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