Stimulating Need

Assignment

Will WIN get shelf space in stores (e.g. grocery stores or discounters
such as Target and Walmart) to which customers go when they want a
detergent?

Answer the questions and defend the positions you take in each of your answers.

Ensure that you repeat the assignment question (in bold above) in full
and verbatim on the title sheet of your paper.

Submit your 3-page paper

The Situation:

WIN now boasts shelf space in hundreds of sporting-goods retailers,
including Dick's Sporting Goods, a Pittsburgh-based equipment company
with more than 300 locations in the U.S. Retailers say WIN solves a
problem familiar to multitudes of sweaty exercisers.

Assignment Expectations

In preparing your paper for THIS ASSIGNMENT PLEASE demonstrate your
learning of the concepts and frameworks for analysis outlined in the
modular learning objectives.

In particular, are expected to:
•List and give brief definitions of the stages in buyer decision-making.
•Define the following concepts: need and self-image.
•Show the relationship between self-images and needs.
•Explain the relationship between self-images and needs.
•Define the following individual and decision-making concepts: ◦want,
◦motive,
◦information evaluation,
◦information search,
◦involvement,
◦post-purchase evaluation,
◦problem recognition, and
◦purchase decision.


In preparing your 3-page paper, keep in mind that WIN Products seized
an opportunity to market to a niche. In effect the product (which is a
solution for smelly clothes) emerged on the coattails of the Olympics
in Beijing because even victorious athletes need to get bad odors out
of their clothing. In terms of getting out bad odors, WIN might be
perceived to be a super strong solution to a unique problem.

Will people be afraid to use such a potentially caustic solution in
their home washing machines?

In other words, how can WIN convince customers that its product is
superior in removing odor to the products of its competitors and that
its product will not destroy their clothes?

In preparing THIS ASSIGNMENT, you should address the need addressed by
WIN; for whom the need exists; how the detergent company can make
people aware of the existence of the product; how this produce
satisfies the needs it is able to satisfy better than other similar
products satisfy those needs; and what he company has to do to ensure
its sales and future.

Note that this assignment does NOT require you to prepare a detailed
essay. Instead use section headings for each of the topics you address
in your paper followed by a discussion of that topic.

Case Reading

Kang, Stephanie (2008) Tiny Detergent Maker Scores Big as U.S.
Sponsor. Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.
Available March 7, 2013