Marketing Strategy:
Based on First Principles and Data Analytics
Question Bank
Chapter 1 Question Bank
MULTIPLE CHOICE and TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS
1) Marketing Strategy consists of decisions and actions focused on building
_____________, to create value for stakeholders: abrand equity, relative to competitors, in the minds of customers
bdifferential advantage, relative to competitors, in the minds of customers c) sustainable price advantage, relative to marquee players, in the minds of suppliers d) profitable product-mix, relative to competitors, in the minds of customers Answer: B
2) Three of the five key elements of marketing strategy are that it: aa customperspective, guides promotions, and leads to differential advantage b) takes a supplier perspective, guides decisions and actions, and leads to differential advantage. ca supplier perspective, guides promotions, and leads to differential advantage. d) takes a customer perspective, guides decisions and actions, and leads to differential advantage. Answer: D
3) A corporate strategy must answer the following questions (check all that apply): ao are your customers? baffects cash flow? cvalue do you provide customers? d) what personnel policies should you have in place? Answer: B, D
4) Calculate the market share for XYZ Inc. for 2016 if average selling price = $15/unit, market demand = 18 million units, and sales revenue = $32.4 million. a2 b) 32% c) 8% d) 12% Answer: D
5) If ABC Inc.’s profit = $46,000, margin = 25%, marketing expense = $93,000, and G&A expense = $56,000, ABC’s sales revenue is: a5,56 b7,80 c3,32 d) $5,96,000
Answer: B
6) Map the four first principles of marketing strategy to the four associated marketing decisions customers change (1) resources are limited (2) ompetitors react (3) All customers differ (4) sustainable competitive advantage (5) resource tradeoffs (6) Managing customer dynamics (7) Managing customer heterogeneity (8)
a12-6, 3-7, 4-8 b) 3-5, 4-7,1-6, 4-8 c) 2-6,3-5,1-7,4-8 d) 4-7,2-6, 3-5,1-7 Answer: C
7) The key elements of marketing strategy include (check all that apply): adifferential advantage b) sustainability company’s mission d) customer-centricity Answer: A, B, and D
8) A marketing strategy must answer the followg questions (check all that apply): apersonnel policies should you have in place? blegal considerations affect your business? c) what value do you earn due to the differential advantage? d) how will you sustain the differential advantage? Answer: C & D
9) Various factors lead customers to differ in their preferences, including (check all that apply) apersonal differences b) varying peer experiences c) unique functional needs
dcelebrity self-identities e) previous persuasion-based activities
Answer: A, C, E
10) Which of the following is a solution to handle customer heterogeneity (check all that apply) a) ignore customer heterogeneity and provide an offering that matches the average customers’ needs.
b) offer a range of products and services to satisfy the needs of many different customer segments.
c) embrace the notion that customers will sacrifice desired product attributes if the price is low enough.
d) select a specific segment of customers and target them by positioning its offering as the best solution. Answer: A, B, C, and D. 11)
The outputs of managing customer heterogeneity are: aindustry segment, positioning statement, SWOT analysis
bsent, positioning statement, customer-centric view c) Target customer Segment, industry segmentation, positioning statement d) None of the above Answer: B
12) The inputs of managing customer heterogeneity are the 3Cs of situation analysis: customers, competitors, and consolidation. Answer: FALSE (customers, competitors, and company)
13) A product or lifestyle approach captures: atypical user experiences bustry developmental efforts cindividual sources of customer dynamics d) both A & B Answer: D
14) A firm can compile a descriptive “persona” by grouping existing customers into: athose recently acquired blong-term customers cThose lost or at risk of being lost d) All of the above Answer: D
15) Lost customer analysis provides insights on:
adefection, reflection, loss, and recovery bharvest, reflection, recovery, and defection cstrategy, customer-centricity, defection, reflection d) reflection, harvest, loss, recovery Answer: A
16) Various factors lead customers to change their preferences over time, including seminal events, life stages, knowledge, product category maturity, and exposure to relevant information. Answer: TRUE
17) Which of the following is an input category to handling customer dynamics (check all that apply)
aportfolios bdata on customer response to past programs clost customer analysis d) customer lifetime value Answer: A, B, and C.
18) Whereas MP#1 recognizes dynamic customer needs across the market and seeks to select appropriate target segments, MP#2 looks at the customers within each target segment to understand how to win and keep them, by accounting for their evolving diversity.
Answer: FALSE (MP#1 is about static customer needs).
19) Various factors provide competitors avenues for undermining a focal firm’s market position, including (check all that apply) acopying the incumbent’s offerings b) redefining the marketplace c) making the incumbent irrelevant d) launching new offerings Answer: all of the above.
20) The three sources of sustainable competitive advantage are (check all that apply) acustomers care, the company does “it” better than competitors, hard to duplicate b) multiplicative c) evaluated from a customer equity perspective d) customers can be both assets and liabilities, based on customer equity Answer: A, C, and D.
21) Brands create SCA through multiple mechanisms, but in the simplest form, ____ can cause customers to buy on the basis of_____, which ____:
aawareness, recognition and habit, reduces their cognitive effort
bengagement, switching costs, increases price premium cawareness, switching costs, increases price premium d) strong engagement, recognition and habit, reduces their cognitive effort Answer: A.
22) Firms allocate large budgets to ____, in an effort to achieve the newest or most innovative product, as well as______, or fundamentally ____:
aresearch and development (R&D), reduce their costs, supplementary services b) data mining, reduce their costs, change customers’ experiences
c) data mining, reduce their costs, supplementary services d) research and development (R&D), reduce their costs, change customers’ experiences Answer: D.
23) Which of the following is an input category to managing sustainable competitive advantage (check all that apply)
aInternal personas bAER strategies for each persona cconjoint analysis d) innovation processes Answer: A & B.
24) Resource slack refers to ___________ for a firm for marketing strategy? anusable resources busable resources ccompetitors resources d) none of the above Answer: B
25) ____________ help in making critical resource allocations decisions such as “ How much would the financial income change with 1% increase in marketing efforts”? (Check all that apply) aAttribution based processes bExperimental processes cponse-model based processes dResource based processes e) All of the above Answer: A, B, & C
26) ____________ is a technology-enabled, ______to harnessing customer and market data to understand and serve customers? abig data, model supported approach bcustomer analytics, computer-aided approach cbig data, model supported approach d) customer analytics, model supported approach Answer: D
27) The micro-macro duality is critical to successful marketing strategy, because _______ occur/occurs at micro levels, but ___________ occur/occurs at Macro level? aAll decisions, customer understandings bTrue customer understandings, most strategic and resource oriented cmost strategic and resource oriented, True customer understandings d) customer understandings, All decisions Answer: B
28) Various factors provide induce complex resource trade-offs including (check all that apply) aEffectiveness of marketing activities b) Changes in product landscape c) Product lifecycle maturity d) Stable customer preferences Answer: A, B &C
29) In relatively ____ markets, ____ might be acceptable; however, with substantial _____, they often lead to poor trade-off decisions aunstable, heuristic, heterogeneity and volatility battribution, heterogeneity and volatility c) stable, heuristic, heterogeneity and volatility d) unstable, attribution, heterogeneity and volatility Answer: C
TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS
30) A first principle is a foundational concept or assumption on which a theory, system, or method is based. Answer: TRUE
31) A corporate strategy is the set of principles a firm uses to achieve the lowest cost to beat the competition. Answer: FALSE (The overall scope and direction of a firm and the way in which its various business operations work together to achieve particular goals).
32) A firm’s sales profit is (market demand x market share x average selling price)x (margin – marketing expense – G&A expense) Answer: FALSE. It is (market demand x market share x average selling price)x (margin) – marketing expense – G&A expense)
33) Each First Principle or underlying assumption, when matched with its associated marketing decisions, is a Marketing Principle (MP). Foexample, all customers change, so firms must make strategic decisions to manage customer heterogeneity, and these combined statements constitute MP#1. Answer: FALSE (all customers differ)
34) Customer heterogeneity is defined as variation among customers in terms of their identities, aspirations, and image. Answer: FALSE (Needs, desires, and subsequent behaviors)
35) With a classic low-cost strategy, firms attempt to identify core, must-have attributes that will satisfy consumers’ functional needs, then focus all their efforts on reaching the lowest cost for an offering that meets those needs.
Answer: TRUE
36) Building strong relationships between cusers and the firm’s salespeople or oth boundary-spanning employees can bar customer defection, prompt enduring customer loyalty, and ensure superior financial performance. Answer: TRUE
37) BOR strategies reflecting an aggregation and reorganization of each targeted customer and persona need (accounting for customer dynamics) and the most effective strategies over time (accounting for customer heterogeneity) Answer: FALSE (switching customer heterogeneity and dynamics).
38) Firms use simple attribution models to make decisions when they lack hard data on each resource option.
Answer: FALSE (Heuristic based processes)
39) A firm’s resource trade-off strategies defining how much it allocates to each target market segment, AER strategy, and SCA strategy, should be developed to be relevant to maintain the firm’s current AER strategy (MP#1), to support its stated SCA (MP#2), and the firm’s current target segments (MP#3). Answer: FALSE (MP #2, 3, and 1)
40) Most heuristics are incorrect. They lack any scientific basis for the decisions, relying instead on managers’ gut feelings about what the right resource allocations are.
Answer: FALSE (MP #2, 3, and 1)
ESSAY TYPE QUESTIONS
41) Define marketing strategy, and provide a short discussion about its key elements and scope.
Answer:
Marketing strategy consists of decisions and actions focused on building a sustainable differential advantage, relative to competitors, in the minds of customers, to create value for stakeholders. The five key elements are critical to marketing strategy: 1Leads to a differential advantages over competitors 2Sustainability 3Ability to enhance firm performance 4Customer perspective 5. Guides decisions and actions. Initially, the strategy concept arose from a military context, where a strategy represents the pursuit of situational superiority over an enemy. Karl von Clausewitz, in On War (1832), thus describes strategy as follows: “Consequently, the forces available must be employed with such skill that even in the absence of absolute superiority, relative superiority is attained at the decisive point (p. 196).” From these military roots, the notion of using resources skillfully, to create decisive positions of superiority over competitors, began to be applied in business in the 1950s and 1960s. A variety of forces (e.g., rapid, unpredictable changes in customer, mpetitor, technical, and economic environments) were beginning to challenge the “lumbering corporations” of the time, whose size presented an obstacle to operational dexterity. A new way of thinking—generally described as formal strategic planning—was needed. Thus a typical definition of business strategy from the 1960s described “the determination of the basic long-term goals and objectives of an enterprise, and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals (p. 13).” Management scolars and practitioners from this era retained two elemes of military strategy, focused on how decisions and actions could lead to differential advantages over opponents (or competitors). Over the next few decades though, thought leaders added two elements that they regarded as necessary to apply the strategy concept to a business: the need to make the differential advantage sustainable and the idea that the objective of any business strategy is to enhance firm performance. Even more recently, marketing strategists have suggested a refined view in which both the sustainable differential advantage and its objective should be evaluated from the perspective of the customer, such that the central approach is “strategy from the outside-in.”
42) How does marketing strategy differ from corporate strategy?
Answer:
Corporate strategy is the overall scope and direction of a firm and the way in which its various business operations work together to achieve particular goals. Marketing strategy consists of decisions and actions focused on building a sustainable differential advantage, relative to competitors, in the minds of customers, to create value for stakeholders. Although
the two levels of strategy should have consistent goals (i.e., marketing strategy aligns with corporate strategy), the marketing strategy focuses specifically on the interplay of the firm with its customers. Consider the primary questions to answer to define an entity’s marketing strategy: 1o are your customers? 2What value do you provide your customers (e.g., product, service, experience, status)? 3) How are you building a differential advantage relative to competitors for these customers? 4) What value do you earn from your customers due to this differential advantage (sales, profits, referrals)? 5) How will you sustain this differential advantage into the future? A marketing strategy must answer these questions, then use the answers to inform the development and implementation of action steps required to achieve firm and stakeholder objectives. However, the implementation of a marketing strategy requires resources and a stable organizational platform from which to operate. Thus, additional questions arise, regarding other aspects of the business, such as cash flow plans, tax considerations, and legal and personnel policies. These queries are the domain of the corporate strategy, defined as “the direction and scope of an organization over the long term: which achieves an advantage for the organization through the configuration of resources within a changing environment, to meet the needs of markets and fulfill stakeholder expectations”. 43) What are the four principles of marketing strategy?
Answer: The first and most basic issue facing managers in their marketing mix decisions (pricing, product, promotion, place) for the firm is that all customers differ. Customer heterogeneity is a fundamental problem that all firms must address when developing an effective marketing strategy (MP#1). A second underlying complexity for both short- and long-term marketing decisions is that all customers change. Therefore, with a focus on the firm’s own customers, MP#2 challenges firms to understand how their existing customers change over time. The idea that all competitors react is the third principle that marketing managers must address, by building and maintaining barriers to these competitive attacks and thereby ensuring a sustainable competitive advantage (MP#3). The fourth marketing principle holds that all resources are limited, so firms must develop resource trade-off strategies that are relevant to their current target segments (MP#1) and maintain their current AER strategy (MP#2) and stated SCA (MP#3), which together constitute MP#4.
44) Provide three reasons why the first principles of marketing strategy have a natural temporal ordering.
Answer: First, the solution to the four principles is hierarchical: Solving some principles requires knowledge of the solution to other principles. Second, a firm should embrace the notion that these solutions must address both static and dynamic heterogeneity.
Traditionally, marketing has focused on developing tactics aimed to segment, target, and position customers, which reflect the static First Principle that all customers are different. Traditional customer segmentation then provides the input for resource-trade off decisions, such that firms would move straight from MP#1 to MP#4 (the recommended approach from marketing texts a decade ago). However, to identify the optimal customers to target, firms instead need to account for questions like whether the customer is likely to buy in the future, or if competitors are trying to attract these customers with their own direct marketing efforts. Third, sustainable offerings that stand the test of time reque a recognition that the firm cannot solve all the First Principles simultaneously, because of their complex and interreled nature. Instead, firms need an iterative approach to integrate the principles. With an iterative approach, the firm gradually improves, focung on one principle at a time, so that it can to collect and analyze data effectively to make significant improvements.
45) Discuss the input-output framework to managing resource trade-offs (MP #4). Answer:
The three key inputs reflect the outputs of the three preceding First Principles. That is, MP#1 (what customers want and how the firm should position itself) yields a positioning statement that captures information to enable several trade-offs, including (1) customer segments to target, (2) the key products to invest in or discontinue, (3) the key regions to target, and (4) the key relative differences to build and maintain. This output thus serves as a starting point for the resource trade-off framework, because it provides the working bounds for executing the firm’s positioning statement. Next, MP#2 yields AER positioning statements and strategies that describe who, what, why, and when information for each key customer persona in the firm’s customer portfolio as well the most effective AER strategies across customer personas and stage. The combined outputs from MP#1 and MP#2 thus narrow the key trade-offs (across segments, products, gions, and relative differences) in the resource allocation decision. That is, these inputs restrict the decision to those trade-offat are key to winning customers in the marketplace and keeping these customers as they change over time.
Finally, MP#3 focuses on how to build and maintain strong barriers around customers to withstand competitive attacks, so its output captures the firm’s BOR strategy, describing the key objectives of branding, offering, and relationship investments—and their many trade-offs—to build and maintain the firm’s SCA.
Then this managing resource trade-off framework produces two outputs: metrics and decisions. The appropriate metrics that a firm needs to manage its resource allocation activities can determine whether it is successful in achieving its goals. For example, financial metrics based on financial ratios can be converted easily into monetary outcomes such as net profit or returns on investments. Marketing metrics reflect customers’ attitudes, behaviors, and mindsets about a firm’s products, measured with variables such as awareness, satisfaction, loyalty, and brand equity. Mindset metrics also
can answer questions about exactly why marketing has paid off.
The second set of outputs is the specific resource allocation decision that the manager makes (captured in the firm’s annual marketing plans and budgets). It consists of three sub-decisions: marketing budget for an activity, or the size of the commitment the firm makes for that marketing activity, budget allocation, which represents the percentage split of the marketing activity allocated to each sub-activity, and the time horizon for the budget, or the timespan during which the firm will remain committed to this marketing budget.
Marketing Strategy:
Based on First Principles and Data Analytics
Question Bank
Chapter 2 Question Bank
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
46) Some firms assume away customer differences by offering a single product to the entire target market. This approach may work in peculiar circumstances, particularly if________, but it _____ in the long run: e) A firm faces perfect competition, rarely works
f) competition is weak or scarce, rarely works
gA firm has great products, always works h) competition is weak or scarce, always works Answer: B
47) Firms are targeting smaller and smaller segments because (check all that apply): amatches real and perceived customer desires (real, perceived) b) it enables faster response to customer trends and changes cechnology has made it economical to target/customize d) there is no limitation to efficiency (cost) versus benefit of a better match to need (solution) Answer: A, B, &C
48) Which of the following are sources of customer heterogeneity? (check all that apply): alife experience b) marketing activities c) functional need d) corporate image Answer: A, B & D
49) Which of the following is not a part of the Big 5 traits? aAgreeableness b) Openness conscientiousness
d) Calmness Answer: D
50) Which of the following is true (check all that apply)? a) customer heterogeneity is a fundamental “problem” that all firms must address when developing an effective marketing strategy
b) Customer heterogeneity may only be latent or hidden c) customers vary on some underlying preferences, but no firms are supplying offerings that fit their desires, so those preferences are not evident d) Customers know all their diverse preferences
Answer: A & C
51) Latent customer heterogeneity can stem from legal, ____, technological, and ____ constraints. aSubstantive, innovative binnovative
c) Economic, substantive d) Regulatory, economic Answer: B
52) Across mass marketing, niche marketing, and one-to-one marketing, the underlying method of dealing wiheterogeneity is the same: focus on ____ such that the needs of each group are similar until the focus reaches _____. aLowest prices, most profitability ban individual customer c) Smaller groups, most profitability d) Lowest prices, an individual customer Answer: B
53) Which of the following is not addressed in a positioning statement? eo are the customers? fat is the set of needs that product/service fulfills? go are the firm’s competitors? h) Why is this product/service the best option to satisfy the customer needs? Answer: C
54) An ideal target segment should meet the following criteria (check all that apply): austomers are unclassifiable
b) Crossover Competition c) Based on company’s needs d) Value in the long term Answer: B & D
55) The value of reducing potential customer preferences into smaller sets of independent factors, prior to conducting analyses, is that (check all that apply): aremoves a potential source of bias by combining similar questions bgives us a wide scope of preferences to work with c) This step removes any redundancy d) None of the above Answer: A & C
56) Which of the following is true? (Check all that aply): a) Segmentation must start with a random sample of potential customers in the market, not just the firm’s existing customers b) Customers should be divided into groups on the basis of their needs and desires and demographic variables (age, gender) or size (annual sales revenue cis important to ensure that customers in one group have similar preferences,
d) It is ideal to maximize the differences between segments, to help the firm offer more clearly differentiated products Answer: A, C &D
57) In the _______ step of cluster analysis, we use descriptor variables to explain how the s differ and thereby can derive efficient targeting strategies, tailored to each subsample. aIdentification b) Prediction c) Description d) Segmentation Answer: C
58) How many segments should we stop at, based on the dendrogram output from the cluster analysis?
aTwo b) Four c) One d) Three Answer: D
59) _____
and _____ analyses are multivariate statistical techniques used to determine how segments of consumers differ in their characteristics. aDiscrimination, classification bdiscriminant c) Factor, classification d) Discriminant, factor Answer: A
60) _____________ refers to the process by which a firm shifts its target market: e) Positioning f) Segmentation gTargeting h) Repositioning Answer: D
61) _____________ depict customer segments, competitors, and a firm’s own position in a multidimensional space, defined by the purchase attributes identified during segmentation: aPositioning maps b) Choice models c) GE Matrix d) Perceptual maps Answer: D
62) A perceptual map helps firms to (check all that apply): a) Determine how much change is needed on key product attributes to move products to more favorable positions b) Identifkey competitors c) Visually determine the impact of their communication programs on market perceptions d) All of the above Answer: D
63) Customer-centric organizations (check all that apply): aHave increased knowledge of each customer segment b) Find it difficult to respond to emerging trends c) Achieve improved customer satisfaction & loyalty d) Need more resources Answer: A, B & D
64) An ideal target segment should meet these criteria
(check all that apply): aSimilar to other segments
b) Differences match firm’s competencies
c) Sustainable and financially viable
d) Customers are identifiable
Answer: B, C & D
65) An ideal positioning statement must answer (check all that apply): aompetitors? bo are the customers? cat is the set of needs the product or service fulfill? d) Why is this product/service the best option to satisfy your needs? Answer: B, C & D
66) The size of the segment, growth rate, and price sensitivity represent the ____ of a target segment: aCustomer attractiveness b) Market attractiveness c) Competitive attractiveness d) Segment attractiveness Answer: B
67) Check all the ideas associated with customer-centricity: aUsing customer to drive decisions b) Measuring success from a customer perspective c) Providing customer with the lowest price d) Using big data Answer: A &B 68) On average, firms that switched to a customer-centric structure initially perform worse than before the restructuring (_______), but after about 9 or 10 quarters, their performance exceeds pre-restructuring levels (_______): alearning stage, harvesting stage b) priming stage, pay-off stage c) learning stage, pay-off stage d) priming stage, pay-off stage Answer: B
69) Which of the following are inputs to managing customer heterogeneity (check all that apply): aneeds, desires, and preferences across customers in an industry bthe company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
cn inventory of your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
d) all of the above Answer: D
70) ____ is commonly used to describe which predictor variables help differentiate two or more segments of customers: aprofiling analysis b) segmentation analysis c) cluster analysis d) discriminant analysis Answer: D 71) Factor analysis groups similar _____ together to avoid biasing further analyses; classification analysis uses discriminate models to predict _____ using only demographic variables: ademographic variables, purchase attributes bsize c) purchase attributes, segment membership d) segment size, segment membership Answer: C
72) A customer-centric approach makes a firm “internally driven” to satisfy target customers, synergistic with the STP approach that “externally focuses” the firm on the right customers: aInternally driven, competitor drive b) Competitive driven, externally driven c) Externally driven, ind) Internally driven, externally driven Answer: D 73) _____ focused marketing efforts on well-defined, narrow segments of consumers, and by specializing, this method seeks to give the firm a competitive advantage. aniche marketing b) mass marketing c) individualized marketing d) lifetime value Answer: C
TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS
74) Preference for color, exposure to television shows, preference for battery life, and preference for value are examples of sources of customer heterogeneity Answer: FALSE (All customers have high preference for value)
75) An individual’s life experiences capture events and experiences unique to his or her life that have a lasting impact on the value and preference he or she places on products and services, which in turn affects preferences independent of individual differences. Answer: TRUE
76) Latent customer heterogeneity is defined as potential differences in desires that are unobserved and have not become manifest in customer purchase preferences or behaviors yet. Answer: TRUE
77) Positioning helps improve your relative advantage in the minds of your targeted customers. Answer: FALSE
78) Cluster analysis uses customer preferences to cluster individual customers into a given number of groups within this two-dimensional space by simultaneously minimizing th distance from each individual customer to the center of a cluster and maximizing the distance between both clusters. Answer: FALSE (may be more than two clusters)
79) Factor analysis is used to condense a large “pool” of potential customer needs, wants, and ferences into a short set of similar characteristics, and to reduce high correlation among predictors. Answer: TRUE
80) Positioning entails changing both the actual offering and the perceived offering. Answer: TRUE
81) The GE matrix selects segments based on competitor attractiveness and competitive strength. Answer: FALSE (market attractiveness)
82) Market orientation comprises intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and responsiveness. Answer: TRUE
83) Positioning Statements encapsulate the three questions into one concise statement that firms use to direct their internal and external marketing activities: who should the firm target, what needs and benefits are being fulfilled, and why does this offering provide a relative advantage over competitive offerings
Answer: TRUE
84) Sources of customer heterogeneity include customers’ individual diffences, life experiences, functional needs, and self-identity or image, as well as persuasion through marketing. Answer: TRUE
ESSAY TYPE QUESTIONS
85) Write a short essay about the evolution of approaches to managing customer heterogeneity.
Answer:
Mass Marketing Era. Mass marketing (undifferentiated marketing), which uses mass media to appeal to an entire market with a single message, is a marketing strategy in which a firm mostly ignores customer heterogeneity, with the assumption that reaching the largest audience possible will lead to the largest sales revenue. Mass marketing became popular with the emergence of radio and television media outlets, which had the potential to deliver the same message to a larger number of consumers than was ever possible before. For example, advertising was $12.3 million in 1949; two years later it had grown tenfold. By 1960, televisions approached 90% household penetration. However, mass marketing is not individualized; it assumes everyone’s preferences are the same. Typically, mass marketing generates relatively lower profit margins and response rates, and it is often accompanied by high competitive intensity. In the 1950s and 1960s, companies such as P&G, Coca-Cola, McDonald"s, General Motors, and UnilevGroup were all dedicated mass marketers, but as the century came to a close, most of ...
