Case Study: The Barisieur

The business I chose to do my report on is the JoshRenoufdesign. The product I am looking at is called the Barisieur. The Barisieur is a tea and coffee maker and an alarm clock. It will make coffee for you at any time you set it at.

It stimulates all five senses to wake you up
Hear   - The sounds of the coffee bubbling away
Sight - See the water get transported into the filter.
Smell  - The coffee brewing
Taste  - The Coffee and wake up.
Touch - The tangible buttons and form of the product.

The JoshRenoufdesign company was founded in 2016. It is a "brand driven by design, experience and exceptional quality." The product came to be when Josh, the founder, was at a university and shared his design online and instantly went viral. From that point on, Josh began raising money for the new product. The business went into production December 2017 and was delivered to backers April 2018.

The value proposition in my opinion is to have an eloquent and unique way to wake up and start the day. As stated on the Barisieur site, "Informed by the principles of good design, we look to enrich people’s lives through encouraging rituals and connecting through the 5 senses."

The Barisieur is defiantly a "purple cow" as Seth Godin would put it. In other words, this Barisieur is a remarkable and unique product because there is nothing else out on the market like it. Also, Josh shared his story on how he got to be where he is now on http://www.barisieur.com/about. This is a key strategy stated in Likeable Business by Dave Kerpen. Lastly, this new product is, in a sense, "native" because it is allowing the consumer to become more personable with the product. This way of looking at products as native and non-native is better explained in Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk. The way the product is becoming more human is seen in this ad, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEdhfdmoPnM.

I think this product is a great idea. It combines a positive morning experience (coffee or tea) with a negative morning experience (waking up). In addition, it uses all five senses to wake you up instead of simply an annoying beeping sound. This product is not revolutionizing the industry because there is no current competition with the same product yet. This company is first to the market which will give them a major advantage.

If I was the marketing manager for this company, I would try and focus more on social media advertisement. There is a profile on Facebook but the company should post lots on many different social media sites. I like the look and feel of the website as seen here, http://www.barisieur.com/. In addition, I feel as if he would benefit greatly from lowering the price so it is more affordable to the majority of consumers (current price: $395.00).

There is also this website which talks about the advantages of the Barisieur: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/393281213/the-barisieur-designer-coffee-and-tea-alarm-clock.

Questions:
1. Is there anyone who thinks this is an awful idea and why?
2. What other marketing strategies do you think this company could benefit from?
3. Is this something you would buy if the price was not lowered? How about if the price was lowered?

Week 2 - Target

Social Listening: Target

I selected Target to evaluate on social media. The Value proposition is low priced and variety of products. Some of the negative things people are saying are: "Being a former customer of target, I think that corporate should see why they are loosing customers. I wish that my experiences where as mild as this woman's was (then maybe I would still shop in your stores jump to 16:22 to hear about her experience)! Please use this as a way to train your employees....." and "I can say i am really disappointed in target's customer service. My package was damaged in transit. The tracking is not updated yet so customer service would not do anything" and "(If I decide to purchase from them again!) What a hassle." It is clear that Target is getting some comments from disappointed customers about their customer service and products. And to make things worse, Target is not only having trouble with a certain product but all of their products due to their horrible customer service. The major challenge Target is facing is how will Target identify these so called "poor customer service" employees and handle each individual case. This is also affecting how Target might market themselves and handle the poor comments. If I was the brand manager, I would respond to customers by apologizing and then attempting to pinpoint employees who have been treating the customers wrongly. Finally, I would pride the company on trying to hire better people and maybe have a more in depth interview before hiring.

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My First Marketing Post

Topic 1:

I love psychology and learning how people think and I believe marketing has a lot to do with psychology.

Yes, I am a business major. As of right now, I am planning on specializing in management.

I would love to learn about how people make decisions and what prompts the decision even when they think they are making their own decision.

Outside of college, I enjoy showing my cattle and goats.

Topic 2:

I am interested in this article because it is essential for consumers to be aware of what they are buying and how the company will respond in the instance of a mistake.

After Grace Goldstein bought and opened her brand new bag of kale from Trader Joe's, to her surprise, she found a "dead lizard nestled among the leafy greens." After posting the picture on Instagram and Twitter, she reached out to Trader Joes. Mashable stated "the chain is investigating, but there have been no further updates."

The value proposition of the company is tarnished in this case, especially the fact that Trader Joe's has done nothing in regards of compensation and thus damaging their reputation of good customer service. The primary marketing that is explored in this situation is crisis management and the poor job done by Trader Joe's. In order for the company to overcome this mistake, they should begin by publicly apologizing and fixing the mistake instead of simply "ignoring" it as represented thus far. 

On the flip side, this incident is unique and could be good for the company if they handled the situation smoothly. For instance, they could offer a reimbursement and a gift card to their store. What Trader Joe's has done thus far is not respond to the incident which is not appropriate and disrespectful to its customers. If I were the brand manager, I would simply publish an apology to Goldstein and fellow shoppers  at Trader Joe's. In addition, I would offer a reimbursement of some kind to Goldstein.

From this assignment, I learned that even big companies such as Trader Joe's can make mistakes and not handle them well in terms of customer service.

Article: https://mashable.com/2018/04/05/trader-joes-kale-lizard/?utm_cid=hp-r-1#xsxxg_s7nmqn

Trader Joe's: https://www.traderjoes.com/