MN3141 ZB

BSc DEGREES AND GRADUATE DIPLOMAS IN ECONOMICS, MANAGEMENT,

FINANCE AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, THE DIPLOMA IN ECONOMICS AND
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND THE CERTIFICATE IN EDUCATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Summer 2021 Online Assessment Instructions

MN3141 Principles of Marketing

Tuesday, 18 May 2021: 06:00 – 12:00 (BST)

The assessment will be an open-book take-home online assessment within a 6-

hour window. The requirements for this assessment remain the same as the closed-
book exam, with an expected time/effort of 3 hours.

Candidates should answer FOUR of the following EIGHT questions. All questions carry
equal marks.

Each answer must not exceed 750 words (3,000 words for the whole paper).
Anything beyond 750 words will not be read. The word limit is to discourage
spending beyond the 3 hours expected time/effort by producing excessively lengthy
responses. Any citations, references and direct quotations citations/references are
included in the word count. Any figures, graphs or tables are excluded from the word
count.

You should complete this paper using word processing software (i.e. Microsoft
Word). This should be saved as a .doc or .docx file and then uploaded to the VLE
as ONE individual file including the coversheet. Each page should have your
candidate number in the header. Please do not write your name anywhere on
any part of your submission.

You have until midday 12:00 (BST) on 18 May 2021 to upload your file into the VLE
submission portal. However, you are advised not to leave your submission to the last
minute in order to allow sufficient time to upload your work.

If you think there is any information missing or any error in any question, then you
should indicate this but proceed to answer the question stating any assumptions
you have made.

© University of London 2021

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The assessment has been designed with a duration of 6 hours to provide a more
flexible window in which to complete the assessment and to appropriately test the
course learning outcomes. As an open-book exam, the expected amount of effort
required to complete all questions and upload your answers during this window is no
more than 3 hours. Organise your time well.

You are assured that there will be no benefit in you going beyond the expected 3 hours
of effort. Your assessment has been carefully designed to help you show what you
have learned in the hours allocated.

You are not expected to compile a full bibliography for each essay-based answer. As
per the examination when taken under standard examination centre conditions, you are
expected to use normal in-text referencing: i.e. listing (Author, Year, Page). When
inserting a section of text from someone else’s work in your own, you must use
quotation marks and add a reference to the source in (Author, Year, Page) format to
make clear that you are citing verbatim.

This is an open-book assessment and as such you may have access to additional
materials including but not limited to subject guides and any recommended reading. But
the work you submit is expected to be 100% your own. Therefore, unless instructed
otherwise, you must not collaborate or confer with anyone during the assessment. The
University of London will carry out checks to ensure the academic integrity of your work.
Many students that break the University of London’s assessment regulations did not
intend to cheat but did not properly understand the University of London’s regulations
on referencing and plagiarism. The University of London considers all forms of
plagiarism, whether deliberate or otherwise, a very serious matter and can apply severe
penalties that might impact on your award.

The University of London 2020-21 Procedure for the Consideration of Allegations of

Assessment Offences is available online at:

Assessment Offence Procedures - University of London

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 1. The table below shows the costs and benefits for consumers of buying sports
shoes. Also shown are the scores that a representative sample of consumers in
this category awarded each of those consequences. The final three columns
show how these consumers rated the different brands on each criterion.

Criterion Evaluation Easystride Speeder Xpress

Feels +9 3 6 8
comfortable
Wears out -7 10 1 6
quickly
Absorbs +6 4 5 3
shocks well
Has an +4 5 7 8
attractive style
Has a high -2 2 4 9
price

Evaluation of each criterion is scored on a +10 (very positive) to - 10 (very

negative) rating scale. Brand ratings are scored on a rating scale scoring a
consumer’s belief about a brand’s performance on each criterion where 10 = the
brand very much delivers the benefits (or costs) and 1= the brand does not do so
at all.

a)  What are the attitudes that consumers have towards the different brands?

(5 marks)

b)  If you were marketing the Easystride brand how could you use the marketing
mix?

(8 marks)

c)  If you were responsible for marketing the Xpress brand of shoes, describe the
segmentation characteristics of the people towards whom you’d try and market
your brand.

(7 marks)

d)  The evaluation of the different criteria is scaled from +10 to -10, evaluate the
difference between using this approach to one where respondents had 100
points to allocate between the different consequences.

(5 marks)

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 2. A firm has found that while people are used to paying 10 US cents for a cup of
coffee that they make at home using instant coffee, they are willing to pay US$1
in order to drink coffee that has the flavour of freshly brewed coffee that can be
bought at leading cafes. The firm has now produced pods containing coffee that
are used with its own brand coffee machines in order to produce such coffee.
Each pod can be used to make one cup of coffee and costs US$1. The firm
refers to this as a ‘premiumisation’ strategy.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages to the firm of pursuing this strategy.

(25 marks)

3. ‘Ted Baker is a quintessentially British brand with a quirky yet commercial

fashion offering... .The menswear collection is a reflection of popular
contemporary culture, with a sense of humour and style mixed in. It also includes
our Phormalwear range, offering a number of distinctive suiting collections that
combine heritage British tailoring with a modern outlook. The womenswear
collection is a fresh and feminine mix of European elegance with London flair,
and is a celebration of beauty, individuality and exquisite attention to detail.
Stores and concessions are designed to showcase the brand's unique style of
retail theatre and to ensure our customers enjoy a welcoming and pleasurable
shopping experience. Each store boasts a fully bespoke design that is full of
innovative and distinctive touches. Ecommerce enables us to offer our
customers access to an extended product range and provides us with a means
to talk directly with our customers and engage them with the brand in non-
traditional ways. Our wholesale partners ("Trustees") are custodians of our
collections and uphold our brand integrity by ensuring that their retail
environment and brand adjacencies* are in keeping with the profile and
positioning of the brand. We have built up strong relationships with some of the
best independent retailers and department stores around the world. We operate
both territorial and product licences. Our licence partners are all experts in their
field and share our passion for unwavering attention to detail and firm
commitment to quality’.
*this refers to stocking brands that occupy similar market positions close to each
other on store shelves
Source: Ted Baker Annual Accounts March 2018

Critically discuss Ted Baker’s use of the marketing mix.

(25 marks)

4. Design and describe a behaviour modification programme in a university setting

that would encourage people to behave in ways that will reduce the possibility of
the transmission of a virus that can be transmitted through the air and by
touching contaminated surfaces. Your answer should make explicit reference to
marketing concepts, frameworks and theories.

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 (25 marks)

5. A dollar store (where everything costs $1) describes its customers as being a
mixture of those people who need to shop there (because they don’t have
enough money) and those who want to do so (because they enjoy purchasing a
bargain).

a. Using course concepts to justify your answer explain which of these two groups
could be linked to the psychographic basis for segmentation.

(5 marks)

b. The dollar store sells well-known brands, but the package sizes are different to
those sold in competing supermarkets. For example, toothpaste sold in
supermarkets in 125ml tubes may be sold in 100ml tubes in the dollar store.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages to the dollar store when it does this.
(10 marks)

c. It has been observed that many people leave such stores having bought
products which they may not have intended to purchase when they first entered.
Discuss why this may happen and possible criticisms of stores encouraging such
behaviour by consumers.

(10 marks)

6. TripAdvisor offers users the chance to read traveller reviews of hotels,

restaurants and destinations. It is available on the web and as a mobile phone
(handphone) app. This is what the company says about the distribution of their
offer to consumers via mobile phones:

“In addition, the mobile phones continue to monetize at a significantly lower rate
than desktops and tablets and advertising opportunities are more limited on
mobile phone devices. Given device sizes and technical limitations of these
devices, mobile phone consumers may not be willing to download multiple apps
from multiple companies providing similar service and instead prefer to use one
or a limited number of apps for their hotel, restaurant and attractions activity. In
addition, as new devices and platforms are released, users may begin
consuming content in a manner that is more difficult to monetize”.
Source: TripAdvisor 2017 Annual Report

Note: the term monetise refers to the ability of TripAdvisor to generate revenues.

Using course concepts, discuss the costs and benefits to TripAdvisor of using
mobile phones as a distribution channel.

(25 marks)

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 7. You are asked to develop content for the web-page promoting an innovative new
product on a crowd-funding website. A brief description of the product is given
below:

“Lumen is a device and app that measures your metabolism through the breath.
With the app, you will receive daily personalized meal plans to help you lose
weight and optimize your workouts. You may think you have a fast or slow
metabolism, but in fact it changes every day based on the food you eat, the
amount you sleep and if you workout. ~ Sustainably lose weight ~ Optimize your
workouts ~ iOS & Android compatible ~ Backed by science.”

The crowd-funding website allows consumers to read about new products, watch
videos promoting the products and place advance orders for them. The funds
generated from these advance sales will enable the promoters to take the
product from the prototype stage into production. It is possible that there will be
delays in this process or the product may not get delivered at all and the backers
will lose the money that they have paid. Typically, all the information a possible
purchaser might need is held on one page (there are no links). The organisation
promoting this product is new and customers will not have heard of it previously.
For nearly all customers the product category is new as well.

Identify the topics that the page should cover. Using marketing concepts explain
why they would be important to help market this offering and state any
assumptions you are making.

(25 marks)

8. ‘Pay-what-you-want’ is a concept used by some restaurants whereby customers

can choose to pay what they believe a meal is worth. Using course concepts,
discuss how restauranteurs can use the marketing mix in order to ensure that
their use of the concept will be profitable.

(25 marks)

END OF PAPER

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