|
|
 |
Overview:
A Fictional
Article from: The Economist
A
covert factory in Russia has been making top-secret SPY Pens. These
pens have been a hot item for some time now in the local area due to the
remarkable things they can do including:
The only problem is that the market has been saturated in Russia. Just
about everyone owns one of these remarkable pens and since
they are so good, they rarely break. There is no one else left to sell
them to… or is there?
Challenge:
Use your sleuth skills
to determine the marketing and propaganda techniques necessary to rev up
this business into a money making enterprise again.
Objective(s):
Time Required:
Two 45 minute
class periods (or three if allowing students to video and edit their
commercials)
Pre-Requisite Skills:
An understanding
of problem solving skills and ability to work in groups
Instructional Materials:
-
Spy Pen Scenario (found in Overview Section)
-
Digital White Board for Brainstorming
-
Poster Board for Advertisements
-
Digital presentations using video cameras to film kids acting out
commercials and projectors to present
Procedure:
-
The teacher will
hand out copies of the scenario (in overview section) and the
students will read it first.
-
The teacher will
ask the kids if they would be interested in owning one of the
Russian Spy Pens and if so, how could they use it.
-
The students will
then brainstorm how people in the United States and in their own
communities could use the Spy Pens.
-
They will then
brainstorm how many groups of people or markets might actually exist
for this item (i.e. hunters, fishermen, students, hikers)
-
Then they will
brainstorm what might be a price people would be willing to sell the
pens for. They will do this by finding out what a good Swiss army
knife and a GPS unit costs. (internet research possibility)
-
The teacher will
show the students a mock ad from The Russian Today
magazine that states the asking price that the Russian government
has placed on the pens – the equivalent of $150 U.S. dollars.
-
The students must
then assess how much money people in the various market groups
would be willing to pay for the pens considering all of the
remarkable things these pens can perform.
-
Encourage the
students to think about all possible problems such as: should they
buy one pen first to make sure it works (it does); what will be the
shipping costs from Russia; do they want to sell over the internet
from a warehouse to save on costs, or distribute to stores; what
will be the distribution costs?
-
Discuss propaganda
techniques with students, remind them how commercials are presented
on TV today
-
Finally students
will determine one or two definite groups to market the product to, add up total costs, and determine price based on their desired profit
goal; prepare a mock advertising jingle to video or sketch for
the newspaper or internet using propaganda techniques; set the price
and finalize any other details related to launching their product.
Differentiated Instruction:
Create some product to sell at school and go through the entire process
of assessing the market, determining price and advertising, location
where product will be available, etc.
Author's Notes:
This unit allows kids to explore a little bit of their James Bond side
and get creative as to how to market materials. Students will gain a
greater understanding of the propaganda techniques used by companies
today.
21st Century Assessment:
Students will each write a minimum one-page story describing their
first year in business. They must establish a final scenario in terms of
how well their advertising worked; did the product sell at the price;
did the market expand and the demand go up or down; rough estimate of
how much time was spent working to get this business up and running and
any other details they may wish to add.
|
|
