Candy+Company

= Candy Company Project =


 * Introduction **

As highly-experienced candy consumers and budding entrepreneurs, you will be developing your own candy company, from the first pencil-drawn plans to a finished, polished website for the whole world to see. The project consists of three stages:

1. Background Research & Planning 2. Tech Design & Synthesis 3. Company Launch & Presentations

**Unit Essential Questions & Core Skills**

 * Unit Essential Question:** //How do I most effectively organize information for my intended audience?//


 * Core Skills**
 * reading and analyzing informational text
 * evaluating company websites for organization and effectiveness
 * writing various pieces that inform and/or persuade
 * organizing multiple sources of media for an intended audience
 * presenting information effectively using multimedia


 * I. Background Research & Planning: at the candy drawing table **

Before you start planning your own confectionary delights, it's a good idea to see what else is out there, beyond the ho-hum candy bars you can find in any grocery store. Nearly all of the candy bars you see on the racks at the grocery store are made by one of the Big Three: Hershey, Nestle, and MasterFoods.

Hershey: Hershey Bar, Kit Kat, Reese's, Almond Joy, York Peppermint Patty, Twizzler Nestle: Crunch Bar, Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Wonka products, Chunky, Goobers, 100 Grand, Laffy Taffy MasterFoods: Snickers, M&Ms, Milky Way, Dove

But an entire world of candy bars exists that you've likely never experienced, unique regional favorites and candies from years past. The web-hunt below will lead you to some tasty treats from smaller, regional candy companies--some you've heard of, some you haven't.



Idaho Candy Company - Home of the Idaho Spud Standard Candy Company - Home of the Goo Goo Cluster Goetze Candy Company - Home of the Caramel Cream Pearson's Candy Company - Home of the Nut Goodie Annabelle Candy Company - Home of the Abba Zaba Boyer Candies - Home of the Mallo Cup NECCO - Home of the NECCO Wafers
 * Web Hunt Candy Companies**

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Your next step is the drawing board: it's time to start planning out the different aspects of your company. You will get a hard copy of this planning packet in class, but you can access it here, as well.




 * II. Tech Design & Synthesis: building the website **

Once you've finished your initial plans for your company, it's time to create your company's website, a multimedia experience for your soon-to-be customers.


 * Requirements**

Your website (to be created on Weebly) must include the following components:


 * **1. Writing Components** || **2. Design Components** ||
 * * Company history
 * Annotated product line
 * Frequently Asked Questions
 * Business Proposal

Click here for specific requirements and samples for each piece of writing, including the rubric for grading. || * Company name, logo, tagline, and location (logo help from Mr. Walters)
 * Commercial and/or audio version of your jingle
 * Other promotional products
 * Anything else you can think of to give your site a competitive edge
 * need a handsome face to sing your jingle? Try www.voki.com
 * want to design your own candy bar wrappers? Check this out from Mr. Walters.
 * don't have Photoshop or Illustrator at home? Try using one of these free sites: www.pixlr.com or www.aviary.com ||

How you organize all of this content (and anything else you want to include) is up to you. It's your company. The better your website, the more successful your company will be.

Check out some successful candy company sites from past years below. Take a look to get an idea of you're overall goal. You can take a look at my Weebly works-in-progress here: www.oldmancandy.weebly.com and www.thedutchie.weebly.com.


 * Student Samples::**
 * 2013**
 * Candy Castle || Space Needle || D'Juneau ||
 * Psst! Candy Co. || Sauron's Sweets ||  Queen of Candies ||


 * 2012**
 * Midnight Bite || Fat Pants, Inc. || Mau Loa ||
 * 2011**
 * = Crater's Candy Co. ||= Alaskan Fever ||= High Mountain Candy Co. ||
 * = Sara's Sugar Shop ||= Don't Eat That Sweets and Laughs ||= Bubble Bear Candy Co. ||
 * 2009-10:** these were done pre-Weebly, but the ideas and the writing components are superb.
 * = Jolly Jooty Candy Co. ||= Wagawolfe Candies ||= Ezza-Bezza ||
 * = Dr. Sweet Tooth's Candies* ||= Tourist Trap Sweets ||= Kuhdorf Kandy ||
 * = KSK Konfectionary ||= Fudgealiscious Candy Co ||= E=mc^2 ||
 * = Black Diamond Candy Co ||= Rogue's Roost ||=  ||

Candy Company Permit Form- One partner needs to fill this in.

Candy Company Website Form. One partner needs to fill this in, too.

To access your space, go to Candy Pages and click on your company name. Good luck.

::Phase II Finale::
With your company websites complete, it's time to take a look and get some feedback.

Your task: > > - Most Interesting History > - Most creative FAQs > - Most Persuasive Business Proposal > - Best Jingle > - Best Overall Product Line - Best Flagship Candy > - Best Overall Website
 * view and read each company's website in your class, including their history, product line, FAQs, business letter, and all the other cool stuff they've included
 * on a separate sheet of paper, jot down your top **two** nominees for the following categories:
 * on the Company Page discussion board, write a post on which company has the best overall website, and provide **two specific reasons** why you feel that way.
 * then click on the Awards Ballot link for your class and complete the Icky Awards official ballot

Prizes will be awarded for winners in each category. Good luck.


 * III. Company Launch: going global **

Now that your company's website has been unveiled to the world, you need to get people to invest in your vision.

We live in a global marketplace. You are now competing with every other candy company in the world. Not only do you need customers to buy your products, you need other companies to make your products readily available. How can you make that happen?
 * Scenario:**

Your final task is to create a dynamic, mulitmedia presentation for your company, to be delivered to potential investors (drug and grocery store chains, wholesalers and distributors, advertisers, etc). You will use either PowerPoint or Prezi as your pirmary presentation tool, but other tools may be incorporated within the presentation. The effectiveness of your presentation decides the success and growth of your company. Remember, **YOU** are the presenter; PowerPoint is just a tool to help you.

Resources for effective (and ineffective) presentations are below:

**::Resources::**

First, let's talk about what makes a good presentation. And for that, we'll watch the master: Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple.

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We can distill these ideas into the following points:
 * 1) Identify a theme.
 * 2) Make your theme clear and consistent - unveil a single headline.
 * 3) Create a heading that sets the direction for your meeting.
 * 4) Provide the outline for the presentation and verbally open and close each section with a clear transition in-between.
 * 5) Make it easy for your listeners to follow your story.
 * 6) Passion and enthusiasm - choose the right vocabulary - so WOW YOUR AUDIENCE! / Have fun and be excited!
 * 7) Sell an experience. Not just numbers and statistics. Make it meaningful. (Place numbers in context).
 * 8) Analogies help connect the dots for your audience.
 * 9) Make presentations visual and easy on the eyes.(whitespace & grid theory)
 * 10) Paint a simple picture that doesn't overwhelm.
 * 11) Be sure that you can identify the memorable moment of your presentation.
 * 12) Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse some more!!!!

For some more on this, along with some other presentation ideas, check out Mr. Walters's blog.

Sean Silverthorne provides an effective-presentation lithmus test in his article, giving us some sound guidelines for our own presentations.