Question No.1 3
Question No. 2 4
Question No. 4 5
Question No.5 5
Question No.6 5
Question No.7 6
Question No-8 7
Other: Question No.1 8
Question No-5 (Other) 9
Question No.6 (Other) 9
Marketing Final Exam
Question No.1
Distinguish between a product item, product line, and product mix. What are the four advantages (benefits in this sense) of product lines? Do not use examples in the product concept slides. Choose your own. Include a photo to illustrate items, lines, and mixes.
Advantages of Product Line
Life Cycle
Expansion of product line is also a growth strategy for small businesses. In the last stage of product life cycle, it is significant that the company has expanded its product line. There are four main stages of a product: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. When a product is no longer can fulfill the requirements of the consumer, it is dependent on the presence of advanced technology or newer material. The existing and new products can compete effectively in the modern market, with time to time upgrade of technology to avoid losing business to competitors.
Market Opportunities
In different market sectors, companies are able to take advantage of opportunities with the help of product line expansion. For instance, a manufacturer of pet food might offer a pedigree version to gain profit and competitive edge in present offerings. A consultancy of IT support can expand its business and profitability by providing domestic troubleshooting broadband service. Companies can maintain a competitive edge in the market by the expanding their product lines by altering their services and products according to the requirement of the customers.
Customer Needs
Product line expansion is dependent on the introduction of product that are according to the changing requirements of the customers. There are many means of customer feedbacks available online with the help of social media – monitoring customer comments and creating surveys regarding product improvements is necessary. When more favorable comments are available regarding the particular features of the product is available that means the company can work on creating a product line and expand their business. Customers are usually invited to be a part of the contribution and collaboration for product development highlighting attention on development priorities and focusing on opportunities.
Customer Loyalty
Customer loyalty can be increased by creating a product line. Variety of existing products and adding new products associated with the previous one enables the company to see more to the present customers, instead of investing additional cost on acquiring new customers. The purchasing records of the existing customers is researched to recognize the supply pattern of certain products.
Question No. 2
How can we distinguish among brand name, brand marks, trademarks, and trade names? Give some examples of each, not included in your study slides?
Question No. 4
Co-branding and Ingredient branding are common “branding strategies”. Explain the differences and give me one example of each.
Question No.5
Packaging is a science and an art. We named four basic functions of packaging. Choose another package well and explain how basic four functions are exemplified in the packaging.
- Promotion and selling the product – identification of the productand producer yellow and black colored packaging of the Kodak roll.
- Product protection – the quality and image are protected through packaging example the negatives of the picture are protected through proper packaging.
- Provide Information – potential hazard, guarantees, symbols, and content.
- Protecting the Product- during protecting from spoilage, preventing shoplifting, and storage.
Question No.6
With regards to labeling, we note that the label itself can be either or both persuasive and informational. Give/Explain two examples of how information is important to marketing managers. Name the package products.
The communication process through graphical or written interpretation to provide knowledge of the product that the company wants the customer to know is done through labeling. It is a connecting point between buyer and seller.
- Information flow – Providing information of the product, usage, and a necessity. It is how the managers of the company tell the consumer what the product is all about.
- Usage- A consumer finds labeling process important because of the usage process. Example Prozac and Xannaxare medication drugs that have details regarding prescription.
- Marketing – Labeling is now an important aspect of marketing. It helps them to identify the uniqueness of the product. A successful and proper labeling can help in selling the product.
- Awareness – Spreading awareness of the product to the masses.
Question No.7
There are 5 key steps of segmenting the market. Name each step, explain why each step is necessary and using the “segmentation box” to illustrate a service segmentation of your choice.
- Potential Buyers are grouped into segments: the characteristics of the buyers in the segment should have similar characteristics; they should respond each other in a similar way in a market to the lower price and new product.
- Group product should be sold in categories: there should be meaningful groups formed of the products related to each other. In a consumer market, it is easier to classify the product into categories for the customer at the time of selling.
- Estimating the market size and developing the market product grid:
A product grid is developed according to the estimated size of the market in every product cell resulting table and the targets of the market segments will assist in product groupings offered.
- Target market selection:
An organization should select appropriate and focus on the segments of target market
Selecting the target market segments on which the organization should focus. The compatibility with the resources and objectives of the organization should be considered according to the expected competitive position, compatibility, and cost of reaching the segments.
- Reaching target market by taking appropriate actions
In the form of marketing program, it involves taking marketing mix action to reach the target market segments.
The above mentioned five steps are necessary to associate the requirement of organization’s marketing program to recognize the requirement of market as well as gather the term benefits of the expenses, savings through convenience, savings, and quality.
Example:
Beauty Parlor services near university:
- Potential buyers are grouped into segments:
The buyers of service will be grouped on the basis of following segments:
- Non-Students
- Group services to be sold into categories
- Manicures
- Pedicures
- Hair cut
- Facials
Question No-8
Describe the five elements of promotion mix; include the relative strengths and weaknesses. Illustrate and draw the product life cycle. Explain the primary promotional objective for the first three stages and specifically what activities are performed in each.
A promotional mix is different from marketing mix, but an aspect of marketing. In promotional mix several aspects of marketing are covered to approach the broad and targeted customers to promote the goods and services. It includes the following mediums such as public relations, personal selling, print advertisements, television advertising, internet advertising, and direct marketing. In promotional mix, the image of a company is also part of marketing because sales are reduced due to a bad image of the company.
Product Life Cycle Stages
The four stages of product life cycle have their own characteristics which define different aspects for the business to increase the life span of a specific product.
Introduction Stage – It is the most expensive stage for the company that is based on product launching. In this phase, the product has a small target market, and the sales are less (increasing gradually). The company has to invest on different aspects like development and research, marketing and consumer testing to launch the product in a higher market, especially in the competitive sector.
Growth Stage – A phase of the product that is mainly characterized by strong growth in profits and sales, the company in this duration is starting to gain benefit from the production scale of the economy, leading towards increase in the overall amount of profits. It makes easier to forecast the future of the promotional activities of the product to gain maximum growth.
Maturity Stage – The purpose of the manufacturer during this phase of maturity is to maintain the share market that is created in the growth period. It is the most competitive period for several businesses and products, in any marketing undertake they need to invest wisely. It is also important to consider if any improvements or product modification to the process production which would require competitive advantage.
Decline Stage – The product market will eventually start to decrease, which leads to the declining stage. It is because of the market saturation, since the target customers have purchased or experienced the services are now moving towards a different product or service. In many cases, the product decline is unavoidable, in this it is still possible for the companies to gain profit by adopting production methods that are less cheap in the market and less expensive.
Other: Question No.1
You are a luncheon speaker at a local chamber of commerce meeting. You have been asked to explain the domain of marketing in large, modern, and global corporations. You have decided to talk about domain of marketing.
During the period of 1969 and 1972, there were dramatic and redefined changes in the domain of the marketing discipline. The concept of marketing was broadened initially by Kotler and Levy in 1969. Later, the marketing was applied to the planning of social change in the research by Kotler and Zaltman, 1971. However, the general concept of marketing was expressed by Kotler in 1972. The general concept of marketing articulated that marketing can be applied to every kind of exchanges not only commercial exchange between supplier and customer. Application of marketing concept was expanded by including government bodies, nonprofit organizations, and social causes have created new grounds for research.
After policy makers realized that social media needs to be applied in diversified context that is now more than regular promotion and wider than initially envisioned.In the modern world, marketing has been taken by a swing through social media. Regardless of the conceptual changes during the 1970s which led to the expansion of marketing domain from only business purpose to development in marketing education, social causes, and has continuously dominated through commercial perspective. There have been issues a raised related to the appropriateness or in any other way applications of marketing tools, changes in behaviors and selling of ideas are considered as the important aspect of general marketing.
There has been new technology adopted by the social media marketing strategist while addressing the issues related to social media marketing. In the behavior of marketers, there is constant willingness to adopt changes for campaigns and providing leverage to the social media influence to create behavioral changes. New approaches have been integrated into the customer driven content.
Question No-5 (Other)
Best Price = $ 399 [End User]Firm’s Margin = 50%Distributor’s Margin = 50%Retailers Rebate = 25%
Best Price = $ 399Retailer Rebate = (100)______________________________ $ 299Distributor’s Margin (75)______________________________
$ 224Firm’s Policy (112)______________________________
Manufacturing Price $ 112
Question No.6 (Other)
Distributor Margin = 25%Manufacturer Margin = 40%Cost = xPrice= $600____________________________
x + 0.25x + 0.4x = 600x + 0.65x = 6001.65x = 600x = 600/1.65x = 363.63Cost of Device = $363.63Manufacturer Margin= 0.4x = $ 145.45____________________________________
Cost + Manufacturer + Distributor = Price$363.63 + $145.45 + $ 90.90 = $600
