Marketing Advice Marketing Strategy 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the key difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan?
- A strategy is short-term; a plan is long-term
- A strategy defines the 'why' and 'what'; a plan details the 'how' and 'when' (Correct answer)
- A plan sets goals; a strategy tracks results
- There is no meaningful difference between the two
Correct answer: A strategy defines the 'why' and 'what'; a plan details the 'how' and 'when'
Strategy establishes direction and priorities, while the marketing plan operationalizes them with tactics and timelines.
Question 2: A company decides to target only left-handed professional musicians with a specialized product. This is an example of:
- Mass marketing
- Differentiated marketing
- Niche marketing (Correct answer)
- Undifferentiated marketing
Correct answer: Niche marketing
Niche marketing focuses resources on a very specific, underserved segment with tailored offerings.
Question 3: Which of the following best represents a 'pull' marketing strategy?
- Offering trade incentives to retailers to stock your product
- Running consumer advertising to create demand that pulls the product through the supply chain (Correct answer)
- Paying distributors higher margins to push products to consumers
- Using personal selling to convince wholesalers to carry inventory
Correct answer: Running consumer advertising to create demand that pulls the product through the supply chain
Pull strategy creates end-consumer demand through advertising, compelling the supply chain to stock the product.
Question 4: Net Promoter Score (NPS) is primarily used to measure:
- The profitability of individual customers
- Customer loyalty and likelihood to recommend a brand (Correct answer)
- The reach of a marketing campaign
- Employee satisfaction with marketing messaging
Correct answer: Customer loyalty and likelihood to recommend a brand
NPS asks how likely customers are to recommend the brand on a 0-10 scale, then classifies them as Promoters, Passives, or Detractors.
Question 5: A brand in the 'Cash Cow' quadrant of the BCG Matrix should primarily:
- Invest heavily to accelerate growth
- Exit the market immediately
- Harvest profits with minimal investment to fund other portfolio units (Correct answer)
- Launch aggressive advertising to recapture lost share
Correct answer: Harvest profits with minimal investment to fund other portfolio units
Cash Cows have high share in low-growth markets; the optimal strategy is to milk profits to fund Stars or Question Marks.
Question 6: What does 'category entry points' (CEPs) refer to in mental availability theory?
- The retail shelf locations where products are placed
- The cues, situations, and contexts that trigger a consumer to think of a brand (Correct answer)
- Pricing tiers that define entry-level products
- Online ad placements that introduce new users to a brand
Correct answer: The cues, situations, and contexts that trigger a consumer to think of a brand
CEPs are the mental links between buying situations and a brand, central to Byron Sharp's 'How Brands Grow' framework.
Question 7: A company launches a second brand to target a lower price segment without changing its flagship brand's positioning. This strategy is called:
- Brand extension
- Co-branding
- Fighting brand (flanker brand) strategy (Correct answer)
- Brand licensing
Correct answer: Fighting brand (flanker brand) strategy
A flanker brand protects the premium brand by competing in value segments under a separate identity.
Marketing Advice Marketing Strategy 4
What is the key difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan?