Bee-Buzz

For this week’s class, my partner and I were assigned to design a smartphone for children between the ages of eight to twelve, made by amazon. We came up with a product called Bee-Buzz. This smartphone has parental controls that are available through the Bee-Buzz Parent’s application. Parents can set app and screen-time restrictions and send alerts to parents when suspicious activity is noticed on the child’s device. We worked for hours creating and designing the product for our “pitch” to our professor.

My partner and I had to get into the minds of our target audience, which consisted of eight to twelve-year-olds and their parents. We needed to consider a durable, yet sleek design while prioritizing safety features for the parents. After conversing with each other, we decided on the limitations and price for our product. A Bee-Buzz phone can have twenty-five contacts, thirty-five calling hours, and 750 texts sent each month. The initial cost for the device is $175 and an extra $35 will be added to the parent’s cell phone bill each month.

We originally wanted to name our product “B-Buzz,” but after searching the trademark database, the name was taken by a baseball team. While our phones are in a different industry than a baseball team, we changed the name to “Bee-Buzz” because that trade name was available. Bee-Buzz has arbitrary protection because bees are not associated with technology and cell phones. Bee-Buzz’s trademark is less protected. The Bee-Buzz trademark is a suggestive mark and therefore much less protected than our trade name.

As an Amazon product, we had done thorough and extensive due diligence for our product to cover all of our bases. Although we changed our name, we decided it would be a good idea to send a letter to the B-Buzz baseball team to inform them about the name of our product as a courtesy. Another concern with our product was the product itself, a smartphone for children. I researched to see if there were any specific concerns with the FTC and did not find any. As another courtesy, we decided to a section about children and cellphones with similar information on the FTC’s webpage. This section would also explain why Bee-Buzz devices are the perfect choice for children and parents.

The trade dress for a Bee-Buzz phone is quite unique. Durability was a major concern, so we added bouncing bumpers to protect the glass and other fragile materials on the phone. We protected the touchscreen by putting it on the inside and adding folding hinges with 180 degree protection. This added another layer of protection for the touch screen that can be easily broken.

Our packaging includes the Amazon logo and our signature honeycomb/hexagon design. The logo adds credibility to the product, whiles the pattern and colors catch the attention of potential customers.

We focused on Facebook and Instagram for advertising. We chose these two sites because our product is already featured on amazon and are great ways to reach our target audiences.