Marketing Management Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Supply chain management is not an element of market logistics, option (D). It is a broader idea that includes the whole of the supply side, from suppliers to final customers, and market logistics is only a part of it.

The elements of market logistics are order processing, warehousing, inventory and transportation. Inventory, order processing and warehousing are therefore elements and cannot be the answer.

Answer: D

The official key takes gathering market information as the function of the distribution middleman gaining most importance in modern marketing, option (D). Middlemen are close to the customers, and so they give the manufacturer information about demand, competition and preferences.

Persuasive communication, price negotiation and holding adequate inventory are older functions of the middleman and are not the ones the key takes as gaining the most weight.

Answer: D

The objective-and-task method is regarded as the most scientific way to set an advertising budget, option (D). The firm first states its advertising objectives, defines the tasks needed to reach them and estimates their cost, and the sum is the budget.

The all-you-can-afford method, the percentage of sales method and the competitive-parity method fix the budget by what the firm can spend, by sales or by what rivals spend, without relating it to what the advertising is meant to do.

Answer: C

The correct match is AIDA model with marketing communication, hierarchy of effects model with advertising effectiveness, Howard and Sheth model with consumer behaviour, and information search with the consumer buying-decision process. This is the code (b) (d) (a) (c), option (C).

AIDA and the hierarchy of effects describe how communication moves a buyer from awareness to action, while the Howard-Sheth model is a model of buyer behaviour in general. The other codes mix these up.

Answer: D

The holistic marketing concept is built on the development, design and implementation of marketing programmes, processes and activities that recognise their breadth and interdependence. Kotler describes it as having four components: relationship, integrated, internal and performance marketing.

The product concept holds that consumers favour quality products. The sales concept holds that consumers must be pushed to buy. The societal marketing concept stresses the well-being of consumers and society together with company profit. None of these emphasises the breadth and interdependence of all marketing activity.

Answer: A

The concept of the marketing mix with the 4 P's, product, price, place and promotion, was developed by E. Jerome McCarthy, who popularised it in 1960. Philip Kotler later built on it widely in his textbooks.

Peter F. Drucker is the management thinker known for management by objectives and the view that the purpose of a business is to create a customer, not for the 4 P's. Philip Kotler popularised and extended the idea but did not originate it. The fourth name is a distractor. So the first option is correct.

Answer: D

The selling concept holds that consumers will not buy enough unless the firm pushes products through aggressive selling and promotion. It is most likely to be used for unsought goods, which are goods that buyers do not normally think of buying, such as insurance or encyclopaedias, so they have to be actively sold.

Convenience goods are bought frequently with little effort, shopping goods are compared on price and quality, and speciality goods are sought out by brand-loyal buyers. For these three, buyers already come to the product, so the selling push is much less needed.

Answer: D

Everett M. Rogers wrote on the diffusion of innovation, so (a) matches (iv). J.D. Power is known for quality ratings of automobiles, so (b) matches (iii). Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry developed the service quality model, so (c) matches (i). Gronroos described three types of marketing for services, external, internal and interactive, so (d) matches (ii).

That gives (iv), (iii), (i), (ii), the fourth option. The first option pairs Rogers with automobile ratings and the second assigns every name to the wrong theory, so both fail.

Answer: B

Consumer attitudes and beliefs about diet, health and nutrition are shaped by the cultural environment, which consists of the institutions and other forces that affect a society's basic values, perceptions, preferences and behaviours. Food habits, views of what counts as healthy and attitudes to fitness all come from culture.

The economic environment affects spending power. The social environment covers groups such as family and reference groups. The natural environment covers resources and climate. Each influences consumers, but the beliefs described here are cultural values, which is the keyed answer.

Answer: D

Monetary incentives are paid in money or money's worth, such as a bonus, commission or allowances. A bonus is a monetary incentive. A staff meeting is not, as it is a non-monetary or communication tool. Travelling allowance is a reimbursement of expenses and, per the official key, is treated as not an incentive either, so both (B) and (C) are the items that are not monetary incentives.

Choosing only (A), the bonus, is wrong because that is a monetary incentive. The keyed answer is therefore 'Both (B) and (C)'.