Some good articles from Inc Magazine on PR.

In this first one, I like the suggestions on using Twitter. When I first read this article, I tried to think of some events that could be thrown to get people excited. The tasting parties were way better than anything I came with. I think that will be the uniqueness of the product, champagne bubbles. Highlighting that and organizing events showing people how to enjoy that aspect is the best idea in my opinion.

This 2nd one just shows some good ideas for managing your PR. Getting to know reporters through social networking now seems perfect. I don't have businesses launched yet but I'm going begin establishing those connections.

Personal Value Grouping for the HVM

We were told that Hierarchical Value Maps at the top boil down to a few unique categories. I just needed to get these recorded for some ideas coming up the pipeline.

1. Accomplishment
2. Active Life
3. Belonging
4. Beautiful World
5. Comfortable Life
6. Efficiency
7. Equality
8. Family Love
9. Family Security
10. Financial Security
11. Freedom
12. Future Generations
13. Individualism
14. Inner Harmony
15. Longevity
16. Mature Love
17. Patriotism
18. Personal Responsibility
19. Personal Security
20. Pleasure
21. Progress
22. Salvation
23. Self-Respect
24. Self-Satisfaction
25. Social Recognition
26. True Friendship
27. Wisdom
28. World Peace
29. Youthfulness

Will be adding a few posts and then this blog will probably just be a bunch of records after that.

Toothpaste Trophy!

In the International Marketing Class (MBA 658), team "Great Asia" won simulation for selling Toothpaste in Latin America. -- We're showing off our awards. Who can't use some Spanish Colgate with a bow on top? I'll be putting it on the mantle above the fireplace soon.


Nice Job Kenji, Kyle, & Flavio! -- BYU will be at a loss when you leave this month (... I'm getting all teary eyed)

Reasons to Believe

In Dr. Whitlark's Entrepreneurial Marketing Class here at Brigham Young, one of the main principles discussed throughout the course is a "Need to Believe."

I was thinking that a quick way to establish if people are looking for a tool such as you've masterminded would be to use the free services at Trelian. Wouldn't work in all cases, but for some ideas that can be identified in two or three words, you could see if the solution is being sought.

There is more to Need to Believe than just this currently-sought aspect, but I thought this could be useful.

Marketing Mix

I'm working on a few projects and just wanted to get Marketing's 5 C's & 4 P's in front of me.

Marketing's 5 C's

1. Customer
2. Company
3. Competition
4. Collaborators
5. Context
   

Marketing's 4 P's

1. Product
2. Price
3. Place
4. Promotion
5. People (some like to throw this in there as well)

First 2 Days

The first 2 Days of classes have gone well. Looks like I"m going to be doing two different consulting projects this semester. One will even be specifically marketing focused and I need all the experience I can get.

The other is even more exciting because it is specifically on strategy! Strategy has been the most interesting to me because it seems to bring together the most disciplines -- well Marketing & Finance & Technology anyway. I like being part of this whole hub of business skills. I don't even know that I want to have the title CEO one day, but I feel strategy & people/sales skills are the ways to be effective as a company's or project's Commander in Chief (thats an even loftier title)

marketing techniques blasting in from everywhere

What a fun year to be a marketing student. I should have been in bed an hour and a half ago, but I'm watching the new coverage of the Democratic National Convention and I just can't. It sucks, because I'll want to do this for the Republican one as well "to see all the views"

Anyway, I'm writing this because in just this little bit of television I've gotten to see so many marketing techniques -- and these political marekters are talented and networked. For my internship with REDFLY, we've had a strong focus on public relations. The principles I've learned there are amp'd up with nuclear, wind, solar, coal, and fossil fuel power -- this is seriously an intense campaign.

The convention itself is brilliant, nearly every news-camera in the country is aimed somewhere in Denver to record what is happening. Then becuase protestors know what where the camers are going to be, they show up to and bring even more news coverage.

Then the people-networks people have are implemented. Journalists are interviewing authors during each break in speakers. Politicians are being interviewed constantly. Public Relations is key right now; I'm not suprised that John Edwards isn't around for this his PR has been killed by his infedility.

During commercial breaks, who appears? John McCain telling me that Obama is bad and focusing on issues dear to my heart--taxes.

For the most part, I change stations between commercials so I see a lot of CNN & FoxNews. The strategies are similar on both stations, but FoxNews interviews more civilian democrats than public servants. (I always hear Fox is too conservative, but I don't feel it is. My litmus though will be to see if they press Republicans with as diffiuclt of questions)

It's interesting though, I'm seeing milllions of dollars of publicity and commercial advertising dedicated to this election. And while I think its necessary its actually kind of sad.

I guess conventions are kind of like a "sale." They are a great tool to get us focused. With all the positioning states did to get to vote sooner, I'm suprised that the parties don't fight harder to have thier convention second. I'm also suprised that the conventions don't happen closer to election day becuase these get people stoked. With all the beach-balls I see flying around, this looks even more fun than a BYU Football game-- I know the ushers would be more than happy to kick me out for doing that.

Anyway, its way too late for me. So I'm starting to ramble. I guess the point is as an MBA Marketing Student I am looking forward to the type of marketing I'm going to get to see these next few months. I guess another interesting point is it shows just how much marketing can affect your decisions--because I really don't trust these politicians. :)

Good Night!

Project Summary

My largest task I've had so far is getting up a new website for Celio. I believe my technical skills from my previous career made me a strong candidate for this internship. I'm not using those technical skills directly so much as I'm leveraging them to better advise our vendors as they put pieces together for us.

However, this has been such an educational process. Previously I worked for a public university and it was not an environment that was very results driven-- stuff got done, but deadlines were often passed. This has been such a fun place to learn to do business. I've got a budget to get my projects done, but getting something that works isn't the most important part-- I also have to make sure the website converts to revenue in some way.

So I'm getting to dip my toes into some market-research by exploring what effectively steers customers-- this isn't just ad-copy but also making sure the site is friendly and intuitive. You can only get so far with intuition-- it also comes down to anlayzing data and seeing how customers are actually behaving.

Another task I'm taking on is writing some copy and analyzing the messages. A large part of building a brand is consitently showing what the brand is and does. The are some unique challenges because our product isn't a laptop, but it lets you use your smartphone in a similar manner. How do you communicate that to consumers concisely?

I'm really greatful for the chance to explore this company and this market. It's definitely fast paced and it is a great opportunity to learn how marketing works. Going with a startup has been good for a few reason. I didn't have much marketing background, so getting to start immediately is going to give me about 2 extra months of marketing experience. Also, I'm getting such broad experience in so many areas. Utah has a strong venture backed startup industry-- I'd really suggest people look at it thoroughly when they are looking for jobs and internships.

I've been found!

Well, I just saw a letter from MBAMA saying they knew this was my blog. I haven't been broadcasting who I am because I am frankly a terrible writer.

Oh well, now that I've been found out, I guess I better step it up.

I start my internship on April 24th, and I have been working for Celio Corp. I really wanted to do marketing but at the same time go with a company that was in the Venture Capital Rounds.

Hope everyone is having good summer!

Best excerpt on Positioning / Advertising

For MBA 680: Strategy 2 We have been reading The Innovator's Solution. Chapter 3 of this book has by far my favorite advice on how to position and advertise a new product. I recommend this book to anyone trying to launch a new product. The whole book is great, but at the very least, you need to read chapter 3.

This Chapter refers to big-business's tendency to segment the market and find underserved opportunities. This is ok, but it doesn't help with products you've already made and it doesn't help you discover emerging markets or provide a whole lot of differentiating abilities because anyone else can easily imitate at this point.

Instead the advice in this chapter is to advertise to the Circumstances a Customer find herself in. What specific job is the customer hiring the product to do? This could be something like kill a little time, entertain myself, avoid studying, feel cool, or keep my job. Or many others.

Lets use entertaining myself, I could easily do this by reading a newspaper or magazine, playing a video game, watching the variety of people at my local 7-11, TV, amusement park........ almost an infinite list. See all these companies are competing with each other. So if I'm making a new news website, instead of just loading up with all the same news that everybody else has, I'd seek to display the news in an entertaining way. Then I'd be positioned as the news company you go to when you want to be entertained. I'm not a journalist website, I'm a entertainment website. I'm using the news to entertain instead of reporting the news.

Lots of other applications here, but I just wrote a very long (and probably confusing) paragraph so I won't pursue other apps further. Rest assured though, I am about to turn my computer off
work on an advertising campaign centered around what a certain business customer would be trying to do when I put my product in front of them.

Yoasis -- Pretty good job

A few weeks ago in my Brand Management class, we had the chance to help HogiYogi choose what they would call their new entrant into the latest Yogurt craze that is going on.

Initially HogiYogi was going to go with "YogurRXt" -- not a good idea. They had a creative idea around it, and they thought it tied into "Health" well. But Yogurt Health means organic not sterile hospital. Plus calling sizes something like "Overdose" while creative is going to bring back very bad memories for some people.

What they decided on was Yoasis. I agree with them that of the ideas put up, Yoasis was probably the best presentation. The student team that came up with Yoasis had some very faulty logic as to why this idea should be picked (like a "National" survey that was sent to who they knew in the MBA Program, or the fact that it competed with names they made up and not the names that other teams presented).

Nonetheless, the Yoasis team by far had the best presentation. One team actually spelled yogurt backwards for a sound saying "True-Joy" but spelt "Trugoy." Does anyone really want the name "Goy" in their business name? Unless you were told to say 'joy' you'd be making an ethnic-slur every time you said the business name.

So my wife and I went to Yoasis last night. They've done a pretty good job with it I think. They did use the water-fountains idea from my team's presentation. They made a really nice "sit and lounge" modern atmosphere right next to Yoasis. Because of this, I think that if there was a Starbucks in Provo, this location would be able to take a sizable portion of that Starbucks' market.

The price was great; I'm sure that will help them capture a lot of the student market.

The actual product is wonderful!

In fact, I only had two problems with it. Yoasis has a flat screen where it shows video of natural, oceanic places. When I was there a documentary concerning sea-lions was playing. The problem is they play the sound as well. So while I was there trying to talk, I felt the documentary kept invading my conversations. Perhaps muting the sound like Costa Vida does with its tv's would be a good idea. Of course I can see the flipside to that too. I love surfing and I always want to hear details of the waves pictured at Costa Vida.

Second, I love the ocean. I graduated from BYU-Hawaii. I will probably move back to Hawaii within the next 10-years. And large portions of my vacations will be spent scuba-diving all over the world until I am back in Hawaii. So when I see a product use the word "Oasis" and then show me a tropical island.... I don't like it. I've heard many others say "Isn't an Oasis in the desert?" Well, I agree! Its funny but it is actually kind of offensive to me and those are my two passions in the world: the Ocean, and the Desert (of Southern Utah).

So without biasing this with my clear opinion, I do think the Imagery Yoasis is using to brand itself does create a little customer confusion.

All in all though, I think they did a pretty good job and I'll patronize it once or twice a month while I'm here for another year. With the rush they were in, I believe they chose the best idea and they've done some good implementations. As always, there are tradeoffs, and that more than anything is what keeps critics in business!

Brand Management -- Pretty Cool

There are a lot of exciting things in business. And there are many not so exciting things in business. I wish that 10 years ago, I would have had a parent who could explain to me the different "Holy-Grail's" of business. I think these basically boil down to:

• Investment Banker
• Consultant
• Brand Manager

Maybe accoutant and a large firm should be on there too.

Anyway, I'm taking a Brand Management course and I love how much all of marketing combines in this class. I don't really want to be a brand manager at big company like Nestle. I'd rather to technology and work on branding a product in the eyse of consumers.

Before the MBA, I often was told branding was a waster of an entrepreneurs time. And maybe all aspects of a brand are. But if you're trying to be true to a specific brand (some expermentation will still be necessary) then building a strong brand is definitely the way to go. it won't hurt you and it will make you more accountable and not allow you to pursue whatever strategy your emotions may desire at the time.

So, marketing has a dull side

At BYU, the first semester students are required to take MBA 550 Marketing Management. This year, the marketing professors are making us do a huge project that students didn't have to do in the past.

It involves ZMET, Laddering, and Ideal Customer Profiling. Last Tuesday, we went to Good Earth Foods to talk to employees about the type of customer that purchases the Solaray Brand.

We got some interesting results: Baby Boomer M/F. 18-30 year old males who are either trying or are in shape. And newly lactating mothers. :) I decided we wouldn't attempt to interview the last category.

Then on Saturday we went back to the store to contact some customers in these categories and see if we could set up some interviews. However, the number of us who returned Good Earth plummeted from 5 to 2. (it was understandable why that happened, but still annoying)

So 2 of use walked around Good Earth for 2 solid hours talking to customers. For the most part it was kind of intimidating-- kind of reminded me of being on my LDS Mission again. Adam came up with a good idea in that we said we could interview them at Good Earth so they knew we had permission and weren't just trying to steal phone numbers.

In the end, I was glad to be done with it all, but we made some good contacts and have some great insight to give back to Solaray.

You don't have to do a Field Study with a company like we're doing. We decided to do it this way because some of us need to build or marketing resumes a little bit more. (of course throughout the rest of my MBA at Brigham Young, I don't think I'll be this agressive about getting extra experience)

All Products are like Coke or Toiletpaper

Coke- the more you have on hand, the more you consume.

Toiletpaper- you'll pretty much use the same no matter how much you have.

So when you discount a Toiletpaper product, people will stockpile it. They won't ever pay full price because they'll always buy on sale and have what they need.

For Coke, you can discount and people will buy a lot, but it will serve to make them more regular drinkers. This should actually increase loyalty.

(I learned this today in BYU's MBA 550 "Marketing Management") I suppose it applies more consumer products. Kind of funny.

principles of an advertisement

I'm having some trouble sleeping tonight. I was asleep, but woke up with many thoughts about idea for the business plan competition. For HR, I'm reading the book E-Boys and it has me thinking that I must act "fast & decisively" to conquer everything..... honestly I think I woke up in a nightmare that I have to begin work immediately. (by principle, I can't give in to the pressures of nightmares)

I had what was probably the funniest experience of my college career today. In MBA 550, Dr. Whitlark was discussing the 3 components of a good advertisement:

• Product - people need to quickly see what your advertising
• Company - they need to know who's product this is (I can definitely see situations where this will be the same as product, but not all)
• Benefit - Show them why they should buy it

So we were looking at some ads that had been in various magazines. Some I was getting, some I wasn't (I discovered I am more of a sucker for creativity than good advertising than most my class)

One was for hotels-- one showing a very nice room and gentleman relaxing in it, the other showing room amenities and some catchy slogan. The one with the benefit-showing slogan won. Then, Dr. Whitlark gets up there and says, "I don't know, this one is a good advertisement if you're in the market for a half-naked man."

It was so funny! I could not stop laughing. He's good a providing a very jovial atmosphere, but this time I was in uncontrollable fits of laughter. I was still laughing about 10 minutes later. I am a little scared that I just had my best experience in the MBA program at BYU and I'm only a few weeks into it. :)