MIDTERM EXAM

Scores were as follows:

 TOT  Q1   Q2   Q3
4.30 4.00 4.50 4.50
4.01 3.80 4.00 4.30
3.80 3.50 4.00 4.00
3.78 2.70 4.50 4.50
3.78 2.70 4.50 4.50
3.75 3.00 4.50 4.00
3.75 3.90 4.00 3.30
3.55 4.00 3.80 2.70
3.54 2.70 4.20 4.00
3.50 3.50 3.30 3.70
3.50 3.80 3.30 3.30
3.44 3.20 4.50 2.70
3.34 3.70 3.50 2.70
3.32 3.50 3.50 2.90
3.18 2.70 4.00 3.00
2.96 3.50 2.70 2.50
2.88 3.30 3.20 2.00
2.86 3.70 2.30 2.30
3.51 3.40 3.79 3.38

Question 1:

Better answers considered apparent organizational objectives and the current environment.  Answers which received lower scores injected assumptions that could easily be disputed or could not possibly be substantiated in fact.  Some answers started right out with a recommendation without consideration of the environment of organizational objectives, receiving low scores.

Keep in mind that this is a real company with only the name changed.  Some students indicated that they did not have enough information to answer the question - but if one were to want to start such a business as this, there would be little more information available than what is given.  This is a new industry with very few competitors using a new technology.  Historical data simply does not exist, so it is pointless to complain that none was given.  It was especially surprising that some answers fabricated assumptions in order to make a quantitative forecast - don't do that!

It was also surprising that several students suggested a naive forecast.  How can this possibly be appropriate when sales must necessarily be steeply trended in a two year old industry?

Some students also suggested that they knew nothing about this industry and therefore were at a disadvantage in answering the question.  This is such a new industry that NOBODY knows anything about it, so we are all on equal footing with regard to speculating about the future.

The best answers were ones which made reasonable presumptions about the company (e.g., that it is more concerned about growth than about profits in the short run), that made reasonable assumptions about potential target audiences associated with each of the options (e.g., that people doing keyword searches are qualitatively different than people who would be visiting one of the ten sites in Options 1 and 2), and that speculated about growth of the World Wide Web and how it might be used by people in the future.  One cannot generate a solid forecast from merely discussing such environmental issues, but at least the writer is then in a position to discuss factors which might be used in attempting a qualitative forecast of sales and to recommend which of the advertising options is most likely to lead to the highest sales.

Question 2:

The question asked for a contrast of two specific industries.  Some students gave a generic textbook discussion of services vs. goods marketing which did not contrast these two specific situations, resulting in something that could not have been in the "A" range.  The question also asked for similarities as well as differences; focus on one or the other resulted in something that was less than the "A" range.  Some answers had undue focus on obvious motives regarding profits, resulting in lower scores.  Reasonably good answers at least addressed such notions as inseparability, heterogeneity, etc. and problems of co-production and capacity in contrasting the two industries, but the best answers also brought in other issues such as the marketing mix, target markets, constituencies served, etc.

Question 3:

I was hoping for more than just a discussion of each of the three articles mentioned in the question and that the discussion would discuss more than just the notions of "myopia" and "marketing mix" that were mentioned in the question.  Good answers integrated the ideas that are in textbooks such as Dalrymple & Parsons (and in class discussions) with the classic articles that are in Enis, Cox, & Mokwa.  The grading heuristic on this question ended up to be pretty simple - if you only mentioned and discussed those three articles already in the question, you got a 3.0 B.  I you mentioned and discussed concepts and ideas from four or more articles (with some depth) you got somewhere near a 4.0 A.  If you discussed less than the three articles already in the question, you got a 2.0 C.