Exam 18: Creating Competitive Advantage

Greener-grass Inc. is a lawn care company providing landscaping and lawn maintenance services to customers in and around Kansas City. The marketing team at Greener-grass carefully tracks the moves of competing companies, watching for shifting strategies and new promotions. The marketing team is also in constant touch with customers, using surveys and other feedback methods to find out what kind of services customers value the most. Greener-grass is most accurately described as having a ________ orientation.

A company can become so ________ centered that it loses its even more important focus on maintaining profitable ________ relationships.

Discuss the steps in analyzing competitors.

American Express will do almost anything to build long-term customer loyalty and to capture customer lifetime value. Which of the following competitive marketing strategies is being pursued by American Express?

If a company is a market leader in one category, and a market challenger or market nicher in other categories, it will follow ________ strategies for each category.

________ is the process of comparing the company's products and processes to those of competitors or leading firms in other industries to find ways to improve quality and performance.

A company is guilty of ________ if the company forgets latent competitors and only focuses on current competitors.

"Destroying" a close competitor can actually damage a company's market share in the long run.

Companies that have been in existence for some time often lose the marketing creativity and passion that they had at the start. They often need to refresh their marketing strategies and try new approaches, known as ________.

Refer to the scenario below to answer the following question(s). Essential-Beauty is a rapidly growing firm that manufactures women's makeup, perfumes, and nail-care products. The company has established itself as a high-end cosmetic product brand available at most national drug stores. In the past, almost all of the advertising for Essential-Beauty has been in women's fashion magazines. The firm is now launching a new line of skin care products, ranging from facial cleansers to body lotion. These products are designed to be marketed to a broader audience, so the marketing team is exploring the effectiveness of different promotional mixes. -Essential-Beauty e-mailed a survey to a group of its most frequent, loyal customers. The survey asked what makeup and skin care characteristics were most important to them. The company's marketing staff then ranked the performance of Essential-Beauty products in each of these categories. Essentials was conducting a(n) ________.

________ are those runner-up firms that are working to increase their market share in an industry.

Refer to the scenario below to answer the following question(s). Essential-Beauty is a rapidly growing firm that manufactures women's makeup, perfumes, and nail-care products. The company has established itself as a high-end cosmetic product brand available at most national drug stores. In the past, almost all of the advertising for Essential-Beauty has been in women's fashion magazines. The firm is now launching a new line of skin care products, ranging from facial cleansers to body lotion. These products are designed to be marketed to a broader audience, so the marketing team is exploring the effectiveness of different promotional mixes. -Companies with multiple products or businesses typically choose one marketing strategy for all their different businesses or products.

Which of the following conditions would enable higher market share to produce higher profits?

According to Michael Porter, what are three effective competitive positioning strategies?

Companies in competition within a strategic group do not compete with other strategic groups.

The goal of performing a competitor analysis is to ________.

Name the three value disciplines.

Which of the following is the first step taken in the competitive intelligence system?

Fifty percent of the market is in the hands of Company A, 30 percent is in the hands of Company B, 15 percent is in the hands of Company C, and the remaining 5 percent is in the hands of Company D. Based on these hypothetical numbers, Company D is the market ________.

Explain how a market follower can gain advantage from a market leader.