Sample questions with analysis and answers

1. Gita wears short skirts and was bothered by strong winds, heating vents and the
tendency of her skirts to “ride up” after sitting. She has solved problem by
devising detachable lead weights for inside her skirts. She is taking a marketing
course and knows that the first step in marketing her invention is to:

a. Locate a manufacturer to make lead weights.

b. Find out if others are interested in using her product.
c. Do some advertising and then find buyers
d. Think of several variations on the basic product
e. Determine how much women are most likely to pay for this product
f. None of the above

Reasoning: The correct answer is b. The reason is quite obvious from the Coca-Cola
case. Instead of going for product decisions (option a, d), pricing decisions (option e),
promotion decisions (option d), it is more prudent to find out the requirements of the
customers. Also in the marketing process chart, customer analysis and competitor
analysis comes before development of strategy.

2. The marketing mix can be described best as:

a. Those elements of advertising strategy that produce the best return

per unit of advertising input
b. Carefully designing a product that will “compliment” other offerings
your organization already has.
c. Taking a wide variety of marketing variables and combining them as
you would “ingredients” in preparing an omelet.
d. Taking distinct, separate components and combining them into a
whole package.
e. The type of advertising done based on demographic analysis
f. None of the above

Reasoning: This is another straight forward question which asks for an analogy of
marketing mix. The correct answer is c and it depends upon your understanding of
marketing mix. Option a and e are talking about just promotion and hence they are not
the correct answer. Option b is just the product element and hence not correct. The
confusion is between c and d and the key to unearth the correct answer is as follows:
Whether a+b+c+d = K or a+b+c+d > K. Option d is talking about equal to option whereas
option c is talking about the greater than option. Obviously, taste of omelet is much
better than each element of an omelet (onion, salt, butter, tomato, egg / Dosa batter etc.)
eaten separately. On similar line, marketing mix which leads to marketing strategy,
contributes much more collectively than each item of marketing mix.