Directions: Read the given passage and answer the questions based on that…
2022
Directions: Read the given passage and answer the questions based on that
Marketing is all about connecting with the customer. And in today’s marketplace, customers are changing. Their needs, demands, wants, attitudes, mindsets, behavior, habits, consumption are changing. Especially given the rapid change not only in technological development and tools, but also their adoption into normal everyday life, marketing is — or needs to — change along with the times. It has been seen that the traditional consumers are more predictable a creature of habit. The new ones are more socially aware, and thus often more responsive to socially responsible consumption of goods and services. Having more information at their fingertips, many customers are much more judicious giving them more confidence — and also less inclined to blindly consume spoon-fed information from brands and companies. This means they are the new _______________ for growth. Millennials may seem like an overused term nowadays, but there is no denying the importance these customers have on the way companies do business. Keeping this in mind, brands should be more conscious and wiser in the way they interact with their clients and customers. Part of this is developing marketing that does not lose touch with customers; marketing that the customers of today can relate to. Companies’ survival will thus be contingent on better understanding this new crop of customers, as well as how the current environment — one that is largely digital in nature — factors into how these customers think, behave and consume. And thus, Marketing 4.0 was born. But you cannot talk about Marketing 4.0 without tackling what came before. Marketing 1.0 was largely productional based and the most basic, born out of the manufacturing boom in the 1950’s. But the crisis in the 70’s and 80’s created Marketing 2.0, which is also called relational marketing. Here, consumers started becoming more smarter in their spending (given the economic hardship prevalent at that time), meaning companies needed to find things customers could relate to in order to prompt a positive, beneficial response. Marketing departments now classified customers through basic profiling, and companies were beginning to understand the importance and impact of customer loyalty, engagement, and advocacy. The evolution of the old approach gave birth to Marketing 3.0, where the objective was to meet both the rational and emotional needs of customers. It’s also called the “appeal to emotion,” or “emotional marketing.” As opposed to the two previous approaches where the market was seen as product driven (Marketing 1.0), mass market with smarter customers (Marketing 2.0), Marketing 3.0 saw customers as people, instead of just segments.
What hardships marketing 2.0 had brought to the brands?
- A.
Companies were given challenges in terms of a more aware and discerned market base.
- B.
In order to sustain, companies were forced to synchronize their products according to the market requirement
- C.
The nationalization of various private entities had created a cloud of uncertainty for the small companies.
- D.
only (a) and (b)
- E.
All of these
Attempted by 1 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Concept
In a reading-comprehension matching question, a statement counts as a correct hardship only when the passage gives direct textual support for it. The method: locate the part of the passage that defines Marketing 2.0, accept every statement that the text confirms, reject any statement the text does not mention, and choose the option that covers exactly the supported set — no more, no less.
Application
The passage describes Marketing 2.0 (“relational marketing”) as arising from the crisis of the 70s and 80s, where “consumers started becoming more smarter in their spending… meaning companies needed to find things customers could relate to in order to prompt a positive, beneficial response.” Test each statement against this:
“A more aware and discerned market base” maps directly to “consumers started becoming more smarter in their spending” — supported.
“Forced to synchronize their products according to the market requirement” maps to “companies needed to find things customers could relate to” — supported.
“Nationalization of private entities creating uncertainty for small companies” — the passage never mentions nationalization at all — not supported.
Cross-check
Only the first two statements have textual backing, so the right choice is the one that selects exactly those two and excludes the nationalization claim. An option that bundles in the unsupported nationalization statement (the “All of these” choice) over-reaches, while choosing a single statement on its own ignores the second supported hardship. Hence the correct answer is “only (a) and (b)”.