Blog Post 8: Course Outcomes

             Over the course of the 16 week semester I learned a great deal about Marketing through the BU 215 Marketing course.  The class had clearly defined objectives, such as learning the terminology of marketers, recognizing the importance of the consumer, and to put marketing into action via team projects, individual presentations, as well as reports. Although the semester flew, we were able to achieve these objectives and gain the outcomes of participating and communicating as an effective part of a team, using oral skills to persuade an audience, as well as understanding the roles and responsibilities of marketers.

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        Each week of the semester my marketing class was assigned a chapter from our textbook to read. The chapters where rich with the vocabulary of marketers and made for a great way to learn the jargon of the profession. Class discussions of the chapters helped significantly in my comprehension of the terms as well as mastering their use and adding them to my vernacular. When it came time to write reports for the course I was able to integrate the vocabulary into my writing so as to strengthen the writing and demonstrate the understanding I was gaining of the marketing concepts and terminology as read in the textbook and discussed in class.

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         As mentioned in my seventh blog post, my class used an online marketing simulation to truly bring the concepts we were learning to life. We played the simulation in teams and had to meet with our teammates weekly to make decisions as to how to price, distribute, and promote our product. I found this assignment to be helpful in that it truly helped me strengthen my communication with a team as was an objective of the course. I can recall struggling with speaking up the first three turns. I was afraid to challenge the ideas of my teammates so I elected to just go along with their ideas. Finally, in the fourth turn I realized that as a teammate I not only should speak up and participate in decisions, but was entitled to do so. I began to voice my opinions and provide input for decisions that turn, and never looked back.  As a result I become more confident in myself and my ability to work in a group setting. 

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            The simulation was not just helpful for its team element though, it helped me better understand and meet the course objectives and outcomes to recognize the importance of the consumer as well as the roles and responsibilities of marketers. In one of our first class lectures we defined marketing as creating or discovering a need for a product, then selling, advertising, and delivering products to customers.  In the simulation we had the opportunity to create a backpack that fit the needs of a target market, then decide how best to advertise the backpack and get it from producer to consumer through various channels of distribution. The simulation was a fairly accurate trial of utilizing the roles and responsibilities of marketers to sell as product. We learned the importance of consumers through the simulation in that without consumers there would be no sales. We also discovered that consumers were not only vital for the sale of products, but for feedback when it came to price and design. I learned that just like the virtual consumers in the simulation, real consumers are vital as sources of critique and are instrumental in developing products that are desirable, correctly priced, and successful. 

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        During the semester I had three individual presentations. These presentations consisted of two advertisements, and one Ted Talk. The purpose of the presentations was to "put marketing into action" as well as to use oral skills to persuade an audience.  I felt as though these objectives were definitely met. For the three presentations I was not allowed notes or the use of a PowerPoint presentation. Although this seemed like a daunting task, it helped me practice my presentations in advance so as to have a well-polished (while still natural) material to bring to class.  I learned how to  relate relevant  course material  to my presentations as well so as to capture the attention of my peers and convince them of the pertinence of the videos to our marketing class and future in the marketing field. 

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         Through the textbook and class discussions, as well as the marketing simulation and class presentations, it seems I have met the course objectives and outcomes as outlined in the beginning of the semester. Through the mastery of marketing terminology to improvement in communication  in group settings, as well as, individual oral presentation skills I have grown significantly as a student and future marketer through the BU 215 Marketing course. I hope to put these newfound skills to use while a student here at Saint Michael's College, and in the future as a businesswoman. 

Blog Post 7: Marketing: The Gap Between Expectations and Reality (And Knowing When To Revise A Plan)

            It never ceases to amaze me how despite research, testing, and the use of traditional, time-tested, tactics, reality may be completely different than our expectations. Regardless of how prepared we are and how we act in order to bring about expected results, there is always room for unanticipated outcomes. This semester I learned that Marketing is no exception to this rule. My class used an online simulation to create and sell a backpack; though the simulation was not a perfect example of real-world marketing, it showed me how difficult marketing truly is. Through undesired effects that seemed to spite my by-the-book use of classical pricing strategies and promotion tactics, I learned that marketing actions do not always bring about the results one desires and expects them to. More importantly, I was able to learn from this example of the volatility of markets and consumer's reactions to products and promotion of those products. There's a popular quote from author Charles Swindle that goes, "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. " I think that this quote almost perfectly sums up my findings with respect to the divide between expectations and reality in marketing; it seems that what's more important than getting expected results from actions is the ability to bounce back after unexpected/undesired results to actions.

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           During my class backpack simulation, I witnessed first hand failure despite an almost formulaic approach to marketing. After conducting research to find the target market with the most growth potential as well as a fitting price and design for this market, my team and I created a backpack targeted at university students, including environmentally friendly features to address their earth-concious preferences, as well as pricing around the amount of money they were willing to pay. Despite selecting a target market that had promising growth, as well as keeping this target market's preferences in mind when it came to design, and staying around their price point, my group's backpack failed to generate a profit for our company. We tried all of the classic marketing techniques when it came to pricing. We started at market price then tried price skimming to cover high initial production and promotion costs. This price tactic did not bode well. We then tried below-market pricing, or penetration pricing to attract price sensitive students who want a cheaper backpack. Unfortunately this tactic also failed; perhaps due to the psychological phenomenon that a cheaper price is an indication of a lesser quality good. What ever the reason, we couldn't find a price that appealed to students. After 5 quarters of failure we realized that it was time to "react" and came to the conclusion that we needed to target a less crowded market with a new backpack design. The market proved to be more volatile and unpredictable than we had expected it to be.

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            Unfortunately, we were far from out of the woods. Our next shortcoming came in the form of promotion. As we learned in our marketing class, promotion is key to creating awareness of a brand or product, and in turn, gaining sales. I suppose my team and I struggled with striking a balance. Some people say that you can "never have too much of a good thing," however, when it comes to advertising, we learned that this is not always the case. Although we expected that heavy initial spending on promotion would lead to buzz marketing which would be free and allow us to cut back on paid advertisements, we never got to this comfortable and inexpensive place with our advertising. This was not the worst of our promotion problems though. As we increased our levels of promotion we did not see equal reach of our ads to customers. At one point we spent nearly $8,000 on marketing that really did not gain us all that many new customers. We found that sometimes its best to abandon such plans of wide outreach, and cut costs by simply trying to reach a smaller number of customers more likely to purchase the product.  Once again,  the market proved to be extremely capricious. 

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               I suppose the takeaway from the simulation portion of my marketing course was that things really don't always go as planned. While marketing tactics do work, and plans are wonderful to have, there is a certain amount of unpredictability and elements outside a company's control. I learned that it is critical to be able to analyze sales outcomes and be willing and able to abandon one strategy or plan for another. Adaptability proved key in successful marketing efforts.

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