Assignment Guide for Course Project
"Any communication or marketing professional needs cross-cultural research and communication skills to be able to succeed in the future."
"No great marketing decisions have ever been made on quantitative data."
OBJECTIVES: In order to better understand how marketers and advertisers design, research, and implement their campaigns, this assignment asks you to develop your own sample marketing plan.
GUIDELINES: As in other 200-level communications courses, the cornerstone of your research project will be to volunteer for a minimum of ten hours at an organization of your choice. Whether commercial or non-profit, your goal is to learn more about the organization so that you are able to utilize this ethnographic data to help construct your marketing plan.
PROPOSAL: Early in the semester, you will submit a brief 2-3 page outlining your service learning organization as well as several introductory research questions. Your proposal should include specific references to at least two outside sources and should be properly formatted in the APA style (including title page, abstract, and references).
PORTFOLIO: The primary component of your design project will be a professional marketing plan detailing how your knowledge and skills in marketing and advertising can be used to help support your volunteer organization. Your plan should also include specific references to at least five different textbook chapters and ten outside sources (a minimum of four which must be from scholarly articles or books). With a few modifications, you will use the APA style to help create both a professional and creative presentation. Your plan should include, at minimum, the following sections:
(1) Executive Summary: A concise statement of the campaign, a short summary of the major points arising from the analysis, and the major recommendations from your analysis including total costs.
(2) Situational Analysis: This section includes an overview of such variables as company and product history, industry environment and competitors, and both customer and product evaluation (SWOT).
(3) Marketing Objectives: An analysis of such areas as target market profiles, brand positioning (product features and competitive advantages), and SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic timed) as integrated into AIDA.
(4) Marketing Strategies: Discusses your campaign's unique selling proposition, creative and selling strategies, and planning and buying of specific media elements.
(5) Budgets & Schedules: Provides specific information regarding both the budget for your campaign as well as a sample advertising schedule (including promotions, merchandising, and public relations).
(6) Conclusion/Evaluation: This section should summarize the campaign goals as well as provide a critical analysis of the campaign's effectiveness.