战略营销Test-BankChapter-4-Question-Bank-7-28-2017.docx

Marketing Strategy: Based on First Principles and Data Analytics

Marketing Strategy:
Based on First Principles and Data Analytics

Question Bank

Chapter 4 Question Bank

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

1) Which of the following is true? (check all that apply)
a) The persistent efforts by all firms in the market to copy and innovate, such that all competitors react, constitutes a third challenge that managers confront
b) When managers develop their marketing strategies, they need to consider customers heterogeneity and dynamism, but also anticipate competitors’ reactions, now and in the future.
c) Typically a firm must establish the sustainable position with a targeted customer group before they can build an SCA around that position
d) Of the four First Principles of marketing, managing SCA may be the least difficult to execute
Answer: A, B, and C.

2) When those competitors try a new tactic, the battlefield shifts, so the firm must adapt its SCA to protect its __________ or else give up the fight and move on to a new battleground for a different customer segment.
a) Lowest price
b) Cost-leadership
c) Customer Segment
d) Market sensing capability
Answer: C
3) GE accordingly has transformed from an industrial products company to a __________, and then again to a ________ in response to the modern marketplace, such that it constantly has developed significantly different and novel SCA along the way.
a) Massive customer portfolio, service-based industry
b) Digital industry company, service-based business
c) Massive customer portfolio, digital industry company
d) Service-based business, digital industry company
Answer: D
4) Focusing only on competitors often ____________________________________________:
a) Helps firms better understand their customers’ needs and desires
b) Leaves firms blind to changes in their customers’ needs and desires
c) Helps firms increase their customer base
d) None of the above
Answer: B
5) Competitors can overcome a firm’s SCA by applying the following strategies (check all that apply)?
a) Exploiting changes in customers’ desires due to cultural, environmental, or other factors
b) “Me-too” copycats that improve the efficiency/effectiveness of an existing execution
c) Technical innovations that provide them a platform to launch a disruptive offering
d) All of the above
Answer: D

6) Using brands as an SCA is most effective in _______, __________ markets.
a) Large, B2B
b) Small, B2B
c) Large, B2C
d) Large, B2C
Answer: D

7) True comprehension of customers occurs at ____________, but strategic and resource decisions occur at ____________:
a) Macro levels, Micro levels
b) Interior level, Exterior level
c) Micro levels, Macro levels
d) None of the above
Answer: C
8) While making Brand, Offering, and Relational (BOR) strategic decisions, ____________ are normally determined last, because they involve the delivery and experiential aspect of offerings.
a) Offering decisions
b) Relationship strategies
c) Brand decisions
d) None of the above
Answer: B
9) BOR equities are similar to _____________:
a) Tangible assets
b) Intangible assets
c) Shareholders’ equity
d) None of the above
Answer: A
10) ______________ is the largest barrier to competitive attacks:
a) Interpersonal relationships between producers and consumers
b) Matching consumer preferences
c) Mass marketing
d) None of the above
Answer: A
11) A brand can provide a relative advantage when:
a) It aligns better with customers’ needs than competitors’ brands
b) It successfully replicates its competitor’s ideas
c) It recognizes changing market needs
d) None of the above
Answer: A
12) Fulfilling a SCA better than its competitors is particularly critical in:
a) More mature product/market segments
b) Rapidly growing segments
c) New product/market segments
d) None of the above
Answer: A
13) Using relationships as an SCA is most effective in ___________________ setting (check all that apply):
a) B2B
b) B2C
c) Service
d) Complex offering
Answer: A, C & D
14) New product failure rates are approximately 60 percent, and the top reason reported for product failures often is the ____
a) Price of the new offering.
b) Lack of need for the new offering
c) Design of the old offering
d) Design of the new offering.
Answer: B
15) Good brands (check all that apply)
a) Create images that reside in consumers’ minds
b) Are hard to duplicate
c) Do not compete on price
d) facilitates habitual buying through awareness
Answer: A, B & D.
16) Good offerings (check all that apply)
a) Have great costs benefits
b) Have performance advantages
c) Provide access to distribution channels
d) Fashion great brands
Answer: A, B & C.
17) Good customer relationships (check all that apply)
a) Build great consumer trust
b) Develop interpersonal reciprocity among consumers
c) Are primarily suitable in business-to-business markets
d) Works well in situations with complex products
Answer: A, B & D.
18) Arrange in order:

1. Pre-Industrial Age
2. Service Revolution
3. Industrial Revolution
4. Technology Revolution

a) 1, 3, 4, 2
b) 1, 2, 3, 4
c) 1, 4, 2, 3
d) 1, 2, 4, 3
Answer: A.
19) Which of the following is true about the customer equity perspective:
a) Customers are considered a financial asset, which should be measured, managed, and maximized
b) Treat customers just like other assets even though accountants typically don’t treat “customers” as an asset
c) Customer equity is easily calculable on the balance sheet: spending on building equity (e.g., brands, R&D, relationships) is treated as an expense
d) All of the above
Answer: A & B.
20) We need customer-centric accounting because (check all that apply):
a) It is the primary driver of a firm’s sales and profits
b) Next to products, brands, offerings and relationships are the secondary drivers of profits
c) It captures the long-term impact of marketing actions
d) All of the above
Answer: A & C.
21) Offering equity is less important for (check all that apply):
a) Services
b) High involvement products
c) Maturing markets/industries
d) All of the above
Answer: D.
22) Relationships equity is more important for (check all that apply):
a) Business-to-consumer services
b) Business-to-business services
c) Long product cycles
d) Complex products
Answer: B, D.
23) Causality implies (check all that apply):
a) the independent variable and outcome variable co-vary together
b) the independent variable precedes the outcome variable in time
c) alternative explanations for the measured effect can be ruled out
d) all of the above
Answer: D.
24) The customer equity perspective requires (check all that apply):
a) building and maintaining a parallel “customer-centric accounting process,” outside the firm’s normal financial accounting process
b) recognizing that firms’ primary SCA result from their BOR investments and strategies
c) recognizing that firms’ SCA never come from deep and low-cost financial resources, human resource strategies, and operational processes
d) All of the above
Answer: A, B.
25) The three key inputs to creating SCA are ___, AER strategies, and ____:
a) BOR strategies, lost custom analysis
b) Positioning statements, future trends,
c) Positioning statements, BOR strategies
d) BOR strategies, future trends
Answer: B.
26) The key outputs of creating SCA are ___, AER strategies, and ____:
a) BOR strategies, lost custom analysis
b) Positioning statements, future trends
c) Positioning statements, BOR strategies
d) SCA statements, BOR strategies
Answer: D.
27) The output of MP#2 is a _____ of customer heterogeneity and dynamics in the firm’s customer _____, it captures the most effective AER strategies for each relevant persona.
a) Microanalysis, portfolio
b) Statement, marketing-mix
c) AER grid, BOR stack
Portfolio, BOR stack
Answer: A.
28) Which of the following is true? (check all that apply)
a) A firm should make brand decisions, which are influenced by the firm’s overall positioning objectives from MP#1 and MP#2 and largely determine how the firm will be positioned in the overall marketplace and in existing customers’ minds
b) The firm can then focus on its offering decisions; product and service innovation and R&D efforts need to support both brand strategies and the firms positioning objectives
c) Relationship strategies normally are determined last, because they involved the delivery and experiential aspect because in this case, boundary spanners are critical to the customer experience and the firm’s overall value proposition
d) All of the above
Answer: D.
29) Using the inputs from the AER strategy grid and key environmental trends, the BOR equity grid can be completed to describe three key pieces of information for the BOR strategies: Marketing objectives, ____________, and maintaining the SCA over time.
a) AER strategy
b) Relative advantages over competition
c) BOR stack
d) All of the above
Answer: B.
TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS
30) Industrialization increased the importance of brands as a means to increase market competition.
Answer: FALSE (Distinguish among products and provide a signal of quality of the offerings)
31) A firm has a sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) when it is able to generate more customer value than competitive firms in its industry for the same set of products and service categories and when these other firms are unable to duplicate its effective strategy.
Answer: TRUE

32) Maintaining a relative advantage over moderate competitors is particularly difficult, because they benefit from factors such as free-rider effects.
Answer: FALSE (Early followers / “Me-too” competitors)
33) Using offerings as an SCA can be effective, because new and innovative products/services are tough to build and require low investment in time and money.
Answer: FALSE (easy to build)
34) These three sources of sustainable competitive advantage—brands, offerings, and relationships (BOR)—are additive and often work in a compensatory manner to give a firm a strong relative position in the marketplace.
Answer: FALSE (additive and synergistically)
35) Technical innovations represent a powerful foundation for launching a new offering that will make existing products or services obsolete
Answer: TRUE.
36) Since brand building can be hard to target, brand equity is better for offerings with large heterogeneous user group.
Answer: FALSE (homogenous).
37) A third input to the managing SCA framework is long-term technology, regulatory, and socioeconomic trends, which clearly can disrupt any organization’s SCAs.
Answer: TRUE.
38) Detailed AER strategies – aggregate and reorganize each targeted customer segment and persona according to its needs; the most effective strategies across time (accounting for customer dynamics) are in the brand, offering, and relationship categories
Answer: FALSE (Detailed BOR Strategies).
ESSAY TYPE QUESTIONS

39) Write a short note about the evolution of sustainable competitive advantage in marketing.

Answer: Prior to the industrial age, business transactions occurred in local markets, where farmers and craftspeople sold their wares directly to local customers. These “producers” were often both the manufacturer and retailer, and most retailers serviced a small geographical area, which made interpersonal relationships between producers and consumers the largest barrier to competitive attacks. Similarly, relationships led to trust among merchants in the exchange of goods that were not locally produced. Thus trade only occurred among groups with ongoing trusted relationships such as merchants along the “silk route”.
The Industrial Revolution changed these exchange characteristics. Manufacturers used the economies of scale associated with mass production to produce a large volume of products at low cost, but these goods also required shipping, storage, and sales across a larger geographic area. The technological revolution that began in the late 1950s, with the shift from analog and mechanical technologies and then to digital computers and digital recordings, in turn, shifted the focus to new and innovative offerings as a key source of SCA. Many modern CEOs regard innovation as critical to their firms’ future competitiveness and an important source of SCA, required to both protect existing positions and expand into new markets. Over time, the primary source of SCA thus has evolved: relationships in early markets, brands in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution with the emergence of middlemen and retailers, and innovative offerings following the technology revolution and its significant disruptions to ongoing industries and firms. However, we also highlight that each new SCA adds to the last source of SCA, rather than displacing it.
40) What is the customer equity perspective?
Answer: Customer equity for a firm refers to “the total of the discounted lifetime values of all its customers”. When a firm advertises to build strong brands, makes R&D investments to develop innovative products, or spends to hire and train salespeople who can enter into relationships with clients, it should increase that firm’s brand, offering, and relational equities. Together these three BOR equities constitute the firm’s customer equity and often is the best barrier (SCA) to competitive assault, sometimes termed a BOR Equity Stack. A customer equity perspective recommends regarding customers as financial assets, such that they can be measured, managed, and maximized, similar to any other firm asset (e.g., land, buildings, equipment, intellectual property). Customer equity for a firm refers to “the total of the discounted lifetime values of all its customers.” When a firm advertises to build strong brands, makes R&D investments to develop innovative products, or spends to hire and train salespeople who can enter into relationships with clients, it should increase that firm’s brand, offering, and relational equities. Together, these forms constitute the firm’s customer equity and thus the best barrier (SCA) to competitive assault.
However, accountants treat these assets very differently than other, more tangible assets that appear in a firm’s financial statements. For example, marketing costs appear as an annual expense, implying (falsely) that all the benefits of this spending occur in the same year. Marketing spending also is not regarded as an investment to build an asset; instead, it appears on a firm’s balance sheet as an expense, completely spent by the end of the year. Such treatments are clearly inaccurate, especially as research and practice confirm that brand and relationship assets persist for extend periods and can create important SCA.
41) What is the BOR equity stack?
Answer: Three equities combine in an additive customer or BOR equity stack: Relationship eq