Stacey Epstein ’11Journal #1
I just finished my fifth week working at HappyBaby, a company that makes organic baby food and other products targeted toward pregnant women and new parents. The company has the fast-paced, exciting atmosphere of a growing start-up. My primary responsibility since I have been here has been to analyze products for babies and pregnant women and identify trends and opportunities for new product development.
I began by immersing myself in the world of pregnancy and babies, studying products targeted toward this market and trends in green/eco-friendly products. I have also analyzed the baby food category specifically, looking for high grossing products and high growth products that could be produced in an organic version with more healthful ingredients to provide increased nutritional benefit. I have also studied non-food categories to determine potential areas where organic or all-natural products could be developed as a more eco-friendly and healthier alternative. I am currently evaluating financial and logistical feasibility of developing products that have the most potential.
In addition, I am becoming familiar with the target market and their concerns, likes, and dislikes about the company’s current products and packaging. I designed a survey for the company’s Community Marketing Specialists (mothers employed part-time by HappyBaby to promote the company and its products in a specific geographic area). The survey will inform decisions about product reformulations and changes to package design. In addition, I have been responding to consumer inquiries on a daily basis, learning about customer preferences and informing our operations manager of potential challenges.
Finally, I am working on a preliminary marketing plan for a proprietary initiative the company is launching in September. I am incorporating Word of Mouth marketing, social media, and other more traditional marketing tools in the marketing plan. I have spoken with potential partners, and I am evaluating various options for promoting the new initiative, taking into consideration constraints such as time, budget, and staffing.
Journal #2
I just completed my ninth week working at HappyBaby. During the past few weeks of my internship, I have been leading the development of a new food product for the company. While the details of this product are confidential, I can report that I have been managing the development of two SKUs (i.e. flavors), the packaging design and content, the appropriate size of the packaging/container, potential retail distribution, and the pricing of the product. To develop the appropriate price, I worked with the COO to develop a pricing model, obtaining the necessary inputs (costs) and comparing the output with similar products currently on the market. I have been working with an ingredients company, a packaging company, a packing company, an in-house designer, and a printing company to bring both the product and packaging to fruition. This has been extremely educational in that I have learned a lot about the timing, processes, and logistics of new product development.
I have also been quite busy preparing a PowerPoint presentation and mailing of this new product, and a few other new products HappyBaby has recently developed, for one of our biggest retail buyers. This mailing and presentation are very important, as this buyer only does its store resets once per year. This is HappyBaby’s sole opportunity to entice the retailer to carry our new products for the next 12 months.
Besides that, I have been further developing a marketing plan for the proprietary initiative the company will launch in the fall. In doing so, I met with a couple of print/online companies regarding potential advertising and marketing opportunities to pregnant women and new parents.
Other tasks I have performed over the past few weeks include working with our operations team to find new suppliers for two key ingredients, researching the potential of an partnership with an automotive company, and preparing research materials for an investor meeting.
I am continuing to respond to consumer inquiries and complaints, working with our marketing director and director of quality assurance to make sure our consumers receive the appropriate information and that they are compensated for any inconveniences. I also spent a day with our business development manager making sales calls and sampling new products at Fairway and Whole Foods Market on Long Island.
Journal #3
The last portion of my internship started with American Express filming a commercial, featuring HappyBaby. This commercial will be shown on the Internet and/or television. To prepare for the film crew’s arrival, along with my coworkers, I helped create brand awareness for our products, displaying our brand/products (including the new product I am working to launch) so they would be prominent during the filming. I also participated in the filming, by taking part in a staff meeting, while the crew filmed. In addition, I helped prepare another filming location for the commercial. The crew filmed a cooking class with parents and babies/toddlers. I arranged our products on the set and creating gift bags for the participants.
I continued to work on the launch of the new food product, with my main priority to get a large sample run of the product produced so that we could approve the formula, get product to the packer, master shipper, and potential buyers. Producing this sample run was imperative for determining costs from various vendors and finalizing the pricing model. In coordinating this sample run, I had to communicate mineral/vitamin levels desired, manage raw ingredient shortages, and make decisions about which product claims we needed to differentiate this product from similar ones on the market. After the first sample run, I evaluated the taste, appearance, texture, and nutritional content of the product, determining where we could make adjustments without ruining our pricing model. In addition, I began the process to get this new product, as well as some of our other products, certified kosher.
I also continued to respond to consumer inquiries and helped increase the company’s consumer email database by more than 300 email addresses. To assist the director of quality assurance with quality control of the various product lines, I created a log from the past six months of any consumer complaints/inquiries and established a new protocol for how consumer complaints should be recorded moving forward.
In addition, I fine tuned the media plan, as part of a larger marketing plan for the company’s new initiative that will launch in fall 2010. This plan included online advertising on editorial websites, blogs, targeted email blasts and newsletters, and an affiliate program.
Finally, after safety testing materials for a new non-food product, I was given the green light to move forward with launching this product, targeted to pregnant women. I began working on the pricing model, and sourcing various raw materials. I am going to continue working at HappyBaby during the fall and will work with our graphic designer on packaging, explore distribution channels, establish operations for product production, and develop a marketing plan.
