectives.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 57)  Our next step is to get our vendors our to potential clients, make business contacts and create accounts.  We need a promotional push to consumers via social media to inform them of the new product. “Whereas marketing planning addresses the what and why of marketing activities, implementation addresses the who, where, when, and how.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 57) Now that we have our account and an informed consumer, we need to ship and sell our product. This process of implementation will continue and get larger and large as our demand and market share increases.

Price: Final Project

Pricing is one of the hardest things to set. It needs to cover our production, distribution, and operation costs, while still gaining our company a profit. Most business to consumer pricing for our competitors is anywhere from .50 cents to upward of $1.50. We also have to take into account this is a mark up for retailer profit. “Price is the amount of money customers must pay to obtain the product.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 54) I calculate the cost per unit to businesses to be .75 cents to allow for mark up. We can ship in cases of 25 each, bringing our price per case to $18.75. As long as we can sell enough and keep our costs below .50 cents per unit, the company can turn a profit.

Promotion: Final Project

Our next step is to look at promotions. Promoting to our consumers directly is not our biggest opportunity.  The best way to promote is directly to our business clients, such as the bars.  Keeping the good working relationship with them is what directly sells the product to the consumer. “Promotion means activities that communicate the merits of the product and persuade target customers to buy it.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 54) We can offer free products with large orders, sponsor special events with the bars as well as create signs and “promo gear” (i.e. shirts and hats) to be displayed or given to the consumer.

Distribution: Final Project

When distributing we need to focus on where exactly these product will be sold, how we get them there and keeping that supply chain going. “Place includes company activities that make the product available to target consumers.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 54)  We definitely want to focus on bars in our local area, especially those bars without a kitchen. Our distribution costs will remain low while starting local. As the company branches into new locations, our main type of distribution will be trucking, as these snacks can survive a while before they become stale and perish. Trucking is also smart in another way due to the recent and dramatic drop in fuel costs.

Product: Final Project

Our product is baked pita bread chips. They are made in small triangle shaped chips and are called Qatar Picks, a pun on the middle eastern country and music. They are packaged for single serving, individual sale. Our product is not just the snack, but the back-story of the snack and the experience of the food. Our product is a step away from the same potato based chips of our competitors.“Product means the goods-and-services combination the company offers to the target market.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 54) We offer this to the consumer through our business clients at a market price with a suggested retail price.

Pitch: Final Project

Phinneas Foods “Qatar Picks” A triangular shaped baked pita bread snack. Lightly salted and seasoned for the sweet and savory flavor from the middle east. "the statements and promises that someone makes in an attempt to persuade someone else to buy something"   (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/sales-pitch) The Pitch - “A versatile snack, for a versatile you.” https://soundcloud.com/mike-dupuis/phinneas-food-commercial

Target Market Strategy: Final Project

My target marketing strategy is broken into two areas. The first area is in business to business, where most of our drive will be in.  The second area is business to consumer. This area is just as important because the consumer is what helps gain market share, and gain brand and customer loyalty. “The marketing mix is the set of controllable, tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 53)  Our first area, business to business, the strategy is using direct mail, email and face to face vendors to build a rapport with these clients, our main clients being bars and restaurants. These are the businesses that will be selling to the consumer directly. Building this relationship is vital to selling our product. “The selection of potential customers to whom a business wishes to sell products or services. The targeting strategy involves segmenting the market, choosing which segments of the market are appropriate, and determining the products that will be offered in each segment. (businessdictionary.com/) The next area, business to consumer, the strategy there is to keep the customer engaged with the company.  Current research shows that the millennial age group, the ones that are now old enough to drink, do not respond well to direct mail or telephone contact.   Our strategy will be to keep them engaged through social media. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter being the main social outlets, will be our focus on obtaining and maintaining our customer base.

SWOT analysis: Final Project

The SWOT analysis is how we can figure out what we have to work with and how we can go about completing our objectives.  We need to see what are advantages and disadvantages there are.  “An overall evaluation of the company’s strengths (S), weaknesses (W), opportunities (O), and threats (T).” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 55)  Here is what we have so far.  For our strengths; we are original, different type of snack food from chips and pretzels, we have technology and the same distribution opportunities as our competitors.  Our weaknesses include weak branding, as we do not have any hold in the market for our new snack food. We also have no customer retention, yet. Our Opportunities are the increase in technology, providing a new product, and the current economical increase.  Our threats are our competition, that has big branding and big market shares. Another threat is our competitors also have the same technology that we have access to, and they also have customer relationships. “The main section of the plan presents a detailed SWOT analysis of the current marketing situation as well as potential threats and opportunities.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 56) Moving forward with this information lets us know where we are both internally and externally. Now we can continue with our marketing mix and grab a piece of the pie.

Objectives: Final Project

Looking at my objectives, I will need to focus first on the product quality and cost of production.  This is strictly a business objective that needs to be meet without letting the production costs bury the company in debt.  The next objective to tackle is the product price. This objective needs to be met in a way that is relatively in-expensive to the consumer but is also profitable enough for the company to cover the overhead of production, distribution, and sales costs, while still gaining net revenue. “This broad mission leads to a hierarchy of objectives, including business objectives and marketing objectives.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 43)  The last objective I will focus on is my marketing objective, which is gaining a bigger market share relative to our company’s competition.  “Sales can be increased by improving the company’s share of domestic and international markets. These goals then become the company’s current marketing objectives.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 43)  Each of these three objectives is the bedrock to the company’s mission statement.  In order to meet these objectives we have find out where we stand as far as competition, current market , in both size and pricing.  Next step is to evaluate the company’s strengths and weaknesses.

Business Mission Stament: Final Project

When thinking about my mission statement, I look for something simple that can includes obtainable objectives and is profitable. My mission statement needs satisfy my company, product and make it commercially successful to my consumer market.  “A mission statement is a statement of the organization’s purpose—what it wants to accomplish in the larger environment.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 39)  My mission statement is “To provide a quality product and a quality price to our consumers and gaining in markets shares.  To maintain a healthy relationship with our commercial partners and the public.”  “The company needs to turn its mission into detailed supporting objectives for each level of management.” (Marketing An Introduction, Gary Armstrong, pg. 41)  From this statement I can breakdown each objective and begin a solid marketing plan that will help me in meeting this goal as well as hopefully exceeding each objective.  The three things I need to focus on the most would be, product quality, product price, and market share.

Week 5 EOC: differences and similarites of B2B and B2C marketing

Consumer marketing, or business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, sales are made to individuals who are the final decision makers, though they may be influenced by family members or friends. A business marketing, or business-to-business (B2B) marketing, sale is made to a business or firm. (
B2B versus Consumer Marketing) I want to start with the similarities of B2B and B2C marketing. Each type of marketing has gernerally the same goals. They attempt to successfully match product or service with the needs of their target market. They set pricing for products and services to create a gain over competetors while keeping with the market expectation. Companies also attempt to communicate effectively with their costumers as to maintain loyalty and value. business-to-business marketers keep a customer’s sales and create customer value by meeting current needs and by partnering with customers to help them solve their problems. (Marketing: An Introduction) Some of the difference between both off these different types of marketing are; The volume. Volume of sales to an individual client whether it be consumer or company differ greatly. A sale to a company could generate from the thousands to the millions of dollars in revenue, where as the sale to a single consumer would be generally under $100 dollars. Another major difference is the customer service and field reps that are put out by B2B marketing. I've never seen a company rep show up at my house to see if everything was going good and if there was anything i needed to make my product better or update to the "new model." consumers do gain new information about products but not face to face, it is definitely less personable.

Week 4 EOC: new phone app

Every time i watch a video that someone recorded on their phone, especially one from a concert, I cringe because the audio is terrible. Of course its terrible because i was recorded on a tiny little microphone that has never been updated.  When was the last time you saw new microphone technology go into your droid or iPhone, huh? You never hear it because they don't do it. All the talk is about the new camera and what it can do. Ok, so there was my rant and now for my app to solve this problem.  You cant fix the microphone that was installed by the manufacturer but we can change audio as it records. This new app will do two main "fixes." the first will be to atennuate the high levels down by -15dB this takes away the ear punching concert sound that sounds so cracked when recorded on a tiny mic. The second step is to get the mix sound that you are actually hearing while recording video and getting the same results when played back. This is done via an algorithm written into the app that will adjust for the bias of the microphones pick-up across the spectral range. Basically it will notch out frequencies and boost the lower mids to bring back what you thought was lost recording into such a tiny mic. I looked through the internet for an app like this already out there, and there is none. The closest thing i saw was an in-ear company that will pad loud noises down to a normal level but leave in the quality of the sound being heard without the plugs.

Week 3 EOC: My Demographics

I am technically a millennial, but with such a wide age range for millennials, there are not too many similarities with the younger millennials except for our ability to work with the growing technology and be very user integrated into the abilities of software.  Everything else, I feel is just not me at all. I'm almost 30 and have been thrown in with kids still in their teens. I believe that I align mostly with the Gen Xers. What i have started to see through research is that millennials are being split up into two groups. Now they have older millennials and younger millennials, also a side by side shows older millennials almost identical with gen X. I guess they don't want to give up the label.

Week 3 EOC: Making money for good

In 2012, Google, a for profit company, made $10.8 Billion in pretax revenue. Google gave almost 10% of that to charitable donations. More specifically Google donated "$144,606,000 (cash) / $1,000,000,000 (products) share of 2011 pre-tax profits donated in 2012: 9.3%." - (Forbes.com) Donating as a company can have very potential upswings to more revenue. Donating to worthy causes can benefit the givers as much as the receivers. When it’s done strategically, charitable giving is good for business — and we’re not just talking about potential tax deductions.(Quickbooks.com) Is it doing good for you, them, or both? either way its still helping those in need.

Week 2 EOC: Boston Consulting Group - Video Games

With market shares for gaming console being extremely competitive, the "console wars" was only limited to two separate consoles. These consoles were Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's Playstation 4. However, these wars were competing for the majority of only 50% of the entire market. The majority share holder in the market is Nintendo. Most people would not think so at a glance but, Nintendo currently has four consoles in the current market. Nintendo is a cash cow, with Microsoft and Sony competing at dogs. "Cash cows are low-growth, high-share businesses or products. These established and successful SBUs need less investment to hold their market share. Thus, they produce a lot of cash that the company uses to pay its bills and to support other SBUs that need investment." - Marketing: An Introduction. Nintendo seems to have a smart business model by marketing consoles in different formats that do not directly compete with themselves but only with other game and console makers.

Week 1 EOC: Great Customer Experience

The best customer service I ever received was from an online company called Sgt. Grit. This is a military memorabilia company, specializing in Marine Corps gear. In Oct 2013, I purchased an NCO sword for a friend of mine. I was told that the order would take longer than expected do to the personalization of the sword and that it was close to the Marine Corps birthday and they where become backlogged. I recieved the NCO ahead of schedule and was very impressed that it came in 5 days early.  When i looked at the sword, I realized it was not the one I had ordered but someone else's personalized sword.  I contacted Sgt. Grit, they paid for the shipping back to them, gave me a $50 store credit and upgraded my shipping for free.  Two weeks later, i still had not received the sword I ordered. I again contacted the company. They were very apologetic, and gave my a complete refund on the sword, another $50 store credit and shipped the sword overnight to my house. They were insistant on trying to right a wrong and keep their customers.

Week 1 EOC: My voice

I'm a live sound engineer, with a passion for all things audio. I have been working professionally in live sound for over two years and averaging around two shows every week. That is over 200 shows under my belt, professionally.  Besides working as a front of house (FOH) engineer, I have also worked as an audio consultant, videographer, and director for musicians that want to create promo or music videos. In the future, I hope to make the move into post-production sound so i can explore my real passion of being a sound designer for motion pictures. The road is long but I'm in it for the long haul.