Week 7

Marketing Concepts

Two concepts that we focused on this week was Positioning and the Value Proposition Canvas. These were two concepts that really stood out to me when looking over the products and brands. Positioning focuses on developing a marketing mix to draw customers to a certain brand or product. An example would be Walmart; They would use Price/Quality Positioning to draw their customers in. They focus on being the cheapest option out there which is why many people continue to return to Walmart. Other options of positioning bases are:

• Attribution: focuses on features or customer benefit of the product
• Use/Application: stresses the applications and different uses of a product
• Product User: focuses on a certain type or classification of shopper
• Product Class: tries to tie the product with a particular category of products.
• Competitor: pits product against competitors
• Emotion: uses emotion to draw in customer due to their feelings

Positioning is something companies focus on to be able to sell their product and be able to draw in the consumers. On the other hand the Value Proposition Canvas is used to evaluate the product to see if customers will want it or not.

The Proposition Canvas tracks the benefits, features, and experiences of the product to make sure that everything is reviewed about the product. Then looking at all these they are assessed based on whether it is a want or a need for the customer. The fears of some aspects of the product are also analyzed and then substitutes of the product are written down as well to see if it is a niche product or not. 

By doing both the Value Proposition Canvas and choosing a Positioning base to go with a product it will make it easier to market to the consumers and be a successful business.

Gatto Cafe

We applied the two above concepts to a Shark Tank product called the Gatto Cafe. The Cafe was supposed to be a cat cafe where they would sell small treats such as baked goods and coffee and people could enjoy these along with the company of many cats. The cats would roam around the cafe and would also be available to be adopted by people visiting the cafe.

When selecting a positioning base it was said that emotion would be the primary base used. They would tie in the fact that the cats were rescues to make people want to come visit and enjoy the cats company.

The Proposition Canvas helped to find many fears of the customer such as cleanliness, the costly entry fee, the mixing of animals and food, and more. It also showed that it was hard to find many benefits and features of the product which made assessing the customers wants and needs hard as well. By doing this it seems that the product was not a very needed product and provided lots of potential problems.

Smart Project

The progress on our smart project has been going well. We were able to meet with our senior marketing consultant. She enjoyed our idea and designs but told us to really be able to refine them to make sure we are able to accurately describe it in depth to others. She also said we could refer back to her for anymore things needed for the project.

Relating the project back to the concepts learned this week I feel that our product would be positioned on the basis of attribute. We would have to focus really on what the product does and how it would benefit the consumer if they had it. With the Key Keeper product they would never forget their keys or lock themselves out and that is what we really would have to shove down their throats for them to buy the product.