Blog Post 8: Marketing Simulation Game

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Hey guys!  So throughout this blog I have mentioned different projects that we have completed in class that have helped me better understand the concept of marketing.  One of those projects is the McGraw Hill Practice Marketing simulation.  This simulation is conducted by forming teams and working together to create a certain product.  The products the groups in our class created were backpacks.  The simulation allows each group to create the backpack starting essentially from scratch by choosing the material, the features and so on and essentially forming a company.   Below is a picture of the backpack created by my team; CityPack

ProductàAs with any product that a business creates they must choose a target market for that product.  The simulation allows each group to pick a target market and switch that market at any time.  The simulation gives facts about each market so each group can tailor their backpack to the specific needs/wants of the market.  For example our target market was “university students.”  They desired a backpack that was durable and environmentally friendly, so we took this into consideration and made our backpack from hemp, which is an environmentally sustainable material.  We also incorporated a university logo on our backpack to grab the attention of the students.

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MarketingàIn the simulation it allows the groups to choose how they want to market their backpack.  Whether it is through social media, television, magazines, radio shows, and more, a team can choose which route they would like to take.  Different ways prove profitable for different groups so it was good to play around with it and see which method worked the best.  Teams could also choose how they sold their product.  Teams could choose between online retailers, discount stores, outdoor stores, again it was like the marketing methods because teams had to figure out what worked best for their product and which method brought in the most profit.

The Numbersà The most interesting application that I found within this simulation were the financial numbers.  I thought that this gave the simulation more realistic approach because most of our decisions were based off of these numbers.  We looked at our total revenue, profit, total sales, market share, etc in order to see what we needed to do.  For example in our first turn we would have made more money if we did not spend so much money on marketing.  The numbers allowed is to notice this and we changed the amount we spent on advertising.  To me this is the foundation of selling a product because a company wants to make the most money they can while keeping total costs as low as possible.  By looking at financial statements a company can make decisions to maximize profits

Overall I found the Practice Marketing simulation to be a very helpful tool in my understanding of marketing.  It gave me a more realistic approach to marketing and made us work together as a group.  In the real world on will most likely have to work with others so by doing projects like this it sets us up for conducting business in the future.  The simulation allowed us to utilize certain techniques we did in class and see how they would actually work in real time.  I found this simulation helpful and useful to my knowledge of marketing in business.

CP