Week 10- Design

This week I split the days to progress with both my marketing report and my design elements. 

In terms of the marketing report, I re-read what I had already done to check for grammatical errors and to make sure I have included all the quotes I had previously got through research. After this I looked over the vectors powerpoint again to make sure I understood what information I had to include I then progressed with the report adding in a persuasion table on how each form of promotion will target the right customer. I think this makes it easier to see why I am doing the promotional techniques I have chosen. I also completed the Vectors section of the report. I am now at 8,600 words. The bits I still need to finish are the summary and include more information about each festival in the Place section. Mainly focusing on why I have chosen that particular festival and what makes it suitable for the launch of Lush Juice. 

Design this week I focused on the information leaflet about growing an apple tree that will be found on the inside of the cup holder. I really wanted to make it as graphic as possible and to make it fun and easy for children to understand. Through research I found that it is a nice aspect to promote the tree in a way that represents the child growing up, as in the tree will grow up with them and it will be the first living thing they have the responsibility to look after. Overall I like the design so far, it will be made up of 3 slides back and front and will fold nicely making it compact enough to fit into the envelope on the cup holder. I think this is a better idea than the flipbook as it is keeping everything together instead of handing out a flipbook as well as the drink. I am going to get it professionally printed to see what further alterations I need to make in terms dimensions and how clear the text is.

I also had a look at placing my branded camper van into the actually festival scene it would appear at. I tried super imposing it into a field setting but didn't think it gave the design justice. I decided to create a complete graphic festival scene so the campervan would look right in place. This will be my main focus on my final board as it makes up a nice scene.

I also photographed various fruit and vegetables to see if I will use them in my designs. I have had a play around on photoshop with the colours and style. I like how vibrant I can make the colours, this is something I could use for the postcards. 

My plan for this week is to continue with the festival scene graphics and print them to see what way it would look on the board, also start my designs for the Lush Times front page and article. 

For the marketing report I am going to get the place section completed.

Overall I feel I got the work I wanted to do this week completed and I feel I am on track in terms of getting all the designs done on time.

Week 9- Time Management

This week I organised all the different aspects I still have to do by making lists and sorting out my time management so I am using my time efficiently to get all the different parts done in time to the best of my ability.

In terms of design I have placed the blenders into the pop up to start on the design of the actual juice bar equipment for the campervan. I also started looking at various postcard designs for the instore promotion. Fruit textures have so many natural designs that if I combined various ones together I could form a special unique pattern that could be used for various different aspects of my promotion. I had a look at the 'Original Source' brand for more inspiration into design ideas, ingredients in their products are very important to their promotion ideas so looking back at their various campaigns showed me nice ways to approach the right target customer. 

 This week coming I will focus more on this aspect by photographing various fruit textures inside and out to play around with on Photoshop to develop various designs. I will apply these designs to the main body of the camper van to see if they work better than just keeping it green. 

I have now reached the halfway point of the marketing report, before I continue with it anymore I am going to print it out and re-read to make sure I have all the relevant quotes in place. The 6 P's need most of the attention as they are the main body explaining why I am doing what I am doing, especially the Promotion section. 

My plan for the week ahead is to have a look at the fruit texture design idea and mock up several different promotion ideas to see if it is something I would like to use, continue with the marketing report with at least another 1000words done.

Week 8- Interim Crit

This week on the run up the interim crit I tried to get as many visuals done as possible so I could talk about my promotion ideas and get the best possible feedback. Since the pop-up juice bar is the main aspect of my campaign I drew it from a variety of different angles keeping with the colour scheme of the Lush Logo. I redesigned the Lush logo slightly to come up with Lush Juice logo. It keeps with the same font as the original logo to keep it consistent and familiar to the original Lush customer.

I made a trial version of the flipbook to see if I was doing it the right way, I only did slides for the seed growing out of the ground. Other ideas I had a play around with are the large fruit art attack that would be photographed for different print forms of promotion.

At the interim crit I got good feedback for my designs so far, I just need to keep the styling consistent throughout, don't change the layout of the logo etc and have a look at other ways I could brand the van as at the minute it is just green, maybe add a texture or something. 

Now that I am home for Easter the next step is to try and get all the basic designs completed by the time I return and majority of the actual marketing report so then I can have the time after Easter to try and fix up parts and focus on the creative format of the report.

Week 7- Promotion

Since last week I have been away to Barcelona on the third year research trip. It was a good opportunity to experience a different culture and get ideas into my promotional aspects for my campaign. The part I found most useful was the food market. They had an array of different fresh fruit and veg but displayed beautifully. The stalls never looked empty, practically overflowing with produce. The arrangement was cleverly done. I thought this was good research as I the ingredients are a big selling point for my product. The market also had several juice and smoothie stalls that arranged them via colour. It did make the stall very appealing to the eye. Some also had stick placed about the drinks with actual different pieces of fruit attached to show customers what the ingredients were in each drink. This is an aspect I could adopt for my own juice bar.

When I got back I primarily thought about my promotion as I wanted to get a start on my designs before the interim crit. I began with the pop-up. Since I have decided against an actual stand alone pop-up made from reclaimed wood, I am going with the VW campervan as the juice bar. It will be a recycled old campervan done up with the Lush juice branding. Through research of different take away transport I found a campervan style that opens at the top to become a bar. I thought this would work best for my product. Also makes the pop-up easily transported from festival to festival. 

I found an image of the campervan style I liked and drew round it on illustrator to make my own. I modified it to fit with how I wanted and aapplied my colour scheme (achieved by various in-store images of the Lush stores, packaging, logo etc)

On reflection of the work I have done this week I feel my illustrator pen skills have definitely improved as I am happy with my design work so far. It is only beginning but I am happy I have visuals to show my promotion ideas at the interim crit. 

This week I am going to try and get the cup design started as it is one of the main promotional items of my campaign. I will try several different designs regarding the seeds in the cupholder idea and see what fits the best.   

Week 6- Intro done, back to promotion

After the tutorial on Thursday regarding the introduction I had to change a few grammatical errors and add in a few sentences but overall Steve was happy with it. I sorted out my Contents List, instead of going by the general marketing report guidelines I change around some of the titles to make the report a more interesting read instead of completely structured. I will still be covering all the required aspects but not under the same headings. (Mainly just for the market segment)

Now that the introduction is done I went back to thinking about the promotional aspects I am going to use to really sell my new product. The promotion ideas really work alongside the report so I need to get my ideas solid before tackling the 6Ps. 

I want to keep my promotion as Eco-friendly as I can to fit in with the Lush brand ethos. Through research I think the pop-up should resemble a very natural looking environment. The structure will be made out of reclaimed wood with a lot of natural produce about to really emphasis the ingredients in the products. Maybe in a treehouse style? Very open plan to make it approachable.

Another idea I had was to do a similar idea to the eco-friendly swingtags levi's did a few years back, where customers could plant their swingtag to grow a tree. For my juice bar I thought it would be a nice way to get children involved since the pop-up will be at family friendly festivals. Either the cupholder or a compartment at the bottom of the cup will have seeds in it so they could grow their own apple tree after they have finished their drink. Good for the environment and giving children the incentive to want one.
It will be accompanied by a illustrated book of instructions showing how to look after the tree etc.
In Mondays tutorial Louise gave me the good idea of making a flipbook to accompany it, its a nice form of promotion and I feel would work well with the overall style of my promotion. If I make illustrations for the flipbook those graphics could be the basis of the rest of the promotion.

For next week I am going to get all my promotional ideas set in stone and start working on a few designs. On reflection I want to have a good start on my promotion to show at my interim crit (11th March) so I can get the best feedback possible.

Week 5- The Customer

This week I have collected more research about organic products and sustainable methods different brands have took to reduce their carbon footprint. I have decided to put the campaigns Lush are involved with on the back burner and focus primarily on these two aspects as I feel they will be more beneficial when it comes to promoting my idea. Campaigns Lush have promoted in the past can be a bit overwhelming and off putting for customers whereas I want to promote my idea in a fun welcoming way.

The main thing I got finalised this week was the target customer of the Lush Juice bar. 16-35 age range, 70% female/30% male, AB primary and C1C2 secondary.
To make it clear I have included a detailed customer profile of a typical primary customer. I had this checked in a tutorial with Steve to clarify I am targeting the right audience.

As mentioned in my last post the introduction checks are this Thurs so I began writing my report. I went back through my research folder picking out the relevant quotes to make the introduction as interesting and informative as possible. The key points I wanted to get across are how health and convenience are an ongoing trend and how organic is set to make a turn around in 2014. 

On reflection of this week I feel I am set to continue with the writing of the report although I will wait to see if my introduction is right before I continue with the rest. In the meantime I will research more into the promotion I am thinking of using to promote my idea. 

Week 4- Animal testing or Organic?

Last week I decided I needed to further my primary research so I conducted a questionnaire and sent it out via different digital means to get a variety of different age ranges. I sent it out via email to the older population and through facebook and twitter to get the younger customer, which I feel will be the target customer for my product but the results in the questionnaire will make this more clear. I asked a variety of different questions about the Lush brand, thoughts on organic products and if they feel there is room in the market for my idea.
To get as many responses as possible I will repost several times before calculating my findings.

I revisited Mintel to get a better idea of my customer as that is what we were discussing in class. I looked at reports surrounding Organic produce and Healthy lifestyles. This made me come to the conclusion that the customer I am targeting will be under 35, both male and female but main interest lying with female. AB socio-economic, living in an urban environment outside the city. They would have a healthy lifestyle and diet. They care about the environment and try their best to do right by it, even if it is just recycling their old products packaging. They take care in their appearance and what they put on their skin. Are vegetarian or have an interest in vegetarian cooking. This is primarily the core customer but with a product like a juice bar the customer appeal is quite vast as in terms of just the organic aspect there are loads of reasons why people buy into it e.g. its fashionable to purchase organic products.

I had a tutorial with Steve to try and get my research in order as I felt I had loads but needed direction into narrowing it down to fit my campaign. We discussed breaking it down focusing on pro's and con's of each aspect. The main contenders where the animal testing campaign that Lush already do a lot of back for and Organic products. 

From carrying this out I feel the organic route fits best especially since Mintel state that consumer behaviour towards buying Organic products is meant to make a big return in 2014 so it makes my campaign have grounds to stand on.

On reflection from what I have done last week I feel I have carried out the right type of research and now have it organised with the vital parts noted to make it easier when it comes to writing my marketing report.
Since next thurs is the introduction and contents checks I am going to start writing my report this week.