Marketing Week 1

This week we met as a class to discuss the Little Italy Art Walk happening at the end of April.  My group was assigned to props for the photo booth as well as finding a photographer.  We have some fun ideas already, but if any of you guys happen to think of anything that you would like to see or you think would draw more people in, let my group know or feel free to comment here! :)  I think this will be a great event for UTsd and we can definitely help by getting more people there our age and from our campus.  Make sure to let your friends know that if they show their USD id at the booth, they will get some sort of incentive (still to be determined).  Maybe we can talk to other teachers at school and have them announce it to their classes as well.  As for today, I am now in the marketing department… YAY!  We all got assigned our topics and have to come up with a mini marketing plan.  I will be working on the social media pages (facebook and twitter) mainly trying figure out more ways to drive people to like the UT and DSD page, as well as research how easy these pages are to access already.  As most of us no there are quite a few pages out there, so I think condensing them into only a few would be much more beneficial to the company! 

This past weekend Connor and I worked the booth at the Crew Classic.  It was a really good experience, because it gave us an idea of what we will be doing at the Little Italy Art Walk and also gave us the chance to be interactive with the public.  I enjoyed meeting people and getting to know some of the employees better.  I liked that we got a chance to actually interact with people rather than just being in an office environment.  Hope you all have a Happy Easter!! :):)  

4/4/2012 marketing

Last weekend me and Rachel went to the Brew and Crew event at ski beach for the Discover SD brand. WE werent allowed to drink but it was still a great time. Primarily what we did was talk with people at the event about receiving emails conserning the Discover SD i-phone app. To get people to come to our both and to get people to give us their information we gave out some pretty good prizes. The two main prizes were tickets to the hunger games and a $100 gift card to bar west. People overall were very receptive to us asking for their information. so i didn't feel like i was hassling because they came to us and we just were friendly and offered information about the company. also they all left with some kind of prize if they like sun glasses or a branded Frisbee. Overall it was very fun and i learned a lot about handling potential costumers.
    
The meeting on Monday  i felt was very important to being ready for the Art walk event. I know that many Events take months of planning and preparation. nothing is worse then going to a poorly planed and executed event. so I'm happy that we have separated out the work, now we can get some real work done for the event.

Today was my first day in the Marketing department. I have high hopes because I'm a marketing major so i expect a lot from a professional company. I chose to do a report on the classified's, i did this because i have bought my car and other items no craigslist and feel that the user experience can be improved. I'm excited to see how everyone's reports turn out. We might be able to have some impact on the UT

Week 8

On Monday we met as an entire group to discuss the Little Italy Art Walk. Group 1 is in charge of finding a photographer and props for the photobooth area that we are doing. I'm really excited about this aspect of the booth because it is kinda fun and silly and I think people will have a great time! For the props I was thinking there could be a bunch of different themes: San Diego, Italy, art and dress-up. We could find things corresponding to each theme so people coming to the booth would have lots of props to choose from, making the photobooth a success!

This week, Group 1 is working in the marketing department of the UT. This is very cool as this is the part of business that I am most interested in. We each got to pick an aspect of the UT/DiscoverSD to focus on, and next Wednesday we will be doing a short, 5 minute individual presentation on our initial findings and some suggestions. Then the following Monday we will be giving our final, finished presentation. I chose the UT Daily Deals/DiscoverSD Insider Hookup. I think it'll be really interesting to compare the two sites, as well as researching some of their competitors. Looks like it's going to be a fun couple weeks in marketing!

MKTG Week 1

This week we met on Monday to discuss ideas for the booths at the Art Walk. We came up with a few more suggestions and the UT team is still implementing all of our ideas into their final projects. We also split up into our last group rotation on Monday and were given the task of making a list of prizes and little giveaways for the Prize Wheel at the booth. Today, we were again split up into our last rotation (marketing) and we choose a division of the UT to focus on and create a mini 5 minute presentation. The presentation is meant to be an analysis of the division we chose (mine is the UT San Diego Pets Scratch & Sniff) so we are supposed to ask people what they think about the section and input our thoughts on it as well. Since the Pets section is very new - it was just released last week - I'll have to see what people think about it and what could be improved for both the print version and also how the Pets Scratch and Sniff section appears online. In 2 weeks we'll present our powerpoint to the marketing board and they'll potentially take in and implement some of our sugguestions. I'm excited for the marketing rotation and to see people's thoughts on the newly released Pet section. As we learned today, more people nationwide own pets compared to have children. So, the pet industry is obviously booming and I think the UT is doing a good thing by taking action on placing this into a weekly segment of their paper. Should be a fun marketing project/campaign :)

HEY EURRYBODY!!! ART WALK/MARKETING

Long time no see, so this week has been a busy week of getting our group and individual task. For the art walk my group and I are doing the props and photographers. For that we are working on getting funny little props like hats, giant sunglasses, mask, cheese heads, Italian type stuff, and soo on for the photos infront of the UT collage. I like the idea of the UT collage, but I think it would be nice to add a little extra to make it stand out more. Also with the photographer we already have two people interested that is in mine and Keala's web design art class, that are really talented photographers to take up two slots. I believe Keala is going to make an announcement to the art department about it. Then with our last rotation we are doing a big individual project on discovering info on a topic that we got to choose, and researching new ideas. I picked the topic of UT San Diego/ DiscoverSD Event. I am really excited about learning and seeing more on there events, and discovering new avenues and possibilities. I hope everyone has a nice break and see you next week!

Final Sales Day + Art Walk Information

Last Wednesday wrapped up my final day in sales. Previously, I went on a ride-along but this week I shadowed three different sales reps in the office. One of the reps handled people who went directly to the UT to purchase ad space. Some people dropped by during my time with her and made purchases. I noticed that most of them handled multiple accounts. She also told me that being in sales was difficult sometimes. The UT has certain goals for the sales rep, and she said they can be hard to meet sometimes. For example, they are supposed to produce so many ad sales for all of the UTs different products.

I sat in on an interesting call with the next lady I shadowed. She was dealing with a difficult customer who wasn't treating her very well. I could tell she was a little flustered, but she handled the situation well. She said dealing with those kinds of people was the hardest part about her job and I can see why.

The third person I shadowed has worked for the UT for 22 years, so it was very interesting to hear about his experience. First, he said he enjoyed the excitement of the old days when everyone was running around trying to make deadlines. He loved the chaotic environment, and said it was exactly like it is depicted in the movies. He said that there is some remnants left over, but it has calmed down a lot. He also said when he first started at the UT, there was an active Labor Union. Although he was not a part of the union, he enjoyed its presence. He said when the union was in place he received a raise or promotion every year. This stopped about 15 years ago when the union was driven out. He said after that people rarely got promoted and the benefits were not nearly as good. He also said that there have been a lot of changes since the new owners have taken control, but it is too early to tell how it is going to work out.

Overall, I had a great time shadowing these three employees and learned a lot by just observing them. The one thing I noticed about everyone working in the UT is that everyone looks happy for the most part.



Today we discussed logistics for the Art Walk and each group was assigned a task. Group 4 was assigned to social media. They said they didn't have a plan in mind, but wanted us to come up with ideas so they can direct us from there. So far we discussed possibly teaming up with AS to help promote the event on social media as well as creating a facebook event. I noticed that the marketing group has some good ideas for promoting on campus, and that maybe some of our tasks will overlap. For example, we were also thinking of possibly trying to promote the event through The Vista by buying ad space. We should make sure and coordinate so we can be as effective as possible. Our group is going to try and meet before break to discuss some ideas. I am getting excited for the Art Walk, and I am looking forward to hearing about the other groups ideas.

Art Walk Update Meeting

Group 2 is in charge of the On-Campus marketing for the Mission Federal Art Walk. We brainstormed different channels that we could market to on campus - mainly through the kiosks, televisions, residence halls, greek life and possibly an article in the Vista. For the article in the Vista, they suggested that we create a press release to be submitted to one of the editors (since they usually only select events to write about that are directly campus related). I will create a press release that talks about our class' involvement with UT and how it all leads up to the art walk April 28-29.

Kristine, I will send you a separate email with a draft and possibly get your suggestions on how we can best optimize it to get picked up by the Vista.

Good luck team!