Week 17: The Grand Finale!

Over the course of the semester we believe our team has done a great job of creating, designing, planning, and marketing the Cougar Express! Arika, Carsten, and I believe that we've done a great job and think that this will be very successful! Our Cougar Express will be easily marketable for the upcoming holiday season and hope that everyone will utilize our service! Looking in the Daily Evergreen recently, we've noticed that for the Wheatland Express, it is $140 round trip to go from Pullman to Seattle. The Cougar Express is definitly cheaper!!

As the final approaches, we plan to study as a team together! We've worked so well throughout the semester so why not top it off with studying together for the final? :-)

This course was very beneficial to each member of the Cougar Express and we enjoyed Marketing 360!

Week 16: Dead Week

It has been a long semester. I have learned a lot in this course along with my other Marketing courses. This course was VERY interesting and Dr. Featherman does a great job of connecting the concepts with students in a way that we are able to understand. He uses examples throughout the course that students understand and products that are meant for our target market.

When it came to the course project, it was very helpful throughout the semester because it relates to the concepts during the course. It challenges us to apply what we have learned throughout the course to real life situations as if we were creating our own product or service.

I will take a lot from this class and definitly recommend anyone to this Marketing 360 course!

Week 15: Communication

It is very important as a business to have a strong communications (advertising and promotion) strategy when trying to get your brand or product known to consumers. With advertisements, you have to be very careful with what you say, show, or portray because it can easily rub consumerse the wrong way. For example, the Calvin Klein and United Colors of Benetton ads are both very controversial and are known for their provocative and sometimes disturbing ads.

Below is a link to a banned Calvin Klein commercial that is very controversial--it is very obvious why!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVk21Pco-c

In order to prevent yourself from offending customers and viewers it is important to truly understand the communications model. The first step is to understand the communication model and what can happen during this process. For example, a consumer code decode your message in the way that you did not intend, also if there is noise the message may get interrupted and be interpreted differently.

With an advertisement you should also make sure to inform, remind, persuade, build a reltionship with viewers, and incoroporate the 4P's to promote the product. After taking a promotional marketing course, it is very clear that these are VERY important aspects of marketing your product, service, or brand.



-Posted by Arika Flynn

Week 13: Supply Chain

Never did I realize before this class how much effort goes into making a product or service. There are so many steps and processes that a product and service must go through in order to be finalized, distributed, and ultimately sold. First, you must begin with your raw materials, then to the supplier, the manufacturer, followed by the distribution center, logistics, retail, and finally the consumer.

Personally, working in retail I have seen this process before and everything must run very smoothly, or else in the end you will not have your product ready for selling when scheduled. If one segment in the supply chain drops the ball, it can be very damaging to your business. It is very important to stay on track!

Week 12: Starbucks

This week in class we discussed how you would go about marketing something that is intangible. It seems nearly impossible, although it can be achieved. In addition there are different ways to do so; for example you can go about appealing to consumers bodies, minds, physicial possessions, and assets.

Starbucks is a good company to focus on when it comes to offering an intangible service. Each store has a certain atmosphere that always generates a positive feeling when you go in there (servicescape)--most of the time being consistent no matter what location you visit.

Overall, this was a helpful week for our group project since we are creating a service, not an actual tangible product.



-Posted by Carsten Bocchi

Week 11: Marketing Services

This week in class we have learned about different marketing services. It was very interesting to learn that the United States is the world's largest exporter of services (i.e. financial, drilling, nuclear, accounting, consulting, etc.). Also, through lecture I have learned that marketing services are intangible, and that it is important to focus on factors that can affect the service of a product; for example store atmospheres, employee uniforms, logos, etc. For example, everytime you walk into a Starbucks every employee is wearing the same uniform, the music is always the same, and there is a uniform look to every Starbucks you go to across the country.

Overall from this lecture, I have learned that it is important to focus on marketing services when you are trying to promote your product.

Week 10: Second Exam

This week for the exam, I have studied the Chapter slides/glossary, the book, crossword puzzles, and my notes taken from lecture. I feel very prepared for the exam and can easily relate a lot of things to real life situations which will help my knowledge in understanding each concept.

Here we go! Test time..



-Posted by Carsten Bocchi

Week 9: Product Life Cycle

Today we discussed the different stages of a product's life cycle. No matter what kind of product, service, celebrity, or singer you will always go through the typical Product Life Cycle. An exercise done in class where we listed off actors, actresses, and singers that fit into different stages of the cycle was very interesting and really put it into perspective for us students. For example, Lady Gaga is still in the "Growth Stage" where she is gaining popularity with her music, but is still not up to the "Mature Stage" like Jay-Z or Beyonce.

It was also interesting how you can easily start the cycle over with the same product, by simply modifying the product, service, or actor/actress, and singer.



-Posted by Arika Flynn

Week 8: Segmenting and Positioning

It is very important to segment your audience in a way that it appeals to your consumers. There are many ways of doing this but one major way is to define your audience by demographics, geographics, psychographics, and behavioristic traits. This results in very successful segmenting and can be very beneficial to your company.

Another major aspect of marketing a new product is how you position it within the market. Here, you want to make known your differential benefit opposed to your competitors. For example, we created a transportation service called The Cougar Express, which is very similar to Horizon Air, the Wheatland Express, and people's personal transportation. Although, we have positioned our product in the market to be less expensive than our competitors prices, which gives our service a differential benefit.

It is important to incorporate both of these factors into your promotional marketing plan--it can ultimately determine the success or failure of your product or service.

Week 7: Segmenting

This week in class we discussed marketing segmenting. It was very ineresting to learn how many factors can influence a consumer and how marketers segment them. For example, gender, culture, and geographic area were all factors that can influence how businesses market their product.

When you buy a product you never really think about how much goes into making that end purchase. Marketers think of every little detail that seems so minor to any normal person, and we simply think, "Why does that matter?" Although, when looking at research many of these factors can easily influence a consumers purchase.



-Posted by Carsten Bocchi

Week 6: Exam Results

We had just taken our first exam for Marketing 360, and I thought things went quite well. The test seemed pretty straight forward, although there were a few questions that I was second guessing due to the fact that the answers were pretty similar.

After getting my test results back, I was pleased with the score I got. Although, for the next test I might try to focus more on reading the text book; that way I can understand how to apply most of the terms, and look at the examples they use in the book. It would be nice to get someone elses perspective on the marketing concepts rather than just one persons.


-Posted by Arika Flynn

Week 5: Making Progress

By week five of Marketing 360, we have been able to come up with a strategic marketing plan to execute our idea of the Cougar Express. This assignment has helped throughout the semester by incorporating what we talk about in class, then having to apply it to our assignment. It gives us as students the ability to apply these terms, strategies, and ideas with our own personal touch. This has definitly helped me understand the concepts more, and has prepared me for the upcoming exam on Thursday.

I assume that we will be working on developing and finalizing our product/service throughout the whole semester and continue to apply what we are learning throughout the semester to our project. This will help myself, and I'm sure the rest of the students in Marketing 360 to excel and get a real life taste of the marketing world.



-Posted by Carsten Bocchi

Week 4: Shopping!

After listening to lecture today, it was very relevant to my personal life. We talked about what influences consumers purchasing behavior. Personally, when I go grocery shopping I always go out with a budget and base my decision solely on the price. Although, when shopping for apparel items I look at quality and the fit; price does play a factor in this but not as much as it does when shopping for groceries. On the other hand, when my dad goes out grocery shopping he ONLY looks at the price, and where you can get the most for your dollar. In addition, when he goes shopping for clothes, he is very similiar and looks mainly at the price, then looks at quality and fit.

After looking at these different purchasing behaviors it is so imperative that companies do their marketing research to understand their consumer to get them to make that final purchase.



-Posted by Arika Flynn

Week 3: Rewards Cards Taking Over My Wallet!

In class on Tuesday, we discussed rewards cards and programs that different companies use to keep their customer loyalty by rewarding their customers with coupons, rebates, and other product 'specials.' After looking in my wallet it was amazing to see how many rewards or customer loyalty cards I had; anywhere from a teriyaki restaurant, coffee stand, Fred Meyer, Costco, Safeway, and even a Mexican restaurant. Personally, I think that these are a great way to create repeat buyers and reward your customers for shopping with your business. When deciding where I want to go get coffee, I will most likely go to the coffee stand that has a rewards program rather than the stand that didn't because I know in the end I will be rewarded for buying their coffee.

Also, as a Nordstrom employee it is interesting to see a behind the scenes look at why they ask you every single time you make a purchase for your name and phone number. Nordstrom uses a program called 'Personal Book' which keeps track of every single purchase you make from their company (online and in-store) from any department within the store. It is a great way for employees to keep track of their customers and watch for hot items that come into the store that they think their customers would like; the employee then calls the customer and more than likely that customer will end up buying the product. This is also a great marketing strategy because Nordstrom is all about customer service and 'Personal Book' shows its customers that they do care about you and want to watch out for you as a customer. Personally, I think it is one of the best marketing strategies ever used by a company, and clearly is very successful.

Week 2: Marketing Madness

After this second week of class, I have became more interested in Marketing. I love classes that are very visual and teachers don't just sit in front of the class and read off of their Powerpoints. It was also really cool that the Professor referenced basketball players because I am very interested in sports. This class also makes me more aware of my surroundings and all of the advertisements that are taking up our billboards, magazine covers, newspapers, and TV stations.

-Posted by Breanna Bocchi

In class on September 3rd we not only talked about products/services that are promoted, but we also talked about marketing professional athletes. This was very interesting to me because I am a big sports fan and love when athletes are incorporated in the marketplace. We compared Kobe and Lebron and the market they are in. Kobe is a big star in a big market while Lebron is has simular star qualities but in Cleveland, a market with much less opportunities than LA. This summer nike marketed the two stars together and created a big hype for the NBA finals. Not only did this marketing plan draw a lot of attention to the NBA playoffs but also to both teams and cities.

-Posted by Arika Flynn

Week 1: The Beginning!

After finishing the first week of Marketing, I can tell that it is going to be very similiar to my International Marketing course that I took in Florence, Italy this past summer. It was interesting to notice that no matter where you are in the world, marketing a product or service is typically the same but unique in some aspects. For example, Italian and American marketing are very similiar when it comes to trying to promote your product or service, although the way they do it is different. In Italy, you do not many billboards, after billboards along their roads as you do in America. Italians mainly market their products and services on local busses, magazines, television, and through newspapers. In addition, Italian advertising is much more controversial than American advertising (as seen in the picture of a road side billboard in Italy).

Overall, my experience in Italy was very interesting and gave me more of an insight on how to market your product or service!

-Posted by Breanna Bocchi



After I was first introduced to Marketing 360 I became excited about the class. I am an accounting major and have not been exposed to the marketing side of corporations. To be honest market also seems a lot more interesting than any of my accounting classes so far. Marketing seems to be a lot more detailed and complicated than I ever expected. I think it is important for me to have some background about this aspect of corporations because marketing projects greatly impact businesses financial statuses depending on their success.

-Posted by Arika Flynn