Over the course of the semester, I have learned a lot in
my marketing class taught by Professor Nelson. Throughout the course, I learned
about the ways marketing affects our decisions to buy products every day and
they amount of research and thought that is put into marketing, which I had
never really thought about before. After reading Buyology, I quickly learned
how much marketing was affecting my everyday life. It taught me how much time
companies take to research and learn about the consumer in order to target
their marketing towards them. It’s important for the employees at each company
to know their consumer as well because it gives them a better understanding of
what their function is within the market.
Understanding marketing is a long-term task. While we can
cover a large majority of the material in class, we won’t fully understand it
until we put it into practice like we did throughout the course of the
semester. With the simulation, we were able to select a target market and work
on advertising and customizing our product to their specific needs and wants
which helped us grow our company more. It was interesting to look at the
turn-by-turn decisions and how they affected our financial status and figure
out how these decisions hurt or helped our strategy. It was also helpful to put
this information into presentation and report format which allowed us to get
practice with the formality of the business world.
One of the best ways to learn and achieve is to set goals.
We did this as a team with our simulation groups through setting goals about
the outcomes we wanted out of our projects. We had to write up a memo about the
goals we wanted to achieve and worked towards these with each decision we made
by analyzing our current standing and tweaking our strategy slightly in order
to achieve our goals. In order to engage in our class, one of the best things
to do was to bring in marketing news. I loved this because of how easy it was
to find this information. We were able to discuss it and relate it to what we
were learning in class.
Overall, I was able to learn a lot about myself as well
as marketing throughout this semester. Learning about the ethical issues
marketing managers’ face with how sex sells as well as the general marketing
concepts helped me grasp how important marketing is to the business world.
On January 18, 2015, the New England Patriots showed up
ready for the AFC Championship Game in Foxborough, Massachusetts against the
Indianapolis Colts. After the absolute beat down by the Patriots, the Colts
claimed that they had information regarding a ball deflating scheme which was
intended to aid the Patriots and that Tom Brady was at the head of the entire
thing. Needless to say, the Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl in a
thrilling ending with Malcolm Butler’s interception at the goal line to win.
Since then the NFL has had a really tough time.
Roger Goodell
On May 11, Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner decided he
was going to flex his nonexistent muscles and try to show Tom Brady and the
Patriots who’s boss. He dealt the Patriots a loss of a few draft picks, and
dealt Tom Brady a four game suspension for the 2015 season. This all came
crashing down once the Wells Report was released and debunked and ripped apart
by multiple world renowned scientists. This already didn’t look good for the
NFL and it only got worse from there when Tom Brady appealed the suspension.
The case ended up in Federal Court where a judge ruled that it was an unfair
punishment (the fair, according to the NFL rule book is a fine “including but
not limited to” $25,000) which resulted in Tom Brady loosing almost $1.8
million for the punishment decided by Roger Goodell.
Since these events, Tom Brady started the season on a
10-0 winning streak proving that he’s one of, if not the best quarterbacks of
all time. This made the NFL look really bad as well by showing that Tom Brady
didn’t need slightly deflated footballs to win a game in which the majority of
the points scored were in the second half, when the underinflated balls were
inflated. But on top of that, Goodell can’t help but make himself look worse
and worse with all of the terrible calls made by the referees this season. Tom
Brady and the Patriots have lost an NFL record 360 yards due to penalties. A
lot of these penalties aren’t valid and it’s causing a lot of media coverage of
these blatant issues people have with the referees calls.
The NFL has had their fair share of controversy surrounding
it for the past few years. With issues like the Ray Rice domestic abuse issue,
the Saints and their headhunting operation going on, and even with spygate, the
NFL can’t seem to win. They’re constantly in the news for negative things that
are going on. Roger Goodell seems to be a large part of the problem with the
NFL as well. Over the past few years, any issues that have risen are usually exacerbated
by Goodell, who is known for his erratic, unfair punishments. With all of the
sports analysts constantly debating over what Goodell’s next horrific move is
going to be, the NFL is treating on thin ice with a lot of its viewers. While
the Super Bowl is one of the most watched sports events in the world, the NFL
is losing its credibility fast with no prospect of turning it around any time
soon.
In the tennis world, a few companies dominate the tennis
apparel industry. Nike, Adidas, Head, and Wilson are some of the largest
companies. Every company has professional players on the pro tour who they
sponsor. For example, Nike sponsors Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena
Williams, and Genie Bouchard among others. It is a great way for these
companies to advertise their brand through people purchasing the gear used by their
favorite pro player. Nike and Adidas have the largest market share compared to
the rest of the companies. This is the case in the sports industry as a whole
as well. Except for one exception.
Under Armour is starting to make a name for itself in the
sports world. Whether it’s football, baseball, or even just training in
general, Under Armour makes sports equipment for everything and they’re growing
fast. At the beginning of 2015, Andy Murray signed a contract with Under Armour
for a 4-year sponsorship deal. This included all of his apparel which was huge
for Under Armour since they were trying to break into the international sports
market as a whole. And of top of that, they were trying to break into the
tennis market because of their small presence in the tennis world. Under Armour
is also sponsoring Sloane Stevens who plays tennis in the Women’s Tennis
Association (WTA).
While breaking into a market in the 21st
century is getting easier due to the easy access to new products, Under Armour
is still in the introduction phase in the tennis market. So far, Andy Murray is
wearing tennis specific clothing and tennis shoes. But the products available
to the general public aren’t the same. The “tennis shorts” aren’t tennis
specific which makes them less desirable to the die-hard tennis players. In
fact, they are just everyday shorts produced by Under Armour. Once Under Armour
breaks away from their everyday athletic apparel and design some tennis
specific clothing, I think that their brand will take off in the tennis market,
just like it has for every other athletic discipline.
One product that they have been developing is their
tennis shoes. So far, Under Armour has produced a few prototypes for Andy
Murray that he’s been wearing in some pretty big competitions. In June and July
of this past summer, Andy Murray debuted a new pair of Under Armour tennis
shoes when he stepped on court at Wimbledon. Under Armour had been working with
Andy Murray for a couple of months in order to create a pair of tennis shoes
that he could wear at arguably the most historic Grand Slam in tennis. It was a
bold move since they still hadn’t developed a pair of tennis shoes for hard
court.
When the US Open rolled around, Under Armour still hadn’t
been able to make the proper tennis shoe for Andy Murray so he wore his typical
Adidas Barricade 8’s. This was a huge deal for Under Armour and Adidas. Andy
Murray’s previous sponsor was Adidas which caused a lot of hype around the
shoes. Adidas tweeted a picture of Andy Murray wearing Adidas tennis shoes with
the caption “You can choose armour, or you can choose a weapon. #ImpactTheGame”.
This was a huge move for Adidas and it was bad news for Under Armour. With no
way to respond but to make it the last time Andy Murray wore Adidas shoes,
Under Armour got busy finalizing the designs for Andy Murray’s hard court
tennis shoes. They finished these in time for the ATP World Tour Finals, a big
year-end event in which the top 8 tennis players in the world square off and
compete for the final tournament of the tennis season. This was a big deal for
Andy Murray and Under Armour since they were finally able to find a shoe that
worked for him. I have a feeling that will be the last time that Andy Murray
wears Adidas shoes which is a big win for Under Armour. Now, Under Armour just
has to mass produce these shoes and make them available to the public. This
will really help them out since people consider Under Armour’s gear more
durable and higher quality than that of its competitors. This will help them
out tremendously as they try to expand their market share in the tennis apparel
market.
After the ISIS attacks in Paris, France on November 13th,
Facebook opened a feature on their social media site that allowed people in
Paris to mark themselves safe. Once someone in Paris had marked themselves
safe, it sent a notification to all of their friends letting them know that
they were safe from harm. This feature was brilliant and was actually designed
by Facebook in the event of a natural disaster. Facebook never planned to use
this feature for a terrorist attack, but it was a quick response from Facebook
that allowed them to mobilize this feature and put everyone’s nerves at ease.
Within a few days of the attack on Paris, there were also attacks in Beirut,
Lebanon and a few other locations in the Middle East such as Baghdad, Iraq.
Facebook didn’t do anything for these horrible disasters though. And because of
this, Facebook received a lot of backlash.
Facebook's website and mobile app with the Safety Check feature
In the United States, everyone feels the need to be
constantly connected to everyone around them through the use of technology. One
of the main ways that people do this is through the use of Facebook and other
social media outlets like Twitter and Instagram. Facebook has an advantage over
these companies, though. Facebook was able to capitalize on the number of
members it has because of how early it came out. Facebook was the first of the
major media outlets and now has 1.55 billion active monthly users.
A few limitations of Instagram and Twitter are the causes
that so many people prefer Facebook to these other outlets. Instagram requires
that you post a picture in order to post anything. While it’s nice to scroll
through your feed and look at everyone’s pictures, it’s not always the most
effective form of communication through social media. Twitter’s biggest
downfall is the fact that you have to keep your tweets to a maximum of 140
characters. This is tough for a lot of people who want to write long posts,
especially anything of political nature. Facebook has every feature that
Instagram and Twitter has, and then some. With the ability to chat built into
the service, the ability to post pretty much anything, and the ability to
create groups for anything you’re involved in, Facebook has a lot more
practical use for most people as compared to many other social media outlets.
However, this comes at a hefty price as well. Since
Facebook has everything that other outlets don’t have, people expect that it
will have everything they want. This causes issues for Facebook in times like
the terrorist attacks in France, Lebanon, and Iraq among others. People lashed
out at Facebook because of the filters that people could use on their profile
pictures. They thought that it wasn’t fair for Facebook to choose to release a
filter for France and completely disregard every other country. People also
didn’t think it was fair that Facebook didn’t enable a feature which enabled
users to mark themselves safe if they were close to the disasters in locations
other than France. In ways, it’s understandable considering the largest usage
is in first-world countries like the US, France, and other countries related to
those. In the end, the safety check was a quick decision to help make sure
people were safe, not to say that one set of lives mattered more than another. Facebook was also lucky because of how fast news changes now. With the rapidly changing stream of news that constantly bombards us, this whole issue blew over quickly and the bad PR that Facebook was receiving ended as quickly as it began.
Shimano is a company based in Japan known for their sports
products. Shimano has been around since 1921, when they created a 3-speed
cassette which became the start of their inventions. Since then, Shimano has
added a fishing and rowing component to their company. While biking is
Shimano's largest industry, fishing is a great industry for them as well. They
are really well known for their bike groupsets.
The Shimano Di2 Groupset
In 2009, Shimano released the first electronic bike groupset. They
named it Shimano Di2 and it was based off of Shimano's Dura-Ace components.
Instead of mechanical shifting used on most bikes, which uses the tension of a
cable to move the chain on the gears, the electronic shifting components use
signals sent through wires and other electronic parts to move the chain. This
is very useful because it is faster, more efficient, and more reliable than
standard cables. It also learns where the gears are at and can automatically
adjust which, in the long run, leads to less service of the bike.
Since Shimano released their version of electronic shifting, some
of their main competitors, namely Campagnolo and SRAM, have released their own
groupsets with electronic shifting. As the cycling world is starting to evolve
technologically, the bikes will become more high tech and everything will
probably move towards electronic shifting.
Shimano Dura-Ace Shifters SRAM Red Shifters Campagnolo Super Record Shifters
The new Shimano XTR Di2 Groupset used for mountain biking
Mountain biking is moving towards electronic shifting as well.
Shimano just released their first version of XTR Di2 which is the electronic
version of the top groupset. This will be a significant change considering
mountain biking is a lot harder on the bike and the groupset can get beaten up
a lot more. As this progresses, Shimano will probably try to incorporate this
technology into the lower end models of bikes in order to increase consumerism
based on the technology craze. This is definitely a very marketable product
through local bike shops. That is usually the way that any of these companies
market themselves. The other way to market themselves is to sponsor
professional athletes who use their products.
The battery compartment built into the frame of the bike.
The new Trek Madone with full DI2 integration. This bike features the internal cable routing throughout the bike.
The handlebars with all the cables and wires tucked away
The Tour de France is one of the most well-known sports events in
the world. This is the largest way that Shimano and their competitors can show
off any of their new components. Shimano sponsors a bunch of teams in the Tour
de France and works with some of the largest bike manufacturers to integrate
the new Di2 system into their bikes. One of the prime examples of this is their
work with Trek. The new Trek Madone completely integrates the Di2 technology
into the frame of the bike with their ability to tuck the battery pack away
into the down tube and made the bike one of the most technologically advanced
and aerodynamic bikes on the market. Specialized did the same thing with their
new bike, the Venge. Both of these companies compete with each other and this
helps Shimano get their name out into the market even more than it previously
was. This also helps to set them apart from their competition with SRAM and
Campagnolo.
As bikes have become increasingly popular, the bike industry has evolved to appeal to different target markets. The cycling industry has developed new products based on trends in consumer buying and fads in our society. Every bike is made for a specific discipline and is designed for a specific consumer. A large section of the bike market is road cycling enthusiasts. A lot of these enthusiasts watch the Tour de France, the largest bike race in the world, in which the best cyclists from around the world race. A lot of companies sponsor these teams and new road bikes are released every year just before the race so that they can be showcased throughout the 3 week race.
The 2016 Trek Madone 9.9 used in the Tour de France by the
Trek Factory Racing Team
With road bikes, there are two materials the bikes are made from. Aluminum is the material used in a lot of the bikes with a lower price tag. This makes them more marketable to the beginning cyclist or a cyclist who is interested in getting better but wants a bike to get them started. As you get into the more elite road bikes, the frame is made from carbon fiber, a stiff, but very light material which can be used to help reduce the weight of the bike and make it stiffer so that the cyclist can get more power out of each pedal stroke. Typically the higher end road bikes are marketed to the cyclists who are competing or looking to compete. They tend to be at least $2,000 and most people don't want to drop this kind of money on a bike. That being said, with the newest models being released every year in time for the Tour de France, the top companies can get their best gear on tv for a month just by sponsoring a professional team. This advertising is brilliant because people will see these bikes used by the professional riders and automatically be interested in riding them.
Fat bike being used for racing in the snow
The newest addition to the bike industry is fat bikes. Fat bikes
are bikes with extra-large tires. These can be used in snow, on the beach, or
even just as a normal mountain bike. They have started to take off in the market
lately and a lot of bike brands are starting to capitalize on this. Catamount Outdoor Family Center offers fat bike rentals. Catamount is a company with 500
acres of land and maintains more than 20 miles of trails. This is the perfect
area to expose people to fat bikes and let them try them out for themselves. A
lot of people have rented fat bikes and then after a couple times, gone out and
bought their own fat bikes. While it could be argued that this is a trend or
fad in the bike industry, a lot of bike enthusiasts don’t expect it to slow
down.
While the bike industry has changed a lot in the past few
years, a lot of research and marketing has gone into this change. The pricing
behind lower end bikes favors the beginners by getting their interest and then
getting them to upgrade their bikes. It also works because these bikes are very
versatile and can be used on roads and trails. This helps beginning cyclists
get more comfortable before they start upgrading. The marketing that goes into the design of the bike is huge. Just based on a simple hybrid bike, the consumer can decide which direction they want to go in and what type of bike they would want to upgrade to.
Smartphones have ruled the market in recent years with 64% of
Americans and approximately 25% of the world’s population owning a smartphone.
My contract expired in May and I have thought about getting a new phone. As I
was thinking about this, I started to think about the battle between Android
and Apple for the largest percentage of market share. When Apple first came out
with the original iPhone in June of 2007, everyone was very unfamiliar with
this technology. In 2011, HTC released the Thunderbolt, the first Android phone
that had features that were able to challenge the iPhone with the release of 4G
data connection. Ever since the HTC Thunderbolt, there has been a constant
battle between Apple and Android companies to one-up each other with each new
model of their phones. Windows has a line of phones as well made by companies such as Samsung, Nokia, and Sony among others. However Windows phones have had a rough start to their existence with powerhouse operating systems such as iOS and Android. With very limited apps in the app store, Windows has turned away a lot of prospective consumers.
Some of the most popular phones on the market are shown above.
(L to R: Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge, iPhone 6 & 6 Plus, Samsung Note 5, Motorola Nexus 6, LG G4, HTC One M9, Motorola Moto X)
Apple has always had a large following. They really created a
need for a smartphone even though everyone knew it was completely unnecessary.
Apple also has done a great job with their customer service which has increased
customer loyalty.
The iPhone progression from 2007-now.
Apple’s Marketing has always done pretty well. They come out with
a couple advertisements and ad campaigns every year which connect with people
really well. They always do a great job targeting a large population with a variety of ages, genders, and cultures.
Product: Apple started out in computers and started to lead the
technology industry starting in the early 1990’s and introducing markets with
each product they released. Apple now sells iPhones, iPods, iPads, Macs,
laptops, and an assortment of all types of devices. Every year they update
their current models and discount their older models.
Price: Their prices are relatively similar to their competition
which has helped them stay competitive. Apple's iPhones are priced at almost the
same price as most other phones on the market.
Promotion: Apple has been known for their television
advertisements that urge people to believe in themselves and help Apple change
the world. The new iPhone 6S that just came out has been paired with the slogan
“The only thing that’s changed is everything.” This was used to show how they
drastically changed a lot of the features on the new iPhone in an attempt to
catch up to Samsung.
Place: Apple’s products are on sale everywhere. You can purchase
their products from any retail store like Walmart and Target, online stores
like Amazon and their website, and technology based stores including BestBuy
and Verizon.
Samsung, the largest Android phone company, also has great
customer loyalty. Most consumers have upgraded their phones and followed the
progression of Galaxy phones. They released the Samsung Galaxy S6 in April of 2015, the
newest Samsung smartphone which follows a long line of successful phones. They also released the Galaxy S6 Edge, a new phone with a new concept of rounding the edges. They were able to market this very well because of the product differentiation that they were able to create. Any technological advance is one that can be used to market the company and Samsung took advantage of this.
Product: Samsung started out in televisions. They spread to home appliances while still developing home technology and eventually spread to phones. Samsung now sells phones, tablets, televisions, computers, home appliances, and many more electronic products. Every year, they seem to break new ground with another product that has never been seen before.
Price: Their prices are very competitive with their competition. This has helped them build their brand and grow over time. Apple's new iPhones are priced higher than the Samsung Galaxy line, coming in at nearly 100 dollars more. This has helped Samsung break into the smartphone market with increasing success.
The Samsung Galaxy S progression from 2010-now
Promotion: Samsung has used some pretty famous faces in their advertising. Their company-wide slogan is "The next big thing is here" This was used to show how they drastically changed a lot of the features on the new iPhone in an attempt to catch up to Samsung who is leading the way with phone technology.
Place: Samsung products are on sale everywhere. You can purchase their products in just as many places as Apple. Samsung's product lines are carried in retail stores like Walmart and Target, online stores like Amazon and their website, and technology based stores including BestBuy and Verizon.
Both of these companies have great products, but when it comes down to which is the best, you have to look at the timeline in which we're talking. When smartphones first came out, I think everyone could agree that the iPhone was hands down the best smartphone. Over time, the competition has caught up and even surpassed the iPhone a little bit. Android started to catch up and even Windows phones have a small percentage of the market share. Right now, everyone has to fight to keep up with each other and it's becoming a big competition to see who can add the most features and who can bring in the most customers. If you had to pick, which would you choose?
Shimano is a company based in Japan known for their sports
products. Shimano has been around since 1921, when they created a 3-speed
cassette which became the start of their inventions. Since then, Shimano has
added a fishing and rowing component to their company. While biking is
Shimano's largest industry, fishing is a great industry for them as well. They
are really well known for their bike groupsets.
