Week 2

SMART PROJECTS

Starting off the second week, we got into the true grit of the Honors Marketing class. We had combined with the Honors Engineering class to be able to start off our Smart Projects. After coming to a consensus, we had 8 groups of all different bugs that would be able to be made into products.

When it came down to it my group was grateful enough to have 2 engineers and 3 business majors to be able to design a product that would be able to help students to not forget their keys in their dorm rooms or even in their houses.

Throughout the semester with the Smart Project we are to develop the product while also developing it's brand and by the end be able to market it to the point where people would potentially want to buy it from us after seeing the display during the Engineering Expo.

CHAPTER 4

Aside from the smart project we also looked at Chapter 4 of the textbook. This chapter primarily focused on the marketing environment. This concept is about how the environment in which the consumers are in is constantly changing and so in turn businesses much change their marketing mix to stay alive in the competitive atmosphere. The chapter focused on the many factors that will affect the business categorizing them into different segments.

Each different factor affects the business as a whole and they must come up with different ways to combat it or else their business will initially fail.

Some of the factors talked about in the book that are mainly seen today are:

Social Factors
One of biggest social factor out there today is social media. Social media is used on a variety of platforms to help out businesses. Whether it be searching for consumer trends, having an ad out on different websites, being able to reach a broader range of customers, or anything. Social media has been growing rapidly the past few years and businesses are adjusting to the factor and benefitting greatly from it.

Demographic Factors
These days products are usually designed for certain audiences. Businesses need to be aware of the population because the basis of any market is the people; they choose what to buy in the end. When companies create a new product they have to be aware of who the majority of the population is. Do they want to gear it towards teens or towards adults? And specifically which teens or adults, tweens? The Baby boomers? Being aware of the demographic helps businesses know what the market is like and be able to optimize their sales.

Economic Factors
The economy is the key to any business. Its a constant struggle trying to find out if there will be a recession to come soon or if the inflation rate will rise. Businesses are constantly monitoring the economy to make sure their products are priced correctly and if they're located in the right area that will cater to their ideal clientele. More expensive stores will want to know that the household median income is around $52,000, so that they will know that they may have to drop prices to cater to that income or they may have to move elsewhere to an area where the median income is higher.

 These are just some of the environmental factors that businesses may face, there are many more factors such as technological factors and political and legal factors that may come into play for certain businesses. Having these factors just means the businesses have to adjust like Shell Oil Company which created their own Idea Factory that helps them face these factors and be a more innovated company.