Sprinting To The Finish Line

As this course comes to an end, we take this time to apply everything we have learned about consumer behavior and apply it to a real-world problem. I am so excited to finally be faced with something that can be applicable to the real world. All of my courses have led up to this kind of work.

The design sprint process is devised into 5 phases: Understand, Diverge, Converge, Prototype, and lastly Test and Learn. Reflecting back I sometimes had a hard time just going with the flow. An example being the Crazy 8's exercise. Being able to quickly produce something, anything, with little to no thought was something I have never done before. I don't understand why I was so terrified to try it, because it turns out I really enjoyed it! (Refer back to my ZMET experience)

In the beginning, we were asked to find a problem we wanted to solve for type-one diabetics. It was stated that it is easy to conclude with the solution, which I quickly saw become true. While giving our 3 minute critiques we all loved Tessa's idea of a watch that would allow type-one diabetics to check their blood sugar easily and discretely.

This project has made me understand how empathy is so vital for "success". I say that because at times it is okay to fail, and must restart on an idea. Trying to kill our baby of an idea was a lot harder than I thought due to all the work put into it.

According to Wikipedia, empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other being's frame of reference. Empathy is seeing seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feelings with the heart of another. 

The part I found the most interesting was learning about type-one diabetes, how many people this effects, and how our group put ourselves in a type-one diabetic's shoes for a day. We started listing tasks, activities, and emotional events everyone experiences and how it might be different for someone with this disease. After some more research we sought out friends and family members who suffer from type-one diabetes in order to gain a more personal perspective. 

Hearing stories of how difficult it is to go on a road trip, or enjoy an evening night out with friends made me realize how our product could really make a difference. Throughout college it’s been hypothetical scenarios to learn from, which have helped me understand how to approach a problem. However, this assignment was different all due to empathic implementation. This assignment has confirmed to me that this may be the line of work I may want to pursue. 

Growing up I always thought that doctors could help those who were injured or sick. That police officers fought crime. And that businessmen and businesswomen worked with money. Although I have a better understanding of how occupations interlink and all pertain to helping one another, this design sprint process and class has brought to my attention how consumer behavior goes beyond the numbers, statistics, and marketing tactics. Now marketing strategies that I have learned make more sense and have made a full circle. 

Why Is There A Febreeze Ad In My Snapchat Story?

For my Integrated Marketing Communications class I did some research about Snapchat to see if this would be a viable market in order to reach out target market we had decided to focus on. From what I found, 77% of college students use Snapchat daily. The average user is on the app for about 30 minutes! Which is insane. Snapchat has been able to adapt to there consumers wants quickly by offering so many features. But there is also one big thing I have noticed in my snapchat stories these days, and that would be ads.

Advertisements from Febreeze and Netflix have started to sneak in between my stories as I flip thought them. I'll admit, I enjoy that I can quickly tap out of an advertisement to continue on with my mindless photo scanning. However, I would not put it past Snapchat to someday make seeing advertisements a permanent and to not have the ability to bypass them anymore.

According to Snapchat's website, they reach 41% of 18-34 year olds in the USA! Thats insane. I think that was so smart (and a little random) of Febreeze to get into everyone's snap stories. It was a quick ad, to the point, and got the brand out there. Snapchat allows consumers to engage with not only there own brand, but other companies as well. Its kind of a win win situation, for now.

Black Friday Mayhem

This was the number of steps I took working on Black Friday.
Roughly 10 miles. 

Today was what many Americans consider a national holiday: Black Friday. According to Wikipedia, " The states which have official public holidays for state government employees on "The Day After Thanksgiving" include Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin." (AKA shop till you drop day).

So in these states, government employees have the day off to more than likely participate in the Black Friday "festivities". From what I noticed, Black Friday doorbuster sales started to take place on Thursday, which is not okay with me. First it was doorbuster ads for midnight Thursday night, then 10pm, then 6pm. Now it's as early as 3pm on THANKSGIVING DAY. The day we are suppose to remember what we are thankful for.

Side note: So I am really torn about how I personally feel about Black Friday. Because of Black Friday I haven't been able to spend Thanksgiving with my family for two years now. Along with everyone else that works in retail. I also do not condone how stores are open on a family holiday. However, with that being said, these sales are insane. Families who may not have been able to afford 50" televisions and life size barbie dream houses can. Its a double edge sword.

I work at Home Depot and over the holiday season we tend to carry things that are a little out of the ordinary for a home improvement store. When I arrived at 5am to start my shift this morning I walked around the store to see tents, food processors, and cookie sheets for sale along with our typical hardware. I asked a superior why we sell this odd ball stuff? His reply, " Because it sells".

Advertising has played a huge roll in all of the hype that goes towards Black Friday. The fast talking, upbeat music, and flashing of low prices are close to hypnotizing.Trends are showing that Black Friday sales are lowering and shifting towards Cyber Monday, as well as many special deals extending before and after the initial Black Friday. Consumers no longer enjoy waiting in long lines for deals that they can snag on the internet. The sales holiday is every changing, just like the consumers.

Mac Lover

So this year my Dell decided to go off the deep end and start to get super slow. It was so slow that I could get up and make a sandwich, eat my sandwich, and clean up the mess and my laptop would still be loading up all the programs. I had enough of this so at the end of last semester I cracked down and purchased a Mac Book Pro. I already own an iPhone so I was somewhat familiar with Apple products, however, not on this level.

This semester all I have heard about so far is about Apple products and how there's nothing that can compare to this company. Apple this, Apple that, Apple Apple Apple. Since I got my Mac at the very end of the semester, I haven't had a semester work load of time and data put into it till now.

I am very impressed with Apple, and now can completely understand the rave and praise about Apple products and see why its one of the top companies in the world. Once I became familiar with all of the functions and hand motions it allowed me to be more efficient than I have ever been before. I can flip through internet pages with such ease! I can send text messages, manage my calendar that is synced to my phone, and edit amazing pictures.

Something I have noticed now that I own two Apple products is that it is consistent on a phone and laptop platform. I feel that this also holds true for there commercials advertising this slick product. I recently got the iPhone 7 after waiting close to 3 years to for my next phone. And although this new phone offers new features such as the 3D touch, everything is still the same and I feel like I didn't get a new phone, just a different size. Apple has been able to identify what can change in order to keep there products fresh and new, yet be consistent throughout there entire product line. This balance they have achieved I believe is a big reason for there success.

Confidently Creative

I had the opportunity to read the book Creative Confidence (these are just chapter summaries that do not do the book justice) and it was such an easy and good read! We were given a quiz about this book and the last question was the following: Discuss one suggestion from the book you can see making a positive difference in your life from this point forward.

One thing in particular struck a cord with me. A story told by one of the writers and an encounter he had with a classmate during his 3rd grade art class. His class was in art class and the assignment was to create a sculpture with clay.

A student approach one of the writer's friends' who was sculpting with the clay and said that his figure did not look good to her liking. The friend proceeded to walk towards the bin to discard his clay, with the assumption that he never picked up clay again. All from one little girl's comment.

This story made me think how often I do not pursue something because someone else told me I wasn't good enough for it. How different would my life be if I pursued something else? Although this isn't something I dwell on, it give perspective of the situations and opportunities I have had. 

Another story from this book that resinated with me was about the authors acts of creativity being expressed and how having supportive parents fostered them into the positions they hold today. It made me realize how influential our parents can be, even throughout adolescents and adulthood. These two authors were constantly building and creating things- leading to things being broken, messes, and failures.

While reading this all I could think of is how my mom would have reacted. She would have yelled for the messes and probably tell me to never attempt this again. Don't get me wrong, I love my mom and family. However, my family was not as supportive as other families in my middle school and high school activities. I was the kid who always got a ride to games from the soccer coach and was last to be picked up from events my family did not attend.

I don't regret the experiences I had, although I know that the activities I enjoyed would have different outcomes if my family were more supportive. But it's taught me to preserve, work hard for my personal goals I wish to achieve, to never give up, and to stand up, even if it means standing alone.

Will You Nudge On Over?

Everyone is faced with choices. There are choices that you acknowledge such as deciding what food menu item you would like, or placing trash in the proper recycling bin. Both are the results of nudges in our surroundings. The book Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, define a nudge as a concept in behavioral science and economics which argues that positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions to try to achieve non-forced compliance can influence the motives, incentives, and decision making.

As I've stated before, I try to go to Yellowstone National Park about once a month to get away for the weekend and disconnect. However, there are still nudges throughout the park and neighboring cities. An example of a nudge can be donation boxes that are in the parks general stores to encourage visitors to donate to the park.

Bear Cub in Yellowstone 16'

Halfway through the semester a majority of the park closes due to cooler temperatures and the chance of premature snow. So, the past couple of times that I have went there is only a couple of routes that I can go, make it a quick trip in and out of the park.


I decided to pull over because I thought that I saw something. And being the first to spot something before a stampede of cars and buses is huge in Yellowstone. Sure enough there was two cubs and a sow (female bear) rustling in the bushes. I whip out my camera just in time to snap some photos of them before they ran across the then full street of spectators.

As I was walking back to my car, this huge charter bus decided to attempt to parallel park next to me. At this point this mass chaos has been unleashed at this little pull out due to the bear siting. We manage to pull out and continue driving down the road. The mess of cars in the rear view mirror and seeing open places to park made me wonder why this huge bus decided to park right next to us when the driver could have driven only 100 yards further to park properly and have the occupants walk.

The bus driver, being the choice architect in the situation, was nudged by the location of the pull out areas to were to park. Although I was a little frustrated with where the driver decided to park, due to the limited amount of pull out parking spots, the closest spot was a nudge.

This experience just goes to show that it doesn't matter if you're in the wilderness with no services, nudges can still prevail to influence decisions.

Step Away From The Bag of Chips

When I was in 6th grade my teacher's son, who was a medic for the army, came to visit our class to talk about his experience overseas. I don't remember a lot of what he talked about except one thing. MREs- Meals Ready to Eat. The science behind them I found so cool when first being introduced to them. One food he brought was beef strew, and if he broke a certain area of the packet and mixed water with is the beef stew would come to life. I seriously thought that it was black magic.

He handed around samples of the beef stew for us to try and the entire class thought that they were pretty good. I remember it looking and tasting just as any beef stew that I had. However, when we were all done he made this comment," MREs get gross, fast." Well then.

To this day I have wanted to taste again a MRE and see what changes can be made in order to make it better. However for now I'll stick with my inconsistent meal plan of frozen food, ramen, and fruit. Every once in a while I find myself downing a case of Pringles with ease. I'll change my approach by taking one out at a time, to a small stack and then tell myself "okay, that's enough, Julia". It just kills me that a Pringle canister fits perfectly into a cup holder in a vehicle. Because that stack of Pringles went through a long growling process of what appeals to a consumers. The thickness, taste, shape were all considered.

I found the science behind our addiction to junk food really fascinating. The amount of time and dedication towards a simple food product such as spaghetti sauce was very interesting. Example being, it took months of research to learn what kinds of sauces were the most popular. Three categories were devised: Plain, spicy, and extra chunky. Discovering that Prego did not offer an extra chuck option took them by surprise. They revamped there formula and put them on the shelves. The thought process, simple data collecting, and implementation of Howard Moskowitz revolutionized the food industry thought process. oH

I will never forget the day I walked into a super market and saw Lays'  southern biscuits and gravy flavored potato chips on the shelf. A product from the "Lays do us a flavor" contest.  What kind of process did this flavor go through to become a thing? I am by no means dissing on someone's idea. The person who created this flavor, Hailey Green, won 1 million dollars for her flavor. However, I cannot see how empathy was applied to this process.

While in deep thought it reoccured to me that's the point of consumer behavior. My ideas, thoughts, and motives are all based on the same notions . Everyones ideas, thoughts, and motives can come from the same question.  It is how someone applies there ideas, thoughts, and motives which differentiate us. Yeah, I kinda see biscuits and gravy chips as gross, unattractive, and pointless, but someone doesn't. Which is perfectly ok. Everyone's needs should be address.


P.S.- So I'm confident that I have a photo of a chipmunk in Yellowstone National Park snacking on a chip, but I can't find it. So Yahoo Answer user Pebbles will have to do. Till next time.