Each round lasts a quarter of a year, or 12 weeks. The whole simulation takes place over the course of 2 years. This will probably not be the same length of time it takes in real life.
It's more important to hit your KPIs than make sales - the simulation judges you on your good marketing decisions rather than purely on revenue earned. You must also make sure that you make as many sales as possible within your target market – you will score a lot more points for selling within your target market than for selling outside it.
When you buy market research, you get the results in the next quarter. It appears under Metrics and Analysis. You will score more points for reacting to it in a sensible way.
The total market comprises 2 smaller markets (men and women). Each of these markets has 4 main, overlapping segments. Each segment consists of a number of personal variables. All segments are overlapping, meaning there are not just 4 types of customers, but millions.
Your market share is compared to your competitors' market share within each of the 4 main market segments. This determines the demand for your jeans, which is compared with the stock levels of all of the companies. If a company can’t deliver enough stock to satisfy the demand, the demand will shift to the ‘closest’ competitor.
Yes, the limit is 1,024 characters. Be aware that if you write more than that, it won’t all save and may be cut off. However, if you have more to say, you can edit the marketing plan when it is in Word document form.
You may have entered more text than the limit allows. The limit is 1,024 characters for each box. There may also be more than one person logged in with your login details – make sure only one team member is entering information at any one time.
Try to ignore what you know about the world of jeans in real life. You will do much better in the simulation if you use the information within it. This is because information in the real world will fluctuate over time, whereas the information in the simulation will remain constant.
You must remember to click ‘Identify target market’ before saving your results. This enables you to see the size of your target market before continuing.
It's possible to create a target market with a size of zero if you make too many selections within the segmentation tool. Don’t specify a value for every set of options, and your target market will be a more realistic size. Every time you specify a value, your target market will shrink.
This is the degree to which effective programmes can be designed for attracting and serving the given market segment. It measures how well you’ll be able to target a group with your marketing mix. If the target market is too big, you’ll not be able to target them effectively.
It will cost you money and you won't benefit from it because you won’t ever see the results. Market research doesn’t appear until the following quarter and Q8 is the final quarter.