Final Project: Product

Fresh Fits Chocolate, what is it? That’s a question that’s on the minds of millions. It’s more than just a piece of chocolate. It’s more than just a cool name. Fresh Fits Chocolate is the brainchild of none other than Carlos D. Summers. Established in 2012, Fresh Fits is a company that will take any hat and shoe combination and sculpt it in chocolate so that you can present your loved ones with that “out of the box” gift. Fresh Fits was conceived on the idea of men being tired of getting the same gifts for Christmas, Father’s day, Anniversaries, and Birthdays. Sports are a very vital part to the average man’s life. We use only the best dark chocolate at Fresh Fits Chocolates to promote that you can indulge in chocolate and still be healthy about it. Its our hope that Fresh Fits Chocolate will bring about a change in the marketplace for giving the healthy consumers that option, as well as, being that “out of the box gift” that keeps on giving. We would like to become somewhat of a convenience product. “Convenience products are consumer products and services that customers usually buy frequently, immediately, and with a minimum of comparison and buying effort. Examples include laundry detergent, candy, magazines, and fast food. Convenience products are usually low priced, and marketers place them in many locations to make them readily available when customers need them.” We don’t want to become a shopping product because a “shopping products are less frequently purchased consumer products and services that customers compare carefully on suitability, quality, price, and style. When buying shopping products and services, consumers spend much time and effort in gathering information and making comparisons. Examples include furniture, clothing, used cars, major appliances, and hotel and airline services. Shopping products marketers usually distribute their products through fewer outlets but provide deeper sales support to help customers in their comparison efforts.”

Final Project: Target Market Strategy

“A marketing strategy consists of specific strategies for target markets, positioning, the marketing mix, and marketing expenditure levels. It outlines how the company intends to create value for target customers in order to capture value in return. In this section, the planner explains how each strategy responds to the threats, opportunities, and critical issues spelled out earlier in the plan.” With every product that comes out, there’s a marketing strategy that goes with it. Notice that there are a lot of products that come out every year and only a few get picked up. Well that’s because of how the companies chose to market them. Meaning, every demographic isn’t going to respond to certain products the same way. What that tells us here at Fresh Fits Chocolates is that we need to maintain our set target of woman that buy gifts for guys. That would be wives, mothers, and girlfriends. So what we would do promotion wise is to make sure that we are in all of the tabloids that this target reads. Get on shoe sites, have our flyers in beauty salons, and even at the front of grocery stores. We could also take that a step further and target men as well, like fathers and husbands mostly. We’d go at them by getting our flyers in barbershops, shoe stores, hardware stores, drug stores, and any other place that men frequent. One of the goals of this company is to become a household name. We can’t make that happen if we aren’t effectively getting the word out in the marketplace about Fresh Fits Chocolates and what they are meant for. And of course we wouldn’t just stop at being a household name here in the states, oh no this marketing would also be international. We would be able to use the exact same promotion and marketing material for this because “an international marketing strategy for uses basically the same marketing strategy and mix in all the company’s international markets.”

Final Project: Situation or SWOT Analysis

My SWOT analysis is “an overall evaluation of the company’s strengths (S), weaknesses (W), opportunities (O), and threats (T).” When I think about all of the other companies out there that do chocolate in any way it makes me think harder about this very thing. See I could tell myself over and over again that my company is going to be the best and that there will be no competition. But I know I’d be selling myself a dream that won’t be true. “Strengths include internal capabilities, resources, positive situational factors that may help the company to serve its customers and achieve its objectives. Weaknesses include internal limitations and negative situational factors that may interfere with the company’s performance. Opportunities are favorable factors or trends in the external environment that the company may be able to exploit to its advantage. And threats are unfavorable external factors or trends that may present challenges to performance.” So with that being said what will the strengths (S) of Fresh Fits Chocolates be? Well the strengths would have to start out with our advertising and marketing. In order to assure ourselves that we have constant customers we have to knock the advertising and marketing out of the park. We can’t have any loose ends or uncertainties within ourselves. We have to know for fact that we did everything we possibly could to make sure that we knocked our advertising and marketing out of the park. Another strength will be our QUALITY product. Basically if we put out an inferior product that garners the “thank you’s” and the jaw dropping responses that our customers want to get when this gift is given then we need to make sure that we are making Fresh Fits with superior dark chocolate. We need to make sure that we are always checking our product over and over again while its being made up and before it gets shipped out. What will our weaknesses (W) be? To be I’m pretty sure that our weakness might be the fact that other companies could possibly undercut us in the pricing of the product. There my be a time in which we are getting so many orders that we can’t fulfill them in a timely fashion. We may get hit by the recession and might not get as many customers as we envision ourselves getting. What will our opportunities (O) be? Like every company out there, yes we would like to make a huge profit. But at Fresh Fits our opportunities would come in different ways than most expect. We will always keep our eyes on what’s going on in the marketplace as well as in the communities to see where we can make changes to improve our product. Also we will be working in different neighborhoods to help us get new ideas and better opportunities as it goes with the growth of the company. And finally what will our Threats (T) be? That’s a fairly simple one. Our threats will be other companies. Once Fresh Fits takes off like its suppose too other companies are going to see that and want to copy what it is we do. Meaning they’ll start trying to get into the niche as us. So we will have to make sure that we continue to put out an inferior product and excel in customer service to ensure we don’t lose any of our customers.

Final Project: Objectives

Fresh Fits Chocolates has a few objectives that we feel we need to accomplish in order for this company to be successful. We have advertising, marketing, and the overall company objectives. An advertising objective is “a specific communication task to be accomplished with a specific target audience during a specific period of time. Advertising objectives can be classified by primary purpose—whether the aim is to inform, persuade, or remind.” Our advertising objective will be accomplished by doing just that. We have to insure that we are constantly pushing the envelop on advertising and marketing, because they fall hand and hand. We have to challenge what’s already out there with other chocolate companies. Yes we are in competition but realistically when we push as hard as we should on the advertising and marketing aspect there should be no competition. Our overall company objectives are to become a household name as well as in the first year make back what we put out. In year two we plan to gain a tremendous profit from the gaining popularity of our product. “This broad mission leads to a hierarchy of objectives, including business objectives and marketing objectives.”

Final Project: Business Mission Statement

Fresh Fit Chocolates

The mission of Fresh Fit Chocolates is to bring a new form of chocolate goodness to the world. Not only will it be something that’s a great gift but, one won’t have to worry if they over indulge when eating them, because we make our chocolates with the healthy consumer in mind. Because “mission statements should be market oriented and defined in terms of satisfying basic customer needs.” At Fresh Fit Chocolates we plan to make our chocolates with dark chocolate. Dark chocolate is healthy for you in a sense that it helps manage you blood sugar, is rich in antioxidants, and it’s good for your heart. Now we all know that dark chocolate is a mood changer, so you’ll also get that good feeling while eating Fresh Fit Chocolates.

(Kotler)

EOC Week 7: THE PITCH

Gifts, gifts, gifts, most of us have trouble buying them. Every woman loves buying gifts and wants to buy that perfect gift for their male counterpart. No we don’t like to be given ties, cigars, colognes, or electronics all the time. Men love it when their lady gives them a gift that’s totally out of this world, you know a straight out of the box type of idea or thought. Men love to be given gifts that show they you pay attention to the things we like. Men like hats, most men even like shoes and they pay very close attention to the shoe to make sure it’s stylish and catches the eye all of the time. So I bet you’re wondering what kind of gift would incorporate hats and shoes and are made out of chocolate? Fresh Fits Chocolate is the name and it’s here to be that gift that you can get your guy to leave him speechless. Think about it if your guy came home with a gift of some of your favorite things made out of chocolate I’m sure you would amazed to know that he paid enough attention to you to know that you’d love it in chocolate form. Fresh Fits come in all sorts of varieties. You can customize them to fit your guy to the tee. You can have the shoes made as a replica of their favorite shoe and you can have the hat made to show their team spirit in whatever sport it is that they follow. Yes, this idea is so out of the box that it’s insane to think that a man would like it, but guess what, we do! So for that special someone, show them how much you care and Fresh Fit it out.

Week 5 EOC: Social Networks and Job Hunting

With the economy, buyer habits, wants, needs, demands, and the world constantly changing, one has to know and understand that buying power of consumers will change. In todays society there is a huge want for apple products. It’s understandable why because they do put out some awesome products that do work very well. But there are four main factors that influence consumer buying and those are cultural, social, personal, and psychological influences. “Human behavior is largely learned. Growing up in a society, a child learns basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors from the family and other important institutions.” Growing up there were things I bought and didn’t buy based on my culture or environment. Even at a young age you’re somewhat bread to buy like your family does or how your peers do. Meaning that you’re more than likely going to end up buying something because you saw your friend with it or its something that your family has been buying for a long time. Now of course in order to buy things you have to have a job so you can pay for those things you buy. Well some companies today use a not so cool or reliable way to determine if they’d like to hire you. Facebook is a huge social media network that people are on. On Facebook people post things that can be very personal and revealing. More companies are trying to tap Facebook Inc.'s 750-million-plus user base to find new employees, threatening traditional job boards and competing with LinkedIn Corp., which has dominated the online professional networking arena. I don’t agree with companies hiring or not hiring people off of with they may do on a social media site. I mean in some cases it may be understandable. But in other cases its just not.