Why the Field Trip Costs Two Dollars More: Product, Price, Place and Promotion for an Orchard's Weekday Toddler Mornings and Standards-Based School Visits
Student Name
American College of Education
MRKT5003: Marketing Management: Strategy, Impact, and Engagement
Module 4 Assignment
Instructor Name
February 26, 2028
The Position the Mix Must Carry
Module 3 gave the composite Harwell Hill farm two positions. To parents of children under five it offers quiet weekday mornings in which a toddler can reach the fruit unaided, across a season running from spring bloom to the autumn harvest. To teachers of the early grades it offers a trip whose every activity maps onto lessons already in their science plans. The marketing mix must now make each promise real, and every element should be tested against one question: does it strengthen the position or weaken it? A price is the first thing a buyer learns about a position, often before any photograph or description.
Little Pickers: Product and Place
The toddler offering, called Little Pickers, will run on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from mid-May to the end of October, from 9:30 to 11:00. Each session includes guided picking in the dwarf trellis block, or in the strawberry and blueberry rows in June and July, a 15-minute story circle under the picnic pavilion and a small bakery treat for each child. Each child takes home a small bag of whatever was picked. Sessions are limited to 40 children so the morning stays quiet, which Module 3 identified as part of the promise. A stroller-width gravel path will run from the parking area to the dwarf block, and a changing station will be added to the market restrooms.
Place is the farm itself, but access is part of the product. Sessions are booked online in advance, with a small number of walk-in places held for each morning, and parents receive a text reminder the evening before with the weather outlook and what to wear. The farm market and bakery open at 9:00 on session days so that parents can shop after the session without a separate trip.
Little Pickers: Price
The obvious reference price is the orchard's own weekday admission, but that is the wrong frame. Module 3 established that parents of young children compare a weekday outing with the children's museum, the zoo and library programs, not with other orchards. The regional children's museum charges $12 a child, and library story times are free. Little Pickers will be priced at $10 a child, with accompanying adults free. The price sits below the museum but well above free, signaling a planned program with a guide and something to take home rather than an open field.
The orchard will also sell a Little Pickers season pass at $65 a child, the price of six and a half sessions, for unlimited weekday sessions. Gourville and Soman (2002) found that customers who prepay tend to use a service most in the period just after they pay and less as the payment fades from memory, and that spreading payments keeps usage higher. Two design choices follow. The pass will be sold in two halves, a spring and summer half at $35 and an autumn half at $35, so each payment falls close to the visits it covers. And the orchard will send each pass holder a monthly note listing the sessions they have used and the fruit coming into season, a light reminder that keeps the prepaid value in mind. Thaler (1985) showed that consumers keep separate mental accounts for different kinds of spending and judge deals partly by how they are framed, and a pass framed as a season of mornings is more attractive than one framed as a discount on single visits.
The Orchard Field Trip: Product and Place
The field trip will run on weekday mornings from mid-September to the end of October, for groups of up to 70 students, with at most two groups a morning. Each two-hour visit follows a fixed sequence built around the grade's science standards: a walk through the orchard to see trees at different stages, a guided look at the orchard's rented beehives from a safe viewing distance, a short activity on the apple's life cycle matched to the grade level and picking a bag of apples for each child. Teachers receive a guide before the visit with the standards addressed, a pre-visit lesson and a post-visit activity. Booking is online, with a calendar that shows available dates, and the orchard will contact district field-trip coordinators directly each spring.
The Orchard Field Trip: Price
The three competitors offering field trips charge $7 to $8 a student for a hayride, a pumpkin and time on a playground, and the orchard's informal trips last year averaged about $7. The Orchard Field Trip will be priced at $9 a student, with teachers and one chaperone for every five students free. Charging more than the competition is deliberate. Rao and Monroe (1989), reviewing studies of how buyers judge quality, found a positive and statistically significant relationship between price and perceived quality, especially when buyers have little other information. A teacher choosing between trips has limited time to compare them, and a price that matches the hayride trips would tell the teacher that this is another hayride trip.
The higher price must not keep out schools that cannot afford it, since that would undermine the program and its standing with districts. The orchard will ask a local bank and a regional grocery chain to fund a field-trip scholarship covering the full cost for schools serving mostly low-income families, using the eligibility lists districts already keep for federal meal programs. A $6,000 fund would cover about 660 students a season.
Promotion in Outline
Promotion is developed in Module 5, but the mix sets its limits now. For Little Pickers, the message is the physical proof from Module 3, a toddler reaching an apple on a tree no taller than the child, carried through local parent networks, library and preschool bulletin boards and short videos rather than paid regional advertising, which would reach mostly weekend families. For the Orchard Field Trip, the message is the teacher guide itself: the orchard will send it, not a brochure, to every kindergarten through third grade teacher in the 212 schools within 40 miles, because a guide that lists the standards addressed is both the promotion and the proof. Neither offer will be promoted with the discounts or free-admission days some rivals use, since a discount would contradict the prices set here and teach buyers to wait for the next one.
Does Each Offer Earn Its Keep?
Little Pickers costs about $3 a child in fruit, treats and supplies, and a two-person program staff of seasonal employees costs about $260 a session. At an average of 28 children a session over 46 sessions, it would earn about $12,900 in session revenue against about $15,800 in staff and materials, a loss of about $2,900 on its own. Its purpose, however, is the spending around it: Module 2 found weekday households spend about $46 on each visit in total, so each session also brings in roughly $700 in market and bakery sales beyond the session fee, or about $32,000 over the season, at times when those staff are already on the payroll. The field trip costs about $2.50 a student in apples and materials and about $300 a morning for four guides. At 80 groups averaging 64 students, it would earn about $46,000 in revenue against about $36,800 in direct costs, a modest margin that grows as the guides become practiced and the teacher guide's cost is spread over more visits.
References
Gourville, J., & Soman, D. (2002). Pricing and the psychology of consumption. Harvard Business Review, 80(9), 90-96.
Rao, A. R., & Monroe, K. B. (1989). The effect of price, brand name, and store name on buyers' perceptions of product quality: An integrative review. Journal of Marketing Research, 26(3), 351-357. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378902600309
Thaler, R. (1985). Mental accounting and consumer choice. Marketing Science, 4(3), 199-214. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.4.3.199
How this MRKT 5003 Module 4 example is structured
MRKT 5003 Module 4 often works the mix decisions, with price treated as a positioning choice; your classroom's instructions decide which elements of the mix to cover in depth. This example takes each target in turn and moves from product to price to place, giving the reason for each price in terms of the position set in Module 3 and the evidence about buyer behavior. A short economic check closes each offer, and promotion is sketched here and developed in Module 5.
MRKT5003 Module 4 questions, answered
What does MRKT5003 Module 4 usually ask for?
MRKT5003 Module 4 often asks students to set the marketing mix, product, price, place and promotion, for the chosen target, with price treated as part of the positioning. Your classroom's instructions decide which elements need the most depth.
How do I justify a price above competitors?
Tie it to the position and to evidence about how buyers read price. When buyers have little information, a higher price can signal higher quality, but the product must then deliver what the price promises.
Should a marketing mix include cost figures?
A short economic check strengthens it. Showing roughly what each offer earns and costs, and what else it brings in, tells the reader the mix is something the firm can afford to run.
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