Final Thoughts

Just wanted to say good work guys I think that our project turned out really nice. Good working with all of you and also good luck on the final on Thursday.

Environmental Analysis Draft--- Please help revise if its needed.

Technological Forces

Kids Crest Toothpaste is created with the most up-to-date equipment. There hasn't been a newly advanced production system created in the recent years, but the technology being used is sufficient to make a market leading product. In the production of its toothpastes, a vat is used to combine all of the ingredients inside of the toothpaste and mixed together. Next, the individual tubes that the toothpaste is eventually put into is placed underneath a machine that blows all of the dust particles out. This ensures that the product inside of the tube is only quality toothpaste. When the tube is cleaned, toothpaste is moved from the vat through a system that pumps the toothpaste into the tubes. When filled, the toothpaste is sealed and placed into boxes that eventually will be shipped.

Crest’s toothpastes are made with quality ingredients and are known for one of their main ingredients: Fluoride. Fluoride is what pushed Crest above the other competitors. However, a recent finding suggests that Fluoride is not healthy for kids under the age of two to be using. On Crest’s website, it shows that these young children shouldn't be using this toothpaste, but when they are older, Fluoride toothpaste will be beneficial. For these children under the age of two, Fluoride being used too frequently or too much in one brush can cause a condition called Fluorosis, which is a condition that will produce white spots on a child’s adult teeth when they age (Baby Center).

Social Forces

Crest has a brand name that everyone knows and it is important to Crest that it stays that way. In today’s modern age, social media is of great influence in how well a company does. With this it is important for Crest to maintain its image on all social media outlets. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay, and other main hubs for social media persuade a potential customer’s experience and whether or not they will choose a product or company. A customer’s comments can damage a company’s image extremely quick if a company doesn’t respond to the concerns made apparent. Crest is available on all of these outlets and they have shown constantly that they care by responding to the people who have concerns with Crest’s products and services. Crest has a FAQs page on their website that also addresses all of the main and minor concerns that have been brought to the company’s attention. Social media is of great concern to the business’s survival.

With social media in mind, to help promote Crest, it needs to place promotions, coupons, and deals on all of these outlets. These deals can be exclusive for those who joined the social media hub or not. Either way, placing deals and coupons on the hubs will drive the customer to use them and buy its products. Along with these deals, updating customers or future customers on the products that Crest Kids has to offer and what new products are in the works, helps the consumer become informed about Crest.

In order to promote Crest better, the company needs to continue advertising their products in the most effective places. A brick-and-mortar business that would produce sales in the Kids Crest toothpaste is a dentist office for children. Having the dentist give a child a Crest Kids toothpaste to use at home will show the parents that their child wants that brand of toothpaste. Also, Crest needs to place advertisements on all child related TV channels and major news channels. The child related TV channels will put the product in the mind of the child, which will make them more likely to ask for that brand from their parents and it will instill it in them for when they are older and choosing a toothpaste for themselves. As for main news channels, parents are more likely to see the brand as something they will want to buy their children.

"Crest Kids Dental Hygiene Products." Crest Kids' Dental Hygiene Products. Crest, n.d. Web. 30 July 2014.

"How Products Are Made." How Toothpaste Is Made. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014.
BabyCenter Medical Advisory Board. "Tooth Care for Children."BabyCenter. BabyCenter, L.L.C., 2014. Web. 30 July 2014.

hi every one,
This post is mostly intended for Alec, but I thought I would post on here so that the whole group knows what's the latest word. Since we have the environmental analysis and its one of the longer parts of the marketing plan, I thought we could just split the work in half, there are six sections (I'm going of Chris's post on the first half of the marketing plan), I can do either the first 3 sections or the last 3 sections, does not really matter to me. Please let me know what you would like to do. Thanks. 

Study Guide Exam 1

I went off of the professors study guide and found everything I could about the topics he put on there. I added a few additional things that seemed important or that he said were important. The formatting changed a little when I posted but I think its good enough.

Marketing 351 Exam 1 Study Guide

Marketing – the activity set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

Marketing Mix (The Four P’s):

Product, Place (distribution), Promotion, and Pricing strategies designed to produce mutually satisfying exchanges with a target market.

Notion of an Exchange:

The conditions of an exchange are - There must be at least two parties that communicate and deliver something of value. These parties must have a desire to deal with each other and have the freedom to accept or reject the exchange.

The exchange may not take place even if all conditions are met, and marketing does end up taking place whether or not the exchange takes place.

Evolution of Marketing:

Marketing Concept:

Marketing Concept – is the idea that the social and economic justification for an organization’s existence is the satisfaction of customer wants and needs while meeting organizational objectives.

-          Focuses on customer wants and needs to distinguish products from competitors’ offerings.

-          Integrates all the organization’s activities to satisfy these wants.

-          Achieving the organization’s long-term goals by satisfying customer wants and needs legally and responsibly.

Corporate Social Responsibility:

(First) Philanthropic responsibilities – be a good corporate citizen and contribute resources to the community to improve quality of life.

(Second) Ethical Responsibilities – Do what is right, just and fair. Avoid harm.

(Third) Legal Responsibilities – Obey the law.

(Fourth) Economic Responsibilities – Be profitable.

-          Socially responsible companies will outperform their peers.

-          It is in a business’s best interest to find ways to attack society’s ills.

-          “Green Marketing” development of products designed to be “green”

Ethics and Morals:

Ethical Behavior – moral principles or values that generally govern the conduct of an individual or a group.

Morals – the rules that develop as a result of cultural values and norms.

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) – prohibits U.S. corporations from making illegal payments to foreign officials. It is often criticized for putting the U.S. at a disadvantage and has encouraged some countries to implement their own anti-bribery laws.

External Environmental Factors Not Within Control of Marketing Managers:

-          Culture – common set of values shared by citizens that determines what is socially acceptable.

-          Economic & Technological Development

o   Developed Country à Complex and sophisticated industries

o   Undeveloped Country à Basic Industries

-          Political Structure

o   No private ownership and minimal individual freedom

o   Little central government and maximum personal freedom

§  Legal Considerations:

·         Tariff – tax levied on goods entering a country

·         Quota – a limitation on the amount of product entering a country

·         Boycott – complete severance from another country’s products

·         Exchange Control – foreign exchange must be sold to a control agency

·         Market Grouping – common trade alliance

·         Trade Agreement – an agreement to stimulate international trade.

-          Natural Resources

o   Shortages in resources can create a shifting of wealth, inflation or recession, and possible stimulus for military intervention.

-          Demographic Makeup

o   Population density, urban or rural, and age.

Types of Business Products & Why Businesses Exist:

-          Major equipment

-          Accessory equipment

-          Raw materials

-          Component parts

-          Processed materials

-          Supplies

-          Business services

Consumer Decision Making Process:

Five step process used by consumers when buying goods or services.

1)      Need recognition – result of imbalance between actual and desired states.

2)      Information Search – internal and external seeking of information

a.       Evoked Set – group of brands, resulting from an information search, from which a buyer can choose.

3)      Evaluation of alternatives – analysis of products, uses cutoff criteria and ranks each accordingly.

4)      Purchase

5)      Post purchase behavior

a.       Cognitive Dissonance – inner tension that a consumer experiences after recognizing an inconsistency between behavior and values or opinions.

Definitions:

Marketing Concept – is the idea that the social and economic justification for an organization’s existence is the satisfaction of customer wants and needs while meeting organizational objectives.

Production Orientation – is a philosophy that focuses on the internal capabilities of the firm rather than on the desires and needs of the marketplace.

Relationship Marketing – is a strategy that focuses on keeping and improving relationships with current customers.

Sales Orientation – the ideas that people will buy more goods and services if aggressive sales techniques are used and that high sales result in high profits.

Societal Marketing Orientation – the idea that an organization exists not only to satisfy customer wants and needs and to meet organizational objectives by also to preserve or enhance the individuals’ and society’s long-term best interests.

Teamwork – collaborative efforts of people to accomplish common objectives.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – a companywide business strategy designed to optimize profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction by focusing on highly defined precise customer groups.

Customer Satisfaction – customer’s evaluation of a good or service in terms of whether it has met their needs and expectations.

Customer Value – the relationship between benefits and the sacrifice necessary to obtain those benefits.

Empowerment – delegation of authority to solve customers’ problems quickly – usually by the first person the customer notifies regarding a problem.

Exchange – people giving up something in order to receive something they would rather have.

Market Orientation – a philosophy that assumes that a sale does not depend on an aggressive sales force but rather on a customer’s decision to purchase a product; it is synonymous with the marketing concept.

So since i could not make it to the group meeting on Thursday morning ( i was in class) could some one fill me in on what was discussed. Thank you.

hi everyone,
I'm making sure my blog post are being posted my computer is old and has been acting up lately.

Really Good Background Information About Crest Toothpaste

Information for the outline:

Environmental Analysis:

Write a paragraph here

Target Markets:

Stores: main grocery stores

Geographical location: mainly largely populated areas including Europe, Russia, and North America.

http://www.crest.com/about-crest/crest-heritage.aspx Use this information to write some of these sections.

Current Marketing Objectives and Performance:

?????

SWOT Analysis:

Strengths -

1) We make kickass toothpaste - rephrase later

2) We were the first to create and include the use of flouride in toothpaste which allows continuous royalties from anyone using flouride as well.

3) Check the documents that Alec sent

Weaknesses -

1) Check the documents that Alec sent

2) Colgate is able “focus” on Colgate, whereas Procter and Gamble has multiple brands to focus on and not able to prioritize as well as Colgate due to the fact that they are their own brand.

3) We lost 13% market share in just a couple of years.

4) most of the crest products are either mature or declining within the product life cycle. Thus new products are constantly being introduced.

Opportunities -

1) kids version of white strips

2) Check the documents that Alec sent

3) Market to the current generation and invest in the youth of today so that in the future we will be able to take a portion of the market share back. 

4) since we are a larger company and own multiple brands that bring in enormous amounts of capital we also have the ability to invest more in research and development.

Threats -

1) Colgate is a massive threat

2) Check the documents that Alec sent

Executive Summary Notes and Example

This is an exmaple that my BUAD 301 professor gave me and my group to follow for an executive summary. We ended up with an A+ on the final report and it was partially due to following this outline. The executive summary should be completed at the end of the report while we are compiling a final draft so that we know exactly what information to put into it.

*Notes*
The executive summary should be 4 paragraphs.

Paragraph 1 should be an overview, a little background on the company.

Paragraph 2 should be some of the companies strengths, and specifically what they are and why.

Paragraph 3 should be some suggestions on how to better grow the company and what policies could be changed to help further benefit the company. Give a couple of recommendations.

Paragraph 4 should be a recommendation (based on the solutions given in paragraph 3) that is best for the company. The trick is to put as much detail as we can but also keep it short and to the point.

Example:

          Titan Square offers a great opportunity for growing new businesses on the existing California State University, Fullerton, property. Titan Square will be built on the big empty land at the corner of Chapman Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue. It will provide many services and entertainment for residents in this neighborhood as well as for CSUF students and the local community. According to the 2010 census, the population in Fullerton is about 126,003 people. There are many apartments and businesses around the Titan Square area. The population of CSUF is now reaching close to 40,000 students. With this potential, Titan Square would give hope to adding a new life to this area and help improve the economy for Fullerton.

          Titan Square will be a place for all. It will provide services for both old and young people, students and employees, residents and commuters. Right now, there are only several restaurants and sandwich stores in this area such as Togo’s, Chipotle and a Thai restaurant so that there aren’t many choices, especially for students who are from different cultures. The primary market research conducted for this paper shows that 27 out of 46 people wish to have a restaurant where they can sit down, and a place which offers many alternatives along with a comfortable atmosphere for them to enjoy. Moreover, 15 out of 46 people have to travel 10 to 25 miles every day to come to Fullerton, so they would also like to have gas station nearby which could take care of their cars while they are at work or school.

          Therefore, to fulfill the current demands, the plans are to build an auto service center, multiple restaurants, a coin laundry shop and a 24-hour fitness facility. With the auto service center, people will be able to take better care of their cars as they commute to Fullerton. Students and employees especially can save time, because the service center will offer free air checks and other complementary amenities so students can maintain their cars more effectively and efficiently. People also will now have more choices to eat. They can have either Chinese food or Japanese food at one place when they come to the Todai restaurant. At a 24-hour fitness center, older people can join yoga classes, or young people can exercise to release their stress and build up healthy bodies. The coin laundry store is available for the residents who live in the apartments. It adds another accommodation to this area.


          Building Titan Square is based on the people’s needs. As a result, Titan Square would bring a new life to Fullerton. In the next three years, it will be busy businesses and a popular place. It is expected that Titan Square will bring up to 5% additional tax revenue to the city every year and encourage investors to further develop the local area and in turn, help support the community.

Marketing Plan Outline (First Half)

I spoke with Ashley from class earlier and she was wondering if we needed to answer each of the questions in the Guidelines PDF that the professor posted or if those are just questions that are supposed to help in keeping us on track. I'm not sure to be honest so I'll ask him in class tomorrow so we can all get an answer and hopefully a little more guidance on what he expects this project to be.

For now, I've finished about half of the outline for the marketing plan. Obviously we still need to put in the information, but at least now when we have group meetings we will have something to start filling in information as we go.

I'll finish writing the other half of this either later today or tomorrow, I have some other stuff to finish up for my night class this evening.


(Header - start)
Procter & Gamble, Inc.
Marketing Plan
(Header - end)

I. Executive Summary

(I have an executive summary that I wrote for business administration classes that I got an A+ in so I'll post that on the blog as well later this evening when I get home.)
This should be about two paragraphs long, or about half a page, depending.

II. Environmental Analysis

This is not an environmental analysis in that it should talk about the company’s environmental friendliness, but rather should talk about companies current situation in regard to the marketing environment. It should talk about the marketing environment, the current target markets as well as the companies marketing objectives and performance.

This paragraph should talk about the current state of the company, and maybe give some information about the background and potential hard times that it has faced.

A. The Marketing Environment

1) This should be anywhere from one to two paragraphs in length. It should talk about the competition and what locations are most competitive and which areas should be focused on more so than others. What is our current market share and what is the share of the competition?

Bare in mind that our competitors are mainly:
- Colgate (Brand owned by Colgate-Palmolive Company)
- Arm and Hammer (Brand owned by Church and Dwight Company)
- Sensodyne (Brand owned by GlaxoSmithKline)

Toothpaste brands that are owned by Procter & Gamble:
- Crest
- Oral-B

2) This should be between one and two paragraphs and it should talk about some of the economic forces that are in play. Are there any trends in events that can cause economic forces to help our company or damage our company? What is happening in the country where our company is doing well that may be holding them back or helping them push ahead?

3)  This should be about the same length as the others mentioned above. It should talk about any political forces that may be taking place that can either put us at an advantage or disadvantage. Is there anything in particular that our company should be careful of and keep track of due to possible changes in the political environment? What rules and regulations do we have to follow in order to continue with business as normal in any country that we operate in? Are there any new rules that we should be wary of and if so why?

4) Length about the same. This is technically “Legal and Regulatory Forces” but it coincides with the #3 above so if there is an abundance of information we could include that information here.

5) Technological forces, length about the same. What technology do we use to produce our products? Have there been any technological breakthroughs that could benefit or harm us? If so, what are they? Alec mentioned that children’s toothpaste cannot be used in fluoride otherwise it can cause Fluorosis which causes white spots on the child adult teeth later in life. Is this something that we should be concerned about and what other ingredients can we include that would benefit children’s dental hygiene?

6) Social forces, same length. What things in society could affect our company image, our sales, our method of doing business? What could we do to better promote our brand given this social environment?

B. Target Market(s)

Two paragraphs here. Given the information that is mentioned above, the locations that are doing well and that are not doing well, where should we be trying to market this product? What about our product  is beneficial to people in different regions or locations?

C. Current Marketing Objectives and Performance

This should be about half a page or slightly longer in length. It should talk about what our objectives are with our product. We are trying to market Crest toothpaste for children so we should be aware of the type of people who typically buy a product like this and products that are similar to it. Does the product fit in with the rest of the products that wee currently make? How will we be packaging this product and what do we expect will come from our advertising efforts? Will we offer warranties and is there a particular strategy that we would like to use for this product?

III. SWOT Analysis
No paragraph necessary here just a note - let’s try to make this as long as possible because I feel like we could put a lot of info in here. The sample plan shows this as 2-3 pages so lets try to get at least 2.5 pages out of this section. Whoever does this section, if you need help check out the sample I've posted on the blog as well as the guidelines on Titanium.

These points below should be 1-2 sentences each.

A. Strengths

1

2

3

4


B. Weaknesses

1

2

3

4

C. Opportunities

1

2

3

4

D. Threats

1

2

3

4

E. Matching Strengths to Opportunities/ Converting Weaknesses and Threats

1

2

3

4

5

6

IV. Marketing Objectives
 To be continued…..

Fluoride in Toothpaste a Problem for Children

Since we are doing our marketing plan on Crest Toothpaste, it is only right that we know why Children need different toothpastes than adults. From Crest's website it says that children need a toothpaste that does not contain the ingredient, Fluoride (Crest). Fluoride is a chemical compound that is found in many toothpastes now and if given to children too frequently or too much in one brush can cause a condition called Fluorosis, which is a condition that can cause white spots to appear on a child's adult teeth when they age (Baby Center).Fluoride does have benefits, but it does need to be minimized for young children and that is why I think because there is a risk, we should look at a toothpaste that helps prevent this condition, or in other words a non-Fluoride toothpaste.

http://www.crest.com/crest-kids/kids-dental-hygiene-products.aspx
http://www.babycenter.com/0_tooth-care-for-children_11282.bc

Marketing Plan Proposal

(Forgive formatting, the blog decided to reformat the text you see below. Let me know if you guys want to make any changes before I send it off to the Professor. In total it comes out to a page and a half.)

Marketing Plan Proposal for Marketing 351 with Dr. Howard Forman Summer 2014

Alec Censullo                                   alec.censullo20@gmail.com

Chris Stewart                                   kingcrabchris07@gmail.com

Ken Campbell                                  kcampbellbay@gmail.com

Luis Cortezmartinez                        luiscortez814@gmail.com                                     

Shahryar Masoumi                          shmasoumi@gmail.com

            We have chosen to use Crest toothpaste (for kids) as our product for this project. We feel it has an important place in the market and in the world in general. This product falls into the Healthcare product category and can be further classified into an oral hygiene category. With this product we want to be able to provide a better oral hygiene product at a lower cost while also superseding any quality that our competitors may have in their products. The main competition in the marketplace is Colgate, Oral-B, and Sensodyne.

            Children are the future, and it is important to make sure that they are taken care of and given quality healthcare products. We recognize that parents want the best for their children and it is no secret that parents are the ones buying toothpaste and toothbrushes for their children. This is why we are going to aim our marketing campaign towards parents but also make the product likable by children. Many children growing up do not enjoy brushing their teeth so we think it is important to make the toothpaste something that the children will actually want to taste.

            The first step in creating our marketing plan will be to figure out what flavors children enjoy and what times would be optimal for selling a product directed at children. Based off of preliminary research toothpaste sales tend to rise significantly during the annual holidays such as Halloween, Easter, Christmas and Valentine’s Day. We aim to use this to our advantage and provide a product with a wide variety of factors that make it better than the competition. We want parents to feel comfortable that their children’s oral hygiene is being taken care of while providing something that children will enjoy using. We recognize that some people have sensitive teeth and gums so we will make the toothpaste so that it accomplishes the same thing that Sensodyne does, but also provides a better cleaning than that of the competition.

Marketing Plan Pro and Sample Marketing Plan

Hey guys so I've been doing a little research and looking around on how exactly we should be doing this assignment. I've come across a few things that can help out. We now have Marketing Plan Pro so I think we should all try to learn how to use this in the next couple of days so that we can all participate in this project.

I've found a sample of what a marketing plan should look like located here:

http://college.cengage.com/business/pride/foundations/2e/resources/pf_found_sample_mkt_plan.pdf

There is also a video that I found on YouTube that gives an overview of Marketing Plan Pro, located here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWStMXl0vyY

I will be writing the proposal that we need to give the professor tomorrow. I will have it completed tonight and tomorrow if anyone wishes to give some input feel free to either call or text or just post here.

In the meantime, have a great weekend and I look forward to doing this project with you guys over the next couple of weeks!

- Chris S.

First Post

This is just to make sure that this blog is working correctly. We will be doing our marketing plan for Crest Toothpaste for Kids.