Week 3 Reflection

Hello everyone,

An abbreviated Week 3 is now a wrap. After a "blizzard" gave me two days off from school (including on my birthday), we were back at it in our Honors Marketing class today, January 29th. Today's topic of discussion involved "information integration." This theme related directly to our Chapter 6 reading from our textbook, which discussed consumer decision making. The chapter talked about what goes through a consumer's mind before, during, and after purchasing an item. For my completed mind map for this chapter, I focused on the "coolness" of products. In our current society, social media is an extraordinary platform to launch or enhance a product's visibility. A large portion of this promotion involves a mass appeal that evokes a sense of "need" for people to have the product. Social media advertising of products can be a vital tool to impact the consumer's underlying decision making in buying a product. In class, we examined various government websites that provide information on markets, such as the government census website. More specifically, we looked at market trends and how "big data" is providing an incredible amount of insight to companies based on how consumer's are spending their money.

Based on these trends, companies can exploit new and growing segments in various markets. By keeping a watchful eye on active trends, companies can gain a competitive edge on the competition. Personally, one of my team's pain points includes how people cannot view how many staples are left in a stapler, unless they open the cartridge. This is quite a nuisance and an inconvenience, more than anything. Although there is not a real societal need for these staplers on a large scale, there could definitely be a potential market for a stapler that displays the amount of staples left in the cartridge. Using www.trendhunter.com, I was able to recognize some trends in new stapler designs. Recently, there has been a push for compact, right-angle, and economically-friendly staplers. Using this information, our team can incorporate our new idea and blend it with an existing hot market trend. Doing so will increase the desirability and popularity of our model. This is a first hand example of how being wary of market trends can provide invaluable insight into fresh market segments. Thanks for tuning in and have a good week.

-Chris