Final Video Project

Creating Whisk, a gluten-free bakery

A Last Reflection

Upon conclusion of the Communication Campaigns trade show, I would definitely say that Whisk was successful. Our booth was stable and simply constructed, leaving our decorative baked goods and polka dot aprons to do the majority of Whisk’s branding and attention getting. We received a multitude of compliments on our aprons, while others remarked that we’d tied everything in together perfectly. Additionally, one judge asked how we’d selected our color scheme and how we thought it related to Whisk bakery. Questions like these showed that our branding was easily recognized and successful. Peoples’ reaction to our branding emphasized how important it is to create uniformity in a business, linking the store, website and promotional material designs so that each piece of the business can be easily associated with the other components.

takes all scenario. 

 The majority of passersby sampled a gluten-free cupcake, while others participated in the gluten-free taste test, eating samples of gluten-free and regular cake. We had plenty of cake to go around; however, after the lunch rush we found ourselves beginning to run out of miniature gluten-free cupcakes. We baked approximately 180 miniature cupcakes, and by the end of the trade show, only the cupcakes used to decorate cupcake towers remained. Our taste test did not conclude with advantageous results. The majority of samplers thought the regular cake tasted better than the gluten-free; however, most people noted that if they were only given the gluten-free cake, they would eat it without questioning its different taste. So, while a gluten-free taste test may not be practical to conduct at an actual gluten-free bakery, it served its purpose well at the trade show.

I think the reason we received a lot of our votes was due to our giveaway. We had over $100 in gift cards to local bars and restaurants, and the winner received all the gift cards, making our prize a winner takes all scenario. Since the restaurants all double as bars, we received many entrants who were enthusiastic about the prize, as they wanted to use the gift cards to go out downtown and purchase alcohol. Luckily we were able to tie this into Whisk, saying the restaurants carry our gluten-free baked goods. This way we were able to tell judges we were expanding Whisk’s market, while still satisfying voters. If Whisk were a real business, I think this giveaway would have been an excellent technique to notify visitors about Whisk’s recent partnership, while still providing visitors with something they would ordinarily desire: free food and drinks.

Social media were also important in campaigning for Whisk at the trade show. Since we had been maintaining active Facebook and Twitter pages from the beginning, many fans and followers were already well-informed about Whisk and were eager to try our baked goods. Additionally, a few people actually tried to visit our location, posting on our Facebook page that they were having trouble locating us. Posting this on a public forum showed others fans or page visitors that our business was well developed, giving us further press and increasing expectations for our trade show booth. This is also demonstrated the importance of social media, as people who didn’t go to Mercyhurst were able to access our Facebook page despite having no knowledge of the Communication Campaigns course, illustrating how the Internet is an incredibly useful tool for granting instant information and accessibility to anyone.

West Eighth St.

Lastly, while we received continuous positive feedback, many Whisk visitors remarked that they wished the trade show as a whole had been better publicized. Facebook event pages are a useful tool for alerting people to upcoming events; however, I don’t think we’ve reached the point where these event pages should be the only means of advertising or inviting people to events. I’ll admit that I receive several event invitations a day and don’t usually read them all. Thus peoples’ cavalier attitude toward Facebook event pages may have contributed to the decrease in attendance at the trade show. I think for next year’s trade show, groups should use social media to advertise, but they should serve as a supplement to another advertising campaign. Maybe the Communication Department as a whole should post fliers, or each business could create their own fliers, posting them around campus. Other possibilities include sidewalk chalking and writing on the dry-erase boards in each classroom. That way the event is given more visibility as a whole, granting access to people who may not be Facebook friends with members of the Communication Department. 

 Check back next week for a slide show video chronicling the production of the Whisk Bakery trade show booth.  

Final Game Plan

This is it, my final post before the trade show. With only four days left to solidify a plan for Whisk's booth, we're getting a little stressed out. It seems like despite our nine weeks of planning, we're still so unprepared. We have all of our promotional materials completed. Our press releases, brochure, newsletter, backgrounder and other press kit materials have been checked countless times are ready to be printed, but that is only a small portion of our significant workload.

Additionally, we were able to collect over $100 in gift certificates to bars, which will "partner" with Whisk. Our positive response to donation requests has led us to eliminate the two gift basket idea. Instead we'll be featuring one huge prize, so one lucky voter will find him or herself with enough money to take all of Mercyhurst College out for drafts free of charge, not that we expect it. Read Whisk's press release to find out more about its pairing with Erie bars and restaurants.

We've sorted out a couple other kinks in our booth. The Wegmans gift card debacle has been settled. Wegmans increased the gift card amount to $60 and split it three ways, giving Whisk $20 to pick up gluten-free baking products. In other baking news, Mercyhurst is partnered with Parkhurst Dining Services to provide the school with healthy, organic meal options. We've spoken with Parkhurst, and the company has agreed to donate all of Whisk's icing. This means we only have to buy baking mixes and sprinkles.

Target also donated a $50 gift card to Whisk. This card will be used to purchase some of the materials needed to build our booth. We're most nervous about this portion of the project as we don't really have any specific plans in the works. We know what we want to do and buy, but we have no idea if our plan will actually come together to produce a booth that can stand alone for 5 plus hours. We're hoping to buy PVC pipe, which we can stick together in whatever format we please. Refer to the picture on the right to get some idea of how the pipe is assembled. Because our booth is in a section with a window, we'll just build two slightly angled walls coming out from the window.

Next we want to use shower curtains to create walls on the pipes. We're thinking plain black for these walls, while we'll use a more festive curtain at the window. We're going to cut it down the middle and pull each section to the side, obviously creating the illusion that we are not operating our mock business out of a shower stall. The red polka dot curtain shown to the left can be found at Target, giving us the opportunity to put our gift card to good use, while sticking to our branding identity (red, black, white and polka dot, for those of you who forgot).

Assuming the building of our structure goes according to plan, we've already reserved three tables to organize the different attributes of our booth. We want to angle two longer, rectangular tables at each end of our booth, following the shape of our makeshift walls. The table to the right will host our gluten-free taste test. Here we'll have a computer set up next to two cake pans, one gluten-free, one regular. The table to the left will feature our cupcake tower displays and all of our mini gluten-free cupcake samples. We're placing a smaller, rectangular table in front of the window to showcase our brochure, newsletter, book detailing the rest of our press materials and a computer, so visitors can review our website and social networking resources. Each table will be covered by a black tablecloth, and our cupcake displays will be seated upon lace doilies.

Provided everything goes according to plan, our booth should have enough space for people to flow from table to table. We've heard the judges are incredibly tough, so we're really hoping to win the student vote, which earns your business 10 additional points. Someone visited our Facebook page, commenting that they'd tried to visit our store location on Eighth Street but couldn't find us, so we're hoping that if people in the community thought we were real, then the judges will think we are well-planned, giving us a good grade.

Check back Tuesday night for pictures from the trade show. Learn whether Whisk was successful and see what other groups came up with.