Product Trials
Consider the above trial shown on the BBC website here. It is quite straight forward to Identify what a product trial is so start by giving me a quick definition.
Now Apply your understanding of product trials and Analyse the advantages Facebook will have gained by conducting a product trial before rolling out their new mobile as system.
However, this sort of product trial is not without its pitfalls... Explain what you think the possible negatives of this product trial could be and then Judge whether you feel that Facebook should have gone ahead with the trial in the first place.
Post your answer in the comments below and write in how many marks you think out of 8 you think your answer is worth.
Product trial is when a product is tested for a specific amount of time to see weather the product would work or not and to see if the consumers actually have demand for their product.
ReplyDeletefacebook decided to test their system that allows it to make money by placing adverts for other companies on third-party apps to see if people would actually be interested in clicking into the adverts and check if people would like to purchase the products adverted, and to see if the advert is effective enough.
It is possible that they can calculate how many people out of each category was most successful and found it useful.
What facebook would gain from this is an amount of money each time the products sell, so this can be their VAT on their website.
-Hebah, Julia & Carys.
When a business begins to sell its product or services for a short period of time in a certain section of the market to see if there is a demand for the certain product or service. This helps the business o decide whether the product/service is successful and demanded on the market or not.
ReplyDeleteFacebook will benefit from this product trial as it will be able to see how successful it is. The US users who are being trailed on will be able to give back some response and help Facebook to decide if its successful or not. If there are areas for improvement they can improve and work on their product and then release their new mobile as a system.
However this way of placing adverts may be not as successful as people go on Facebook to socialize and the adverts may be just ignored and not given as much attention or may even irritate the users and that will cause a negative attitude of Facebook users to the new system. The trial is also said to be tested on US costumers that may be a problem as it wont represent all the costumers worldwide in other countries. If it works a certain way in the US it may not work out the same way in other countries.
The Facebook wont lose anything from this product trial. So i think its a good idea. If it does work out Facebook will make a lot of profit as they get a percentage from every purchase that was made cause their adverts. However if it does not then Facebook can improve this system and work on it to make it better to satisfy its costumers.
Excellent start with the full 2marks for knowledge of product trials. You have clearly applied to the case study so 2 marks for Application. I feel that you could have explained your points of view a lot better in this answer. You have considered both sides of the story but what other negatives and positives could you have thought of when it comes to product trials with this example? You need a fully justified opinion also to gain full marks for the Evaluation. I would give you one mark for analysis and another for evaluation making it 6/8. To get full marks consider what Facebook could do to improve the accuracy of the product trial results. Such as ensuring they look at other market segments first, testing on different platforms and gathering consumer feedback from those not signing up for the trial.
ReplyDeleteProduct trial is a temporary offering intended to provide market information by allowing consumers to examine, use or test a product prior to fully committing company resources to a full launch.
ReplyDeleteProduct trials are cheaper than full scale launch and it will provide faceboook with an idea of how much demand there is for this new app. People will be able to test this out and see if they like it or not . Facebook will be able to make sure that there is demand before launching it . Therefore product trials help the business take calculated risks and to minimise the chance of failure.
However it involves setting up production processes for a product that may or may not turn ou to be successful and if it turns out to be unsuccessgful - then facebook makes a loss . It may also provide competing business with advance information about a new product and other businesses can find an improved way to do this and the idea can be stolen. As well as that , there are very few people who usually pay attention to the advertisments as many get irritated and some may even be put off by them.
Overall i think its a good idea however Facebook could improve this by expanding the target market from just US tro orther countries to get a range of opinions .
Hi Medisa your first 2 paragraphs are bang on! What happens in the third is you stop applying to the case study and start talking about a production process. Is this a product which needs a traditional product line? The advertisements are you discussing the product not the relative merits of the product trial itself. Your conclusion should give an opinion which explains in detail why, or why not, facebook should be doing this and if so how could they improve the validity. You do this to a certain extent but not to the best possible level.
DeleteAdding to this I would give you 2/2 for knowledge, 1/2 for some application shown in the second paragraph, 1/2 for explaining your first argument with linked application and because I am mean I wouldn't score anything for evaluation because your arguments lack the required application. 4/8
DeleteProduct trial in this case was taken place to see if the advertisements would work. This could be tested by seeing if the goods being advertised had an increase in demand.
ReplyDeleteThis would benefit the business (Facebook) as it would give them an idea if such advertisements would work. If so, Facebook would continue on setting up advertisements of other companies on third party apps.
If such process works out, Facebook can make a lot of revenue as a result. This is because more and more companies would agree to pay for their advertisements being set up on Facebook.
However, as product trial will need market research to take place it will not only be costly, it will also be very time consuming. Therefore if such process does not work out, it would as a result be a big waste.
Overall, Facebook has to take product trial into account. This is because it can reduce any chances of major problems occurring. Even though it may be time consuming, it is better to lower risks before setting up such advertisements.
Suleyman you have covered the key points of the question and I can see your knowledge is sound when it comes to product trials. Your issue is one of structuring your argument.
DeleteYou should define product trials to begin with. Then go on to explain how the theory relates to Facebook. I can Infer knowledge but a harsher examiner might say that you lack in knowledge so would give you 1/2 for this aspect.
Your third paragraph could be made into a very valid point but again you are not applying it properly.
"as product trial will need market research to take place it will not only be costly, it will also be very time consuming. Therefore if such process does not work out, it would as a result be a big waste."
Are you saying facebooks product trial will be costly to set up? If so why is this? Also how will it be time consuming? Explain your answer with reference to the specific product trial that facebook are using else there is no application just analysis using general knowledge losing you marks.
Finally what could you do to improve the validity of the product trial so Facebook can take a global decision on this? What other information should they be using? As such you dont clearly show understanding of the drawbacks of the product trial and struggle with application. There is also no clear judgement shown. As a result I would mark this 3/8 = 1/2 for inferred knowledge, 1/2 for some application in the second paragraph and 1 /2 for analysing one side of the argument. I would not score any evaluation marks.
A product trial is a way of businesses introducing new products for a specific period of time with limited supply to gather feedback on what sort of feedback they can gather from consumers who have taken advantage of this trial. Facebook,being a multimillion dollar social network site would have benefited from this trial by being able to gather feedback and understand their consumers opinion on the use of ads on mobile sites. If Facebook rolled out their new mobile ad system without a trial, there could have been a decrease in the use of the mobile browsing of facebook if consumers were not pleased with the idea of ads 'popping up'. Without the feedback that the trial would provide, Facebook would be taking an uneducated guess as to whether or not Facebook users would like this change. A network like facebook advertises thousands of businesses which allows businesses to gain third party support and advertising however, with this trial, it is giving consumers the option to voice whether or not they are satisfied with mobile advertising. If consumers dislike this new feature, being a trial, Facebook will be obligated to get rid of the feature or modify it to suit the wants of their consumers however, not providing a trial will simply introduce the new mobile system and customers wont really be able to sway Facebook to alter their new system as it has already been introduced, removing the influence of user feedback. It can be argued that the trial that Facebook went ahead with was not a smart move as it gives consumers a view of what the system will potentially look like which had led to user privacy scares that Facebook was using their details on third party websites to gather information on what products and businesses to advertise. This could lead to a large amount of account deactivation to avoid this 'privacy violation'. Also, if users aren't satisfied with this trial, to avoid future use of this mobile facebook system, users may be inclined to stop their use of mobile facebook apps and sites. All this therefore drops the amount of users which then means that the audience that Facebook advertises products to has decreased which could lead to an overall drop in revenue that Facebook makes from charging for advertising spaces.
ReplyDeleteGood definition and some outstanding application where you are using the case study to help answer your question.
Delete"If Facebook rolled out their new mobile ad system without a trial, there could have been a decrease in the use of the mobile browsing of facebook if consumers were not pleased with the idea of ads 'popping up'."
This segment is the best example of application and analysis I have seen so far for this question. You are explaining yourself and the purpose behind this product trial whilst using specific information. If i switched Facebook with Yahoo this sentence would not make much sense therefore you are applying well. You also make it clear what the potential consequences are showing judgement at a very early stage, key to obtaining those higher marks.
What i feel needs to be improved is your concluding segments. You start to talk about account deactivation and so on resulting from privacy scares. This is a valid argument however i cannot pick out from your answer what your opinion is be it positive, negative or sitting on the fence. Therfore although i feel you have explained the argument well you cannot gain maximum marks for Evaluation gaining 7/8 overall. To improve think about the question being asked and use this to conclude.
A product trial is when a company begins to sell their product/service to give consumers a chance to test and examine their goods. This is very useful to Facebook as it allows for feedback from the customers. This means that any improvements needed to be made to the service can be done before the wide scale operation; this can enable Facebook to make more profit than would have if product trials hadn’t been used. Product trials tell a business whether a gap in the market is present, so shows whether there is demand for their service. If there is a gap it can be highly profitable. In this case Facebook will discover if advertising is as profitable as they planned for.
ReplyDeleteHowever there are drawbacks with a product trial such as it infers big costs, especially if it’s not successful, i.e. it’s not popular with consumers. Furthermore it’s only a `small test’ limited to the US, so any conclusions drawn from that trial may not reflect the attitude of their future whole market, so other countries. This means that if Facebook target the rest of the world, the results in the US may not continue, so profits may not be as high.
Overall i think that it’s beneficial for Facebook as it gives them an accurate response to their trial, which will enable them to make decisions that will be in best need of the business, this all should result in revenue increasing.