Reference no: EM132208983
Mid-Term Exam
Instructions: Please answer directly (i.e., this is not an essay exam). However, be sure to cover the question entirely. This is an open note exam- BUT it is expected to be taken individually.
1. William Burns owns an extremely profitable sea-side resort. In order to increase his resort’s brand value, Burns is considering cause-marketing. You are his marketing director. Develop three cause-marketing campaigns that will help him achieve this goal?
2. Assume that you have been given the task of assisting a company in designing its marketing planning process. What components should be in such a process? Give a fictional analysis.
3. Hot Topic, a chain that sells rock-band-inspired clothes for teens, recently launched Torrid to give plus-size teens the same fashion options. Identify the three parts of the value delivery process and their function for Hot Topic. As a marketer, how would use create value for Torrid? Propose three marketing value plans.
4. In the central role of strategic planning, only a handful of companies stand out as master marketers—Procter & Gamble, Southwest Airlines, Nike, Disney, Nordstrom, Wal-Mart, and McDonald’s to name a few. From a consumer’s perspective, why do you think they stand out? Explain in detail.
5. Identify and define the elements of a tactical marketing plan for a new kind of cola.
6. How are household patterns anticipated to change over the next few years? What will be the impact of such changes on the demand for different goods? Use your final project company, and discuss your marketing plan as a result of these shifts in household patterns.
7. The United States has one of the world’s highest percentages of college-educated citizens. What can be the possible implications of this observation to the marketing environment of a U.S. firm? Discuss how this statistic will impact marketing for your final project.
8. Suppose the people of Greenworld, an island on the southwest Pacific are primarily involved in the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either. On the contrary people in Newland, a country rich in petroleum resources export petroleum to the industrial countries. Which of the two countries mentioned above is likely to offer greater marketing opportunities for luxurious goods and why? As a marketer for a high-end product (you determine the product), explain how you would market the product to the chosen location.
9. Philips Lighting’s first shot at marketing a standalone compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb was Earth Light, at $15 each versus 75 cents for incandescent bulbs. The product had difficulty climbing out of its deep green niche, as such marketing efforts of Philips suffered from the “green marketing myopia”. Identify and discuss three ways of avoiding this.
10. Simpsons, a manufacturer of air conditioners, finds that its sales potential is less than its market potential even when it spends a sufficient amount on advertisements and after sale services. What is the basic reason behind such an observation by the marketers of Simpsons? Discuss how to deal with this issue.
11. Assume that you are a marketing manager for a youth clothing manufacturer that has just read about the megatrend of the “rising Hispanic influence” in the United States. Explain this mega trend and indicate why it might be important to your company. How would you create marketing to attract this consumer?
12. Cell phone manufacturer LZT has to choose between two options for sourcing parts: Japan-based Keiko Inc. and U.S.-based Global Tech. Though Keiko’s products are priced lower than Global’s, the non-monetary costs of doing business with Keiko may lead LZT to choose Global Tech. What can Keiko do to obtain LZT’s order?
13. CJ’s is a clothes retailer that grew from a single store into a chain over a few years. The key service characteristic during CJ’s early years was a personalized customer relationship, and the company continues to collect information about its customers and maintain a database. Recently, however, CJ’s has been losing customers to competitors as the expansion has made it difficult to personalize services. How can CJ’s use its customer database to reactivate customer purchases? Discuss in detail
14. People from the same subculture, social class, and occupation may lead quite different lifestyles. A lifestyle is a person’s pattern of living in the world as expressed in activities, interests, and opinions. Lifestyle portrays the “whole person” interacting with his or her environment. Given this information, describe the LOHAS (an acronym) lifestyle described in the text and its usefulness in marketing. How would you use LOHAS for your final project company?
15. Generation Y members are often turned off by overt branding practices and “hard sell.” List and provide examples for the different approaches tried by the marketers to reach and persuade them.
16. Give three examples of how a company might target products to children in an ethical way. Discuss why these would be effective.
17. Tide laundry detergent maintains the same market share it had 50 years ago because of the sales contributions from its various line extensions. It can be said that Tide employs a preemptive cannibalization strategy in generating line extensions. What does this mean? Why do they choose to use this strategy? Thinking of your final project company, would this strategy work for you- why or why not?
18. As a brand manager, you would like to have your brand (brand name) be protectable. Explain what you mean by “protectable” and give an illustration.
19. Randall Ringer and Michael Thibodeau see narrative branding as based on deep metaphors that connect to people’s memories, associations, and stories. Briefly describe their framework for a brand story. Create a brand story for a well-known campaign.