MKT2317 Comprehensive Project (CP) Overview: Critical Components

MKT2317 Comprehensive Project (CP) Overview:

Critical Components

This assignment relates to the following Course Learning Requirements:

CLR #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,

, 10, 11,12,13,14 and 15.

This project is a critical component of the course, meaning all parts of the project; the affiliated comprehensive project Parts 1-6 and Part 7 the final presentation, must be completed in order to receive credit for the course.

Objective of this Assignment:

· To allow students to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of marketing concepts by applying what they have learned throughout this course to a product/service scenario of their choice.

· To foster an entrepreneurial mindset that includes creativity, innovation, solution-oriented leadership and strategic thinking.

· To provide students with a performance-based culminating assessment of their course work.

Introduction:

This cumulative project will cover all the marketing concepts introduced in the course. Throughout the term students spend time developing specific deliverables, regarding a product or service business they may wish to start upon graduation. Students taking the course may already have a product or service-based business which may be the ideal platform for further development in the Comprehensive Project. The selected product/service-based business provides the focal point around which students will analyze, evaluate and apply the lessons learned each week.

The lessons form the infrastructure of a marketing plan and cover;

· Creating a mission statement, developing key objectives and determining the right competitive advantage strategy

· Developing the segmentation, target market characteristics and positioning for both the business to consumer and business to business markets

· Assessing the potential impact of the external marketing environment on the plan

· Determining the ideal marketing mix by exploring the product, price, promotion and distribution concepts important to these decisions.

Value of the Project to Course Grade:

The Comprehensive Project is broken into eight (8) parts:

Comprehensive Project Part 1– Product/Service selection;
Comprehensive Project Part 2 – Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning Strategies (5%);
Comprehensive Project Part 3 – Marketing Plan SMART objectives, competitive advantage and Mission statement (5%);
Comprehensive Project Part 4 – External Marketing Environment (5%);

Comprehensive Project Part 5 – Product and Pricing Decisions (5%)

; Comprehensive Project Part 6 – Promotion and Distribution/Place (5%); and the culminating,
Comprehensive Project Part 7 – Presentation (20%). Finally,
Comprehensive Project Part 8 – Peer Feedback (5%)

Please submit as a Word document through the Assignment function in Brightspace. Identify this and all your assignment submissions by giving it a file name that is your first and last name as it appears in the course class list.

Comprehensive Project Parts:

Comprehensive Project Part 1 – Product/Service selection

Think carefully about this selection as you will be working with this product/service for the entire course culminating in a presentation. There are a number of idea websites that you might use to help provide a product/service business idea such as:

Springwise | New business ideas, trends and innovation

and

Entrepreneur.com

. You may also choose to imitate aspects of a company that is already doing business (but you may not directly use an existing company for the project) in the marketplace or you may have your own business or business idea you wish to work with. The key is to use that product/service business to apply the lesson concepts and terminology to develop key components of a marketing plan.

· Briefly describe your chosen product/service business. Provide some rationale for your choices.

· Your facilitator will provide approval/feedback before you proceed to Comprehensive Project Part 2.

Comprehensive Project Part 2 –
Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning Strategies (5%);

1. State your chosen product/service business. Identify the top 3 competitors you may face in the marketplace. Provide some rationale for your choices.

2. Your business may be better suited for business to consumer (B2C) or business to business (B2B) but for this activity please provide choices for both markets as follows:

a. Using the Bases of Segmentation from the lesson provide a detailed description of the (B2C) consumer segments for your product or service (i.e. Geographic, Demographic, Psychographic, Benefit, and Usage Rate).

b. Provide a detailed description of how your product or service will be segmented for the B2B market (i.e. Firmographics, Company Characteristics, and Buying Processes).

3. Describe your target market strategy (i.e. Undifferentiated, Concentrated, Multi-segment)

4. Describe how you would position your product in the consumer market using the Positioning bases (i.e. Attribute, Price and Quality, Product User, Product Class, Competitor, Emotion).

5. Provide a perceptual map of your product/service business using the top 3 competitors and your business.

6. Include your rationale or explanation for your choices in items 1 – 5 above.

7. Use the course terminology from the lesson when developing your work.

8. It is expected that some secondary research will be evident in your submission. Use the APA format for in-text citations and references (bibliography).

9. Use the Algonquin College standard APA format for both 3 and 4 above.

Comprehensive Project Part 3 – Marketing Plan (5%)

This piece of your comprehensive project will focus on the Understanding your industry, setting your
Competitive Advantage strategy, developing your
Mission statement and setting SMART Objectives.

This piece of your comprehensive project will focus on
elements of the market plan.

1. Using NAICS Identify the industry which your product/business is part of

2. Select a source of competitive advantage that you recommend for your product or service (i.e. Cost, Product/Service Differentiation, and Niche)?

3. Develop a Business mission statement for your product/service and provide a breakdown as per the four essential questions your company’s mission statement must answer: What do we do? How do we do it? Whom do we do it for? What value are we bringing?

4. Develop at least three (3) SMART Marketing Objectives.

5. Explain your choices and provide some rationale for your work in items 1 – 4 above.

6. Ensure you have used the course terminology in your responses.

Comprehensive Project Part 4 – Marketing External Environment (5%)

This piece of your comprehensive project will focus on examining the external marketing environment by providing a brief Environmental scan.

1.
Environmental Scanning:

· Research key events and trends within each factor Competition, Regulatory,
Economic, Social
and Technological (CREST) for your industry/marketplace.

· Identify the trends likely to have the greatest impact on the organization. Describe the impact you see as negative, positive, or neutral and give your rationale for your conclusions.

· Provide evidence
from secondary research.

· 2 in-text citations for each Factor analysis as a proof or support.

· Forecast the future direction of these trends and
possible implications that may affect your marketing plan
.

· In-text citations (footnotes) to support your position are required.

· List your sources at the end in references (bibliography). Use the Algonquin College standard APA format

Comprehensive Project Part 5 – Product and Pricing Decisions (5%)

A: This piece of your comprehensive project will focus on
product concepts.

1. How would you classify your product or service (i.e. Convenience, Shopping, Specialty or Unsought)?

2. Describe the type of packaging and labeling you would use (for services be sure to review applicable readings).

3. Describe the global issues in the branding and packaging of your product or service.

4. Provide some rationale for the points you are making.

B: This piece of your comprehensive project will focus on
pricing decisions.

1. Describe the pricing objective that you would use for your product or service (i.e. Profit-Oriented, Sales Oriented, Status Quo).

2. Describe how 3 (your choice) of the determinants of price (i.e. Stages in the Product Life Cycle, Competition, Distribution Strategy, Internet, etc.) will impact.

3. Provide some rationale for the elements you chose.

Comprehensive Project Part 6 – Promotion and Distribution Decisions (5%)

A: This piece of your comprehensive project will focus on
promotion decisions.

1. Describe which elements of the promotional mix (i.e. Advertising, Public Relations, Sales Promotion, and Personal Selling) you would choose for your product or service.

2. Develop a “brand promise” tag line.

3. Provide some rationale for the elements you chose.

B: This piece of your comprehensive project will focus on and
distribution/place.

1. Describe the marketing channels that you would make use of (i.e. Direct, Retailer, Wholesaler, Strategic Partner etc.).

2. Provide some rationale for the elements you chose.

NOTE: As in other sections of the project. Some evidence of research is expected. Use the APA format to complete the in-text citations and bibliography (references)

Comprehensive Project Part 7 – The Presentation (20%)

Instructions:

Your context for this portion of the assignment is to
demonstrate your marketer expertise through persuasive, informative and creative promotion of the marketing plan for the product/service business you have developed over the term. Your audience – your classmates and facilitator – are prospective investors whose buy-in you seek to move forward with the plan. This is the
purpose of your presentation.

You are required to prepare a
15-minute presentation outlining each step of the comprehensive work completed throughout the semester that should be thought of as the marketing plan.

Presentation Requirements:

PowerPoint slides will form the basis of a 15-minute presentation. As you are presenting to potential investors in your business you should make the slide deck both informative and persuasive.

You are expected to provide voice/speaker notes for each of the slides. The notes and the slides together are the written component of the project. The voice narration is the presentation component. Your slides should include each step of the comprehensive work completed throughout the semester. Specifically, the following list of elements:

1. An introduction of the
business and its founder.
State the purpose of the presentation with brief agenda (what you will cover).

2. An
overview of your product or service. What is it? Visuals?

3. Include your
Business Mission and key
SMART objectives, and the brand promise.

4. Details of how you intend to gain
competitive advantage for your product or service.

5. A description of the
segmentation, targeting for your product/service to the
consumer market and
the business market.

6.
Positioning for your primary market with a
perceptual map

7. Description of the
Marketing Environment (CREST factors summary) which your business will face.

8. Details of the
Product Decisions made for your product or service.

9. Details of the
Pricing Decisions made for your product or service.

10. Details of the
Promotion Decisions made for your product or service.

11. Details of the
Distribution Decisions made for your product or service.

12. Conclusion with
summary and a call to action from your audience i.e. why you think they should invest in your product/service

At least one PowerPoint slide for each of the 12 above elements with speaker and voice notes is expected.

Voice/Speaker notes are to be written in essay format, full sentences and where applicable your sources should be cited using the APA style that is Algonquin College standard. The speaker notes and slides should reflect the grading notes made by your facilitator on the Comprehensive project assignments previously submitted.

The
Voice narration is not simply the slides read aloud. Rather it should be drawn from the content captured in the written voice/speaker notes delivered in a persuasive, informative manner.

Note:

you are responsible for ensuring that your presentation can be universally read and heard by your investors – classmates and facilitator. For example, version compatibility issues that you must account for (make sure older versions of PowerPoint are enabled back at least to the 2007 version). An option open to you is to capture your final presentation in a video for posting as in the example provided.

Use these guidelines to help you to prepare your project. See also the
scoring rubrics located in the Activities and Assignments > Week of (as indicated for each part in the course Calendar).

Note that you will find sample slide presentations for your reference located in
Activities and Assignments.

Comprehensive Project Part 8 –

Presentation Peer Feedback Assignment value (5%)

You will submit your presentation through the designated assignment link but, you will also post it for your peers to see in a Discussion Forum.

There are two (2) places for you to post/submit your Peer feedback too:

1.
For the facilitator

You will find the

Peer Presentation Rubrics
link in the assignments folder. It is a link through which you will submit your rubrics for the peers you will review. Attached to the link is the “CP Part 8 – Peer review” form to use. Simply copy and paste the form for each peer that you review in to the same single document and submit the completed assessments.

2.
For your peers:

Go to the
Discussion Forum – “Dragon’s Den” Peer Presentation Feedback

In this discussion you are a dragon investor. Look over at least 3 of your classmates presentations (can be the same as those selected for the facilitator review) and discuss in the forum:

1. Is the presentation convincing? Why or why not?

2. Does it include marketing principles that we have been leaning about?

3. Ultimately, would you invest in this business idea? Why or why not?

4. Then, rate each of your colleagues’ presentation as per the following:

4-5 stars
– You like the idea and think your classmates should proceed. Give a reason for this rating.

·
3 stars – You have some concern with one or two key points. State the concerns

·
1-2 stars – You have serious concerns. Post your concerns as kindly as possible.

It’s rewarding and helpful to have others see and comment on your efforts. It will also help to reinforce the lesson concepts as interpreted by your classmates.

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Comprehensive Project Phases