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.
Why had marketing 2.0 seen a transition in customer behavior?
- A.
In 90’s Indian market started flooding with indigenous goods which had also attracted attention of the local consumers
- B.
Adverse economy of that time had sparked a sense of monetary awareness among people
- C.
Newly introduced concept of globalization had triggered curiosity among people to try different things.
- D.
The era of internet has shortened the world thus letting consumers to have many alternate options.
- E.
None of these
Attempted by 1 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Concept: In a reading-comprehension question, the answer must be drawn from what the passage itself states, not from outside knowledge. To find the cause of a described change, locate the sentence in the passage that explicitly gives the reason for that change, and reject any choice the passage does not support.
Application: Trace the part of the passage that introduces Marketing 2.0. It is tied to “the crisis in the 70’s and 80’s,” and the passage then explains that consumers “started becoming more smarter in their spending (given the economic hardship prevalent at that time).” Reading the cause directly off the text, the change in customer behaviour came from the difficult economy of that period making people more careful and monetarily aware in their spending.
Cross-check (test each choice against the passage):
A 1990s Indian market flooded with indigenous goods: the passage never mentions India or the 1990s in connection with Marketing 2.0, so this claim has no support in the text.
Globalization sparking curiosity to try different things: the passage does not present curiosity or a wish to experiment as the driver of the Marketing 2.0 shift, so this is unsupported.
The internet shortening the world and offering alternatives: the passage links the largely digital, internet-driven environment to the later era it describes (the lead-in to Marketing 4.0), not to the Marketing 2.0 period.
“None of these”: the passage does give an explicit reason in its own words, so claiming that no listed reason applies contradicts the text.
Result: read straight off the passage, the customer-behaviour change in Marketing 2.0 came from the difficult economy of that time making consumers spend more carefully.