Product Innovation

Marketing Principles

PRODUCT INNOVATION AND PROMOTION PROJECT

Our assignment is to create and promote an innovative product. In developing a new product, we started with an idea generation. This is a systematic search for new-product ideas. Companies go through many ideas before they come to find some good ones. We had to do the same thing. We thought of many ideas on our own. It was more of an internal idea source as opposed to going outside of our partnership for ideas. Our first idea was a restaurant with half of it an actual restaurant and the other half an automobile tuner shop. The next idea was a new energy drink that would be less costly and better tasting. Our next idea came up when we were sitting there gathering ideas for the project. We were looking in chapter ten of the marketing principles book and reading about the Heinz EZ Squirt ketchup bottles. It popped up that one of the greatest American snacks of all time has not been put into a squeeze bottle like a lot of other products have. That product is peanut butter. This was going to be the idea of our project until we went to the store to buy some peanut butter for our package and we found a bottle of squeeze peanut butter already out. This led us to finding a new product last minute. We thought of what we are interested in. Cars, music, and liquor immediately came to mind.

The next step was to screen the ideas to separate the good ideas from the bad. Every product or service had good points and bad. The half restaurant half auto tuner shop was a very different concept, and with some fine-tuning could catch the interest of some people. The bad thing is that it probably would not catch enough people. It was not a promising idea. The idea of a new energy drink was okay, but there are various kinds of energy drinks already out on the market. To create one that all the other ones do not already say they can do is hard. It did not look that it was a good idea either. The peanut butter idea sparked our interests more than any of the ideas we had come up with. It is a very simple idea and it would not be too complicated or technical to create. Peanut butter is used in many snacks and it would be easy to prove why a squeeze bottle could make a lasting improvement from a regular jar. Peanut butter in a squeeze bottle was the final decision until we figured out it already existed. Cars, music and liquor were our next topics. With cars, almost everything has been invented and modified. We could not do cars. Music is a big interest between us, especially since one of us is a disc jockey. We could not find one single thing in music that we could invent or modify for a project. It was getting late in the night, and we were so frustrated that we needed a drink. That was it. We were going to do something with liquor. We automatically thought about bars and restaurants and how people order great tasting alcoholic beverages but they cannot recreate it at their house or can rarely buy it already made. There is our product/service. A liquor store with a combination of a regular liquor store and a separate counter up by the cash register with licensed bartenders to make specialty cocktail drinks and package them in a bottle for you to purchase and bring home.

In developing the concept for the product, we thought of many factors that effect alcohol drinkers of all kinds (of legal age, of course). We were going to provide a service to all those drinkers who love to sit back at home and drink bar quality beverages without trying to make it themselves. It would be less time consuming because someone will be making it for you. All drink makers will be licensed bartenders with certificates posted. The menu will attract to college, older adults, and even newly turned 21 year-olds who want to try different kinds of beverages. The store will have an in-store menu with take home menus available. Bartenders will also be open for suggestions and requests for drinks not on the menu. As well as the service in the store, the bartenders are open for catering events.

This idea sounded great to us, but we did not know how other people would act to our concept. We asked fellow college students and they thought it was a great idea and we should talk to local liquor stores about adding it. When asking older adults about the idea, they said that they were surprised it already does not exist. Being newly turned 21 year-olds ourselves, our friends are, too. They said they would love to order drinks premixed and try new things at low costs. Not hearing one bad comment on our concept, we decided to continue on with our product/service.

A marketing strategy was needed. A marketing strategy statement consists of three parts. The first part describes the target market, the planned product positioning, and also the sales, market share, and profit goals for the first few years. The target market is directed to college students (of age), older adults, and newly turned 21 year-olds seeking to enjoy bar quality cocktails in their own home without making it themselves. This product/service will be positioned as a quicker and higher quality way to enjoy alcoholic beverages outside a bar or restaurant. In the first year, our store will aim to sell one packaged bottle of our mixed cocktails to one out of every ten customers who walk into our liquor store. Within the next couple years, we push for selling at least a bottle to every one out of five customers who walk in the store. The second part of the marketing strategy statement shows the product's planned price, distribution, and marketing budget for the first year. The freshly bottled cocktails will be priced depending on how many different types of liquor are involved in the drink as well as what kind of liquor is used. The base price for our liter bottle will be $19.99 and this will be the average price for most of the cocktails. There will be an in-store menu as well as a take home menu containing at least ten popular drinks our bartenders will make on the regular. They will also be open to suggestions and requests for other drinks not on the menu. Bartenders also plan to gain tips from customers for mixing the cocktails as well as an hourly wage from the store. Within the first year of being open, $5,000 will be spent on local advertising and marketing research to promote the new concept and to find out who is buying the cocktails. The third part to the marketing strategy statement describes the planned long-run sales, profit goals, and marketing mix strategy. Planned long-run sales will be for every person who walks into our liquor store to already have purchased at least one of our drinks. Quality, presence and promotion will aim high and continue to improve to gain more profit. Advertisements and