Marketing ain't easy

We had great fun today. The teams gave their Marketing presentations.Each team was required to produce a marketing plan ,the objective of which was :
(1) the re-launch of previously failed product or service or:
(2) launching a new product/service into the Canadian marketplace.

The teams had put in a lot of effort and the results showed. The quality of presentations was excellent. Here are the products that were launched/ re-launched by the teams:

• Orbitz – A (soft)drink with balls !!
• White Coffee from Starbucks – Put your best smile forward
• COOKvenience – A kitchen where you can go , cook, chat and don’t worry about cleaning dishes or cutting vegetables
• Powerkidz : Packages Lunch for the school kids – Healthy prepackaged nutritious food for school
• Water Scooter: Named “Duo”, appeals to all generations, a 4stroke vehicle
• Cottonelle – A premium toilet paper that you’ll love to use !
• NFL in Canada – You better support your home team !
• Emerald : New VW car for the ultra premium segment
• Bombay Spice : Indian Fast food takeaway at Downtown Toronto.

This was a very exciting class..The professor asked us a lot of questions and the teams answered them confidently.... From Market research data…to using the internet for promotion..to spreading the buzz through word of mouth..to approaches on CRM. A lot of takeaways from this 4 hr session.!

At the end of this course today, we had all realized that Marketing is not easy as it appears. It is not about talking and selling ( as most of the world thinks!). It is about research, understanding consumer trends, behaviour and patterns and a lot of finance and numbers. STP is very important.

We have Marketing strategy in the next stage and I look forward to that course.
BTW, I got fantastic marks for the Indione assignment in Marketing. So, if Ratan Tata is looking for a young manager to kickstart Indione in Canada, do let him know.:)