Lesson 4.1 - Sample Homework Answers

You can check your homework answers here after class.

Lesson 4.2 - Sample Homework Answers

Q1: How can businesses avoid ethnocentrism?

1. Visit the country and look around local shops

2. Read country profiles

3. Offer your product on the Internet to see if there’s any demand for your product in that country

 

Q2: Explain three ways to differentiate customers.

1: Demographics

· Looks at factors like age, gender, education, marital status, household numbers

 

2: Motivation

· Looks at why people buy a product

· Thorndike’s Law of Effect à People buy things to gain pleasure or avoid pain

· Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs à People buy things to meet five levels of needs (physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization)

 

3: Economics

· Looks at how much disposable and discretionary income the target market has

· Example: Big Mac Index

 

Q3: What are the direct and indirect competitors for Coca-Cola?

Direct competitor: Pepsi cola

 

Indirect competitors: juice, milk, water, candy, chips

 

Q4: What are four examples of competitive advantage?

 

1: Lower Costs of Production, therefore lower price for customer

· This can happen thanks to economies of scale

2: Lower distribution costs, therefore lower price for the customer

· This can happen when companies have factories in the target country

 

3: Product differentiation

· The qualities that make your product different from competitors in a good way

 

4: Brand equity

· This is when customers have a good image or relationship with your brand name. it takes time to build.

 

Q5: Compare the two ways of doing market research.

 

Primary research = Research that involves collecting information yourself using tools like questionnaires and interviews.

· This type of research is very specific to your needs, but it is timely and costly to get

 

Secondary research = Research that involves looking at data other people collected, such as government data and industry reports.

· This type of research is easy to get, but it may not be specific to your needs

 

Q6: Compare the pros and cons of the three different types of marketing strategies.

 

 

Pros

Cons

Acquisition strategy

Less cultural mistakes will occur because the acquired company is already adapted to the local culture

Expensive

Might have cultural clashes between the big company and the small (acquired) company

Centralized marketing strategy

Builds a globally consistent brand.

Saves marketing costs

Cultural mistakes are often made

Only works for very few products

Decentralized marketing strategy

More likely to succeed in appealing to the local customers

Expensive