This assignment is designed to help students analyze and interpret primary and/or secondary data and research. First, students will be provided with a marketing report that allows for preparing basic executive level data insights. Second, they will be allowed to pick a company and product or service. This assignment will help prepare students for the development of their marketing plan. Students will be creating a marketing plan (refer to Marketing Plan and Outline document) so they may want to choose a company and product or service that has data readily available or where they can use demographic/psychographic data to provide insights.

Assignment Steps

Part 1:

Analyze the Week 1 Business Growth Overview dataset. This is a marketing report generated by an analyst for the Senior Vice President (SVP) of Marketing at a large corporation. The analyst is new and has provided summary data but no insights or commentary for the SVP.

Construct a minimum 525-word memorandum for the SVP providing insights and commentary. The memorandum should include your analysis of the following:

• Major areas of increase and decrease in revenue or type and/or category of business
• Trends that are evident in terms of revenue or type and/or category of business
• Insights that would help formulate marketing strategies to either continue growth or reverse decline
• Additional analysis you (if you were SVP) would like to build a marketing goal and strategy or strategies (and why)

Part 2:

Select a global or multi-regional (does business in more than one country) company and one of its products or services that will serve as the basis for your marketing plan. You should obtain two years of annual reports as well as two years of 10K reports (provides a comprehensive overview of the company’s business and financial condition and includes audited financial statements) for your data source. Once you have selected your product or service, you must define the size and type of your selected company that provides the product or service (available from annual reports). This need not be elaborate but must include total number of employees, production volume, distribution methods, and so forth. Record this information in a summary document as outlined below.

Company and product selection is a critical part of this project. You must ensure your proposed company can implement the marketing methods discussed in Marketing Management.

Prepare a minimum 175-word summary document and send it to your instructor as a record of your selection. The summary document should include the following:

• Name of Company
• Location of Company Headquarters
• Name of Product or Service selected
• General description of company (number of employees, revenue, type of ownership, web page, etc.)
• General description of product or service

So you’ve applied theories to texts, but that’s all been canned to a degree, pre-packaged theories that work well with certain texts. Now it is time to start from scratch.

Research is characterized by bouts of trial and error. You find a book you like, but can’t find any theories or lenses that appear to apply. Sometimes you find a theory but you have a difficult time applying it to a text.

Well, in this case the book has already been selected (Fun Home). But now, you need to find a psychological theory and apply it to Fun Home.

You can’t use Id, Ego, and Superego.

You can’t use Erikson’s 8 psychosocial stages of development.

How do you find a psychological theory? Consider Google searching “Psychological Theories.” You should find plenty.

You could also conduct a more focused search. You know Fun Home deals with gender and sexual identity. So, with that in mind you could Google search “Psychological theories, gender” or “Psychological theories, sexual identity.”

HERE’S THE WRITTEN PORTION REQUIRED:

Tell us about the theory. Give us the name of the theory and the theorist who created it. Give us a brief explanation of what the theory means. THEN, tell us how it might be applied to Fun Home.

This is a writing proposal essay, my topic is: Virtual reality as a way to treat mental and emotional conditions (PTSD, depression)

DESCRIPTION:

For this assignment you are beginning the makings of an academic research project. As we’ll discuss throughout the term, formal, written academic research projects usually begin with an introduction that proposes to solve a problem while selling the reader on your ability, and in some cases, your qualifications, to do so. The tasks you’ll be completing as part of this project can easily be modified to write successful grant applications, peer-reviewed journal articles, or even an unsolicited request for some type of institutional change.

For our course, your proposal will serve as the foundation of your literature review and annotated bibliography assignment (and later, your presentation). The proposal step essentially tells me about your plans, and in the process, requires you to narrow your topic and scope.

PURPOSE:

1. To stimulate your thinking and planning for the three final assignments: literature review, annotated bibliography, and presentation.
2. To give you practice writing proposals and provide you with relevant writing samples you might use when applying for jobs.

SKILLS:

1. Identify a narrowly defined and specific research question.

2. Explain the necessary background of the research question in such a way that a general audience of college-educated, non-specialist readers can understand.

3. Organize your ideas into a clear, easy-to-read, and concise document.

4. Consider and develop sub-questions to further define the parameters of your research question.

CRITERIA AND TASKS:

Length and format:

About two pages single-spaced and in this format: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/590/04… (headings are ok)

Instructions:

In your proposal, you need to first identify a research question that your project seeks to answer. I strongly recommend that you choose your project topic based on your college major or minor, or at the very least, something of interest to you that is also academic in nature.

Here are the givens:

• This proposal is solicited by me, your instructor, so you are addressing me
• You may write in first person (but don’t confuse this with using a conversational tone)
• This is an informal proposal (formatted like a memo). Hence, the shorter page length and lack of executive summary. See the samples posted in Module Two.
• You will be working as an individual
• Your project need not be scientific in nature, meaning, if your field is in the humanities, that’s fair game

The format of your proposal ultimately depends on your topic, but here is a general format:

• Introduction
• Statement of Research Problem
• Proposed Solution (to write a lit review and annotated bibliography)***
• Scope (what are the parameters of your project? In other words, what will you focus on and what will you NOT focus on?)
• Methods/Approach (what kind of databases will you use? Any particular journals?)
• Qualifications – tell me about yourself
• Conclusion

Please note I have restricted the file types to .doc, .docx, and .pdf.