Tipsy Sips & Smokes
A MARKETING STRATEGY THAT WAS MORE THAN WE BARGAINED FOR.
Tipsy Sips & Smokes was the very last project I did during my time at Kelley, for the marketing capstone course taught by Dr. Tony Stovall. I worked with Jack, Chase, and Marie – a fantastic group of classmates.
We had one major goal: to be the marketing team for a product we chose off of Kickstarter or Indiegogo. When we came across Tipsy Sips & Smokes we thought it would be a great way to take ourselves a little less seriously. (Especially as we were finishing up our time at a school where wearing a suit was a common thing to see in presentation requirements.)
Tipsy Sips & Smokes was not exactly the simple project we hoped it would be, which is precisely why it has found a home in my portfolio. After I put together the initial slide designs and the outline, we started doing more research into the company, only to come across a major issue. Between the time that we chose the product and went back to get started, the campaign had ended. The Tipsy Sips & Smokes vending machine was never anything more than that Indiegogo page.
This was a major curveball that meant we now had to not only be the marketing team for the product, we also had to design the entire product. We decided that the best course of action was to do some research of our own. Marie and I worked to build the survey, while Jack and Chase wrote product descriptions and started doing secondary research.
The complete survey, as well as all of the responses, can be found at the end of the presentation. Based on these findings and the analysis of the market and competition, we put together alternative strategies. To choose the one we would move forward with we used a decision matrix with weighted ratings.
AND THEN, THE TIPSY SIPS & SMOKES VENDING MACHINE WAS BORN. (NO, NOT A PHYSICAL VERSION. AS COLLEGE STUDENTS, WE DID NOT HAVE THE FUNDING FOR THAT.)
At this point, we figured we had gotten through the hard part. We pushed through and got ourselves back on track with what the project was supposed to be initially. But as a group of perfectionists that had to give a pitch to a class full of high-achieving students – that we were also competing against – we wanted this strategy to be airtight. As we got deeper, we were finding things to change based on local regulations and local markets, which often meant scrapping and rethinking entire sections of the strategy.
In the end, we recognized that this was not the most polished project any of us had done, but it was also never meant to be. We had a lot of fun with it, despite all of the setbacks, and we were proud of what we were able to accomplish in just about a month. I only went over the major factors here, but feel free to click on the slides above to see the full marketing plan deck.
Thank you again to Jack, Chase, and Marie. I never imagined my capstone project would be designing a vending machine called Tipsy Sips & Smokes, but it was a pleasure to do just that with such a wonderful group.
