Clocky: The Runaway Alarm Clock

By - Learning Team #1(Debanjana Santra, Joedi Atinado, Mayank Sinha, Nishant Goyal, Paolo Santos, Siddhartha Srivastava, Sunil Shah, Thomas Earl Huang)

Marketing: Fun:

We believe that to market Clocky as a need would severely limit our potential market; 1 in 2,000 Americans are narcoleptics. The amount of people that require an alarm clock with such an effective waking gimmick is very limited. However, the market for people who would be interested in a cool new gadget is much broader.

We want to market Clocky the same way that Apple marketed the first generation IPod. Apple marketed their product as a cool gadget that is also functional. Shows like Good Morning America and websites like Gizmodo have already “marketed” Nanda’s invention as such and we would like to take full advantage of that fact.

Clocky is fun in its functionality and should be marketed as such. Its value proposition is that it is one of the few alarm clocks on the market that can wake its user in unique way. With this edge we believe that we can sell Clocky at an MSRP of $60.

Manufacturing: Local:

Though manufacturing Clocky in the United States will cost $15 per unit we feel that this is the most prudent choice. We feel that the costs involved in enforcing strict quality control with a foreign manufacturer would outweigh the higher manufacturing costs here. Moreover, if clients were to miss important meetings because of a malfunctioning Clockies, our marketing efforts will be undone. The risks involved are not worth the cheaper manufacturing costs.

Distribution Channel: Target or other stores like it:

Teaming up with a store like Target will allow us to reach a broad market and start production as soon as possible with their letter of credit. Without the letter of credit the start of manufacturing will be at a much later date since we would have to raise money the old fashioned way. It will also allow us to repay our debts sooner rather than later and to leverage on the media exposure before awareness fades away.

Target will allow us to strike a nice balance between our product being viewed too seriously (Brookstone) or taken too lightly (Home Shopping Network). We want to stress the fact that Clocky is a fun product with a good function. Target will maintain the image of Clocky as an alarm clock with a difference, it is not a toy neither it is a piece of machinery.