Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Marketing Class Case Study : Munchkin

Marketing Class Case Study: Munchkin


Image result for munchkin board game

   For my case study I choose the board game Munchkin. When most people hear of board games they think 'O how childish' games like Monopoly, Uno, CandyLand, & Life come to mind. Well with Munchkin I'm about to get super childish/geeky on you. 
     The history behind how Munchkin started much like most stories do... Told to me by by best friends' dad Pat; the story starts with, who else? The creator of Munchkin, Steve Jackson (not the famous movie director, although they do seem to look fairly similar... I wonder if someone played a Doppelganger card on themselves) also known as SJ, he liked playing D&D but he got irritated with how common dice roles are, and how campaigns could take days and games could take months or even years to finish. So he wanted to make a D&D style card game and low and behold Munchkin was born. A quick game that only takes about an hour or two to play, it has all the pluses to D&D without all the dice rolling (although there's still some involved).
     The Munchkin twitter page is all over the place with posts by both employees and fans but recently, in the news, Munchkin reveled on their Twitter page, SJGames, their The Munchkin Book.... It sure looked interesting.
     After reading the article tagged above it seems as if SJ & friends finally got around to writing a memoir about their 15 year old game. A collection of notes, essays, and what else? Stories revolving around the game, humor, and strategies of Munchkin.  
     What is Munchkin's relevance to marketing? When I asked my friend what he does for SJ Games he says that his what's called an MIB (That's right, his official title is Men In Black) unofficially he's a demo salesperson, he goes around demoing the Munchkin game at gaming conventions, games stores, etc, etc... What's makes this so interesting is that instead of getting paid to demo Munchkin SJ does a great job at having a point system, a demoer (I know that's not a real word) earns points from playing games and those points can be used to buy merchandise from the website instead of spending hard earned cash. What this does is it effectively limits the type of MIBs that play/demo Munchkin by making it so that you show the product, play the product, and demo the product because they enjoy playing not because they're trying to make a paycheck. Also on a side note I should add that more recently then the MIBs, Munchkin is now being sold in superstore like WalMart & Target.
     My opinion on their marketing strategy is genius. I don't think there is a better way to market a product, especially one that focuses on entertainment as one of the main Value Propositions. The only thing I would have changed when I first started this Blog was to add in more customer posts to their Twitter page, but alas, they had just announced their book and were in the middle of throwing some Right Hooks at that time, the SJGames Twitter page has gone back to a steedy (<---  See what I did there?)  flow of customer posts and SJGames Jabs.
     Part of this assignment was to come up with Munchkin's Value Proposition and it didn't take me long to find some of the things that set Munchkin apart from other board games, things like it's Geeky/Nerdyness, Artsy cartoonish drawings, it's SlapStick humor and Social Puns make it stand apart from all the other board games I have yet to play.
     I texted my friend who play Munchkin with me and asked them a fairly simple question. "If you were to say one thing about what Value Munchkin brings to the table, what would that Value be?"
     Out of four friends that I asked that question to the first one to respond was my friend Mike, an MIB, who said "Meeting new people and laughing. A lot of laughing." My second friend, Daniel, responded with "Amazing replay ability."  My third friend said, Fun. The value is fun., Jessie texted back. And finally my fourth friend, Jeremy, who I felt brave enough to send that text to said "7.9 if everyone's on board." Well he's not going get invited to the next game, all us nerds know the real answer is always 42.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Week 5 : Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing Week 5

   My example of a great Marketing situation is a person named Rocky Kanaka & his conversation(s) with PetSmart. I believe that this marketing situation is working well because Rocky is talking about his company DogforDog how how they teamed up with PetSmart in order to throw an adoption event in order to spread awareness of not only the adoption event but DogforDog, PetSmart, & the TV show SaveOurShelter. I feel that this is working out well because the two twitter feeds might be a bit crowded for my liking but the individual tweets are tagged well & the two companies are having a conversation with each other not promoting too much product (although there is some up-selling) & the Right Hook seems to be aimed more for their TV show SaveOurShelter then it's revolved around selling a product.

[Rocky Kanaka (Man holding the black puppy) & a TV crew filming for the TV show SaveOurShelter]

Monday, January 18, 2016

Week 2 Topic 1: Marketing in the News

Marketing in the News Week 2

   The Only article I came arcoss that had to due with Marketing in the News as of 1/18 was 

PSU OMCs in focus after reduction in fuel price ... All I got out of the article was that some companies reduced prices on their  oil while the government increased prices on oil. other than this the  article was hard to follow & I couldn't make out anything other that what was stated above. I really wish I was able to find a better more easy-to-follow article but this is all I came across. 
   The only marketing challenge I came across was that challenge of how best to maximize profits while reducing price this seems almost counter-intuitive seeing as how it's a reaction to other oil companies more than a 'trying to increase profits' move.
   I don't feel like I learned a damn thing that's class related within this article. I was only able to understand & follow the first few paragraphs before I was lost trying to understand all the foreign numbers & examples that was being thrown my way... If anything I've learned not write my articles using foreign currency without at the very least added a currency conversion rate diagram. 

Week 2 Topic 2: Social Listening

Social Listening

   The brand that I selected for my Social Listening Blog is one of my favorite brands, Science News Magazine, I chose this brand because of my love of science & how this is one of my only methods (so far) of unending learning. I've only been a subscriber for a few years but I can't stop myself of excitement every time I open up my Kindle & find that I've got a new magazine to read (& it only costs me about $2.95 a month!). It's full of random scientific papers that are easy to follow & caught my attention from day one, very few articles are boring (to me) and they're full of detail.
   Alas my assignment asks me what their Value Proposition is... & quite frankly I have no idea. I have missed an entire weeks worth of schooling due to work & I have no idea what Value Proposition is nor can I find any data regarding this subject. 
   Once again another part of my assignment is to find three things people are saying about Science News... I first went to Twitter but because I'm a noob at this platform I couldn't figure out how to access what people were saying about the various subjects that were projected onto their Twitter feed. I then looked to their Facebook page where I found a much easier access to what was being said... What I found was unsettling. I found one person zealously telling others that their believes were going to cause them to go to hell, I found  most others commenting their own ideals onto the posts some followed with questions while others stated opinions without producing supporting details.
   If I was brand manager of Science News I'd block or delete those that aggressively attacked my website, although I don't have a problem with others disagreeing with what's being said about articles or with people bring up religious views within a scientific community in order to create dialogue, feedback, or positive criticism. I do have a problem with people using ALL CAPS in order to tell others that they're going to hell simply because they believe differently than myself. As a brand manager & from what I've seen so far I wouldn't change their social media format from what I've already seen, I feel that it gets right to the point (or post lol) & doesn't do much other than what most scientific agendas should do. They post articles relating to the newest found scientific 'discoveries' & they allow their readers to post their comments & increase the awareness/dialogue of the content that's being 'discovered' hence the awareness of the 'product' and the 'dialogue' of those who care about the 'product'.

Science News Magazine Facebook page

Science News Magazine Wiki Page

Science News Magazine Twitter  Page

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Week 1 Topic 2: Marketing in the News Assignment

Marketing in the News Assignment

   After looking though a few articles (I was really hoping to post one dealing with science atlas I couldn't find an appealing one)... I did find one that caught my eye however; I stumbled across an article regarding Google trying to increase it's presence in China by hiring fifty people for positions within China. To sum up the article a company owned by Google called Alphabet Inc. (turns out I got that part wrong, Alphabet owns Google) posted that it was looking to hire about fifty people to help increase it's presence in China, these ads have been noticed on LinkedIn & are focused around the new Google Play. According to the article this is the first investment Google has made in China since 2010 which ended with a company called Mobvoi Inc. Also within this 2010 period Google said it wouldn't censor content for Chinese services. Now a days Google doesn't have a search engine in China it's rival Baidu controls that market however Googles still has a strong presence when it comes to it's mobile & advertising business, it also seems to have a huge market with it's Android software.
   The main point that pull from this article in regards to marketing  is that google has finally decided to increase it's presence (I only wish the article went into more detail on this part) by using marketing strategies: namely advertising though LinkedIn, & focusing on wanting to hire people to help out with the Google Play project. This should help Google create a more worldwide desire & usability with it's Google Play.
   I feel like I learned a lot from reading this article, even though it was such a short one, it caused me to read a few wiki's to check into other companies mentioned (as noted in some link add-ons) & it brought into focus that even if you're one of the biggest businesses in the world there still might be markets out there to tap into & those markets might as to pay a high price in order to do so.

Week 1 Topic 1: About me within my Principles of Marketing Class

About me within my Principles of Marketing Class

   What prompted me to enroll in BA223 Principles of Marketing course at LBCC was that I needed to get full time status & some of the classes I needed to take were ether full, not available, or had surprise/unknown pre-recs for me to take first.
   The degree I'm going for is my Accounting Tech, I don't feel like that really qualifies as a major of any sort seeing as how it's only a two year program but I guess it's a business degree of some type.

   Because I know very little about Marketing I believe my honest opinion is that I'm trying to learn as much about Marketing as I can. I don't consider myself to be artistic enough and I have no desire (at this time) to work within the Marketing field I really do feel that I'm just wanting to learn about what makes marketing... Marketing.
   Things about me I'm passionate about? Well I feel that I truly have yet to find my passion(s) yet. I like to play video games but I don't feel passionate about them. I love working with Pets @ Petsmart but I don't get enough time to 'play' with them not to mention I'm allergic to just about every type of animal we sell (not deathly allergic just enough to make me plug up & feel under the weather) so playing with pets for a living is out of the question. I think that if I was to truly be passionate about something it'd probably be learning & teaching. I love to read Science News Magazine & read about all the really cool discoveries that we've unearthed over the last few months, I also really like to apply the concepts I learn in SC magazine or in college to real life as much as possible; I don't like to go out & run experiments so to say but I do like to discus what I've learned/read with others & apply those concepts in more of an intellectual concept than a physical one. Although I say that I love to teach what I've learned to others I oddly find myself not wanting to acquire a Master degree in order to teach (maybe that will change down the road but for now...) I just want to be as debt free as I can & even chasing this Tech degree is enough to make me stress out from time to time. I'm prosuing a Accounting Tech degree more so because I'm good with numbers, it's a stable job market, & because I don't see myself working anything other than a desk job... I don't have the stamina to work construction, or stocking jobs, or run marathons, I don't even have the motivations to work out or partake in any outdoor physical activities. So all in all I think I know what I'm passionate about but I'm not sure what it is exactly yet. I'm not even sure I have the motivation to make it happen, if or when I do figure out for sure that that's what I want to do... Which kinda defeats the purpose of it being a passion in the first place... Doesn't it?