EOC - Objectives

“Today’s marketers want to become a part of your life and to enrich your experiences with their brands—to help you to live their brands.” (Marketing an Introduction, Armstrong/Kolter, 5)  Living with the brands as the quote mentions involves both being able to enrich the customers experience because of your product, and the feeling that your product has no substitute. If you can market your product as unique and original as well as being able to enrich customer’s lives; you will provide your company with a advantage even in the most saturated of markets. Perception is another one of the most important tools to a marketer.  “By taking action, companies can often overcome seemingly uncontrollable environmental events. For example, whereas some companies view the seemingly ceaseless online rumor mill as something over which they have no control, others work proactively to prevent or counter negative word of mouth. “ (Marketing an Introduction, Armstrong/Kolter, 92)  With a positive spin even the most unpredictable events can benefit your businesses image.  Word of mouth is an important tool to promote your business and it can serve as free marketing for the business.  Controlling word of mouth is the important part.  Promoting the proper business culture, one that reflects the positive attributes of the business while having answers for the less attractive perceptions, can make your business successful.  This is achieved by having a plan in place to improve the perceived deficits, and keep the company bettering itself over time.

 

EOC - Business Mission Statement

Fireybird Fajitas is in business to light up your life with delicious meats, cheeses, and more. We want you to have a great long-lasting experience that lights up your life and leaves you fired up for whatever your day will bring.

Our business culture is based on proper customer service, and implementation of word of mouth advertisement to maximize our impact on a saturated market of food related businesses.  We can achieve this by using premium products from reliable suppliers.  The superior meats and cheeses will set us apart from the competition.  “Suppliers form an important link in the company’s overall customer value delivery system. They provide the resources needed by the company to produce its goods and services. Supplier problems can seriously affect marketing. Marketing managers must watch supply availability and costs. Supply shortages or delays, labor strikes, and other events can cost sales in the short run and damage customer satisfaction in the long run. Rising supply costs may force price increases that can harm the company’s sales volume. Most marketers today treat their suppliers as partners in creating and delivering customer value. For example, Toyota knows the importance of building close relationships with its suppliers. In fact, it even includes the phrase “achieve supplier satisfaction” in its mission statement.” (Marketing an Introduction, Armstrong/Kolter, 68)  Our other major advantage is in customer service.  With our superior customer server our word of mouth advertising campaign will yield positive result and an advantage in an already saturated market.  Online line tolls such as Facebook and Twitter will allow us to further our advertising credo of superior customer service and quality product.   “Thus, companies must design effective marketing information systems that give managers the right information, in the right form, at the right time and help them to use this information to create customer value and stronger customer relationships.” (Marketing an Introduction, Armstrong/Kolter, 102)

 

Week 7 EOC - The Pitch

Fireybird Fajitas

My business idea is for a food-truck that visits various places in the Summerlin area near my home. I plan to provide fajitas to customers with some other cuisine choices added in to help add a little bit of a mix for people to come back for their classic favorites and a bit of variety. I want to create an experience for customers that gets them good quality food for a decent price and helps them escape their busy world for just a bit to enjoy lunch on any given day. I will offer foods friendly to the whole family, and will aim to provide fast service and fresh food to every customer. I will have as much variety for customers that like a bunch of different food toppings to very basic items that even the pickiest eaters will enjoy. I also want to provide a filling meal for a decent price to people in need. I got the name of the company from the great taste of meat over a fired up grill. Something about that way of cooking meat itself especially with the right seasoning and sides is something I grew up loving. Some more reasons I chose the name of the company was because of the fact that a food-truck can practically go anywhere, it has the freedom that I associate with birds for instance and other creatures that can travel the world on wings because of their mobility. I also think that this is a decent business idea for a food-truck campaign because of the fact that the food itself is common enough that it should be easy to purchase as wholesale for very decent prices, and with the right flavors, atmosphere and seasoning, you can make the companies food unique itself giving the customers something valuable in things they see on any other day. 

Two businesses have personified customer service and transformation of a company to include brand recognition; Zappos and Xerox. “Zappos has been steadfast in its focus on customer service even as it’s grown. ‘They’ve focused on customer service and haven’t allowed themselves to be distracted by other things,’ says an online retailing expert. In a down economy, retailers especially should be focusing on customer service. But as Hsieh points out, it’s often the first thing to go. ‘The payoff for great customer service might be a year or two down the line. And the payoff for having a great company culture might be three or four years down the line.’” (Marketing an Introduction, Armstrong/Kolter, 4)  “Now that Xerox has transformed its business, it’s setting out to transform its image as well. Befitting its new identity, Xerox now has a new brand logo.” (Marketing an Introduction, Armstrong/Kotler, 66)  By concentrating on building their brand both of these company carved out a niche for themselves in their respective markets.  Customer service and brand recognition are great ways for businesses to get noticed and set themselves apart in an otherwise saturated market.

Week 6 EOC - Me x 3

1.) League of Legends -

One major hobby I invest a lot of time and interest into is League of Legends. It is a free to play MOBA game, which is essentially five players on two teams in a 5v5, or 3v3, game to conquer objectives and ultimately the goal is to win. The more time you play the game the more you can get out of it. You get currency called IP per game played which allows you to purchase champions which allow you to play different roles and have different abilities and attractive traits and also mixes up the game. The way the company makes its money is through vanity items. Included in the picture is an example of a skin. A skin is literally a character model re-skin which you can purchase for real money. It adds no edge to the game, gives you no extra ability to win in combat it is purely for vanity and just changes your look and abilities look which keeps the company in business and is apparently a good marketing item considering it literally costs 5-30 dollars per skin depending on the detail that went into it.

2.) World of Warcraft -

Another major hobby I had invested a lot of time in over the years. This is an expensive hobby with an expansion every 1-2 years at 40-60 dollars a game pack then you add the 15 dollars a month for just paying to play the game itself. It takes a pretty dedicated brand fan base in order to keep a franchise like this going for over a decade of 15 dollar subscriptions and over 1 million users on average with even higher peak amounts and no signs of weakness in the franchise or series itself. The game does provide a staff of consistent updates and constantly releasing content within the expansions to keep players interested along with various seasonal events and whatnot. Overall the main factor of their success is the brand loyalty of their fanbase which spills over into their other games that they release as well.

3.) Supernatural -

Another major part of my life is more anything involving the fantasy genre than anything else. I like some other people find that when stressed out to living hell it is best to just escape to a different world all together. For me fantasy genres in general work best. Whether it be a crazy horror zombie game involving a T-Virus and a zombie apocalypse or to the actual Fae elves and their devious ways and interesting abilities. My consistent fantasy genre that encompasses a ton of fantasy over the past ten years however is a show called Supernatural. Still going strong with powerful storylines in season 10 which starts this fall the show itself has had crazy good research and writing and diversity over the years in its show over the years. Even though it hasn't been as branded by t-shirt and merchandising companies like some movies and other TV shows out and about there are people that have tattoos... I actually know a childhood friend with one from this show, and I personally own a tank-top from this TV series.

Week 5 EOC - Social Networks and Job Hunting

In the past few years job marketing itself has greatly changed thanks to social media sites. Companies now use a combination of recruiting techniques to not only find new employees, but people to help promote and market their brand for them in the form of brand ambassadors. “Marketers select their brand ambassadors very carefully, based on customers’ devotion to a brand and the size of their social circles. They sometimes search blogs and online social networks to identify individuals who are already functioning as brand advocates. Once selected, the ambassadors are trained with real brand knowledge to go along with their passion for the brand. The ambassadors then tap into friends, family, groups, and broader audiences through personal conversations, blogs, live events, and online social media.” (Armstrong, Gary, and Philip Kotler. Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Edition. Pearson Learning Solutions, 2010. VitalBook file.) Another location they find brand ambassadors in is “[m]arketing agency RepNation identifies and manages college student ambassadors for companies as diverse as JetBlue, Microsoft, and Macy’s.”(Armstrong, Gary, and Philip Kotler. Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Edition. Pearson Learning Solutions, 2010. VitalBook file.) The employee recruitment changes have gone from the more well-known sources as Linkedin and other famous job recruitment websites to being more in favor to Facebook recruitment. “Facebook's use as a job-recruitment tool remains small, but its appeal may be growing. Some recruiters say they have all but eliminated their spending on job boards, which can charge a few hundred dollars per job posting, depending on volume. Others note that while LinkedIn contains a more comprehensive résumé database, candidates tend to value referrals from their connections on Facebook more.” (Wall Street Journal, Recruiters Troll Facebook for Candidates They Like, Joe Light, 8/8/2011) I don’t know how accurate the article itself is, nor have I ever personally seen a company recruit people through Facebook for hiring services. As a previous manager I personally wouldn’t look for Facebook to be a hiring reference, nor would I expect someone to let me impose on their personal privacy in order to hire them. I believe in keeping work and personal life separate as do most other companies to some extent and therefore I believe that there needs to be separate places for finding professional experiences in comparison to the personal feelings and random things that are on most peoples’ Facebook accounts which do not show their professional capability in any way, shape, or form.