Mix Drinks At A Liquor Store example essay topic

Marketing Principles PRODUCT INNOVATION AND PROMOTION PROJECT Our assignment is to create and promote an innovative product. In developing a new product, we started with an idea generation. This is a systematic search for new-product ideas. Companies go through many ideas before they come to find some good ones.

We had to do the same thing. We thought of many ideas on our own. It was more of an internal idea source as opposed to going outside of our partnership for ideas. Our first idea was a restaurant with half of it an actual restaurant and the other half an automobile tuner shop. The next idea was a new energy drink that would be less costly and better tasting. Our next idea came up when we were sitting there gathering ideas for the project.

We were looking in chapter ten of the marketing principles book and reading about the Heinz EZ Squirt ketchup bottles. It popped up that one of the greatest American snacks of all time has not been put into a squeeze bottle like a lot of other products have. That product is peanut butter. This was going to be the idea of our project until we went to the store to buy some peanut butter for our package and we found a bottle of squeeze peanut butter already out.

This led us to finding a new product last minute. We thought of what we are interested in. Cars, music, and liquor immediately came to mind. The next step was to screen the ideas to separate the good ideas from the bad. Every product or service had good points and bad. The half restaurant half auto tuner shop was a very different concept, and with some fine-tuning could catch the interest of some people.

The bad thing is that it probably would not catch enough people. It was not a promising idea. The idea of a new energy drink was okay, but there are various kinds of energy drinks already out on the market. To create one that all the other ones do not already say they can do is hard. It did not look that it was a good idea either. The peanut butter idea sparked our interests more than any of the ideas we had come up with.

It is a very simple idea and it would not be too complicated or technical to create. Peanut butter is used in many snacks and it would be easy to prove why a squeeze bottle could make a lasting improvement from a regular jar. Peanut butter in a squeeze bottle was the final decision until we figured out it already existed. Cars, music and liquor were our next topics. With cars, almost everything has been invented and modified. We could not do cars.

Music is a big interest between us, especially since one of us is a disc jockey. We could not find one single thing in music that we could invent or modify for a project. It was getting late in the night, and we were so frustrated that we needed a drink. That was it. We were going to do something with liquor. We automatically thought about bars and restaurants and how people order great tasting alcoholic beverages but they cannot recreate it at their house or can rarely buy it already made.

There is our product / service. A liquor store with a combination of a regular liquor store and a separate counter up by the cash register with licensed bartenders to make specialty cocktail drinks and package them in a bottle for you to purchase and bring home. In developing the concept for the product, we thought of many factors that effect alcohol drinkers of all kinds (of legal age, of course). We were going to provide a service to all those drinkers who love to sit back at home and drink bar quality beverages without trying to make it themselves. It would be less time consuming because someone will be making it for you. All drink makers will be licensed bartenders with certificates posted.

The menu will attract to college, older adults, and even newly turned 21 year-olds who want to try different kinds of beverages. The store will have an in-store menu with take home menus available. Bartenders will also be open for suggestions and requests for drinks not on the menu. As well as the service in the store, the bartenders are open for catering events. This idea sounded great to us, but we did not know how other people would act to our concept. We asked fellow college students and they thought it was a great idea and we should talk to local liquor stores about adding it.

When asking older adults about the idea, they said that they were surprised it already does not exist. Being newly turned 21 year-olds ourselves, our friends are, too. They said they would love to order drinks premixed and try new things at low costs. Not hearing one bad comment on our concept, we decided to continue on with our product / service.

A marketing strategy was needed. A marketing strategy statement consists of three parts. The first part describes the target market, the planned product positioning, and also the sales, market share, and profit goals for the first few years. The target market is directed to college students (of age), older adults, and newly turned 21 year-olds seeking to enjoy bar quality cocktails in their own home without making it themselves.

This product / service will be positioned as a quicker and higher quality way to enjoy alcoholic beverages outside a bar or restaurant. In the first year, our store will aim to sell one packaged bottle of our mixed cocktails to one out of every ten customers who walk into our liquor store. Within the next couple years, we push for selling at least a bottle to every one out of five customers who walk in the store. The second part of the marketing strategy statement shows the product's planned price, distribution, and marketing budget for the first year. The freshly bottled cocktails will be priced depending on how many different types of liquor are involved in the drink as well as what kind of liquor is used.

The base price for our liter bottle will be $19.99 and this will be the average price for most of the cocktails. There will be an in-store menu as well as a take home menu containing at least ten popular drinks our bartenders will make on the regular. They will also be open to suggestions and requests for other drinks not on the menu. Bartenders also plan to gain tips from customers for mixing the cocktails as well as an hourly wage from the store. Within the first year of being open, $5,000 will be spent on local advertising and marketing research to promote the new concept and to find out who is buying the cocktails. The third part to the marketing strategy statement describes the planned long-run sales, profit goals, and marketing mix strategy.

Planned long-run sales will be for every person who walks into our liquor store to already have purchased at least one of our drinks. Quality, presence and promotion will aim high and continue to improve to gain more profit. Advertisements and marketing research will continue to be $5,000 a year and every year slowly reducing the amount spent on research after the first year. In planning our product / service, a business analysis was next. This is a review of sales, costs, and profit projections for a new product to find out whether these factors satisfy the company's objectives. In reviewing these subjects, sales and costs and profit seem to be promising for our concept.

There are liquor stores everywhere within each town or city and they all are profitable. With our concept incorporated in the store, this is not very costly and projects to be very profitable in the long run. In turning our product concept into a physical product, we made up a menu of eleven popular cocktails found at different types of bars and restaurants. It also includes the alcohol ingredients involved into each drink so people know what they are really drinking.

The menu will also show that the bartenders are open to suggestions as well as requests for new drinks and that catering is available for events also. We decided an average bottle of hard alcohol is around a liter. We will package the products in liter bottles that can be resealed for storage to drink again some other time. Another step in planning the product, we have to do test marketing. This is the stage where the product and marketing program are tested in realistic market settings. Because our product or service will have to be built and opened before we actually really know how it does, we can only do the standard test markets.

Using standard test markets, our company can find ror go ourselves to test different cities and towns and conduct a full marketing campaign. We would use mainly consumer surveys to see if the product / service is promising. The last step in our planning process is the commercialization. Introducing this into the market is the deciding factor in profits or losses. The time where alcohol is consumed the most starts with nice weather.

Living in New England, the real nice weather is started in May. This is the perfect timing in the opening of the store. Our store will be launched on rt. 9 Framingham. That is the restaurant and store strip where no matter where you are driving in Framingham, rt.

9 is hard to avoid. Advertisement and word of mouth alone is enough for our store to be profitable. There are three levels of product and services. Each adds more customer value.

The first and most basic level is the core benefit. It asks, "What is the buyer really buying"? The buyer is buying a quicker cocktail drink to bring home at the quality of your favorite bars and restaurants. On the second level, our core benefit is turned into and actual product. The features to our actual product are our menu of cocktail drinks that can be made for you in front of your eyes. The menu is expandable and is available in-store and for take home.

Our store also features and optional catering service from out highly qualified and licensed bartenders. The style and design of our store and service is very important in the actual product. The store will be more decorated and will draw great attention to our bartenders' counter. Our bottles will able to be resealed so the design will appeal to the customers as well as the product and service. The bottles and menus will be colorful and vibrant so that they will attract attention no matter where they are located in the store or even in homes. The packaging will not be some plain white piece of paper.

It will show energy in the product, service and in our store. Out of all the things about our actual product, the quality is most important to us. There will be no need for returns or anything wrong with the drinks or the bottles because every single cocktail will be made fresh with fresh ingredients in front of the customer. The customer can watch how it is made and everything that goes into the drink so we can guarantee satisfaction. Every bartender will provide the highest quality alcoholic cocktails in a friendly manner as well as the rest of the workers in the store. The store will always stay clean and adjust to please all the customers.

Our brand name for our liquor store and drink service has a combination of a name, sign, and symbol. The name of the store will be called "BARSTOP MIXES". This comes from the meaning behind not being able to buy mix drinks at a liquor store. So we came up with the name "Barstop Mixes", emphasizing on our service. Our "Barstop" favorite drink is called the "Incredible Hulk". Since the bottle cap is green and the favorite drink is called the "Incredible Hulk", our sign and symbol will be the "Incredible Hulk" showing our "incredible" service.

Our name is catchy and our symbol and store sign stands out further than any other store I know. Our idea is to stand out as far as we can to show our uniqueness. Coming with any product or service, comes an augmentation question. An after sale service or a warranty is not applicable for our product, except for already packaged products in our liquor store.

The service itself is being packaged in the highest quality guaranteed in front of every customer so that they can know what is going into the drink and the bottle is in good shape. If the customers do no like the taste, we cannot really take it back because it is a drink. You cannot order a drink at a restaurant and say you do not like it and you will not pay for it. Either way, you have to pay for it. At an average price of $20.00, a drink you do not really like is not a big loss. This will not be the case usually since we pride ourselves over the highest quality in service and the drink itself.

Because it is a service, there will be no installation or delivery charges for anything. There is obviously a use of credit through credit card payments for the liquor as usual stores do. In planning for promotion, the target audience must pass through the six stages of the buyer-readiness stages. These are stages the consumer normally passes through on their way to making the purchase.

The first two stages starts with awareness and knowledge of the product / service. The target market may be totally unaware of us, only know our name, or just a few things about us. We must build an awareness and knowledge. Our advertisements will have to be big in making "Barstop Mixes" stand out from other liquor stores. We will have advertisements in the local newspapers and make our sign out of neon, bright and standing out from the rest of stores. Our menus will stand out as much as our bottles, sign, and advertisements will.

We will work harder than anything else to bring in the customers because we believe that once they customers come in, they will purchase goods from us. They will start liking our product so much they will prefer us and be convicted that "Barstop Mixes" is the store from them. These are the next three steps in the buyer-readiness stages. The last stage will be the actual purchase of our goods and service.

Next will be telling friends and family to give us a common name around the town and county, and hopefully the state and more. We plan to revolutionize liquor stores all around the globe. As said earlier, we said we would spend about $5,000 on advertising and marketing research the first year open. This will consist of local newspaper articles, ads, fly ers posted around town, and to help out advertising, we will have take home menus of our freshly packaging cocktail drinks. This as well as word of mouth and our vibrant store signs, menus, and offerings should be plenty to attract crowds in the store. The marketing research will be in forms of polls and surveys in the store and out of the store to get customer and street opinions on our store, the products, and on our service.

Along with our advertisements we will have a sales promotion within the first six months opening. It will be a coupon sent in the newspaper articles and in our fly ers. It offers a buy one cocktail packaged to go and get the second one half off. We might be losing a quite a bit of money on this deal, but it will bring in the customers to see how good our drinks are and prove our quality. It will hopefully gain us some loyalty in shopping at "Barstop Mixes". In opening "Barstop Mixes" we also have to build good relations with our public.

We have to gain this by obtaining favorable publicity and build up a good image. First off, we are an alcohol store; we promote drinking to people of age and those people only. We are against underage drinking and will donate 5% of our profits per month to M.A.D.D. This is mothers against drunk driving. This organization does a lot of work with underage drinking, exactly what we are against.

We believe their television ads and in school videos can make a difference and funding to them will help them out financially. Even though we are concentrated on stopping underage drinking, we want to be active in the lives of the drinkers of age. This is why we will sponsor local softball league teams for older men and women. It is a good way to keep alcohol drinkers active and doing something. Our company is all about creating a good image to the public for all ages of people alcoholic drinkers or not. The bartender workers as well as the store clerks will be well trained in personal selling.

They will have a very friendly face-to-face presentation as well as attitude. They will also take friendly telephone calls to questions to opinions on drinks. Our store also offers an email address for requests, suggestions, opinions, or just questions for our in-store bartenders. They will reply within the day as soon as possible.

Again, we pride ourselves on quality and presence. "Barstop Mixes" is for alcoholic drinkers of all kinds. The only way to experience our store and service the best is to come and visit. We promise it will be worth your while and hopefully an "incredible" experience.