Chapter 9. Product Concepts
Vignette: McDonalds is looking for ways to market products that appeal to a health conscious customer. Co-branding with Healthy Choice may accomplish this objective.
Featured URLs:
http://www.mcdonalds.com
http://www.healthychoice.com
In the Fast Lane
Whether you like fast foods or not, you are surely aware of this market. The products we typically associate with McDonalds are burgers, fries and pop. Over the years, however, they have developed any number of other items to appeal to customers. At one point, pizzas were on the menu. As mentioned in the vignette for this chapter, wrapped sandwiches have been another product, this time, advertising to a more health-conscious population.
Activity
Co-branding: Transferring What Works for One to Another
In the resource section, you will find typical fast food restaurants and companies that have eating healthy products as the focus. You are gong to develop a co-branding strategy list with two parts to each of six sections. For each of two sites, you'll have two ideas to describe.
Start with McDonald's and Healthy Choice, look for ideas from McDonald's site that might benefit the marketing of products on the Healthy Choice site. Then look to see what you might use from the Healthy Choice presentation of products on the Web to enhance the McDonald's site. Give one example for each - stating what you think would work well for each site as "borrowed" from the other site. For example, you might want to take the concept of Ronald McDonald and the promotion of charitable events for children to suggest a similar "fun" character to add to the authoritative personalities on Healthy Choice (nutritionist and chef). And you might want to take the idea of fitness tips from Healthy Choice to enhance the McDonald's site.
Continue on through the table below, taking one idea from each fast food site and tell how it might be used in marketing the health products site in the adjoining column. Do the same in reverse - what could the fast food site incorporate from the health-oriented site to make it more popular with fast food fans.
Resources:
Branding
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/10/brandyou.html
- the brand called you
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/resources/brandurl.html
- how to build a digital brand
http://www.fastcompany.com/career/brand.html
- build brand you
Instructors: Optional Activities
As with all of the Web exercises, the exercise for Chapter Nine can be used as suggested or certain parts can be adapted to better suit your student population. You will want to estimate how much time is required to complete any part or all of the parts. It will be helpful to give students a suggested time frame for completing their assignments. It will also help to determine how much credit might be given for the assignment.
1. A - Branding
1. Read "The Brand Called You" article in the Resource section.
2. List qualities or characteristics that make you (as a marketer)
distinctive from your classmates.
3. What have you done this week -- to make yourself stand out?
4. What would your fellow students say is your greatest and clearest
strength?
5. What is your most noteworthy personal trait?
6. Compare brand You and brand X and list the features or benefits
you offer vs what they offer.
Every feature you offer or they offer should yield an identifiable
benefit for the customer or client.
1. B - More about Brands
- Expand your knowledge about brands by reading the articles given in "how to build a digital brand" in the resource section. What ideas did these give you?
- Try your hand at some of the games offered in the "Build Brand You" article. Which one do you think was most effective and why?
2. Packaging
Try modifying a product by changing the packaging. Using ideas from the fast food sites, modify two products found on the healthy foods sites to make them more appealing to the school age fast food customers.
3. Trademarks
Looking through the sites given above, choose a product that you think could be promoted to the point of becoming a master brand. (like Jello or Crayola). Design a new trademark that could help move the product in this direction by having a popular and recognizable brand identification.