Deck 7: Differentiation and Brand Positioning

Question 1

Which positioning concept is illustrated by a clothing manufacturer claiming that their shirts are made from pure organic cotton?

A)price/quality
B)endorsements
C)ingredients
D)features

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Michael Porter identified three generic business strategies.These are:

A)cost leadership, differentiation, focus
B)cost leadership, positioning, focus
C)strategic intent, differentiation, cost leadership
D)segmentation, targeting, positioning

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following is a characteristic of physical positioning?

A)large number of dimensions
B)consumer orientation
C)represents impact of product specs
D)represents impact of communication

Answer 3

A

Question 4

'At Fidelity, you're not just buying a fund, a stock, or a bond-you're buying a better way to manage it.' Identify the determinant attribute being used here.

A)parentage
B)comparison
C)ingredients
D)pro-environment

Question 5

'British Leyland was formed through a series of mergers involving a number of British car manufacturers.It did not have a clear identity because it was new and manufactured a variety of brands, including Rover, Triumph and Austin-Morris.' Which constraint associated with an intense position does this example illustrate?

A)Repositioning may result in alienating the product's current users despite the success with its newly targeted group.
B)Success in repositioning efforts may well ensure losing the current group of users.
C)The dilution of an existing intense position as a result of consolidation.
D)The temptation to overexploit the position by using the brand name on line extensions and new products.

Question 6

'Some people will pay considerably more for Bayer aspirin than for an unadvertised private label aspirin, even though they are essentially the same product.' What does this statement signify?

A)Consumers often know a lot about the essential physical attributes of many products, especially household products.
B)Consumers generally understand the physical attributes well enough to use them as a basis for choosing between alternatives.
C)Consumers often evaluate goods and services on factors other than physical properties, including their past experiences.
D)Consumers can typically evaluate a product better on the basis of what it is than what it does.

Question 7

Physical positioning helps in all of the following ways except:

A)It enables buyers to evaluate industrial goods and services on the basis of what it does rather than on what it is.
B)It contributes to a better marketing-research and R&D interface by determining key physical product characteristics.
C)It helps define the structure of competition by revealing the degree of competitiveness between various brands.
D)It may indicate the presence of meaningful product gaps and thus reveal opportunities for a new product entry.

Question 8

Customers are surveyed and asked their preferences among various real or hypothetical product configurations, each with attributes that are systematically varied.This is an example of:

A)conjoint analysis
B)cluster analysis
C)logit analysis
D)discriminant analysis

Question 9

Marketing decision-makers, while seeking to win a particular position in a customer's mind, endow their product with various kinds of attributes.The speed of a computer system, the roominess of a car, and a product's or service's being user-friendly are examples of which type of categorisation based on such attributes?

A)simple physically based attributes
B)complex physically based attributes
C)essentially abstract attributes
D)price

Question 10

Identify a limitation of physical positioning.

A)It ignores the early stages of identifying new product offerings.
B)Competitive offerings of many industrial goods and services cannot be typically evaluated on the basis of physical characteristics.
C)They are rarely useful in undertaking a positioning analysis because they are based primarily on technical rather than on market data.
D)Customers' attitudes toward a product are often based on social or psychological attributes.

Question 11

Identify the incorrect statement concerning the positioning grid.

A)It provides a visual representation of the positions of various products in a competitive set.
B)Where more than two attributes are to be considered, multidimensional grids are produced.
C)It indicates how products within a category compare on the level of as many attributes as are relevant.
D)It identifies gaps that may exist either because of technical constraints or lack of prospective customers.

Question 12

In entrepreneurial start-ups, there are two ongoing issues that are essential if whatever brand value that's been built is to be maintained and grown.These are:

A)brand recall and brand reinforcement
B)brand equity and brand loyalty
C)brand reinforcement and brand revitalisation
D)brand awareness and brand positioning

Question 13

Which of the following examples best illustrates perceptual positioning?

A)Kellogg's breakfast cereal in new chocolate and honey flavours
B)Volvo's latest SUV featuring 225 horsepower and a fuel efficiency of 7.65 kilometres per litre
C)L'Oreal's new range of water resistant lipstick in fruit flavours
D)Colgate's toothpaste with enhanced freshness of breath and sparkly teeth

Question 14

Volvo's emphasis on safety, Toyota's emphasis on reliability and the Holden Monaro's promise of old magic and style in motoring highlight which determinant attribute?

A)features
B)manufacturing process
C)benefits
D)endorsements

Question 15

Identify the limitation of product positioning analysis.

A)It does not tell the marketer which positions are most appealing to customers.
B)It does not include a tool to identify gaps where an opportunity for developing a new product exists.
C)It does not include a tool indicating how products within a category compare on the level of as many attributes as are relevant.
D)It does not indicate how alternative products are positioned relative to one another in customers' minds.

Question 16

A bank positions itself using its deposit safety attribute.Why would this positioning not create an impact in the consumer's mind?

A)Because consumers can consider only those attributes of which they are aware.
B)Because the positioning effort was kept too simple and complexity was not included.
C)Because the importance attached to the deposit safety attribute is large and uniform across various consumers.
D)Because all the alternative brands are perceived to be about equal on that dimension.

Question 17

Michael Porter's generic business strategies are based on two broad needs (attributes) and on the size of the market segment.The two broad attributes are:

A)cost and differentiation
B)cost and positioning
C)positioning and product style
D)segmentation and targeting

Question 18

A firm is considering introducing a new product category in a highly competitive environment.The marketers obtain customer perceptions of the new product concept relative to likely alternatives on various determinant attributes the new product may contain.Based on this, infer what step of the positioning process is the firm at?

A)determining customers' most preferred combination of determinant attributes
B)examining the fit between preferences of market segments and current position of product
C)determining product's current location in the product space and intensity
D)identifying relevant set of competitive products serving a target market

Question 19

Identify the incorrect statement concerning positioning.

A)It comprises both competitive and customer needs considerations.
B)This concept is applicable only for an existing brand.
C)It is essentially concerned with differentiation.
D)Generally, it is more difficult for marketers to position services than goods successfully.

Question 20

A company with a broad target aimed at gaining a competitive advantage through lower costs will use a:

A)differentiation-based focus strategy
B)differentiation strategy
C)cost leadership strategy
D)cost-based focus strategy

Question 21

The first step in the positioning process is to identify a relevant set of competitive products.

Question 22

In a market where customers perceive one brand or a limited number of brands as dominant, the best chance of survival for a competitor's offerings lies in obtaining a profitable position within a market segment not dominated by a leading brand.

Question 23

What are positioning statements and value propositions? Briefly explain their features.

Question 24

Differentiation is where a product offering has a unique attribute that customers value and on which they base their decision to make their purchase.

Question 25

There are three useful tools for analysing the current positions of products in the competitive set.

Question 26

Positioning perfume as sexy and wine as being of superior quality are examples of complex physically based attributes.

Question 27

Using price as one dimension of a positioning grid, or as a key dimension on which a product is positioned, is very useful because price is a key driver of any marketing strategy.

Question 28

Both positioning statements and value propositions should generally reflect a unique selling proposition (USP) that the product embodies.

Question 29

Jared Fogle's successful weight loss diet consisting of Subway's new healthier sandwiches had inadvertently provided Subway the opportunity to successfully communicate its strategy of repositioning its brand image.

Question 30

Brand equity is the result of a firm's ability to:

A)create differences that consumers find meaningful between their brands and other brands
B)maintain high levels of customer service coupled with competitive pricing
C)expend resources on advertising and promotion
D)capitalise on a niche-market, thereby securing a unique position in relation to competitors

Question 31

Research suggests that on average, consumers are able to remember at least 10 different brands for any given product class.

Question 32

Effective positioning assists in:

A)building brand equity.
B)product recalls.
C)the research and development process.
D)enabling price increases to be implemented regularly.