Chocolate tasting was on the menu when the IMC class met with Professor Steve Howell in Strategic Planning recently. But there was a ‘method to this apparent madness’ of feeding chocolate to students in an end-of-the-day class.
Students were assigned to teams and then were challenged to develop a new chocolate bar, brand it, identify a target market, and outline a promotional strategy for it. In a few weeks, they will be required to present their ideas to a “banker” (aka Professor Steve) to seek approval for funding.
Their pitch will need to include a budget with justification of where dollars are to be invested and enough market and consumer research to convince the banker their new product will succeed.
The project began, obviously, by tasting and assessing the ‘competition’!
