After discussing branding, marketing strategy, and the 4 Ps (the marketing mix of pricing, place, product, and promotion), the students were ready to go out and sell their chocolate. The group that sold chocolate to Lower School students was surprised to learn how many Lower school students carried money. Another group determined that it would have been more effective to post signs advertising the chocolate sale in advance. Students found it was hard to set a selling price for the chocolate without any history with the product. They also learned that a cheaper price resulted in a flurry of sales but didn’t necessarily earn a significant amount of money. Another group learned that some purchasers were willing to pay a higher price for chocolate, thereby contributing to a higher profit.

The project, described by Ms. Weigel, required students not only to be creative in how their product was marketed, but also in where and to whom it was marketed. “The objective of this project was to facilitate the students’ learning about marketing and about themselves in the context of group work. We spent much of this year talking about target markets and their influence at the macro level on supply and demand. This project was a chance to think about markets in a more applied fashion.”

May 31, 2005