 Hi, welcome. My name is Dr. Marcy Stone and this is the practice exam review for case one of your strategic marketing course. Okay, so here is a little bit of an overview of the case. So the first case study focuses on a local coffee and tea cafe that experiences success by filling a neighborhood niche leading to regional expansion. Planned national growth encourages an expanded executive team to focus on the marketing planning process and marketing research to ensure that the company is on the right path to address consumer needs in a profitable manner. All right, and here is the case study. So Great Perk's Coffee and Tea is a successful chain of neighborhood coffee and tea cafes based in the Midwest region of Northern America. The chain offers a high quality coffee and tea freshly brewed throughout the day. A limited selection of baked goods is also available for customers to enjoy with their beverages if desired. The prices are reasonable compared to the national and international coffee shop chains with regional locations. Great Perk's Coffee and Tea is located in neighborhoods with moderate pedestrian and road traffic. A cozy comfortable atmosphere makes the locations appealing stops for a great cup of coffee or tea while relaxing alone or socializing with others. Great Perk's Coffee and Tea was founded in Chicago in 2015 by Mark and Mary Bean. This retired couple engages in activities in their neighborhood and beyond, including regular social interactions with friends. They enjoyed chatting with others over hot beverages, but were disappointed that no coffee shops existed in their neighborhood. Fast food and full service restaurants were the only options besides venturing beyond the neighborhood to one of the busy major chain locations or gatherings in private homes. The beans disappointment turned into excitement about the business opportunity presented by this situation. After many months of planning and securing input from neighbors and owners of local businesses, the beans established the first location of Great Perk's Coffee and Tea. They intended to address niche with their cafe being a locally owned neighborhood place where locals can enjoy a good cup of coffee or tea, conversation and more. They locally sourced high quality coffee beans, tea leaves, fresh baked goods, equipment and supplies. The menu options were limited so customers were not overwhelmed by the many options offered at the big coffee chains. Prices were reasonable less than a cup of coffee or tea at a major chain, but with more convenience, more than a convenience store or a fast food restaurant to indicate high quality. Comfortable sofas, armchairs and coffee tables and soft music created a casual and comfortable atmosphere which they could relax and socialize. They used a basic website, social media presence on Facebook, flyers distributed in the community and word of mouth marketing to create awareness of the cafe. Great Perk's Coffee and Tea was an appreciated addition to the neighborhood. This warm, welcoming place was regularly frequented by a diverse mix of middle age and mature local residents, students who attended the nearby college and some people who were passing through the neighborhood. Customers enjoyed the straightforward menu, quality products, reasonable prices and relaxed atmosphere of the cafe. They also enjoyed the familiarity with the staff and many other patrons. To build upon the sense of community created by the cafe, the beans displayed works by local artists and contracted with local musicians to provide live music during weekend afternoons. The first location of Great Perk's Coffee and Tea was such a success that the beans visited other Chicago area neighborhoods to find new business opportunities. Based on the information gathered from residents and local business owners, the beans eventually opened five additional neighborhood locations. They started a loyalty program to encourage visits to Great Perk's Coffee and Tea while online print and word of mouth efforts continued. The successes realized at the six Chicago area locations and a growing loyal customer base led to additional expansion with six neighborhood locations established in three other Midwestern cities. As the number of locations increased, the executive team at Great Perk's Coffee and Tea expanded with marketing, strategic planning and other experts to help the beans profitably maintain existing locations while guiding the organization through growth. Executives at Great Bean Coffee and Tea are considering expanding into selected neighborhoods outside the Midwest region. In discussing the possibility of expansion into high traffic, metropolitan areas in which the major coffee chains have many locations, it is expected that the simple menu, quality products, reasonable prices and cozy atmosphere at Great Perk's Coffee and Tea will attract many customers who typically patronize the major chains. You have joined the executive team at Great Perk's Coffee and Tea as the vice president of marketing. Your responsibility is to provide marketing insights and leadership as current operations are sustained and exciting possibilities are considered. Okay, so now that we've gone through the case study, we're now going to review five questions that are from your actual exam. So here's question number one. So Great Perk's Coffee and Tea initially established by the beans as a single location in their neighborhood has developed into a successful regional chain with plans for national expansion. The executive team is excited to quickly expand beyond Midwestern neighborhoods and also into high traffic metropolitan areas. As the vice president of marketing, what actions would you take to support expansion plans? So we have four possible answers. So A is start the marketing planning process to confirm that marketing and corporate objectives will be met. B determine the marketing mix for the geographic area for the expansion once they've been identified. C apply the successful marketing strategy for existing locations to the geographic area for expansion or D, the correct answer, begin the marketing planning process after the corporate mission, vision and strategy are confirmed. So when we look at this question and answer, D is the correct answer and it is something that needs to be taken into consideration. So once they have a corporate mission statement, then the marketing, the vice president of marketing will have a better idea of where the company is focused. What is their vision? What is it that we're trying to obtain? And what is the strategy for that? So the reason that you want to have this information before you start to support any expansion plans is so that you can better understand and align the goals of the marketing plan with the goals of the corporation. So that is the correct answer. And that is why as you as the vice president of marketing want to make sure that you have those before you move forward. So the course learning outcome for this question is use the marketing planning process to meet business goals. Alright, now we're going to move on to question two. So an important element of Great Perk's Coffee and Tea's marketing plan is its loyalty program. Thousands of customers regularly have their digital card scanned with purchases to earn rewards. The card application and purchases allow the company to collect and maintain much information about each customer to personalize rewards for other business purposes. An insider data breach of the customer relationship management system was recently discovered. So what changes should you recommend to the executive team to revise the marketing planning process? We have four potential answers. A is modify a promotions with the loyalty program being discontinued so customers are protected from future incidents. B is no change since a loyalty program is an important part of the marketing plan and customers know that their risk their data is at risk. C modify multiple aspects of the process, including the SWAT analysis and promotions with a renewed commitment to security, ethical and legal standards. Or D no changes since this is a one time issue and it's being managed with the termination of the offending employee and essential communications with officials and customers. So the correct answer here is C. So not only do you want to come back and change and update the marketing and any promotions, but you also want to have that renewed commitment to security, ethical and legal standards. So you want to do this so that customers don't feel that you did not take this process, this information seriously. So when there's an insider data breach, you want to make sure that not only as a company that you are taking that seriously, but also in what you communicate through marketing also shows that you're taking it very seriously. So C is the correct answer. And the course learning outcome for this one is justify a focus on legal, ethical and social responsibility matters in marketing decisions. And now we have question three. So in your new role as the vice president of marketing for Great Perks Coffee and Tea, you participate in weekly meetings with other executives to review strategic actions and company performance. In the most recent meeting, finances were discussed and you were questioned about your budget for marketing research. What explanation do you have for including marketing research in the budget? So we have four possible answers. A, it is a reasonable expense to pay preferred customers to participate in monthly focus groups for customer insights and loyalty. B, it is an essential expense for assistance with collecting competitive pricing information. So Great Perks Coffee and Tea's pricing can be validated. C, it's a reasonable expense for retaining a marketing research company to regularly collect quantitative information about Great Perks Coffee and Tea's promotions. Or D, which is the correct answer. It is an essential expense for assistance with collecting and analyzing customer insights so executives can determine the best marketing strategies to achieve goals. So again, what explanation do you have for including marketing research in the budget? And then the answer is that you want to collect and analyze customer insights so that the executives can determine the best marketing strategies to achieve these goals. So when you're looking at collecting this information, it's important that you understand customer insights. And customer insights can be your loyal customers. It might be someone who's it's the very first time that they've come into your business, but it is really important to understand the customer experience. So not only why did they come into your shop and get a cup of coffee, but maybe what they thought about the process. What did they think about the entire store? Did they have any issues? Were there parking issues? Just one, it's important to understand the entire customer experience so that these so that they can better put together a strategic plan. If you understand that maybe most customers are frustrated with certain things, that might be something that needs to be addressed, not only from the company aspect of it, but also from the marketing perspective. And now we have the fourth question. So with expansion plans for Great Perk's coffee and tea, now focusing on six northeastern locations, marketing research is essential. You have concluded that qualitative with quantitative research methods would result in insightful and actionable information. What's the most significant combination of a qualitative research and a quantitative research method for collecting appropriate information to support executive decisions? So we have answer A, focus groups and survey research, B, social listening and survey research, C, focus groups and in-depth interviews, or D, in-depth interviews and experimental research. So this one, the answer is A, focus groups and survey research. Focus groups are part of a qualitative research method and survey research is part of a quantitative. And so in this it would be a mixed methods study that they would look at. It gives you quite a bit more information when you use both a quantitative and a qualitative study. You get a lot more information and usually they back up each other. So if there's something that maybe is missing from the survey, you may actually uncover it in a focus group. So by using both of them together it's twice the work, but at the same time you're getting solid results from your study. And then the course learning outcome for this question is assess the impact of internal and external environmental factors on the marketing planning process. Okay and here's the final question. So the executive team at Great Perk's Coffee and Tea has been excited by initial marketing research and how it can support decisions about expansion and related matters, including expanding info for of the northeastern expansion into four of the northeastern locations. You are pleased that the team now understands the value of marketing research. As the marketing expert you believe that it's your duty to inform the team of occasional concerns that could become apparent with research results which would affect their decisions about any advice. What can you point out about potential concerns with primary and secondary marketing research results to which the team must be sensitive? So we have four possible answers. A is bias biases in data collection and interpretation in consistency with other available information and no specific directions on what to do. B biases in data collection and interpretation in consistency with other available information and no answer to the research question. C is insignificant sample size inconsistencies with the expected outcomes and indicators that the research was a waste of time and resources or D insignificant sample size inconsistencies with the expected outcomes and no instructions on how to fix the results so they can answer the research question. And the answer is B. So we've got biases in data collection and interpretation in consistency with other available information and no answer to the research question. So when we look at the question for this you believe that it's your duty to tell them of the concerns that have become apparent and pointing out the concerns is important but also can be a little awkward because you've set out to study these particular things you've made a plan to do that and then you have no answer to answer your research questions which was the whole point of the study in the first place. But by being honest and talking about the things that have come up during the process like you can't have biased data. If you have biased data then your study isn't ground it isn't based in fact but it's based in what the researchers think and that can be a problem and then in consistency with other available information. So remember we were using a and if the quantitative research doesn't back up the qualitative research then that also is a problem. So the course learning outcome for this question is assess the impact of internal and external environmental factors on the marketing planning process. Okay so we reviewed the case one overview of Great Perk's coffee and tea. We also went through all five or five specific questions that are on the exam and now we are concluding. So my name is Dr. Marcy Stone and I just wanted to say thank you.