EOC Week 10: Features vs Benefits

For the most part, chocolate IS chocolate, that’s just how it is. The trick with creating chocolate products is of course trying to make and create a new feel and twist on such a classic product that has been around since forever. A key to making a new twist and feel is definitely knowing how to make the best of what you have and what you can work with. For instance, with Duos, the simple benefit is that you of course get your chocolatey fix, BUT the key feature is that it mixes two separate types of chocolate and blends them together to make new flavor combinations. Benefits are clearly something that customers want in products, it doesn’t matter what it is. “A market-oriented firm defines its business in terms of the benefits its customers seek” (Pg. 10). Features on the other hand, are just simply reasons why your product will stand above the rest and how those features will make consumers choose yours over the other competing brands. “A competitive advantage is a set of unique features of a company and its products” (Pg. 23). Features of course depends on whether or not you have a product or a service such as the UFC Gym; “the UFC Gym features standard fitness equipment, a café, and signature classes like Hot Hula and Hi-Octane Conditioning” (Pg. 96). Now, because of these unique features, certain people and people that are interested in those services or anything like that will flock towards the UFC gym because of the convenience of having all these features altogether. Features against benefits are extremely important to take in mind because when really looking for a product that we want/need, it’s crucial to really know what we are looking for

EOC Week 9: Social Media

EVERYONE uses social media nowadays, it’s just simply the best form of entertainment and the best way to connect and keep in touch with others. Knowing this, I know that social media is the absolute best way to promote my business and to promote Duos as a whole to the world. I plan on going about this by implementing discount codes depending on the social media program/site. For instance, a discount code would be associated with the hashtag #DuosInstagram for white chocolate with milk chocolate center Duos ONLY. The same will be implemented with #DuosFacebook for milk chocolate with dark chocolate Duos ONLY and so forth. “Social media may be teeming with hashtags now but its power cannot be underestimated. Its usefulness can be seen by how information is spread and how it aids online searches” (http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/hashtag-tools-for-marketing/). By implementing this system of utilizing hashtags to promote Duos, I believe that it will definitely get the name of Duos out to the general public and of course to all chocolate lovers out there especially. “Using hashtags goes beyond casually plugging them into your tweets and posts” (http://keyhole.co/blog/5-valuable-hashtag-marketing-strategies-proven-to-engage-audiences/). One does not necessarily have to know this exact fact to know that hashtags are everywhere. On popular social media sites/outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, there are sections where it literally tells you what topics and hashtags are trending, and it doesn’t take a special link to get there, it’s practically right in your face. “Winners, a popular Canadian apparel store, uses #WinnersFabFinds across all social channels. Both catchy and unique, Winners promotes the brand hashtag both online and in-store” (http://keyhole.co/blog/5-valuable-hashtag-marketing-strategies-proven-to-engage-audiences/). So with these discount codes consumers can use for different types of Duos, it encourages people to search up these hashtags with their respective sites and what respective type of Duos the discount will be applied for. As an example as someone who has never quite used Twitter before, if I found out that my favorite type of Duos or just the type of Duos that I would like to try or that I am curious about had a specific discount code ONLY for Twitter users, I would just make a Twitter to be able to obtain the discount code for those type of Duos that I would like to taste. It wouldn’t involve anything else, but just participation with the hashtag for the respective site. To push the social media advertising for Duos even further, I would also request that the user would also follow/like our Duos social media pages to push the discount up by 5% so the total discount price one would get from participating with Duos on social media would be a 30% total discounted price on Duos.

EOC Week 8: Creative Content

How I plan on carrying out the vision of “Duos”, originally I wanted to make a commercial emphasizing the joy and excitement as well as the flavors that I would want my consumers to feel and experience “Duos” themselves, but I thought how could I properly portray the true uniqueness of “Duos” in a commercial if I don’t have the product handy? I have come to the conclusion of showing how the packaging of “Duos” will look in terms of its own presentation and first impressions from the very design of the packaging itself because we all know that the most flashy of designs and packaging definitely grabs the attention of consumers, no matter who you are. I’ll start by brainstorming and browsing for ideas on how I feel would properly give off the uniqueness of “Duos” with the bag/package shape first, because I feel that if it’s in a regular plain container such as a box then it wouldn’t compliment the nature of the design that I will be brewing up. Next, I would want to start with the layout of points of interests, where I would place certain colors or where I would especially place the picture of the “Duo’s” themselves. I want to go for a very sleek design that would catch the attention of young adults, but also be pleasing to the eyes of the elderly. Regardless of whether or not they would board with the idea of “Duos”, it would be great just knowing that they saw the packaging and was curious as well as intrigued by the very design and would be very tempted the pick up the package and look for themselves. I feel that if I can capture the unique feel and twist of “Duos” starting with the package design, then I would already, in a sense make consumers already have a certain and curious taste of “Duos” themselves.

Implementation Evaluation Control

Now, with everything with Duos set from it’s purpose all the way down to it’s packaging and price, it’s time to make Duos happen. First thing’s first, and that is to begin production of the Duos themselves. There are TONS of tutorials online on how to first go about how to create fillings within truffles, so I won’t worry about that until later on, but once we can get a set time and place for the Duos to be made, then we can work on a starting price for each bag, because if we tell people about our plan, then once we actually start making them at first, of course they won’t be in their final production form so we can’t charge people full price when it’s just the first few batches, we need to express warranty by first letting people know that these are just the first few batches of Duos and that if they want to follow us on social media, then we can easily let them know of any future pricing and quantity changes that would take place. “Any warranty that does not live up to this tough prescription must be “conspicuously” promoted as a limited warranty (Pg. 188).”

Then, once we get a decent amount of followers through selling to family and friends, slight profit will start to come in from successfully selling a few bags of Duos, and as we start to get our name out locally through said families and friends, we can really start diving deeper into the true production of Duos. Once we get more and more profit, we can start hiring friends and family to help with the production of Duos. From there, everything will start to easily fall into place, after we hire a great staff to help produce more Duos, myself and a few others can start looking into the production of the official packaging we would want to achieve and so on.

With this example of implementation of Duos to the world, I can already see the general public have a different perspective on chocolates and how they will be enjoyed later on in the future in general and with Duos.

Marketing Mix: Price

When it comes down to a good price for Duos. This, I feel is where market research really comes in handy and could either give your product the boost it needs, or it could give off a really bad first impression for possible consumers. “Marketing research has three roles: descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive (Pg. 152).” Just simply looking up your competitors and how they’re pricing their products will definitely give you a great edge in competing against them. You can easily research online for just straight up prices from their direct website, or you could take a trip to your local grocery store or wherever your competition is distributed to see if any sales prices are applied, or if it stays true to the original price that the company had intended. “The Internet is an important resource for gathering CI (Competitive Intelligence), but noncomputer sources can be equally valuable (Pg. 173).”

For Duos themselves, I’d sell a regular bag of Milk over White chocolate for $18.99. Why you ask? Simply because a box of 75 Lindor Truffles sell for $28.00 and since Duos won’t be focusing on premium ingredients for our chocolates, it will be easy to sell Duos for cheaper because we are just using the different types of chocolate to our advantage. To be more exact, I would sell specific bags of Duos (I.e. Milk over white, dark over milk, etc.) for $18.99, but as for the variety bags with all different kinds of combinations of milk, dark and white, they would sell for $15.99 a bag because since it’s a variety, people won’t know for sure what they’ll get in the next truffle in the bag so just the sheer excitement in not knowing what truffle you’ll get next, I think, will be worth the money.

Marketing Mix: Distribution

In terms of distributing Duos to the general public, I wouldn’t want them to sell in places that of course aren’t a normal place for chocolates to be sold in the first place, but I also don’t want them to sell with stores that are all about candies and that are those places where kids go to get candies. Instead, I want Duos to sell in stores amongst other semi-luxurious chocolatey giants such as Lindt, Dove and even Ghirardelli. I want them to be distributed along with other products that will compliment the semi-luxuriousness feeling that I want to give out with Duos and of course not with products that wouldn’t make sense to be bought with. “A product that is purchased for personal or family consumption or as a gift is a consumer good (Pg. 116).” If Duos are going to be sold to basic grocery stores as well as some office stores so I can still aim for that college student target market and how Duos will compliment being bought with school or office supplies will be interesting due to the fact that they are two totally different products to purchase. “If that same product, such as a PC or a cell phone, is bought for use in a business, it is a business product (Pg. 116).”

And with this uniqueness with distributing Duos to the right stores and vendors, I believe that not only will I reach college students, but other demographics as well due to the variety of the stores that will be receiving Duos. In terms of the possible future products of Duos, I feel that if I still distribute to those same vendors and stores that already have Duos with the newer products in the future, it will benefit our company even more “Providing different customers with different levels of service is a very sensitive matter (Pg. 133).”

Marketing Mix: Promotion

Promotionally, the first thing I would want to tackle in terms of how we can expand and get the Duos name out to the public and possibly the world is simple, through social media. “Global marketers use social media not only for understanding consumers but also to build their brands as they expand internationally (Pg .89).” Social media is used so much nowadays to the point where it’s part of everyday life to just simply look into Facebook, Twitter, etc. to see what’s going on in the world and to see what’s trending as well.

With the uniqueness of Duos, whether it would be good or bad to the public, a short term goal for us is to just having Duos trending all around social media sites just to intrigue those who will look at it and wonder what it is, of course to start locally hoping we can get the word out around Las Vegas, but if it goes well, I would really want to expand from Las Vegas to other places around the world. I’m not looking for overall global fame, but just to outreach to other countries would of course be a more long term goal for Duos. “The word global has assumed a new meaning, referring to a boundless mobility and competition in social, business, and intellectual arenas (Pg. 68).”

The only problem I see with attempting to expand to other countries are the possible and potential boundaries that would be trouble to try and cross or to go over. Blending all the basic responsibilities (economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic) together while keeping a stable and just company will definitely be a way for Duos to have a good name for us and the company as a whole. "These four components are distinct but together constitute the whole. Still, if the company does not make a profit, then the other three responsibilities are moot (Pg.41)." From there we will get the pot stirring in terms of free advertising and word of mouth as well which of course just about every company wants with their own companies.