Essay MKT20031: Marketing and Innovation – Opportunity Identification and Selection – Marketing Assignment Help

Assignment Task:

Purpose 

• This assignment gives you the opportunity to practice using future trends as the basis to start developing innovations that align with market needs, not just proposing a new innovation for its own sake. 

Overview 

• You will be given a list of future trends, a list of consumer segments, and a theory framework 

• You will need to choose one future trend, and present an analysis of the best consumer segment of your choice for that trend using the theoretical framework 

• The output is a document showing the analysis of the consumers’ unmet need and an innovation idea aimed at solving the consumers’ problem, based on the given framework 

Assignment Introduction 

“People don’t buy new products, they buy upgraded versions of themselves” 

Approximately 75 to 90% of new market offerings fail within the first year. While the complete reasons are numerous and complicated, research indicates that one major contributor to failure is that these new products are “solutions looking for a problem to solve” i.e most new products do not answer real consumer needs. 

In this assignment, we will look at innovation from the consumer-first perspective. To simplify the process, you will be given three ingredients to help, and steps to follow: 

1. A summary of three ‘future trends’ in a given industry. 

2. A pre-made template of four Australian consumer segments 

3. A framework based on the “Jobs to Be Done” (JTBD) theory 

Your first task is to choose one future trend that is most interesting to you. This will be the basis of your innovation, so choose wisely. Your second task is to understand the JTBD framework and use that framework to analyse the consumer segments. You should objectively analyse all the given segments, but in the report we only require you to report one segment that you have chosen as the ideal fit for the trend that you have picked. Your third task is to formulate a concept statement of the new innovative offering you intend to create for your segment, supported by strong marketing environment analysis. 

Assignment Details 

Task 1. Choosing a future trend 

Every semester, we will have three trends from the same theme of future trends that you can choose. You will need to pick one trend that you think is most relevant to you (i.e based on your prior experience, interests, etc). However, there is a limit to how many students can take one trend, which is a third of the class. In other words, if there are 24 students in the class, only eight students can do trend A, B, and C, each. If there are 12 students, then each trend will be limited to four students. 

Therefore, you need to ‘book’ the trend that you want quickly before it fills up, otherwise you will need to choose another trend. 

Your instructor will provide you with brief summaries (1-3 pages) of each trend. These summary pages are not enough for you to understand the trend completely. You must investigate these trends further, especially in the context of the theme of the semester. 

Task 2. Understanding and applying the “Jobs to be done” (JBTD) framework 

The Canvas will have information relating to this framework. You will need to use this framework to analyse the consumers’ segment to investigate a few things, namely: 

1. What desired “job”/progress is that person trying to achieve in relation to the theme we are investigating? What are the functional, social, and emotional dimensions of the desired progress? 

2. What are the circumstances and context that affects the struggle for progress? 

Different consumer segments will have unique forces shaping their desired progress. You must analyse these forces using Forces Diagram framework.