Week 7: EOC: Final Project Pitch

I have not yet committed to an idea for my final, but I definitely want to help a retail store boost their sales by researching what will make a consumer buy more of that brand. I will be asking questions regarding product knowledge, product aesthetics, online presence, and product availability.
Product Knowledge: Questions regarding this point will reveal to me how much do our customers know about the brand, brand's history, and what products they have to offer.
Product Aesthetics: this concerns the design of the product and how the consumer feels about the look and how it makes them feel.
Online presence: Do consumers prefer to buy the brand's products online because they either have more of a selection, or saves more time rather than shopping in a mall? Do consumers know that the brand's website exist?
Product availability: This will reveal what products that the brand offers are popular and do they have enough supply to meet the demand?

With all of these ideas in mind, I will develop a survey that will ask the right questions to increase sales and perform market research to prove a hypothesis that I will create and answer on my own.

Analysis of the Product in the Real World

Analysis of Survey Results:

After surveying several of my class mates and a few fragrance consumers, 47% of my surveyors were women and they all had very different ideas and tastes toward perfumes and fragrances in general. A question that I asked was "does the bottle or shape of the perfume help you decide whether to buy it or not?" All the women responded yes to this question, interesting. The second question that I asked was "does wearing perfume encourage confidence?" and the women answered differently. Some were confused about the question, but once explained, they had answered that there are other factors that contribute to a woman's confidence, but the way a woman smells does affect how she feels when she walks out the door to go out into public. Women between the ages 30-50 have a much better understanding of how a fragrance is applied and how they prefer to smell around others. Younger women are beginning to choose their signature fragrances, but will not spend more than $80 for a perfume. It is mutual that both younger and older women care about how they smell and choose certain fragrances that make them feel "pretty" or "sexy." I believe companies like Victoria Secret cater to those younger women who wear perfume only when going out or in intimate settings, whereas an older women will put on fragrance regardless of who smells her, applying a fragrance is apart of her routine.

Here is my Fragrance Survey below:

How much are you willing to spend for perfume?
Do you prefer a strong scent or a light scent?
How often do you buy perfume?
What is your gender?
What is your age range?
How many bottles of perfume do you own?
How much are you willing to spend on perfume?
Does the bottle or shape of the perfume help you decide whether to buy it or not?
How does wearing perfume make you feel?
Do you care how you smell?
Do you wear perfume for close encounters?
Do you wear perfume when you are intimate?
Where do you prefer to wear perfume?
Would you wear perfume in your house?
Would you wear perfume to the grocery store?
Do you wear perfume to attract people?
Do you feel attractive wearing your favorite scent?
Does wearing perfume encourage confidence?
How much do you put on?
Would you be comfortable spraying perfume in public?
Would you be comfortable sharing your perfume?

Fragrance Brand:
New luxury fragrance for women called Parfum de la Creme. Promotes absolute confidence and sexiness for women who spend their leisure time loving their men. This fragrance is meant for close contact and intimate settings. When a woman splashes a touch of Parfum de la Creme onto her wrists or neck, calming top notes of vanilla is the first to be noticed along with seductive, robust middle notes of lavender and liquorice and after lingers the soft scent of jasmine. It comes in a square glass bottle that reflects your reflection every time you look into it and is sold for $187 a bottle. As a warning, apply very little of this fragrance due to the robust scent of liquorice. For better results, after showering, moisturize with a light lotion, then apply fragrance onto pressure points. This is considered as a very mature fragrance and is marketed toward women between the ages of 28-40. We feel these women represent the established woman who loves herself completely and is looking for someone who can handle her amazing and exhilarating confidence. You can spray very little of this fragrance in your home to freshen intimate areas like your bedroom or bathroom. This fragrance is not held in common brick-and-mortar establishments, it is sold specifically online. When you have received Parfum de la Creme in the mail, it will come in red box wrapped with black ribbon. When you open it, your bottle will be laying on a black velvet handkerchief which will have your name and the fragrance's logo embroidered on it for personal use. You may use the handkerchief to wipe the bottle free of fingerprints or casual drips on your dresser. The experience of this fragrance is truly eye-opening and your loved one will never get enough of you!

Marketing Plan:
Women tend to buy more stronger smelling fragrances due to their belief that the fragrance will last longer. I will complete a SWOT analysis to identify my competition.

STRENGTHS: Parfum de la Creme is a strong fragrance marketed toward women 28-40 which is group a women who have immense buying power. The packaging is unique, the red box and black ribbon makes each fragrance seem as a gift rather than a personal purchase which will surprise our customers. Women favor vanilla and jasmine scents, especially for their homes. Unique combination of lavender and liquorice will intrigue women. Our brand promotes positive qualities like confidence and love to our customers. We are exclusively sold on-line which will allow for easy interaction with our customers and development of applications for smartphones for easy re-ordering.
WEAKNESSES: Parfum de la Creme is a new fragrance on the market, most brands will prevail over ours because of experience and an established brand image. Liquorice is a new scent that isn't usually a favorite for women not necessarily because it "stinks," but not many women have sampled it before. Sale opportunities will be missed because our fragrance is only available on-line.
OPPORTUNITIES: After establishing our brand, we may sell our fragrances in luxury retail environments internationally. We can expand our online presence by working with social media. New fragrances added to the Parfum de la Creme fragrance line, possibly a men's fragrance to pair with our women's.
THREATS: Victoria Secret and Chanel are my biggest competitors when it comes to the fragrance industry because they cater to two totally different markets that I believe would enjoy our fragrance. The demand for extracts like vanilla and jasmine are in high demand for other luxury brands and their fragrances. Cheap fragrance shops like Bath and Body Works take from my market because of their lower price points and wide variety of fragrances.

New Fragrance Brand

New luxury fragrance for women called Parfum de la Creme. Promotes absolute confidence and sexiness for women who spend their leisure time loving their men. This fragrance is meant for close contact and intimate settings. When a woman splashes a touch of Parfum de la Creme onto her wrists or neck, calming top notes of vanilla is the first to be noticed along with seductive, robust middle notes of lavender and liquorice and after lingers the soft scent of jasmine. It comes in a square glass bottle that reflects your reflection every time you look into it and is sold for $187 a bottle. As a warning, apply very little of this fragrance due to the robust scent of liquorice. For better results, after showering, moisturize with a light lotion, then apply fragrance onto pressure points. This is considered a very mature fragrance and is marketed toward women between the ages of 28-40. We feel these women represent the established woman who loves herself completely and is looking for someone who can handle her amazing and exhilarating confidence. You can spray very little of this fragrance in your home to freshen intimate areas like your bedroom or bathroom. This fragrance is not held in common brick-and-mortar establishments, it is sold specifically online. When you have received Parfum de la Creme in the mail, it will come in red box wrapped with black ribbon. When you open it, your bottle will be laying on a black velvet handkerchief which will have your name and the fragrance's logo embroidered on it for personal use. You may use the handkerchief to wipe the bottle free of fingerprints or casual drips on your dresser. The experience of this fragrance is truly eye-opening and your loved one will never get enough of you!

EOC: Week 6: Deeper meaning of film BIG

Have you ever looked at a certain product and wondered why it was even on the shelf to be sold? Marketing professionals sometimes have difficulty trying to pinpoint exactly what will make a customer buy their products. Sometimes with research, interaction is important and that is what I feel the Film BIG means. Marketers focus on secondary mainly because it is easier to obtain and takes less time to gather. "The primary advantage of secondary data is their availability. Obtaining secondary data is almost always faster and less expensive than acquiring primary data. This is particularly true when researchers use electronic retrieval to access data stored digitally. In many situations, collecting secondary data is instantaneous." Primary research on the other hand is more time consuming when it comes to gathering data through surveys and observations that can take weeks to months trying to capture, but it will always be more accurate and current. Tom Hanks was introduced to the business world by simply being his very own self. By "playing" or in other words, interacting with the business environment, the toy company was able to market toys that kids would actually want to play with instead of putting random samples to test on the market and spend unnecessary money. Primary research will always cost less to pursue. 

EOC: Week 6: What did you learn from class dicussion, and project?

What I learned from reading everyone’s fragrance project is that buying and choosing a fragrance is very important. All that we think of ourselves is displayed by how we present ourselves to the real world and how we smell can affect the people we interact with. We all have fantasies and people will do almost anything to look and smell attractive. Price points varied when surveying different demographics, young-adult to middle-aged women spend more on fragrances and have at least three to five bottles of perfume. Men prefer to spend less on fragrances and generally don’t have a clue about what a fragrance is. What I also learned from the analysis in class is that the packaging and presentation of the fragrance generates more profits and attention. An example given by our instructor was the Hermes fragrance and the transformation of their fragrance bottle. With detailed research, Hermes discovered that people found their fragrance favorable after simply wrapping their fragrance with paper printed with their famous scarf design and folded as origami to enhance the display of the fragrance, not necessarily the smell. With a strong presentation, you demand an audience that’s price aware, not price sensitive. We watched the movie BIG with Tom Hanks and observed the movie and its’ messages. Tom Hank’s character has the mind of a five year old but market researchers take interest in his kid-like methods to make better toys for children. I learned that by having fun and interacting naturally, you gather more information.

EOC: Week 5: WSJ Privacy

After reading this article I realize that I have a lot of information stored in multiple databases due to how often I log into different websites and how many times I give my email address to those websites. Funny thing that also happened after reading this article was that I was offered a job from one of the spy companies after I tried to research them. It seems that they looked me up automatically which allowed a recruiter to contact me. As much as I dislike being spied on, it is almost inevitable. If people really wanted to keep their privacy then they wouldn't have smartphones, emails, or anything electronic in their possession because they feel that they need it. Well in order for companies to innovate themselves, they have to know what their customer want. I believe people are startled by the idea of being spied on because they were not warned. "WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell conceded that advertisers must do better to inform customers about the tracking and mapping of online behavior." Even though we know that websites like Google tell us in the contracts that we're "suppose" to read before clicking the accept box, but companies are taking advantage of our ignorance and that is wrong. "The Journal conducted a comprehensive study that assesses and analyzes the broad array of cookies and other surveillance technology that companies are deploying on Internet users. It reveals that the tracking of consumers has grown both far more pervasive and far more intrusive than is realized by all but a handful of people in the vanguard of the industry." If you want to protect yourself, always do the right thing and be careful with what you say on the internet and over the  phone.

WSJ article:
WHAT THEY KNOW JULY 30, 2010
The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets