Week 8 and Week 9

This past week I was unable to attend class, so I figured I would combine my blog posts of week 8 and week 9 together.

Although I was not present this week, there are still important key terms in marketing that I have encountered in my studies outside of class.

First off, I would like to start off by talking about the adoption curve. When introducing a product to the market, it will be difficult to gain recognition right away. Some will be immediately receptive, and some will have a little more difficulty joining the bandwagon. The adoption curve has identified some fascinating personality traits that help us classify how people will accept a new innovation.

Innovators (2.5%) – Innovators are the first people to try this new product. They are not afraid to take the risk of trying something new. They are young and ambitious. They have the highest social class, and have great financial lucidity, very social and have closest contact to scientific sources and interaction with other innovators. Even though they may not be satisfied with every product they come across, they continue to lead this innovative lifestyle.

Early Adopters (13.5%) – This is the second fastest category of individuals who adopt an innovation. These individuals have the highest degree of opinion leadership among the other adopter categories. Early adopters are typically younger in age, have a higher social status, have more financial lucidity, advanced education, and are more socially forward than late adopters. More discrete in adoption choices than innovators. Realize judicious choice of adoption will help them maintain central communication position (Rogers 1962 5th ed, p. 283).

Early Majority (34%) – Individuals in this category adopt an innovation after a varying degree of time. This time of adoption is significantly longer than the innovators and early adopters. Early Majority tend to be slower in the adoption process, have above average social status, contact with early adopters, and seldom hold positions of opinion leadership in a system (Rogers 1962 5th ed, p. 283)

Late Majority (34%) – Individuals in this category will adopt an innovation after the average member of the society. These individuals approach an innovation with a high degree of skepticism and after the majority of society has adopted the innovation. Late Majority are typically skeptical about an innovation, have below average social status, very little financial lucidity, in contact with others in late majority and early majority, very little opinion leadership.

Laggards (16%) – Individuals in this category are the last to adopt an innovation. Unlike some of the previous categories, individuals in this category show little to no opinion leadership. These individuals typically have an aversion to change-agents and tend to be advanced in age. Laggards typically tend to be focused on “traditions”, likely to have lowest social status, lowest financial fluidity, be oldest of all other adopters, in contact with only family and close friends, very little to no opinion leadership.

I think this is really important. In order to analyze your product and see what your type of people your market will consist of, you need to keep this adoption curve in mind. Technology has impacted our society in a tremendous amount of ways, but it took quite a bit of time for the entire world to adjust. Using this adoption curve, you can map out how long it will take for people to adopt your product and plan accordingly as far as supplies, updates, and releases. You do not want to make an abundance of your product when you do not know the rate at which the market will adopt your product. That is why this adoption curve is so vital within your business and marketing plans.

Additionally, last week we my team met with our marketing consultant. Although I was unable to make it, I know that a lot was discussed and I was informed about what I missed. Before meeting with Sam DiGiovanni, we met in Sleith and brainstormed on what questions we would like to use, or what we found to be important, in our surveys.

After meeting with Sam, we have narrowed our questions down to ten that we feel will help us best understand our target market:

1. Have you ever encountered legal issues involving drinking and driving at your bar?
2. Do you think that this product would eliminate/diminish the hazards of drinking and driving in your area?

3. In what ways do you think that this product will affect your image?

4. How much would you be willing to pay for a product like this?

5. Would you be willing to reserve a space in your bar for this innovation?

6. Some customers may be dissatisfied with having to give up their keys…

    Would you be willing to sacrifice customers for safety?

7. How would you enforce security provided by this product?

8. Would you be willing to hire employees to oversee this product?

9. In what ways could you make consumers more accepting of this product?

10. What problems do you envision being associated with this product?
    

We really wanted to know what they thought of our idea. We know it could be a controversial product, so we found it important to get venues' opinions on how likely they would be to use it, and what issues they could encounter. One thing that Sam will be extremely helpful with is surveying surrounding bars due to the fact that our OK TO DRIVE team is not of legal age to be in a bar. Additionally, I have realized that our consumers and our customers are two different things. Our customer would be the bar, but the patrons at their bar would be the consumer. So, we need to keep that in consideration and evaluate their thoughts as well. This will require us to come up with a second survey directed toward consumers.

Week 9: It is finally spring break! Where has the time gone?

This week we have a lot of work to do. First off, we need to compose a mega-mind map which will basically incorporate all of the marketing concepts we have learned in this midterm, and put them on paper. We have made mind maps for each individual week, but it is important that we are continuously connecting the prior weeks to our present ones. I just completed my mind map and tried to include all of the things we have learned so far, connecting recent terms to beginning terms, while all linking back to the promotion and marketing of our smart projects.

Midterm Mind Map

Additionally, we were given a Shark Plan Assignment. We each had to select a shark tank video to work on. My product is Kodiak Cakes. I am looking forward to completing this project by the end of the semester.