Filling Your Marketing Toolbox: Opening Game

Opening game: Marketing, Branding, Advertising, Communications, Customer Service, Advocacy

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Big Idea: We have a product. We want to give away our product, and we want to keep making more of that product. The general term for that is “marketing.” But sometimes when we say “marketing,” we really mean something else. We’re librarians, and we love to categorize! In this activity, you will have a type of promotion, and you will determine where it goes.

How the game is played:

• You will receive 4-5 sticky notes, each with a different activity on it.

• Your task is to place that note in one of six categories: Marketing, Branding, Advertising, Communications, Customer Service, Advocacy or No Idea. You might not be certain, and that’s OK! Take a good educated guess, or stick the note in the “no idea” area.

• After you placed your notes, go around the room and read other notes. If you think that a note would be better in a different category, take that note and stick it in the new category, and put your initials on it.

• If you come across a note with initials on it that you think belongs elsewhere, go ahead and move it, and put your initials on it too.

• Once a note has two initials on it, it stays in place and cannot be moved again.

• If time allows, you may use the blank sticky notes to create your own scenario and put it on the “no idea” area for others to to pick up and try.

Note: These aren’t the only way to categorize these! We could have also used promotions, public relations, publicity, etc. But we didn’t, so here we are.

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Definitions: (from Merriam Webster)

Marketing: the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.

Branding: the promoting of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand.

Advertising: the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements.

Communications: a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior.

Customer Service: the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services.
Advocacy: the act or process of supporting a cause or proposal.