Activity: Advertisement Showdown–Understanding Marketing and Economics for Entrepreneurs

In this lesson students will be introduced to marketing including advertising and branding they will have to create and pitch an advertisement for a fictitious company. 

This activity is best to follow the content from Lesson 6: Understanding Market Structures for an Entrepreneur 

Economics

Entrepreneurs and all businesses need to understand what market structure they are in to make many decisions, especially marketing. The market structure changes the decisions you make and changes the way one would market their product. For example, perfectly competitive firms market based on the industry rather than the individual produce (think Got Milk). Other firms in an oligopoly directly compete in their advertisements (think Coke and Pepsi). In this lesson students will understand more about how businesses advertise. They will participate in an advertisement showdown where they will have to create and pitch an advertisement for a fictitious company.

Objectives:

After completing this lesson students will be able to:

• explain how different market structures influence a firm’s marketing and advertising strategies, including how competition affects product differentiation and pricing decisions.
• apply economic reasoning to design a marketing strategy that reflects incentives, marginal benefits and costs, and the characteristics of their assigned market structure.
• create and pitch an original advertisement for a fictitious company, justifying their marketing choices based on market structure, consumer behavior, and economic reasoning.

Concepts

Competition, Decision Making, Entrepreneurship, 

Standards and Benchmarks

 Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics

Standard 2: Decision Making

Effective decision making requires comparing the additional costs of alternatives with the additional benefits. Many choices involve doing a little more or a little less of something: few choices are “all or nothing” decisions. 

• Benchmark Grade 12
  1. To produce the profit-maximizing level of output and hire the optimal number of workers, and other resources, producers must compare the marginal benefits and marginal costs of producing a little more with the marginal benefits and marginal costs of producing a little less.

Standard 9: Competition and Market Structure

Competition among sellers usually lowers costs and prices, and encourages producers to produce what consumers are willing and able to buy. Competition among buyers increases prices and  allocates goods and services to those people who are willing and able to pay the most for them. 

• Benchmark Grade 12
  2.  the level of competition in an industry is affected by the ease with which new producers can enter the industry, and by consumers’ information about the availability, price and quantity of substitute goods and services. 

Standard 14: Entrepreneurship 

Entrepreneurs take on the calculated risk of starting new businesses, either by embarking on new ventures similar to existing ones or by introducing new innovations. Entrepreneurial innovation is an important source of economic growth.  

Entrepreneurs compare the expected benefits of entering a new enterprise with the expected costs.

Benchmark Grade 8

Time Required

60 minutes