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Section C. Essay Question

Q1 Discuss the consumer decision-making process for purchasing nappies and a new TV respectively, with reference to differences across segments.

Answer Typically, the decision-making process occurs on a scale spanning habitual, limited over extended forms. When consumers make important purchasing decisions, they go through a set of five steps. First, they recognise there is a problem to be solved and search for information to make the best decision. They then evaluate a set of alternatives and judge them on the basis of various evaluative criteria. At this point, they are ready to make their purchasing decision. Following the purchase, consumers decide whether it matched their expectation. Several internal factors influence consumer decisions. Perception is how consumers select, organise and interpret stimuli. Motivation is an internal state that drives consumers to satisfy needs. Learning is a change in behaviour that results from information or experience. For, smaller decisions, consumers often have more habitual decision-making, drawing hedonic considerations that occur from environmental cues. The challenge for the students in this question is to demonstrate understanding that the decision-making style is not inherently coupled to the product, but to context and the needs and desires in the consumer segment. Thus, while an ordinary consumers may spend months deciding on a new TV, this may be a habitual purchase for a millionaire (demographic segmentation). Similarly, a nappies bar may be a casual purchase for an average parent, but for low-income consumers may be associated with an extended decision-making strategy. Demonstrating this distinction addresses the learning goals in the module specification, as the question requires the student to ‘reflect’, ‘discuss’, and ‘analyse’, rather than merely describe or define the meanings of basic terms.

Q2. You want to start a chain of automobile dealerships in France and the United States respectively. Discuss the basics of marketing planning and the marketing mix tools with special reference to the external environment.

Answer Marketing planning is one type of functional planning. Marketing planning begins with an evaluation of the internal and external environments. Marketing managers then set marketing objectives usually related to the firm’s brands, sizes, product features and other marketing mix related elements. Next, marketing managers select the target market(s) for the organisation and decide what marketing mix strategies they will use. Product strategies include decisions about products and product characteristics that will appeal to the target market. Pricing strategies state the specific prices to be charged to channel members and final consumers. Promotion strategies include plans for advertising, sales promotion, public relations, publicity, personal selling and direct marketing used to reach the target market. Distribution strategies outline how the product will be made available to targeted customers when and where they want it. Once the marketing strategies are developed, they must be implemented. Control is the measurement of actual performance and comparison with planned performance. Maintaining control implies the need for concrete measures of marketing performance called marketing metrics. All these aspects should include examples from the organisation of the student’s choice.

The challenge for the student is to consider on the impact of the external environment to the marketing mix. Thus, differences car culture in France and America respectively, will pay an enormous impact on the product. One country favours large, cross-country cars, four wheel drives in a very large country with liberal pollution laws. The other favours smaller cars, urban functionality and are subject to EU regulations on emissions. The ideal is for the student to demonstrate how the change in the product offering in these two contexts impacts the other elements in the marketing mix, such as price and promotion. Demonstrating the effect of differing context for the 4Ps addresses the learning goals in the module specification, as the question requires the student to ‘reflect’, ‘discuss’, and ‘analyse’, rather than merely describe or define the meanings of basic terms.

Q3. Discuss and compare how firms could manage products throughout the product life cycle for the latest iPhone vs Colgate toothpaste respectively with special reference to the marketing mix.

Answer The product life cycle explains how products go through four stages from birth to death. During the introduction stage, marketers seek to get buyers to try the product and may use high prices to recover research and development costs or low prices to get it into the market. During the growth stage, characterized by rapidly increasing sales, marketers may introduce new product variations. In the maturity stage, sales peak and level off. Marketers respond by adding desirable new product features or with market development strategies. During the decline stage, firms must decide whether to phase a product out slowly, to drop it immediately, or, if there is residual. The challenge for the student is to reflect on the length of the product life. While a mobile phone model lasts a year or two before becoming obsolete, this Colgate Toothpaste has been around since 1873. Here the student must consider these issues and evaluate how the four P are modified. Good answers will think about place (new markets), Product (upgraded versions for the phone or added ingredients), Pricing, and Promotion in meaningful ways. The best answers will be able to articulate how the lifespan of a product is not inherent, but predicated and contextualized by the status of the market. Thus, the good answers will address developments in for example Samsung and Sensodyne product offerings to explain why iPhone and Colgate begin to age as products. Demonstrating this understanding addresses the learning goals in the module specification, as the question requires the student to ‘reflect’, ‘discuss’, and ‘analyse’, rather than merely describe or define the meanings of basic terms....