Midterm Open Questions

Question 1

Environmental Scanning

Answer 1

Smart marketing managers take a proactive rather than a reactive approach to the publics and forces
in their marketing environment.
– Determine the environmental areas that need to be monitored
– Determine how the information will be collected, including information sources, the information
frequency, and who will be responsible
– Implement the data collection plan
– Analyze the data and use them in the market planning process

Question 2

Explain the model of buyer behavior.

Answer 2

The company that really understands how consumers will respond to different product features, prices,
and advertising appeals has a great advantage over its competitors.

Their starting point is the model of buyer behavior.
– This figure shows that marketing and other stimuli enter the consumer’s “black box” and produce
certain responses.
– Marketers must determine what is in the buyer’s black box.
– The black box has two parts: First, a buyer’s characteristics influence how he or she perceives and
reacts to the stimuli; Second, the buyer’s decision process itself affects outcomes.
The marketing stimuli consist of the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion.
Other stimuli include major forces and events in the buyer’s environment: economic, technological,
political, and cultural
All these stimuli enter the buyer’s black box, where they are turned into the set of observable buyer
responses shown on the right: product choice, brand choice, dealer choice, purchase timing, and
purchase amount.

Question 3

Selective disortion

Answer 3

Selective distortion is the tendency to twist information into personal meanings and interpret
information in a way that will fit our preconceptions.

Question 4

What factors do convention planners think the most important when choosing a destination?

Answer 4

• availability hotels & facilities
• ease of transportation
• Transportation costs
• distance from attendees
• climate
• recreation
• sights & cultural activities

Question 5

What is “Incentive travel”? Discuss the function of this trip based upon “Herzberg dual factor
theory”.

Answer 5

Incentive travel:

• reward for achieving or exceeding a goals
• destination and hotel should be special to the tourists

-> climate, recreational facilities, sightseeing opportunities

-> average expenditure is increasing

current trend: keep trips short, focus on getting employees back

Question 6

Segmentation criteria

Answer 6

• Geographic
• Demographic
• phychographic
• behavirorial

Question 7

Explain what is “Undifferentiated marketing”, “Differentiated marketing” & “Concentrated marketing”.

Answer 7

Undifferentiated marketing: - focusses on what is comment in the needs of consumers
- provides cost economies
- difficult to develop a product that satisfy all or even most consumers

Differentiated marketing:
- company targets several market segments & designs separate offers for each
( actor hotel operates under twelve trade names & manages several hotels)

Concentrated marketing:
- firm pursues a large share of one or a few small markets

(four seasons, the company can enjoy many operative economies)

Question 8

Overall interpretation of “Positioning Map”

Answer 8

Perceptual mapping, a research tool, is sometimes used to measure a brand’s position.
– This slide is an example of hotels plotted on the attributes of price and perceived service.
– On this map we see there is a correlation between service and price; as price goes up, so does
service.
Perceptual maps can also be developed using consumers’ perceptions of a number of product attributes.
– Increased competition or an ineffective positioning strategy can make repositioning necessary.
– Perceptual maps provide data supporting the need for repositioning.