- JOSEPH’S COLLEGE OF COMMERCE (AUTONOMOUS)
End semester EXAMINATION – APRIL 2013
B.B.M. – II semester
PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING
TIME : 3 HRS MARKS : 100
Section – A
- Answer ALL the following: (10×2=20)
- Define ‘USP’ in your own terms with relevant examples.
- Give two examples of relationship marketing.
- Differentiate between industrial and consumer products.
- What do you mean by Vertical Marketing Systems?
- What is Brand Equity?
- Explain what you understand by the term ‘Consumerism’.
- What are the purposes of packaging?
- What is penetration pricing?
- What is ‘contextual marketing’?
- State two advantages of blogs as a promotion tool.
Section – B
- Answer any four from the following: (4 X 5= 20)
- Explain Psychographic segmentation. What is the basis of this type of segmentation?
- Explain the different levels of products using a diagram.
- What is meant by product line? What are the major product line decisions?
- Discuss the role and importance of channels of distribution.
- What is ‘direct marketing’? Explain the importance of direct marketing in the current scenario.
- What are the steps involved in the consumer buying process?
Section – c
- Answer any three of the following: (3X15=45)
- Explain the stages of the product life cycle using a diagram.
- Discuss the importance of promotion mix in marketing. Explain its components.
- Bring out the role and importance of advertising both from the marketer’s as well as the customer’s point of view.
- Design a ‘Marketing Mix’ for the following products: a) Portable MP3 player b) Branded wheat flour (Atta). Justify your answer. (Make Assumptions wherever necessary) T.O…..
- Discuss how market segmentation, target marketing and positioning are interrelated. Give examples.
Section – D
IV) Case Study – Compulsory question. (1×15=15)
Some of the most dramatic consumer transformations in the recent past have occurred because of innovations in pricing. Consumers love relevant pricing innovation. Marketers who have leveraged consumer insights through new pricing ideas have often rewritten the future brands.
Consider the pricing of mobile telephone calls. As long as the price structure required the receiver to pay for incoming calls, the concerned industry witnessed a slow growth. But as soon as the pricing structure changed, with all costs to be paid by the originator and all incoming calls to be free, subscriber growth zoomed. This pricing innovation perhaps single-handedly liberated the telecom sector in India from its initial sluggishness. Consumers loved the new pricing because it gave them complete control of their telephone expenses. Introduction of the “per second” pricing has been lapped up by millions of consumers. Again, consumers loved this idea because they perceive it will cause less waste, since they will only be charges for the exact duration that they speak.
We see many other simple but powerful pricing innovations that have sprung up in recent years. Most cinema multiplexes offer different pricing for weekends, mornings, noon shows and evening shows. Only five years ago, movie tickets were always sold at a fixed price for each class, whichever day or show you chose.
On the internet, online financial publications attract readers by offering several general reports and features free of charge. But, if you wish to read more specialized articles, there is a “pay-per-view” charge. There are many products which can be bought through equated monthly installments (EMI). In many instances, the new pricing idea is a fundamental trigger for many first-time users to buy into the category. In many other cases, it helps new players disrupt an established market (like Docomo, Virgin mobile and MTS). Such innovation also helps established players make their business models more robust. It is noteworthy that on every occasion, a successful pricing innovation led to great business success.
One of the oldest examples of pricing innovations is more than a century old postage stamp. It created a simple and much-loved per-payment system for letters which is now taken for granted, but never existed earlier, and thus revolutionized the postal system worldwide.
- Questions
- Discuss the impact of varied pricing on consumers.
- Explain pricing innovation with examples from consumer durables.
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