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Marketing & Communications

Browse https://kickstarter.com. Identify a product or service that you find interesting. The product or

service could be identical to the one you identified and analyzed throughout the course.

Marketing: determining and developing your value proposition

1. First, have a thorough look at the product or service’s project page on Kickstarter. At which

level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs do you think the creators specified the need they want

to satisfy for buyers of this product or service? Explain your answer by referring to quotes or

images on the project page. (250 words)

2. Based on their project page on Kickstarter, who do you think is their primary target audience?

Make sure to describe the i) psychographics, ii) demographics, iii) geographics, and iv) the

behavioral patterns of this target audience. (300 words)

3. Collect data about this (and/or similar) product(s) online. These could be quantitative or

qualitative data points. Based on what you find, reflect on whether or not you think the product

creators are doing a good job in trying to satisfy the needs of this target audience. In other

words, do you think that this product/service can satisfy the needs of the target audience you

described above? In answering this question, refer to the information that you find online.

(300 words)

4. Finally, have a look at what competitors are doing. Identify three competitors. How does the

product or service that you identified on Kickstarter differ from its competitors? Answer this

question by writing a concise positioning statement. Use the following format: “To [target

segment and need] our [brand] is [concept] that [point of difference]. After that, explain the

rationale behind your formulation. (150 words excluding positioning statement)

2

Communication: communicating your value proposition

5.

a. Establish what you(!) think should be the creator’s communication objective. On which of the

five levels of the Hierarchy of Effects (note: this is different from Maslow’s Hierarchy of

Needs) should they be focusing? Explain why you believe this communication objective suits

their product in this stage best. Bonus: if you can find any of their communication efforts (for

example, on social media), explain whether (or not) their actual communication objective

corresponds with what you think would work best.

(250 words for regular part (excluding bonus question); additional 250 words for bonus part)

b. If you were in the position of the creator of the product/service, what kind of promotional

efforts would you deploy in order to meet the communication objective that you advocated for

above? Explain your pick. (150 words)

c. Do the promotional efforts that you described above qualify as push marketing or pull

marketing? Explain your answer. (150 words)

6. Have a look at the Kickstarter project again. Which of Cialdini’s persuasion principle(s)

should, in your opinion, be at the core of their marketing communications? Why do you think

this/these will be the most effective one(s) in persuading their target audience to buy the

product or service? You could (but don’t have to) use more than one of Cialdini’s persuasion

principles. (250 words max. per persuasion principle)