Free Money

So this exercise was pretty weird. For my class, we had to take 5, 1 dollar bills and hand them out to people in public. For this to occur, we had to develop a strategy. My strategy for this exercise is listed below:

• Where will you go?
• Checkers!
• What kind of people will you approach?
• I will approach anyone who is walking up to the Checkers. I designed a sign that says "do you like money?" so as to gain their interest. The people I assume who will take my money are hungry, curious people walking by or to the Checkers. There is also a large homeless population that hangs around Checkers so I think I'll be able to give out money fairly quickly.
• What will you say to get the conversation started?
• I will say "hi! Are you getting something to eat?"
• What is your plan for the conversation?
• After my initial question, I plan on saying "here's a dollar so you can get something extra with your food!" If they don't want the money, I'll just say "okay" and "enjoy your Checkers." If they ask me why I'm trying to give them a dollar, I'll say something like "I want you to be able to get that extra milkshake or fries that you may have written off b/c you didn't want to spend the money."
• Out of five attempts, how many dollar bills do you think you will be able to give away?
• I believe all of them. 

Here's the resulting video:

Reflection:
At first, this was a lot harder than I realized. People kept giving the dollar back to me because they said they didn't need it. I also had to change locations because there wasn't a lot of people where I was. I ended up in front of the gas station and that's where I had the most success. Checkers was a bust.

Later, though, it was easier. I changed my tactic of telling people that I was giving them a dollar to buy food to telling them to keep the dollar so they can pass it on or do whatever they want with it. They were offended when I originally told them to go buy food with it. One guy even asked if he looked homeless and I had to do some quick back-peddling.

So my predictions for the assignment were definitely off. I had to change my location, my strategy, and it was a lot harder than I realized. At first, I assumed that anyone would take a dollar since it was just a dollar and this was suppose to be harmless. I thought people would love getting a dollar to get some food. Instead, they were offended.

In conclusion, this was a strange exercise that I enjoyed but also had some trouble with. It was fun giving money to people who enjoyed getting it. It was super weird when people were offended... selling things is hard!!!!

Week 7 Reading Reflection

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 

Definitely the author's assertion that psychographics weren't the most effective way of segmenting a market. That really blew my mind because it contradicts what my business classes and my professors have been telling me. 

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

The intro of the reading was kind of confusing because I felt that it made assumptions that I didn't entirely understand. Also, I'm confused about what's the difference between psychographics and the kind of data they described was the better than psychographics. Wouldn't you figure out what features and benefits matter to your customers when you put them in a certain psychological identity? Jk, I'm repeating this question for the below section.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

Is it really true that people were "bursting with variety" only following the 1960s? 

-I didn't like how the intro described the issues that arose and I want to know why they ruled out technology as a factor.

Can't you figure out what features and benefits matter to your customers when you put them in a certain psychological identity? 

-I guess this just doesn't make sense to me. Like aren't psychographics basically the features and benefits that companies are looking for???? No se.

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I think the assumption that the people had changed following the 1960s while the advertising had not downplays the role of technology in the need for more evolved advertising strategies. I can agree that there needed to be a revolution in advertising based on segmentation other than by demographics but I dislike that the authors didn't go more into the why that drove this need. Seems to me like they glossed over it.

Elevator Pitch No. 2

Howdy,

Here's my second elevator pitch for my venture Post Back. Hope this clarifies my idea for anyone who has commented on my other posts without me explaining the idea!

As for reflections on the feedback from my last pitch, first thing is that I now know to set my youtube videos on "public" when I upload them. I had a lot of encouragement but unfortunately some people were unable to view my pitch due to my incompetence. My favorite comment from the first pitch was the person who suggested report buttons for unwanted or inappropriate content on every site. My knowledge of the internet is limited, but I do know that you can download extensions to your web browser that could serve in this function. I'm adding that idea to the list of things I can work on.

The comments saying that so and so would never send nude photos of themselves even if they were dating were insightful but overall not too helpful. My idea deals with the end result of someone violating another person's trust by posting confidential photos. Saying you'd never send photos is great but that's blaming the sender and not the person who posted them. It's a personal preference to send nude photos or videos but it is, or at least should be, a crime to post something of someone that was meant to be private.

Other than that, most of the comments were about people urging me to take on this opportunity because they felt that there is a need for my idea. Which is encouraging and really appreciated, but I am looking for more feedback on things like the profitably of the business or the legality or the threat of competitors. All thoughts welcomed, though, and big thank you to the people who commented on my last pitch!

As for how I changed the pitch, I condensed my information and tried to point out the harmful effects of revenge porn as well as introduced the technical ways in which I hope to achieve my business.