Week 4

Snow day week!

This week we were only able to have one class to talk about everything but in that class I feel we covered a lot. We're talked about the two chapters, 6 & 8, which focused on consumer behaviors and marketing segmentation. We also were able to watch a shark tank episode and were assigned a small project to go along with it.

Chapter 6 & 8

For Chapter 6 we focused on the decision making process which I posted about last week. Going through each of the steps: Need Recognition, Information Search, Evaluation of Alternatives, Purchase, and Post Purchase Behavior. We compared these to different purchases, like how if you buy a pen you won't be doing lots of information searching compared to if you're looking for a car to buy.

In Chapter 8 however we looked at the differences in certain purchases and the level of decision making.

The picture above shows the 4 different types of decision making that a person might go through when purchasing a product. A limited decision would involve a high level of information search but low level of involvement. So in this case a limited decision may be something like shampoo, you want to make sure you look into what the shampoo is doing, if it is for straight hair or curly hair or if it helps with dry hair or keeps color in. Yet with the shampoo you won't have a lot of involvement because there isn't as much risk that comes along with buying that certain product.

On the other hand the decision could be a routine response which is low information search and low involvement which is just something like an impulse buy, where you wouldn't think much about what you're buying it.

Shark Tank

In class we watched the Shark Tank episode for the product Bambooee. It is a paper towel product that is made from bamboo that can be reused up to 100 times. The product was picked up by one of the sharks for exactly what they wanted. After watching the episode we selected different demographics to market the product to. Mine was Cosmopolitan which is middle age people usually without children that enjoy more high end things.

After doing more research into the Cosmopolitan market I found out that they are located usually closer to large cities. While Springfield is a well known city it does not host many Cosmopolitan people. Along with my home town of Plymouth Meeting, PA which I learned actually is home to mostly older residence.

Smart Project

Our smart project is coming along nicely, to say the least. I feel as a group we have a general consensus on what all the features will be and how it will look. We're in the process of narrowing down names and working on our concept screening. Chapter 6 & 8 have been a large help with the smart project because now I feel we're looking at it from a consumer point of view rather than a manufacturing point of view. We can pin point what type of things will influence our consumer to buy the product, which type of decision making process will they go through before buying our product, and what demographic are they in. In knowing all of this we can make our product better than the rest and market it correctly.