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- All Subjects: Brand Management
- All Subjects: Personal Branding
- Creators: Montoya, Detra
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
To gain insight into the state of the industry and current position of independent bookstores, I will first examine the past fifty years of the brick-and-mortar bookstore, followed by a Porter’s Five Forces analysis of the industry threats and a SWOT analysis to compare the strengths and weaknesses of independent bookstores. Next, the patrons of independent bookstores will be discussed with a focus on the two largest consumer groups of Millennials and Baby Boomers, their characteristics, and the opportunities they provide to bookstores. After this there will be an exploration of the competitors to brick-and-mortar bookstores, focusing on Amazon and then touching on some of the other rivals to bookstores’ consumer base. The next section will be an in-depth analysis of a variety of bookstores across the United States, with attention to their successful practices, goals, concerns, and failures. First, there will be a comparison of industry success and failure through case studies of Borders and Powell’s bookstores. Next, there will be a comparison of five beloved independent bookstores across the country to share their varied competitive advantages that are the secret to their success. Finally, there are primary source interviews with the employees of three major Phoenix bookstores, which provide insight into the goals, current projects, attitudes, and inner strengths of these businesses. Finally, the thesis will conclude with a section offering solutions and suggestions for independent bookstores to pursue based on the primary and secondary research discussed above. These recommendations are focused on five key areas:
• Community
• Consumers
• Store Design
• Technology
• Diversification
Ultimately, the information provided by this research and these interviews indicates that while vital business changes are being pursued by independent and chain bookstores across the United States, the independent bookstore shows no signs of disappearing in favor of online vendors or e-readers.
• Do students understand what personal branding is?
• Are students able to define their skills?
• Do students have a career plan?
• Do students have a plan to promote their brand?
A pilot study was first distributed to students of Arizona State University which found that students lack an understanding of what personal branding is and have a need for the knowledge and tools to develop a personal brand. A workshop was then developed to address these issues. This workshop was held three times: first, for a Landscape Architecture class, second, for a marketing class, and third, for a student sales organization. The workshop discussed branding, personal branding, and then the participants were able to begin working on developing their own personal brand. The students in the first workshop had two sessions and were able to complete their own personal brand process with the workshop leader, while participants from the second and third workshops completed it on their own, after only a single workshop session. After completing the in-person workshop, participants shared their brand with their fellow students in a Google Plus page. Finally, participants completed an exit survey. This exit survey was used to measure the research questions.
The first workshop proved to be most effective, even though the participants in the first workshop were all landscape design students and the majority of the participants in the second and third workshops were business students. It was found that unless the students’ own brand development process was finished during the workshop or affected the students’ grade, it would not be completed. It was also evident in all of the workshops that slides with imagery were more effective at starting discussions than the text-heavy slides. As such, future workshops should be designed with a greater time allowance, the intent of the students’ own brand development process to be completed during the workshop, and the presentation should be redesigned to better initiate discussion among participants.
Make-A-Wish America has a world-renowned reputation as one of the best nonprofits in the world, and is widely known amongst many individuals looking to support or donate to nonprofits. Their work is not only a fundamental part of human services care within the nonprofit world, but their unique online platform and social media presence is a differentiating factor among many other nonprofits and for-profit businesses alike. The purpose of this study is to research Make-A-Wish America’s brand management and marketing strategies as a nonprofit, including secondary research on the brand itself, analyze all environmental factors that affect its marketing strategy, assess their market segmentation, targeting, and positioning, and evaluate their integrated marketing communications strategy. Additionally, I conducted interviews with Make-A-Wish America professionals working within the brand management department at the national office. The individuals were interviewed with various marketing backgrounds within the brand department to gain a deeper insight into their individual experiences and assessments of Make-A-Wish America’s brand management and marketing strategy. My specific thesis goals include utilizing my marketing recommendations to grow Make-A-Wish America’s profits, specifically in actions to increase fundraising. Also, my thesis goal is to find recommendations to outperform competition in gaining supporters and donors as well as, more recently, analyzing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and making recommendations on how they can grow despite this economic tragedy. The results suggest that there are common themes amongst my secondary research and primary research, resulting in marketing recommendations that Make-A-Wish America can utilize to better market to donors and supporters in the future, giving them competitive advantage over other nonprofits and combatting the effects of COVID-19. Recommendations for Make-A-Wish America include investing in their own research and development in terms of customer relationship management tools, online fundraising campaigns, and technology to better inform donors of their mission, vision, and values, diversifying their donor profile and targeted communities, and taking advantage of their point of parity within their social media online platform.