Campus Calender

Executive Summary

Producing, selling and marketing a Campus Calendar by the eight junior students (known as Collegiate Images) from the Eastern Washington University, although it is the best potential products, there are a lot of factors that need to be addressed ensuring it is a profitable business .

Insufficient start-up capital to cover the production, distribution and promotional cost, the free calendar distribution by the University may suppress the students from buying additional calendar and moreover results from the survey projected only 54% from the student's body ; equivalent to 4000 students, who will be interested buying the calendar are the main weaknesses and threat.

On the bright side, the results from the survey conducted by Collegiate Images on what are the students' expectations from the calendar are the key elements in developing the calendar's feature, quality, designs and contents. Generally students would like to have a school year calendar with a large date page for them to write notes and reminders and featuring a school spirit. They are also do not compromise with the quality. The calendar should have a good quality color paper, fine printing and pose the university's student as model. The present calendar available in the market and the free calendar distributed by the university does not entail what the students wants and this is one of the advantage for the Collegiate Images to invent a calendar that is different from what is available in the market but it is suitable for the Collegiate Image's potential market, which is the EWU full time students.

The campus calendar definitely can only be available in the next following falls where students will start a new school year. Collegiate Images only left 9 months to work the business plan , marketing strategy and securing sponsorship .

Upon the completion of the business plan and marketing strategy ( refer to appendix 1 ) , within the 9 month period , the Collegiate Images team should gearing up securing a lot of sponsorship and lining up promotional campaigns to ensure that the campus and students are aware of the EWU Campus Calendar .

With broad promotional campaign and great numbers of sponsorship, Collegaite Images will manage to gain profits during the first year production and for the second year production ,it would be able to cover all the Collegaite Images team member's senior year tuition fees.

Situation Analysis

The Collegiate ImagesÐ''s mission is to produce a quality, affordable and adorable campus calendar in the next following falls. Details on the vision and mission's statement as well as the objectives are presented in Appendix 2.

1) The Market Analysis

Although producing school campus calendar is not a distinct product, still 54% from the student's body in EWU University give a support in having quality school calendar featuring the EWU students as a model. This indicate that students are generally proud of having products that have the university's attribute such as the University Logo and the student of the university itself.

The campus calendar produced by Collegiate Images will not have to face a stiff competition with other available calendar in the market or even the free calendar disseminated by the university. Collegiate Image's campus calendar is the school year calendar and this is one of its the distinct feature.

In developing the calendar's feature, quality, designs and contents that appeals to the students , the Collegiate Images team have conducted the product research and evaluation. Telephone surveys have been made to other Schools in Pacific Northwest gathering on current product's features ,response and their target market. In order to have a more accurate feedback on student's expectation from the campus calendar , Collegiate Images team has approached several focus groups.

The focus group would like to have a school year calendar with a large date page for them to write notes and reminders and featuring a school spirit. The calendar should also have a good quality color paper, fine printing and pose the university's student as model.

The indication gathered from the Focus Group is used to develop more specific information administered through the questionnaire that are responded by 329 number of students randomly selected when most students attended the class.

2) The Marketing Strategy Analysis.

Collegiate Images team has decided to have the campus calendars that have the following product's description:

1) Feature

Ð'* The calendar will have 2 school spirit texts such as "One Campus, One Calendar" and " Together We Strive For Success " . One spiritual text featured in each month.

2) Designs & Contents

Ð'* Large date page that have ample space to write notes and reminders.

Ð'* High quality picture where the photos are posed by the university student's with fully clothed and swimsuit body shot. The posed is to be featured in the alternate month such as if January having the fully clothe picture, February month will then will feature the swimsuit body shot.

Ð'* The calendar date will comply with the school year duration.

Ð'* To allocate the sponsorship space.

Ð'* To develop a large size calendar with heavy quality printing paper.

The target clients are only the EWU full time students living on campus or off campus in Cheney except the senior students. The potential buyers are forecasted at 54% from the university's student body which is equivalent to 4000 students. Collegiate Images only focus to this group of clients since there is an indication of discouraging sales response from other school that has attempted to market the calendar to the big population.

The campus calendar price should be established at $8.00 ( Appendix 3) as this is the price that generate more sales although results from the survey shows that there are only 48.9% who are willing to pay $8.00 and above and 51% of the students are comfortable at $6.00. The difference is only 2.1% of students and absolutely with exciting promotion program and campaign, this pool of students will appeal to buy.

Several channel of distribution has been selected in selling the calendar. They are the campus bookstore, rent a booth at Student Union Building (This must be hooked with student's project duration)