Week 13 - Chapter 15, 16, & 17 and Smart Projects

Week 13

Tuesday

     On Tuesday, much of our class was dedicated to a discussion of Chapter 15 in our textbook. Chapter 15 is about marketing communications. In class, one thing we discussed was the promotional mix. The promotional mix, as defined by our book, is the combination of promotional tools - including advertising, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, and social media - used to reach the target market and fulfill the organization's overall goals. The promotional mix is important in relation to the target market. Using the proper mix is essential in order to reach the target market of a product. For our smart project, this could be very helpful. In order to reach our full target market, our promotional mix needs to be done correctly. On Tuesday in class we also discussed the difference between publicity and advertising. Publicity is public information about a company or product that appears in the mass media as a news item. Advertising on the other hand, is impersonal, one-way mass communication about a company or product that is paid for by a marketer. So, advertising is paid for and is intended by the company. Publicity may not be wanted or intended by the company. Publicity could be either good or bad. It is also not paid for by the company or any marketer. Finally, Tuesday we discussed the AIDA model. The AIDA model stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. It is used to outline the process for achieving promotional goals. This could be very helpful for us with our project in order to track our promotional progress.

Thursday

     On Thursday,  we had another joint class with the engineers due to a dead animal smell in our normal classroom. During this class period we went over our posters that we had created. We were given advice on how to make our posters better and more professional. We also learned about the elevator pitch that we have been assigned to create. We must define who we are (10-15 seconds), describe what we do (45-60 seconds), and state what we would like from the potential investor (10-15 seconds). Everyone on our team must memorize the pitch so that we can communicate it on the final day if we need to. It is important for everyone to know it so that if our best speaker is bust with another person, someone else can pitch to a different person. Some tips we were given include speaking clearly, not rushing, and containing enthusiasm. Also, it is best to not be boring, use emotions, be memorable, and to have facts ready in that case that follow up questions are presented to us. 

Chapters 15, 16, & 17

     Chapters 15, 16, and 17 have been either topics of discussion of assigned to us to read for this week. Chapter 15 was mentioned earlier with the AIDA model, promotional mix, and publicity vs. advertising. Chapter 16 is all about advertising and promotions. Advertising, as defined by our book is one-way mass communication about a product or organization that is paid for by a marketer. Advertising could be useful for our Smart Project. It is likely that the type of advertising we would use would be pioneering advertising. Pioneering advertising is a form of advertising designed to stimulate primary demand for a new product or product category. Our product is certainly a new product that does not have a direct competitor in our product category. It would be helpful for us to use this kind of advertising strategy in order to stimulate demand for our new product category. An advertising appeal is a reason for a person to buy a product. Some common advertising appeals include profit, health, and pleasure. Chapter 17 is largely about selling and sales management. Personal selling, a term mentioned in Chapter 15, is a purchase situation involving a personal, paid-for communication between two people in an attempt to influence each other. Steps in the selling process can be seen in the chart on the left. The textbook has some steps slightly differently than shown here, but the overall process is the same. These steps should be considered throughout the remainder of our smart project in order to keep selling and how we would sell in mind.