Marketing Assignment

1. Please answer the questions as thoroughly as possible.
2. Analysis Questions
3. Ink & Paper, a small independent bookseller in the Washington, D.C., is owned by the Page family. To reverse a declining sales trend, the Pages feel they must redesign its bookstores and product offerings to appeal to a specific target segment. Hence, they hired a market research firm, Beltway Research, to undertake a benefit segmentation study of book consumers in the D.C. metropolitan area.

Beltway Research surveyed 1000 consumers by mail. One part of the survey asked consumers to rate how important each of the following bookstore attributes is to them, using a scale where 1 = not at all important and 10 = very important. Beltway Research has taken the results of this survey and grouped the consumers to form three benefit segments: I, II, and III. The mean importance ratings of consumers in each of these segments are (the higher the importance rating, the higher the segment’s expectation regarding the bookstore attribute):

I             II         III

Attractive stores                                                                      4.6       4.5       7.2

Can quickly special order books not in stock             3.5       7.9       4.8

Events where authors read from their books and poetry        2.6       7.8       7.2

Low prices                                                                              8.2       3.3       5.7

Staff knowledgeable about books                                          5.7       8.5       5.2

Lots of books on sale                                                  8.4       4.3       4.8

Lots of chairs and tables to read in                                         5.2       6.7       8.3

Free gift wrapping                                                                  7.5       2.8       6.1

A good coffee and snack bar                                                  4.7       2.6       8.1

1. Using these study results, identify and profile the market segments in the Washington, D.C. bookstore market based on their importance ratings (6 points).

(HINT: For example, a profile for the pet food market would be “pet lover”).

Segment I:

Segment II:

Segment III:

1. Based on the results of the analysis, identify the specific value priorities the Page family should focus in serving these three segments. Provide them with (one-sentence) recommendations on strategies for gaining sustainable competitive advantage in these markets (6 points).

Value Priority I:

Value Priority II:

Value Priority III:

• Ink & Paper now needs to communicate with consumers in the chosen target segment. Beltway Research could have carried out research to identify demographic instead of benefit segments. Describe and justify to the Pages the most important advantages of using benefit segmentation instead of demographic segmentation, with respect to designing a communications strategy (8 points).

2. Illustrate the differences between a market orientation company and a marketing myopic company. Use two companies (one for each concept) from the list of cases we have discussed in class to exemplify the differences between the concepts (10 points)

3. In a consumer survey for a new personal coffee machine design, three features are tested in a conjoint analysis: (1) availability of espresso brewing; (2) capacity, (3) price. The average value system scores of the features (a ranking of 1 indicates the best choice, while 8 indicates the worst) are summarized in the following table (10 points)

Compare the consumers’ choice decisions across the difference levels of the three attributes of the coffee machine, and interpret the tradeoffs as perceived by the consumers? Support your answer with numerical calculations.

CALCULATIONS:

CONCLUSION:

A customer is willing to exchange ________________(most preferred attribute) with ____________________(least preferred attribute).