Stanford University Strategic Marketing Plan for Smart Watches Exercise

I’m working on a marketing project and need guidance to help me understand better.

You are applying for a consulting position in a strategic marketing firm that specializes in the Consumer Electronics Sector. Your first mission would be to assist a company that manufactures “smartwatches” in the development of a strategic marketing plan.

During your interview, the recruiter wants you to demonstrate your knowledge of strategic marketing and your ability to apply that knowledge to a specific situation.

The recruiter asks:

“Our firm has been retained by a major brand of smartwatches for a consulting project. The brand of smartwatches is interested in preparing for future market trends. The company believes that smartwatches will be replaced with other devices in the future. Even though those are long term trends, the company needs to plan for that future. The brand of smartwatches has asked us to recommend a strategic marketing plan. If we hired you and assigned this project to you, what would be your process to complete it?”

The recruiter understands that you aren’t yet an expert in the smartwatches sector. They do not expect you to demonstrate expertise in this sector, and they do not expect you to actually recommend a plan. They expect you to show that you would know how to proceed with the development of such a plan.

To help your thought process, they give you a few articles to review briefly:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/878144/worldwi…

https://news.mit.edu/2020/sensor-als-communicate-1…

https://news.mit.edu/2020/sensors-monitor-vital-si…

They do not want you to summarize the articles or repeat the content (they already know that.)

They do not want you either to present a complete analysis or detailed recommendations. You can use the articles to provide some examples that illustrate your ideas.

The recruiter is essentially interested in checking how well you know the process, key methods and tools and concepts, and that you would be able to apply them.

Your paper should be approximately 2-to-3 pages single-spaced, and the font should be Arial size 11. More pages are acceptable. Diagrams, tables, or other visual content are not accepted.