Assignment:
Situation / Strategic Analysis
It's time to get to know your team members, the company Fossil, the Collegiate ECHO Marketing Challenge, and your target market, men and women ages 18-35. The idea of this project is to view your company, Fossil, from the perspective of a potential customer (a consumer who is looking for an extraordinary experience with a timeless timepiece). In order to do well in this project, you need to research what the current population of 18-35 year olds value in the products that they purchase and utilize. Remember, marketing is all about value and satisfaction (towards building brand loyalty and relationships). To get started:
• Have your first team meeting. Exchange emails, names, majors, interests - get to know each other. Spend a solid 20 minutes doing this, as you will be working together all semester. Please get comfortable with one another and see about setting a weekly meeting at an agreed upon time. If you can accomplish that, you are way ahead of the game!
• Have an initial brainstorming session about the project. Based on our preliminary discussions about the project in class, discuss your thoughts and ideas.
• Remember, you are charged with creating an integrated marketing campaign based on sound research (both primary and secondary data) that helps to support a marketing plan that your team designs. The goal is to inform and persuade potential and current Fossil consumers that a Fossil Smartwatch is a great solution for their life's experience.
Complete the following tasks:
1. Administrative Tasks
1. Decide on a team name and a basic (first draft) of your team logo.
• Picking a name is an important element - they say that first impressions mean a lot, so put some thought into it - be catchy if you can, or create something unique.
• You can revise your logo throughout the semester so no pressure, but it'll be cool to actually see something in class on the pod screens for each team.
2. Select a team captain. The team captain will be in charge of uploading this assignment, and all assignments moving forward. I will hold this team member to a slightly higher standard than everyone else based on the responsibility of this role. Please choose a capable team leader!
• All teammates must be copied on project correspondence at all times.
• Be prepared to fill out the intent to compete form online - we will do this in class in the lab on Tuesday, February 6th
3. Sit together in a pod in MC120 as a team for the rest of the semester. This will be helpful for discussing things before and after class and setting up meeting times.
• Pat yourself on the back - you are now a team!
2. Learn about your Target Market
One of the most important things is to understand in this project is going to be your target audience. While you personally fall into this target market from an age perspective, you need to find out more about generalities of this target market. Researching this online will be a rewarding task to truly get to know this market. Some question to answer are: who they are, what do they value, how much they spend on non-essentials in a typical year, what type of experiences and communication outlets are important to them, where there might be new opportunities for technological experience for this group, what their demographics look like, how much money they have, where they spend their money, what television programs they watch, what social media outlets they are most comfortable with, how much time they spend on their devices, etc.
The above list is merely an example of some relevant information that might be wise to check out - do not try to answer every aspect that I just proposed; rather, work to obtain 25 pertinent facts about this target audience that your team thinks would be helpful getting started with the project.
To do:
• Each team member should collect at least 7-8 facts supported by credible evidence (a source, website, journal article, popular press that's legit, etc.)
• Each team member should have 4 unique sources, so each team has a diverse works cited list from the very beginning.
• There should be at least 25 different facts for each team in total, organized in a professional list with the same font and style.
• The market facts are presented concisely in a chart or numbered bulleted list.
3. Learn More about Fossil
Even though a lot of us knew that Fossil was a watch company, we need to know more about the business to fulfill the task of completing an integrated marketing plan. We also need to know more about their new Smartwatch line. Very similar to the above task with the target market, do some market research on the company and the product so that your team can gain a deep understanding of who they are, what they stand for, their history, the direction they are going, and the places they've been. Do some secondary research to figure out 25 facts about the company and the smartwatch product itself. You can use the company's website, consumer reviews, financial data if you can find it, consumer reports, online articles, etc. Figure out what they do well, where they need improvement, what consumers say about the company, who makes up their leadership team, what else is important about their product offering, etc.
(Again, these are just examples, be creative with your sources).
To do:
• Each team member should collect at least 7-8 facts about the company and product. They don't need to be quite so formally cited as in the above list, because in the end you likely won't include a lot of this in your final plan. That said; don't make assumptions about who Fossil is and what these new watches do, actually research it!
• There should be at least 25 different facts for Fossil - the more depth, the better an understanding you'll gain.
• The market facts are presented concisely in a chart or numbered bulleted list.
4. Initial Thoughts Write-Up
Once your team has compiled fact lists about the target market and the company, think about and try to answer some of the following questions in a one-page write-up in paragraph format.
1. What is Fossil's distinctive competency?
2. What's the big sell of a Fossil Smartwatch? Why does it seem like a logical choice for 18-35 year olds?
3. What is Fossil currently doing to market their products and services?
4. Where do you think the biggest opportunities for the company exist with regard to the new Smartwatches?
5. What are some of your ideas about improving their marketing effort with this line of products?
5. Competitor Analysis
Now that you know the target you are trying to reach and what products and services you're trying to sell, it's now time to identify who your competitors are. In other words, what other options do 18-35-year-old men and women have when deciding on a smartwatch or other moderately expensive piece of technology? Select a few competitors (at least 2 direct and 2 indirect), which you think, might be the most logical second choices to Fossil and more specifically the Smartwatch line. Provide a short description of the competitor, what they offer, and how they differ from Fossil Smartwatches?
For example, direct competitors would be other companies that sell smartwatches with similar features and functionalities. An indirect competitor could be various businesses who seek out 18-35 year olds as their target market (for example, streaming services, athletic equipment, jewelry, electronic equipment, etc. that would fall in line with the price range of a Fossil Smartwatch).
6. SWOT Analysis
Based on your all of your work in this assignment, summarize in a chart Fossil as a company (with an emphasis on this new product line) in terms of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Remember, strengths and weaknesses are internal to the company - the companies own those strength and weaknesses and could change them if they wanted. Opportunities (positive trends in the external environment, See Chapter 3 - NOTE: these are not strategy suggestions) and threats are external to the company. The company has very little control over these - for example, a competitor's strategy or a change in the economic environment.
This should be the last step for the team in Assignment. It should come after you have completed the other parts of the assignment, and it should be completed as a team, as you put the finishing touches on the assignment.