David Windorski Case

SUMMARY:

David Windorski used an unconventional approach for the product development of his successful product launch for "The Post-it Flag Highlighter". Where traditional marketing tells us to start with the needs and wants of potential customers before developing a product, David decided to start with the product and then see if there was a market -- ultimately this approach paid off. As we learned from the case study, the highlighter turned out to be more popular than 3M had initially expected. Thus opening the doors to expand on the product's success through line extensions and expanding sales to other countries outside the US. There was extensive marketing research conducted after the initial concept of the Post-it flag highlighter was formed. The research focused primarily on students, determining their wants and needs based on the types of items they carried around in their backpacks. There were focus groups to get feedback from the students on early models of the product. Some were even given to students to use hands on for a month and have their reactions recorded through a questionnaire. Though every one of these marketing research tactics it became clearer to Windorski that there was a market for his product. A product that fulfilled the wants and needs of his potential customers.

MARKETING ENVIRONMENT:

The most important step came in the marketing research phase when Windorski Learned his potential market. Much of the early research was focused on college students (and later office workers). David worked with the students to learn their studying behavior, the reasoning for the types of items they carried around in their backpacks and then later gauge their responsiveness to early test models of the highlighter. All of this led to the final commercial design of the highlighter, which can contribute it's success to the fact that it addressed the needs and wants learning in this early marketing research from the interaction with the college students and various focus groups. The need was for an efficient manner to study for the students and the want was a cost effective way to combine the resource materials already in use by the students. Understanding the budgets and buying behavior of the college students led to determining an effective pricing method that would be appropriate for that segment.

UNDERSTANDING THE ORGANIZATION:

3M has many factors, both external and internal to consider when making key marketing decisions. These include the companies internal strengths and weaknesses and the external opportunities and threats that are present in the market place.

Strengths:

Established Brand: The company