GMAT作文模板AA54Coffee of Excelsior and Superior.docx

The Excelsior Company plans to introduce its own brand of coffee. Since coffee is an expensive food item, and since there are already many established brands of coffee, the best way to gain customers for the Excelsior brand is to do what Superior, the leading coffee company, did when it introduced the newest brand in its line of coffees: conduct a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons for the new brand.In the argument, the author recommends that the Excelsior Company introduce its own brand of coffee through a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons. In supportive of this conclusion, the author points out that coffee is an expensive food item and there are already many established brands of coffee. In addition, the author reasons that the leading coffee company, Superior, used the same sales promotion when introducing the newest brand in its own line of coffees, thus the Excelsior Company will likewise be successful using the same strategy. At first glance the authors argument appears to be somewhat convincing, but a close examination reveals various logical flaws that render the authors line of reasoning questionable. First of all, it is doubtful that the sales promotion strategies drawn from the leading coffee company Superior are applicable to the Excelsior Company. The author doesnt provide any data on the financial health of the two companies, therefore it is presumptuous that the Excelsior Company will be able to afford and sustain a sales promotion to offer free samples, price reductions and discount coupons until it wins a customer base. The differences between the two companies can outweigh the similarities without further details, therefore weakening the analogy between the Excelsior and the Superior. Secondly, the author readily assumes that the customers will react to the sales promotions of coffee from a known company in the same way as they will to a new company. There is, however, no guarantee that this is the case. Nor does the author cite any evidence to support this. It is likely that Superior has been recognized as a company that provides premium coffee brand thus customers perceived the sales as good deals. The same name effect may not exist for Excelsior and customers can perceive its products as low quality if free samples are offered. Accordingly, we can see that the Excelsior is unlikely to achieve the same results if it simply adopts the Superiors sales strategies. To conclude, the authors argument is not persuasive as it stands. It is imprudent for the author to claim that the Excelsior will gain customers using the sales strategies from Superior. To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide evidence that Excelsior can actually afford and sustain a sales promotion that can last long enough to gain customers. Furthermore, to solidify the conclusion, the author should also provide concrete evidence that customers have historically reacted positively to sales promotions from Excelsior. Only with more convincing evidence could this argument become more than just an emotional appeal.Examples from Gmatclub:Total Score 5Analyzes the issue 5Supports ideas 5Organizes a coherent idea 5Language control 6The author proposes that Excelsior use a temporary sales promotion including free samples, price reductions and discount coupons to introduce Excelsiors coffee brand. Many factors need to be considered to develop a new product strategy and the author has failed to consider a number of these factors. To further consider this strategy, the author should consider additional information, including the current market environment further and the factors that Superiors similar promotion successful.The author suggests that since coffee is expensive, reduced cost may entice consumers to try Excelsior brand. In order to assess the effectiveness of this strategy, additional information regarding the extent of the discount is needed. Knowing the discounted price in relation to other products available would assist in determining the effectiveness of the discount. If the discount merely reduces the price of Excelsior brand to the cost of an established brand with high consumer satisfaction, the discount is less likely to be successful.The potential success of the discount campaign is also based on the assumption that the Excelsior campaign will achieve similar results as the Superior campaign. This argument neglects to consider the fact that Superior was launching a new brand in an already successful line of coffee, rather than a new line itself. While Superior may only need discounts to entice the consumers of their other lines of coffees to try the new brand, Excelsior will not have this advantage. Therefore one cannot tell whether additional promotions besides reduced prices and free samples are needed to successfully penetrate the marketplace. The author should provide additional information regarding the penetration into the market of other companies recently in Excelsiors position.In conclusion, the authors argument supporting the new campaign strategy is flawed. While there are many different ways to laun