MKT 4000 Fall 2008Final Exam Study Guide

***The following topics will be covered on the final exam. Please note that the final exam is non-comprehensive. The emphasis is on comprehension and application of these topics.***

New Product Development

  • Importance of new products
  • Major reasons for new product failure
  • Types of new product
  • The new product development process
  • Stages of the process
  • Alternative processes for new product development, and their pros and cons
  • Costs at various stages
  • Importance of the interfunctional interface in new product development
  • Organization of new product development
  • Sources of new product ideas
  • Main objectives of test marketing
  • The pros and cons of test marketing
  • Factors that can lead to new product success
  • Reasons for difficulty to kill bad product ideas

Managing Integrated Marketing Communication and ad campaign

  • Components of integrated communication mix
  • Pros and cons of each components
  • Major criteria for assessing an integrated communication mix
  • The process of developing an effective advertising campaign
  • Pull vs. push communication strategies
  • Major decisions and the “five Ms” in managing advertising campaigns
  • Typical types of advertising objectives
  • Ways to determine advertising budget and their pros and cons
  • Task areas in designing the advertising messages
  • Types of message execution styles
  • Major media and their pros and cons
  • The process of and factors that influence media selection
  • Ways to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising campaigns
  • Advertising organization types

Managing Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

  • Importance of sales promotion
  • Types of sales promotion
  • Methods for sales promotion and their main objectives
  • Consumers
  • Trade
  • Businesses
  • The Process of developing a sales promotion campaign
  • Effects of sales promotion (short term vs. long term)
  • The role of personal selling
  • Conditions conducive to using personal selling
  • Personal selling process
  • Major tasks in managing sales force
  • Types of sales force compensation and their pros and cons
  • Ways to improve sales force effectiveness
  • Sales control systems and their pros and cons
  • Ways to evaluate salespeople performance

Managing Marketing Channels

  • Major functions of marketing channels
  • Importance of marketing intermediaries/channel members
  • Major tasks in channel design
  • Types of distribution strategy
  • Major areas of customer service
  • Key decisions in channel management
  • Sources of channel conflict and ways to manage channel conflict
  • Types of vertical marketing systems
  • Major trends in retailing
  • Major trends in wholesaling

Managing Pricing

  • Importance of pricing in the marketing mix
  • Psychological theory of pricing
  • Factors that determine the price
  • The 3-Cs of pricing
  • The process of price determination
  • Breakeven analysis
  • Skimming pricing vs, penetration pricing
  • Price-quality relationship
  • Product line pricing
  • Prestige pricing
  • Loss-leader pricing
  • Odd-even pricing

International Marketing

  • Benefits and challenges of international marketing
  • Key environments of international marketing
  • The importance of cultural environment
  • Various degrees of adaptation in international marketing
  • Components of international business risk
  • Major international marketing decisions
  • Major modes of foreign market entry
  • Major sources of competitive advantages in global industries