Objective

My name is Paige Walton and this is my Marketing Portfolio for my Principles of the Marketing business class. Within this Portfolio there are many different examples of projects which highlight my junior year. These nine projects show my talents and how I can put what I have learned in class in a scenario that people in the real world must face everyday.

Part I

Customer Profile

The information within a customer profile makes up a target market. This profile highlighted the national store Free People. The customer profile includes demographics, behavior, geographic, and product usage of Free People. This helps companies manage their advertising in order to spend their money efficiently.

The feminine clothes are in a high-end range so that is why the demographic would be upper middle class. I used the web to find out their geographic but everything else, I had already known through my experience with Free People. I use Free People clothing so I already had somewhat of a feel for what their Customer Profile details would be.

Marketing Trending Project

For the trending project we reinvented the slogan and image for Adidas sneaker company. We first changed the logo to target a new market. With our new slogan, ‘living healthy, body and mind’ Adidas would be able to attract themselves to a nonathletic demographic. We wanted to give Adidas a new edge, something different that would enable them to rise over their competitor, Nike. 

The new endorsement for Adidas would be Brooke Shields, she fits into that aforementioned nonathletic demographic. This allows Adidas to lean more towards exercising through personal workouts or the gym rather than sports like soccer and basketball.  


Market Research (Taste Test Project)

The taste test project dealt with market research, one of the beginning steps of making a product known to the public. Within a group we decided to test various tortilla chips to see what people preferred the most. Too make sure this was an unbiased taste test, we labeled the three chip companies as A, B, and C. We had a generic brand, and two well known regional brands. We created a survey online for people within our class to fill out while they were tasting our products. The survey asked about the three main desires for a chip and which was the favorite out of salty, crunchy, and size.

Collecting this data will overall make the decision on which brand of chip is better based on the actual chip rather than the company name, blind testing. Figuring out the best type of chip allows the company we essentially worked for to analyze the data and create the best chip possible for their target market. 

Reflection

The projects in this unit allowed me to put what I learned in class into a real life scenario. The Customer Profile project allowed me to take a store I actually know about and use my own information about the store to create the essentials of a target market. Customer Profiling is important for businesses. It defines their target market, which gives them a basis for who they will advertize their product to. The second and third projects, market trending and market research, allowed me to work my individual strengths within a group setting. Market trending at the beginning of the project was more difficult to think of ideas. However, once I got on the right path for how to reshape Adidas to the public, it was easy to finish. The taste test project was an enjoyable experience, involving food with work. I was able to learn the specifics of market researching easily through this group experience.

Part II

Product Packaging (Candy Project)

This project involved having to make a new and improved candy bar using Adobe construction. We had to follow the laws and FDA rules shown to us in class to make sure we had the correct information. With my partner, we created an original Milky Way bar packaging by picking the best of our individual designs. We had to maintain the original structure and logo for Milky Way but we were able to make a mouth-watering end product.

The front of the package was changed to green, matching the logo and we added a small icon of the milky bar to the lower left side to create a sense of desire for our consumers. The back of the bar also has this allure while maintaining within the correct guidelines according to the NY laws. After this new packaging was finalized we made decisions on where we would promote and advertise this new styled product and who would sponsor it.

Infomercial Project

For this project, within a group of three, I had to create an infomercial including selling information learned in our business class. We had to make sure that we involved the eight steps of a sales demonstration. Within this under five minute infomercial, we made sure to include a pre-approach, approach, a need for determination, presentation of our product, handle objectives of our customers, close the sale, suggest selling, and follow-up the sale. We were able to accomplish these eight steps through our product Snoop Duggs. 

Snoop Duggs is a product for dogs to use when they go outside; it eliminates dirty, wet paws. We handled three objections that could arise with this product. At the end of our infomercial we created an incentive to buy our product by our low prices and our doubled offer. The 'order now' and 'buy now' words also strengthened customers watching this infomercial to buy our product immediately, the point of the infomercial itself.

Various Print Advertisement 

The print advertisement to the right best exemplifies the basics needed to have a correct ad. Every print advertisement needs a headline, copy, illustration, and signature. For this particular ad I used the company name, breathe, as the headline which also is the logo for this store. Below the headline is the copy, further information about the headline, explaining where breathe is located and the flexibility of the store classes. The illustration clearly is the photo at the top of the advertisement; it shows a feature offered at the store. At the very bottom of the page is the signature, the new slogan for this store.

This ad is meant to capture the eyes of the store's target market, and get more customers to come and visit either the store itself or the website. This asymmetrical vertical formatting advertisement will attract the attention of consumers flipping through the magazines where the ad is located.

Reflection

Each part of this ad allowed me to extend my creativity while remaining serious in the business setting. The product packaging was tricky at first because it was my first time dealing with Photoshop since ninth grade. Having the computer teacher come in to give us a few tips was extremely helpful. The hardest of these three projects was definitely the infomercial. Working in a group was harder for this project due to the amount of outside work. The video itself did not meet the five minute standard because we were not able to find many times outside of class time to work on this infomercial. The print ad was my favorite of the three projects. By this time of the year, making a print ad was second nature. Without even thinking, I had put the headline, copy, illustration, and signature into this advertisement. I enjoyed making this ad and working in Photoshop to quicken my skills in adobe.

Part III

International Marketing Project

Looking to market gum in another country allowed us to elaborate on what we learned in class. In order to decide on whether gum would be sold in my specific country, France, I had to research the different customs and beliefs to see if gum could be sell-able.

I needed to look up the important information such as culture and customs, technology, consumer characteristics, political and legal structure and economic environment which are considered barriers for trade. Getting to know these barriers of France gives me the ability to find ways to work with this information in order to put my product in France.

I decided on marketing within France because France shares many similarities with the United States, where my company is based from. This project strengthened my knowledge on how to deal with countries other than the United States and effectively sell my certain product.

Marketing Campaign

This project covered the realms of our last unit on Advertising and Promotion. We had to create a new advertising campaign for a local business in the Pittsford Village, Breathe, in order to increase its target market to a regional level. We had to create two different ads and included what kind of formatting we were going to use. An example would be the photo to the left where we used omnibus formatting. We also explained the essentials of an ad which are the headline, copy, illustrations, and signature. Along with that, we created a magnet for alternate advertising, promotional coupon, and a billboard which had an informational objective. Lastly, we made a straight announcement radio and commercial. At the end of this project we were able to create a new, fresh image for Breathe and with our knowledge gained through Unit Eight, our different advertising avenues intensified our message for our regional market.

 Individual Marketing Activity

For this project I decided to work with my dance teacher to create a new way to market her company, Fitzsimmons Dance Factory (FDF). I started with figuring out my target market for an FDF lanyard, after discussing with my teacher we decided that dancers from ages 14 to 18 would be the best demographic for this product. From there I used a website to create the rough draft of the lanyard, this was the prototype for the product. 

Finalizing distribution methods became simplified after my second meeting with my teacher. Together we decided on making it a gift for the girls in touring groups, girls and boys ages 14 to 18. Having this be a gift instead of product to be bought allows for a larger amount of people to see the lanyards being used. The name Fitzsimmons will become a more recognizable name and people will be interested in knowing what is offered at this company.The marketing for Fitzsimmons is through the girls and guys that have the lanyards.

Reflection

By the end of the year, the necessities involved in many of the previous projects were also plugged into these three projects. What was once difficult, like finding the target market, is now one of the easiest parts of an assignment. The International Marketing project, however, was the one project of these three that involved brand new information. I enjoyed working on this project because I was able to work on an international market level and learn about one of my favorite countries. It was easy to learn about the information because France has easy relations with the United States so there were a plentiful amount of websites with good information. The Advertising Campaign was overall the best project of the year for me. It was a great way to reestablish all the information learned throughout the year back into the front of my mind. All the aspects of this project dealt with information learned from the beginning to end of the year which I liked. Lastly, the Individual Marketing activity allowed me to put forth my marketing capabilities into the real world. This forced me to make my own decisions and be in charge of my own due date.