Discuss your experience with the marketing simulation. What did you learn? What did you achieve? What would you do differently?
* Example Answer:
To sum up my experience in one word it would be agonizing. I say this because I became extremely frustrated throughout my time completing the simulation. I made many mistakes in the beginning of the simulation and those mistakes demoralized me, making the entire simulation a miserable experience. I did not have a strategy going into the simulation but after the first period when I made all of my decisions everything I had done worked. Stock was up, revenue was good, I was a marketing genius. That first period gave me this psuedo confidence that ultimately destroyed me. Every other period after, Allround, a name that will always give me nightmares, sank lower and lower. I felt as though I was trying to climb out of a hole where the walls were made of quick sand. The worst part about it was not only the feeling of dejection, but being forced to write about how miserable I had failed and how I planned to fix it.
During the course of this simulation I was completely reactionary. I had no money to spend because my budget was negative since the 4th period maybe 3rd. So making decisions did not involve much strategy because I didn't have any money to spend. Basically, I had to cut spending in places (primarily advertising) and then try and use that money to maximize areas that were successful. It was like trying to revive a zombie, why do when it is already dead.
What did I learn? I honestly think I learned more about life than marketing during the course of this simulation. I learned that sometimes you are going to have to write about your failures as horrible as it may be. I learned all the different ways to make a successful company fail. I learned how funny similes can be when describing misery. I learned that if I would have done even slight research I could have aced this simulation. But ultimately I learned not to dwell on the past and live for the future. So I will gladly put this experience behind me and never look back.
What did I achieve? It is hard to say exactly what I achieved, honestly I am not sure. I achieved a mediocre grade on the simulation. Something, I am not proud of but own up to.
What would I have done differently? This is a weighted question I could go into all of the poor decisions I made throughout the simulation assess them and go through the alternate decisions I should have made based on my marketing strategy. I could analyze the products I chose to make for Allround and describe why they were bad choices, but I would be here for a fortnight describing the mistakes for second period alone. When it comes down to it the only thing I would have changed is the time I decided to do research on this simulation.