Thursday, November 8, 2012

Crazy Concoction

Daniel's science project for this week is Crazy Concoction.  The concoction part was easy.  He was going to make slime.  But the point of the project is not jut to make a concoction, but to sell this concoction to a made-up entity called "Collaborative Calamity Science".  Which essentially is to come up with a marketing plan, complete with collateral, to present to the CCS and convince them this is the concoction will change the world.  Pretty ambitious for Grade 2!

So, why would anyone want to buy slime?  What is it good for?  It's slimey.

So the trick is to re-purpose this slime.  Slime is cool and sticks to you.  Daniel thinks that you can stick it con your forehead to cool you down.  Say, you have a fever.  Instead of sticking a wet cold cloth on your forehead, which rolls off as you move, you stick slime on your forehead.  That's a start!

The next step is to establish your target market.  Children who don't like to take yucky medicine when they have a fever are Daniel's target customers (or rather, their parents).

Now, we need a cool name.  A name that does not contain the word "slime" in it.  After trying on a few names, Daniel decided "Fever Fighter" has the right ring to his concoction.  He will brand it by making it blue.

Daniel wrote down the ingredient list and now had to choose a presentation format.  He decided to make a brochure.  The front is eye catching and clearly communicates its value proposition:  Does your child have a fever and does not want to take yucky medicine?  Then you have to try Fever Fighter!  You open the brochure, you read the instructions on the left panel (how to use), complete with caution (do not eat fever fighter) , and you have graphic demonstration of "before" and "after". Before: a nasty parent forcing a child to eat medicine.  After: sticking fever fighter on a child's forehead and everybody's smiling.  Again, the value proposition cannot be any clearer.  You open the right flap and the middle panel shows a picture of the blue fever fighter and the big words saying: Buy it from Collaborative Calamity Science.  That's a big sell job!  The right panel shows a happy child with fever fighter stuck on head with glowing testimonial.  The back panel shows another picture of fever fighter.

I don't remember doing any hands-on science projects in grade 2, let alone coming up with such imaginative presentation material.  I certainly did not make any presentation until well into grade 7.  Some of my clients are having difficulty pitching their product / business and clearly convince me to give them interest-free loan.  So I guess we start them young in the current education system. Doesn't matter what you come up with - be it blue slime or mobile app that ranks sliminess of individuals, you need to be able to clearly articulate your value proposition, appeal to your target market, and present with clarity and confidence.