Blog 10: The End

            Well here it is guys!  The semester is coming to a close and this will most likely be my final blog post.  Throughout this semester I have learned many things from this course that I did not know already.  We learned about the science behind pricing, the art of advertising, how companies sell different products to consumers using distribution channels, and many other interesting points.  Not only was the material taught helpful, but other aspects of the class improved many skills that will help me in the future.  These include the Ted Talk and ad presentations we had to give in front of the class.  The reason for these types of projects is that they improve public speaking and presentation skills.  In this day and age public speaking is a major selling point both in and out of business.  If one is not a good speaker or presenter they will most likely not be able to sell a product, which is an essential skill among marketers.  By presenting in front of the class it made us become more comfortable and learn how to prepare a detail summary of our video as they were timed.

            One of the chapters I found most interesting that we covered in the course was the Chapter on the Product Life Cycle.  As with many of the chapters, this chapter opened my eyes to something that I never really paid attention too before hand.  I never thought to myself that a product actually had a life cycle, to me the product was just there then all of a sudden the product was gone.  In reading this chapter I learned that the product life cycle is comprised of the introduction, growth, maturity, and decline stages and every product goes through these stages at some point.  Another reason why it caught my interest was that some of the products mentioned in the book were products from my childhood such as VHS tapes.  Ike I said before, at least to me, I always thought they just decided to stop making them and that was it.  But in reality there is a whole marketing concept behind how long a product stays on the market.

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            As for the project that I mentioned in a previous blog, we ended up not finishing too high in the standings but I still took out some valuable lessons from it.  I became better at working with others, which is essential in the real world in many occupations.  And I also learned valuable marketing tips on why we ended up not doing so well; such as, spending too much on marketing, and not analyzing the competition good enough.  In my eyes if we did these things better we would have finished with a better profit and score.  However, everyone learns from their mistakes and in some ways it could be a good thing that we didn’t do well as we all learned valuable lessons.

            Overall, I found this course very valuable and interesting.  I found that it covered many aspects of marketing both through the textbook and through lectures and projects.  Although the workload can be high at times, the lessons an individual can take away from this course are worth the extra hard work.