Using Perceptual Maps in Marketing Simulation Summary

The purpose of this paper is assessing my strategy and decisions in the simulation Biz Café. Then, I will give my results and explain how I got there. However, there were many factors involved creating these results. In this simulation, everything was left up to me to decide how to run my new coffee shop. There were big decisions at the beginning you had to make to create the overall theme of your business. Then, I was to hire employees, buy goods, and act on specials decisions or react to good or bad customer reactions. This, I will explain more in the following paragraphs.

SIMULATION DESCRIPTION: Holden Evan, Inc., has long been the premium dog food market leader with its flagship Grand Champion brand. The brand targets breeders, trainers, and owners of purebred dogs willing to pay higher prices for superior nutritional and health benefits. During an economic downturn, the Grand Champion brand suffered a sharp and prolonged decline in sales. The Marketing Manager must re-evaluate the brand's marketing strategy and marketing management orientation to determine if they need revision.

Since quarter one was the first quarter of this simulation, I was unaware of how difficult it was going to be to make all the different decisions. Firstly, I had to choose a Company name. Because I was selling computers, I thought that the name “Dev-Tech” was a perfect fit being that this simulation was about development and technology. Next, I had to choose a target segment. I knew going into this simulation that it would be better to invest in the more expensive goods as it would benefit me in the end. The segment that didn’t care about price was Mercedes, so that is the segment that I made my first priority.

According to the RRoth data, lifestyle image, cool, price, and quality engineering were at the top of importance to the younger target market. The RRoth was also a status symbol among the younger target market and was assigned a 7 on the perceptual map. Introducing the new RRoth helped lower the usage cost of owning a motocycle and was seen positively by consumers giving the price data a number of 8 on the map. Maintaining a coolness to the bike was important enough to score an 8 on the perceptual map as younger customers found this to be important to them. Quality of engineering was assigned an 7 as introducing a fuel efficient model was exactly what the younger crowd was looking for.

A life cycle diagram helps businesses analysis their attempt to identify a set of commercial stages in the life of commercial products, for example, introduction, promotion, growth maturity and decline.

The challenge for Thorr is that the industry is growing, but sales of its high-end product are decreasing. The reason for this loss of market share is that the target customers of its high end product is growing older, and younger people do not identify with the brand image of Thorr. In addition, Thorr is a high product and younger people do not have the large disposable income necessary to support the brand.

Every year hundreds of products are launched to the market, all vying for shelf space and consumers' attention. However successfully launching a product is not just bringing it to the market (GlaxoSmithKline, 2007). Organizations must examine the product life cycle for the product being introduced to ensure long-term product success.

All products have a lifecycle. They begin as an idea that needs Research and Development (R&D) or time to develop. This is a direct cost to the company. Once the product and/or service is ready to be marketed, it goes through five stages: development, introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.

Introducing a brand new, and cheaper, motorcycle to the Thorr line up not only created a new product that was successful, but revitalized sales of CruiserThorr as well. While I was making my choices within the simulation, I had hoped to achieve that goal. The Financing Options and new product might bring customers into the showroom or onto the website that otherwise wouldn 't have visited. This not only generated sales for the new product, but created additional opportunities to sell the existing product as well.

The challenge for Thorr is that the industry is growing, but sales of its high-end product are decreasing. The reason for this loss of market share is that the target customers of its high end product is growing older, and younger people do not identify with the brand image of Thorr. In addition, Thorr is a high product and younger people do not have the large disposable income necessary to support the brand.

Differentiating is the marketing mix to improve on meeting the needs of customers and the company building a competitive advantage (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2011). When companies advertise the distinctiveness of their product will over shadow their competitors. Positioning display how customers view new or existing products in the market (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2011). The relationship between differentiating and position of products and services allow companies to show the differences of their products and services from their competitors and secure a position in the market to maintain the interest of customers’ needs. Switching the direction of the motorcycles in the simulation was a necessity because it increased their sales and gain interest from new customers. Even though there were minor changes to the Cruiser motorcycle, it was the financial services and services offered by the company are what increase the interest of the younger buyers. The financial service allowed the younger bike riders to finance high-quality motorcycles. Thorr company implemented different strategies to reposition the image of a high quality motorcycle.

Product life cycle refers to the stages that a product. Changes in demand for the product is the factor that delineates the changes from one cycle to another (Daft & Sanders, 2012). The typical product life cycle has four identifiable stages;

Introduction to the lesson: you will look at the product life cycle and how marketing may change at different stages. Then you will consider the decline stage and how firms such as Kellogg’s may react to this.

In general, this course provides you with the opportunity to learn how to apply course material regarding the design and implementation of marketing strategies to various business situations, in particular, a simulated, multi-period competitive market environment that provides regular feedback about the success of the strategies employed. More specifically, the learning objectives for this course are to:

On the first meeting at the board room, we announced our brand identity as luxury represented on our flagship model TX7. Although it was the most expensive and luxury model among us and other competitors, we found a success in the market with market share growth from 1% to 2.5% as shown in Figure 1. Most successful business takes time to build a reputation in the market, even more for the luxury market (Luxury brand management, 2008). TX7