Day 14

April 28th. Last day of Class! It's a little bitter-sweet. I have actually LOVED this class (and the teacher of course :), but this was my last day of my last college class EVER! I still have 3 finals next week, but then I am GRADUATING and that is great news!

Moving on: Tonight we discussed chapter 18, "Selling the Right Price".

-We learned about different Pricing Strategies, and knowing which one is appropriate for different businesses, etc.

-We also talked a bit about the Legality and Ethics of price strategy. I also took a Business Ethics class this semester, so I found this section particularly interesting! Some of the tactics that I thought should be illegal aren't!

-We learned about other pricing tactics; like: flexible pricing, price lining, bait pricing, price bundling, and more.

-We learned about pricing options during inflation and recessions (again, pretty interesting to learn about after the last few years that our economy has had).

Thanks Professor Allen; it's been great!

Day 13

April 21

Tonight we discussed chapter 16: Sales Promotion and Personal Selling.

This chapter was interesting and kind of expanded on definitions we discussed in earlier chapters. - I thought it was interesting that sales promotion is usually targeted at either the ultimate consumer market, or members of the marketing channel (wholesalers and retailers).

-We talked about different tools that are used, such as: coupons and rebates, premiums, frequent buyer programs, contests and sweepstakes, sampling, and more.

-And we read a case study (also discussed in the text) on Ron Popeil "Salesman of the Century". I grew up seeing his info-mercials, but I never realized that he was the inventor and the salesman... genius!

Day 12

April 14th

Tonight we discussed Chapter 15; I liked it cuz I took a lot of notes:

• Chapter 15

• LO #1: Advertising Overview
• Graph: basically, after a certain point, the more you spend on advertising, the more return on advertising you’ll get; but after a certain point it levels off, and then goes down. So even if you’re spending more money, you won’t gain more.

• LO#2 Major Types of Advertising
• Pioneering; competitive; ...

*LO#3 Decisions in Advertising

• Advertising Appeals VS. Benefits:
• Appeals: the profit, health, etc. basically the facts. But Benefits tell “What’s in it for me?” (the consumer or the customer)
• Unique selling proposition: a desirable, exclusive, and believable advertising appeal selected as the theme for a campaign.

*LO#4 Cooperative Advertising: an arrangement in which the manufacturer and the ...

• magazines
• Media scheduling

* LO#5

* Public Relations: The element in the promotional mix that:

• evaluates public attitudes
• identifies issues as public concern
• executes programs to gain public acceptance
• Functions of public relations
• Public relations tools:

• product placement: example labels on food, cars, etc. shown in tv shows.
• event sponsorship example: Vans concerts, other events, etc. to raise awareness

Then we watched a clip from the movie EdTV, and again, I put it in my NetFlix Queue... they have you and this class to thank for a lot of my business :)