M.B.A-M.B.A Finance 2nd Year MARKETING MANAGEMENT(Acharya Nagarjuna University (ANU), Guntur, Andhra Pradesh-2012)

EXECUTIVE M.B.A. DEGREE EXAMINATION, MAY 2012.
First and Second Years
Paper IX — MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Time : Three hours Maximum : 75 marks
SECTION A — (3 × 5 = 15 marks)
Answer any THREE of the following.
1. (a) Idea marketing.
(b) Channel conflict.
(c) Marketing audit.
(d) Organisational buying behaviour.
(e) Product.
(f) Non-price competition.
SECTION B — (3 × 15 = 45 marks)
Answer any THREE questions.
2. What are the societal dimensions of marketing?
3. Discuss the interface between marketing organisation and finance function.
4. State the implications of product life cycle ton marketers.
5. Bring out the factors that influence pricing decisions.
6. How do you segment the market for watches and tooth paste?
7. Trace out the post-purchase behaviour of consumers.
SECTION C — (15 marks)
8. Case Study.
Yahoo! grew from a tiny upstart surrounded by Silicon valley heavyweights to
a major Contender in Internet media. David Filo and Jerry Yang, two
computer science Ph.D. students at Stanford University, created a simple
search engine in 1994. Using a homemade filing system, the pair cataloged
sites on the newly created World Wide Web and published the directory on the
Internet. The original version was called Jerry and David’s Guide to the
World Wide Web.
Filo and Yang named their effort Yahoo! after they left school to devote their
full attention to the business. At the time, the company’s search engine was
unique because in addition to the standard word search features, Yahoo!
offered its users a massive searchable index. Surfers could search for sites in
broad categories like Business and Economy or Arts and Humanities. They
could organize the results by country or region and look at results from within
just one category. Since Yahoo! was among the first such Internet guides, the
site attracted hundreds of thousands of surfers within a year of its
introduction. This early attention attracted investors and in April 1995,
founders Filo and Yang raised $1 million in first-round venture capital.
From its start, Yahoo! conveyed an irreverent attitude. The Yahoo! attitude
came from the top of the corporate ladder, in the personalities of founders Filo
and Yang. The two had conceived of Yahoo! while housed “in trailers full of
pizza boxes,” and each of their business cards bore the title “Chief Yahoo!”
Even the name contains a hidden joke – Yahoo is a self-deprecating acronym
meaning “Yet another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”. Yahoo!s marketing
reflected the company’s style as well : In one ad, Eskimos ordered a hot tub
online. Each ad closed with the tagline “Do you Yahoo!?” and the signature
“Yahoo! yodel,” an audio cue designed to reinforce customer recall of the
brand.
Yahoo!’s most recent step into interactive marketing is to offer contextual
advertising on its site. Contextual advertising means that the commercial
links on a Yahoo! page are tied to the particular content on that page. For
example, a visitor at caranddriver.com reading a review of the Acura MDX
will see paid text links advertising the Acura Web site and the Edmunds auto
comparison site, rather than unrelated cell phone ads. Contextual advertising
shows the same links users would see if they type “Acura MDX” into the
Yahoo! search engine. Contextual advertising appeals to advertisers who are moving away from mass marketing toward more targeted approaches. Yahoo!’s new ad server creates contextual relevance, catching a consumer or decision maker reading material directly related to the advertised topic.
Although most users consider Yahoo! to be a search engine, it sees itself as a
place that packages experiences for consumers. A large percentage to
revenues comes from advertising, but the company continues to supplement
its revenues through subscription sources such as online personal ads,
premium e-mail products, and services for small businesses. For example,
Yahoo! teamed with telecom company SBC to sell branded high-speed
Internet service bundled with Yahoo! services and premium e-mail. SBC
communications pay Yahoo! an estimated $2.10 per month for every customer
on the service. This lets Yahoo! increase its revenues without having to sell
premium services one customer at a time. Yahoo!’s non-search advertising grew by 31 percent in the fourth quarter of 2003, twice the rate of other specialized content sites.
Yahoo’s two main advantages over search engine rival Google are its vast
array of original content and a database with information about is 133 million
registered users. By knowing where searchers live and what their interests
are, Yahoo! believes it can present them with both more relevant search
results and more focused advertising.
Yahoo! is also attracting traditional advertisers like Pepsi and Ford. Yahoo!’s
ad for the Ford Explorer, for example, featured sound effects simulating an
engine with animation that made the Web browser appear to shake. To announce its new Ford F-150 truck, Ford created an interactive 3D ad and purchased roadblocks (ads that browsers must click through to reach other content) on the first day of its launch at Yahoo! as well as MSN and AOL.
Questions.
(a) What have been the key success factors for Yahoo!?
(b) Where is Yahoo! vulnerable? What should it watch out for?
(c) What recommendations would you make to senior marketing executives going forward?
(d) What should the company be sure to do with its marketing?