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