By Doohee Chang on May 1, 2009 12:00 PM
Last Friday, my group members and I for Global Marketing Communication Planning class finally finished our year-long project about Burton Snowboards, the end of a project extended from the last semester with professor William Anderson. It was fun from the beginning when we decided to pick Burton Snowboards last semester. We could have picked one of the world's 100 biggest companies, just as our professor originally told us to do, and just as other groups picked Apple, Disney or Adidas. But we chose Burton Snowboards because it looked like a company with a fun, unique culture that was full of energy—and because our group is crazy (in a good way)!
If the project was all about Burton brand and their existing communication strategies last semester, this semester, we had to come up with new ideas and be creative to launch a new product in the U.S. and one other country including detailed budgeting plans for the first year. Our decision was to launch Burton Wakeboards in the U.S. and Australia. Burton's products had many seasonality issues, resulting in profit fluctuations, so the product extension to wakeboards was logical decision. And, as both snowboarders and wakeboarders have commonality of being young, fun, rebellious and energetic, the extension would not harm Burton's brand identity.
Two out of six group members (including me) were not familiar with the Burton brand at all at the point we started the project last year. But now, after completing a year-long project, we feel like we can fly high and do all the magical tricks up in the sky on boards. We made a mockup website of Burton wakeboards, created promotional products like a bottle opener, designed a new logo, and even customized t-shirts that reflected each group member's personality for the sake of giving a fun presentation.
And it was fun. In three weeks after completing one more big project, our Capstone, we will be leaving to our own destinations again: I'll be working at a real estate firm as I wanted, some will be working at a PR firm in New York city, some in advertising agencies, and some in TV in Canada. But I know we will remember those time we spent together at school, working, laughing and pulling-out-hairs stressed out.
I should stop being sentimental. But, I would like to say that... I love you guys in the GMCA program!
Great read I had no idea that Burton had a unique approach to things like that. Anyways, sounds like an excellent project!
Generally I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this post really forced me to do so, Excellent post!