Throughout this episode what stood out to me the most was, big bee little bee products which include the marker parker. The little girl started to make a mess on purpose which confused the shark tank but she was trying to show the message of the product. When you make a mess and you’re all done the fun stops there is papers and missing caps a mess everywhere. If you lose the caps then the markers will get all dried up which will have the teachers stressed because at the end of the day they need them. So they would have to take time out of their day just to go buy more. When the students could have been more careful and organized. And that’s why they invented this product called The Marker Parker. The Marker Parked can be very helpful and make things much easier for students as well as teachers. The way it works is it can grip your marker caps tight, and so all you have to remove is the drawing part. When you are done with it you just put it back. It is a squishy texture which makes it easy for kids to grip and the playful design motivates them to put their markers back so that the markers will not be rolling around the floor and caps not being lost, and having dried markers. When the old marker runs out of ink the grown up just twits out the cap and replaces a new one back. This product can help from making a huge mess and having grown ups stressed, and it can help kids be more organized and make them learn to have more responsibility.

After watching Shark tank and seeing all the fantastic pitches, I would say the one that resonated with me the most was “Bridal babes.” I liked the couple’s pitch because having Fashionable bridesmaid dresses for all body types and being affordable sounded like a perfect business idea. I found myself drawn to this pitch because, in the past, I was also that bridesmaid at a wedding, struggling to find a dress that fit my body type. So to see this company being successful with inclusivity and Affordability was terrific. After watching their pitch and listening to their ideas, I noticed how confused Mark and Robert were. I noticed they needed to figure out what gap this product would fill. This company fills in the inclusivity gap in the market for different body types and sizes and Affordability in bridesmaid wear. Sizing inclusivity is often overlooked in the clothing market, especially in bridalwear. So to see a company that caters to all body types, all sizes, and all skin colors while still having pretty designs in the wedding industry is a first because not many do this, and there is nothing like it in the market. 

    I think consumers should not only want this product but feel that they NEED it because there are no other bridesmaid dress companies like “Bridal Babes.” There’s no other bridal company that will accommodate women a size over 18 and the money in their pockets. The average cost of a Decent looking bridesmaid dress is about $600 or even more if they don’t carry over a specific size. Also, this company’s Leadtime to make the dresses and get them is way better than most, especially when making a dress over a size 16. Most bridal shops take up to 6 months or more to complete a dress. So I feel that the consumer needs this company’s product because it’s inclusive with sizing, budget-friendly, with online alterations, and has excellent lead time to make and ship the product compared to competitors; this is the only company that will get you, want you to want and need without the hassle of Availablity of sizing and price.

Bridal Babes would be best positioned in the Billion dollar wedding industry, rebranding Bridesmaids’ attire to the new decade of upcoming weddings for now and many years. And they will succeed in this business Because there’s always someone getting married; Alone, in 2020, there were 1.68 million marriages in the United States. And I know that out of that 1.8 million, brides with bridesmaids either paid a ton of money for their dresses or had difficulty finding dresses due to their sizes. I think “Bridal Babes” Would benefit from being in the wedding industry because of their wide range of sizes and Affordability and the new and improved look of the dresses. The dresses that are being presented are not like your typical long and tedious dresses that don’t flatter anybody’s body like many competitors; they have this new 2020s look to their dresses. Making it look upgraded and appealing with different colors and designs that bridesmaids would WANT to wear today. And they already have the product marking down by them showcasing their dresses on Tik Tok and Instagram, gaining a massive following by showing people of different sizes and colors of the dresses and the diversity of their campaign, marketing themselves. They don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on marketing the dresses, word of mouth and social media is the market, and it Will indeed make their company a success in the booming wedding industry for now and in the future.

Week F assignment

Shark Tank is a well-known entrepreneur television platform where people can pitch potential business ideas to successful business owners called “the sharks”. In episode 14 season 5, I heard a few interesting ideas, however, what resonated with me the most was the Marker Parker.
At first, I was confused at Little Bee and Big Bee’s entrance, I wasn’t sure where they were going with their product. They purposely made a mess which clearly also confused the Sharks. This turned out to be a clever move as they got to showcase the purpose of their product.
As a babysitter myself I can understand the need for this product. I babysit a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old and it’s my constant duty to keep them occupied, hence they would spend hours drawing and coloring which would include the use of markers. Almost every time the markers are used, I must spend time looking for the caps or the marker. We would often have to get new ones due to this because they would dry out or I would have to clean marker stains from the carpet. Today this would also be useful for whiteboards since they are also dry-erase markers that are used in professional settings.
This product can be used at home, schools, and eventually offices with whiteboards. This can teach children responsibility while making it fun to tidy up. I think it would also be beneficial if this is introduced to whiteboards to help teachers and working persons who are presenting an idea, to quickly use the markers, especially if it requires them to switch colors. Sometimes teachers and other adults who use whiteboards forget to cover the marker too. So, this is an easy time-saving product and helps to reduce waste when we forget to cover the marker.
I think that this product can be successful if the price was a bit lower. Markers are cheap and people who are buying them do not expect to spend much more than they already are. Some may look at the price and reason that they can get 2 or 3 packs of markers for the price. I also think that they should cater more marker caps because some packets of markers come with a wider variety of colors than others. Colorful marker caps can also attract kids more to the product rather than one color of yellow. In addition, they should make the caps able to stick on the wall so that the Marker Parker itself doesn’t get misplaced.
This product can be marketed easily by sponsoring a few schools with free Marker Parkers. This way the children can tell their parents who can buy for their use at home. Teachers can eventually buy their whiteboards and so on.
Overall, I think that it is a very innovative product, especially coming from a six-year-old, Marlo. Eventually, with a few tweaks, this product can be sold in many big stores in my view.

Out of the 4 products shown in the episode, the marker parker seemed very intriguing. The entry of how they made a mess on purpose, trying to irritate the shark tank crew but this was to help the product’s message. I feel like they wanted to show how much of a mess can be avoided with a product like that. It made me feel like sometimes this would be helpful in school situations, as I remember when I was in elementary and middle school using markers that at the end of the class were demanded back, and whenever I forgot a cap or I lost it a teacher would get frustrated as then we would have to spend time looking for the cap which would affect the free time the teacher had after our class as she would spend time looking for the cap in hopes of not having that marker dry out. I also even had a teacher that had scented markers, and she liked them so much she wouldn’t allow kids to use them because she was afraid we would end up losing the caps.

Having a product like this would quickly help schools make kids more organized, as well as teach responsibility easily as kids would just have to put the marker back in something that looks very attractive to a child. This can also make classes cleaner as I had classrooms where markers would be left in a bucket and sometimes that would give off the idea of a messy area where stuff is left. Having the idea of something clean and colorful gives off more of a positive and cleaner lesson to the classroom. I think this product could have won over the shark tank crew if the mother didn’t cry during her performance. I feel like it was trying to win them over with emotions that didn’t really work out for them.

I also agree with one of the sharks and how they explained that they should be “laser focused” on one thing which would have helped them a lot as they could have made variants where you can stick it to the wall or bigger options for something like 20-30 markers. Having multiple options for colors as well such as multicolored ones or a rainbow. The lady also did not do very well presenting her sales as she saw positive ones as good when the sharks wanted to see something better than average and having made multiple products without paying off the debt that she had for her business did not look very good when showing to the sharks. I disagree with the price as it might drive away parents from buying it. I think the product could still succeed if there is good marketing and trying to strike deals with something like schools, as many children go to art class where markers are used often so it can alleviate some stress on art teachers when a cap gets lost. Running ads on a children’s channel could get the attention of mothers and children as well as it looks very playful and attractive with bright colors.

To be completely transparent, the pitches in Season 14, Episode 5 of Shark Tank did not wow me. However, the one that stood out to me the most from a marketing perspective was the Marker Parker pitch. As someone with a lot of experience babysitting young kids, I know how easily things like marker caps can go missing. So having a base to keep the marker caps all in one place would be very useful. Not only would it make cleanup easier for kids, but it would also be financially beneficial to parents who would spend less money on replacing dried-out markers.  

During the episode of Shark Tank, Amy Leinbach and her daughter Marlo pitched their product, the Marker Parker, to the sharks as “the perfect spot to park your markers.” The Marker Parker is a holder for markers that retails for $15 (and costs $2.71 to make). The way the product works is by you pushing the markers into the Marker Parker base (cap side down), which grips the marker caps tightly. Once the markers are secured into the base, when kids are ready to use them during playtime, only the drawing part of the marker is removed (leaving the caps safely secured in the base). Amy Leinbach described the Marker Parker as ergonomic, with a squishy texture that makes it easy for kids to grip and a playful design that encourages kids to use the base to put away their markers. The current design works for broad-tip markers but Amy has tweaked the design to also make the Marker Parker suitable for fine-tip markers as well. 

What gap does this product fill? Anyone who is around kids often enough knows that marker caps can go missing in the blink of an eye. The Marker Parker fills a need in the market for something to help children and their parents keep their markers and marker caps together in an easily transportable system. 

What process does this product make easier? The Marker Parker makes it easy to not lose marker caps because the caps remain in the holder the entire time, and only the drawing part gets removed. This means cleaning up and putting away markers after playtime gets simpler and overall less stressful trying to find scattered marker caps. 

Why should consumers not only want this product but feel that they NEED it? Consumers, especially parents or those who work/deal with younger kids should want this product because it makes cleaning up markers a breeze. No more looking under crevices trying to see if the cap rolled under there. No more having to shell out money for new markers due to the markers drying up when losing caps. The Marker Parker is a practical product, that is beneficial to both children and adults. 

This product could best appeal to consumers, specifically kids, by offering the Marker Parker in different colors and fun patterns for the base combined with brightly colored packaging. This way kids would be more excited to get the product if it came in their favorite color. Also, offering different shape configurations for the base, such as a heart or star-shaped configuration. And while I don’t think a $15 price point is outrageous, I think lowering the price would make the product more appealing. Especially when parents can buy a new pack of markers for as low as $3.

All submissions for our Week F Assignment on Product Concepts will populate below.