Question

1) Ready-to-eat foods are very profitable. To make it even more so, suggest two strategies to change the breadth and width of the retailer's product line. (4 points)

2) Explain what a distribution strategy is and identify the main activities associated with the distribution channel, the supply chain and logistics management. What are two ways that supply chain management adds value to a business’s offer to both consumers and business partners? (4 points)

3) You have been waiting in your doctor’s waiting room for an hour. Knowing that the products are different from the services, name a list of measures (3 measures) that the office manager could take to improve the overall service delivery. Consider how it might address the problems associated with the intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability and perishability of services. (4 points)

4) Juicy Couture, a designer jeans manufacturer, has developed a new integrated marketing communications plan. The company chose to advertise their jeans during the CBC / Radio-Canada news, and in Maclean’s and Les Affaires magazines. Its advertisement announces the new styles of the season and features a 17-year-old young model. Evaluate this strategy. (4 points)

5) Apple has launched its latest iPhone model, an innovative technology. How quickly do you think this product will be adopted by Canadians? Describe the type of consumers who represent each of the categories for the dissemination of innovations. (4 points)

6) Explain the advantages and disadvantages of Dell's decision to abandon its direct distribution strategy and turn to multichannel distribution. (Two advantages and two disadvantages of abandoning its direct distribution strategy and two advantages and two disadvantages of opting for a multichannel strategy). (4 points)

7) Mazda is about to launch a new model of car. The company is now in the marketing study phase of the new product development process. What are two ways to conduct the market research that precedes the launch of the new model? (4 points)

8) Bernard, a local furniture maker, targets college and university students living in apartments and young households who buy their first furniture. If you worked for Bernard, what type of media (3 types of media) would you choose for your advertising campaign? Explain your answer. Should Bernard base his advertising calendar on continuous, ad hoc or wave advertising? Why? (4 points)

9) Suppose you have just landed a job as a marketing consultant for a jeweler. The latter has produced a private label for 75 years, but he is thinking of creating his own brand of jewelry. Outline two advantages and two disadvantages of this strategy. (4 points)

10) A dry cleaner in your area has asked you to perform a tolerance zone analysis for their customers. You’ve found that the tolerance zones for reliability and readiness are much larger than those for the other three dimensions of service quality. You also noted that the dry cleaner is above the tolerance range for reliability, but below it for speed. What advice (advice on reliability and advice on readiness) should you give to the manager of the dry cleaner? (4 points)

Answer 1

1) Ready-to-eat foods are very profitable. To make it even more so, suggest two strategies to change the breadth and width of the retailer's product line.

The breadth or width of the product line refers to how many products line a company offers. This is often done to increase the market share by catering to more consumers' needs and demands through different products.

For example, P&G offers products in oral care, laundry products as well as personal hygiene. These are the product lines offered by the company and represents the width of its product line.

In this case, to change the width of the product line, the retailer can:-

Offer frozen meals that can be baked or fried or cooked at the consumer's convenient time. While similar to ready-to-eat foods, frozen foods will offer a fresher experience and taste for the consumers.

Offer a variety of sauces and dips in a variety of flavors. This would help the consumers in having their favorite sauces without having to prepare them and will exmpand the width of the rteialer's rpoxcut line.