Free Money

My strategy: After reading the assignment, I predicted that this would be an extremely uncomfortable situation (which it was). I tried to think of a creative way to give someone money without offending them, and after not being able to come up with anything I came up with the idea of them "doing me a favor". So, I told people that I was trying to improve my karma and that it would make me happy if they were to take the dollar. I tried to approach girls who looked around my age and were either walking somewhere or on the phone. I planned to ask them if they had dropped a dollar, and if they said no to then say "Well it's not mine, do you want it? It'll be my good deed for the day", or something along those lines. I predicted that no one would take the dollar. Two of my encounters are below: 

As you can see, I was unsuccessful in being able to give away the dollar. The rest of my attempts went in a similar fashion. Overall, I think that if I had approached a different way, I may have had more success. On the other hand, I don't think that going up to people on the phone is a good strategy at all. They are already doing one thing, and even "free money" won't change the fact that they are being interrupted during an activity. Reflecting on this exercise, I think that the best way to get a customer's attention is to entice them when they are looking to be enticed. Maybe walking up to people in a mall or other place where people are expecting social interaction would fare better results.

Week 7 Reading Reflection

One of the things that surprised me in this week's reading was that Daniel Yankelovich asserted that non-demographic traits are MORE likely to influence a buyer's decision-making process, as opposed to their demographic traits. I somewhat disagree, and would amend that there are other factors besides demographics to consider, but that they are still the main component of buying patterns. Let's take buying a motorcycle as an example. Sure, the buyer would need to like the bike and maybe prefer it over other modes of transportation (non-demographic traits), but they would not even consider it if they were not old enough to ride one or have enough money to purchase it (demographic traits). I'd probably ask the author if he still felt this way about product patterns. He made that assertion in 1964, and as things have gotten more expensive I would be interested to see if he believes the focus has shifted to demographic traits. Besides that one section, I followed along with the rest of the reading.

Elevator Pitch No. 2

I really tried to incorporate the feedback from my previous elevator pitch into this one. I tried to be a little more dynamic with my pitch, as well as practice more before actually recording. I agreed with the majority of the feedback I've received so far, and received positive commentary from actual off-campus students saying that they would be interested in this idea. Thinking about the customer interviews helped me to think about the practicality and possible setbacks of my idea as well. I think this elevator pitch has improved from the previous one, and I'm looking forward to developing my concept throughout the class.