Design & the Market: Evidence Modelling and Fake Evidence.

Last Friday using the ‘NESTA’ toolkit our workshop was on ‘Evidence Modelling’, ‘Fake Evidence’ and ‘SWOT’.

I have only ever done a ‘SWOT Analysis’ before but not on myself so this workshop was very interesting. I found the ‘Evidence Modelling’ a little tricky at first as I didn’t have a business plan; I think this task is more difficult when basing it on an individual, not a business. After discussing it with others in the class however I found it a lot easier. I began to think of myself as the business and managed to complete the sheet. I’m still not sure if its 100% correct but I will post my results below. I think this task will be useful not only if I’m setting up my own business but for future interior projects. It’s a great way to identify exactly what you’re doing, why it’s relevant and what problems it might face.

After we’d thought about our business we had to create ‘Fake Evidence’ for it. To do this you need to think of your business as a success. ‘Fake Evidence’ is basically a persuasive visual argument of your idea. As I want to be a successful interior designer having my work featured in an established design magazine would show my success. I would love to have my work feature in ‘Frame’ magazine or on its website so I made a mock up web page using some of my university work to create my ‘Fake Evidence.’

Lastly I completed a ‘SWOT Analysis’ about myself. This is quite a good way to solve problems as it gets you thinking about what opportunities are out there to improve upon weaknesses instead of ignoring them.

I think these tasks were all very useful as they get you to take the time to examine yourself and whatever it is that you’re doing properly and figure out what you should be doing or what you should do next.

‘Feel Good’ …Research.

Meeting up with my group again we decided to do some more research.

Questionnaires were made up to give us an idea of the lifestyles of people who drink juices like ‘Feel Good’.  We asked their name, age, occupation before asking them; to tell us a few words that describe their lifestyle, what they do to keep healthy, if buying healthy drinks is important to them and which one they buy and why. We also presented them with a sheet of paper that showed the ‘Feel Good’ logo and the logo of its competitors to see what they recognised the most and if they’d ever heard of ‘Feel Good’. The majority of people we asked said they mainly drank water or orange juice if they were being healthy. If they were to drink any other type of drink it would be ‘Innocent’ as they think it’s good for them. A few people had tried ‘Feel Good’ before as it happened to be there when they were buying a drink. However no one bought ‘Feel Good’ on a regular basis even though those who had tried it enjoyed it. I still feel the main problem is that people can’t easily get their hands on a ‘Feel Good’ drink. Something I’m interested to look at next is how other juice companies started, how they managed to get retailers to stock their drinks and become well known to the consumer…

As a group we drew up another perception map this time looking at a drinks price and its quality, high-low. This again showed ‘Feel Good’ in a crowded area.

The ansoff matrix was used to help us identify how the product stands at the moment and where or what opportunities there are for it.

Advertising and Branding Exam Brief.

As it’s getting to the end of the semester we have been given our exam brief for the Advertising and Branding module. We were asked to choose one subject out of a selection which included ‘Heinz Salad Cream’, ‘i newspaper’ and ‘Peacocks’. After looking at all the briefs my team and I decided that we would work together on ‘The Feel Good Drinks Company’.

‘The Feel Good Drinks Company’ offered two different briefs; we have gone with brief one. Brief one ‘Make us Famous’  is to create a campaign that makes the brand well know by communicating the brand name, what the drink looks like and that the drinks are full of natural, tasty fruit. It has to be done in a unique, memorable way that makes people laugh. We all agreed on this brief as we thought it seemed like a chance to do a fun advertising campaign with an interesting product.

We started  by doing a bit of  individual research, then getting together to brain storm the ‘Feel Good’ product and company. Looking at their website and previous adverts we see that they have a childlike cartoon style which we feel is overdone in the healthy fruit drinks sector. Their target audience is 16-34 year olds but it seems their adverts might appeal to a much younger group of people.

Finding a bottle of ‘Feel Good’ is a difficult task unless you go to a large supermarket but even then there are just a few flavours stocked. On a trip into the town centre the product was only found in ‘Costa’.

The taste test… I enjoyed the drink however it wasn’t what I expected. As it’s advertised to be made from real fruit and an advert I watched showed the fruit being squashed into a bottle, I expected it to taste more like a smoothie. It tastes like diluting juice or flavoured water. Maybe exactly what the product is needs to be shown more clearly in its advertising, this may attract those who don’t like smoothies but like a healthy fruit drink.

SWOT Analysis and a Perception Map were then undertaken on the information we had collected.  We found its main strength is that it’s a healthy fruit drink that doesn’t contain sugar. Weakness is that not many places stock it. An opportunity could be found in point of sale, having it widely available and in a place customers will notice it. Also they could change their bottle to stand out from competitors as they have similar bottles. A crowded market is what threatens this product.

Our Perception Map was drawn up based on drinks, pricing High- Low, and how healthy it is. The healthy fruit drink market is quite crowded at the moment we need to target the market in a different way from ‘Feel Goods’ competitors to stand out.

What’s Next: more mapping, analysis and surveys.