© Blasco-Arcas, Lee, Maggioni, Prime, Wilken – Data-driven Marketing coordinators – EXAM 2020

MIM Academic Year 2019/2020

Exam Sample Questions

MM03 – Data-driven Marketing

Professors Blasco-Arcas, Lee, Macé, Maggioni, Wilken

PART A: MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

Instruction: For each question, please provide all applicable answers, as follows; in this example, assume that
answers A and B are correct; hence, tick these boxes with an “X”.

O. Which of the followings answers is correct?

X Answer A
X Answer B
Answer C
Answer D

OK? Then let’s go…

1. Which is the correct dispossession cycle of the elaboration of surveillance capitalism?

incursion, habituation, adaptation, redirection
diffusion, redirection, habituation, adaptation
inclusion, habituation, adaptation, redirection
None of the above
2. What does GDPR NOT stand for?
Global Directory of Protection Regulation
Global Data Protection Rule
General Data Privacy Regulation
None of the above
3. Ways for measuring the customer value are
CLV
Focus Groups
Direct Survey Questions
None of the above
4. The product component model of product attributes consists out of the following:
Service, Symbolic, Physical
Theoretical, Symbolic, Physical
Physical, Functional, Practical
None of the above
5. Which is the correct value-in-use (VIU) for the given example: Suppose a chemical plant uses
150 O-rings to seal valves on pipes that carry corrosive materials. The plant pays $6 for each O-
ring and must change them during regular maintenance every three months. However, a new
product has twice the resistance to corrosive materials. The supplier of the new product can
determine the value-in-use (VIU) of the material according to different moods.

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 © Blasco-Arcas, Lee, Maggioni, Prime, Wilken – Data-driven Marketing coordinators – EXAM 2020

12$
13$
11$
None of the above
6. A multinomial logit model gives you the following results: Utility of Brand A is 5, Utility of
Brand B is 3, Utility of Brand C is 7, Utility of Brand D is 10. Which is the correct customers’
purchase probability for the Brand A?
0.30
0.25
0.45
None of the above

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 © Blasco-Arcas, Lee, Maggioni, Prime, Wilken – Data-driven Marketing coordinators – EXAM 2020

PART B: SHORT QUESTIONS, SHORT ANSWERS PLEASE

QUESTION B.1

Imagine yourself being a product manager for the following 4 products A, B, C, and D of company XYZ.
You as their manager should make informed decisions based on the following data you received from
your data science department. You further receive data from your most relevant competitor for the
specific products.

Please consider the following table:

Your products Market share Market Competitors’ Market share Market

(units) growth (units) products (units) growth (units)
A 65 40 E 16 30
B 73 28 F 22 79
C 12 78 G 84 29
D 23 15 H 89 74

a) Please use the table above to make informed decisions for your products A, B, C, and D in
comparison to your most relevant competitors’ products E, F, G, and H. For this purpose, apply
the BCG matrix (using your company and the most relevant competitor as the market actors).
Use the relevant terminology and come up with a strategy for each of your products for the
future. Calculate the relative market share and relative market growth. [8 points]
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]
b) Would the application of the GE/McKinsey matrix suggest different results? [7 points]
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]

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 © Blasco-Arcas, Lee, Maggioni, Prime, Wilken – Data-driven Marketing coordinators – EXAM 2020

QUESTION B.2

The trend forecasting agency The Future Laboratory identified in 2016 the Learning Economy trend.
Read the extract from their report below and answer the following questions.

Education has changed from an early-life to a life-long activity, but traditional institutions have
failed to keep up with consumers. Brands are now stepping in as partners in this continuing
process of self-improvement.
“Young people don’t want to be at school anymore. Why would they? They can learn as much
online as they can in the classroom. Many are better versed in the trends shaping tomorrow’s
world than those at the head of the class. Education is in danger of being left behind.” says
Anant Agarwal, CEO of online learning platform edX.
As we showed in Gen Viz, today’s youth are as interested in education as those before them,
but the way they are being taught and the subjects on the curriculum do not reflect the
changing times. In 2014 the British government announced that coding would be taught in all
state schools, the first G20 country to do so.
The idea that education ends on graduation day is also outdated. The three-stage model of
education, work and retirement is simply not how many people live today. Consumer
behaviour is now much more fluid, and nearly three-quarters (73%) of American adults
consider themselves life-long learners, according to Pew Research Center.
In the background uncertainty about the future of artificial intelligence looms large,
threatening to destroy jobs or create new opportunities, depending on who you listen to. At
the same time, educators are calling for a pedagogy between brands and schools to help them
address a widening skills gap that goes against everything they work for.
Source: Jordan, A., LSN Global, 2016

a) What deep consumer needs and desires does this trend address? [4 points]
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]
b) What new expectations are created by this trend? [3 points]
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]
c) Comment on the level of this trend maturity and provide examples. [3 points]
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]

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 © Blasco-Arcas, Lee, Maggioni, Prime, Wilken – Data-driven Marketing coordinators – EXAM 2020

QUESTION B.3 (5 points)

Your company is analyzing customer purchase behavior overtime to estimate future customer value
and revenues. One of the segments you target and critical for your success (It accounts for a 30% of
your revenues on that product), show the following evolution in terms of customers (5 points):

Period 1 Period 2 Period 3

Total number of customers per period 300,000 225,000 125,000

Customers lost for the period 25,000 75,000 100,000

a) What would be the retention rate (Rr) for period 1? [2.5 points]
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]
b) What would be the survival rate in Period 3 (assuming that in period 1 Rr1=Sr1)? [2.5 points]
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]

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 © Blasco-Arcas, Lee, Maggioni, Prime, Wilken – Data-driven Marketing coordinators – EXAM 2020

PART C: MINI CASE

QUESTION C

Polkaly is a digital solution company. Their product is an interactive tool which allows the presenters
to better engage with the audience. With the recent change in the market, they observed a surge in
demand for the relevant tools to be used for distant meetings, especially in the education sector. They
are thinking about introducing a new real-time project management tool which would allow the
presenters to interact with and monitor the audiences in multiple teams simultaneously. While only
having one product at the moment, they separate their clients into four strategic business units:

Strategic Business Unit Consultancy Education Public Sector Retail

Segment Size 30% 15% 50% 5%
Average annual growth in 5% 3% 1% 2%
revenue

a) What is a strategic business unit [2 points]?

[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]
b) Based on the information above, would you conclude whether entering the education sector
with a new product would be a good idea? Please explain [4 points]
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]

To make better data-driven decisions, the company decided to look into customer profitability and
consider the customer lifetime value per strategic business unit:

Strategic Business Unit Consultancy Education Public Sector Retail

Average Revenue per client 5,000 3,000 2,000 2,500
(annual)
Average Customer Lifetime 2 years 5 years 3 years 1 year
Acquisition cost 1,000 1,500 2,000 1,000

c) Assuming you need to subtract 20% of the revenue for overhead costs, which of the strategic
business units would be the most attractive to enter based on their customer lifetime value [6
points].
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]

To be sure about the decision of introducing a new product at this time, the company ran a rating-
based conjoint analysis (on a 1-10 scale) with the representative respondents from each of the sector.
The results (part-worth utilities) are as follows (see table next page):

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 © Blasco-Arcas, Lee, Maggioni, Prime, Wilken – Data-driven Marketing coordinators – EXAM 2020

Profiles Respondent Respondent Respondent Respondent

Features Levels Consultancy Education Public Sector Retail
Side window 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
In window
display (similar
Live chat to Instagram
-0.23 1.24 -0.089 2.92
or other live
streaming
platforms)
No groups 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Group Limited groups
1.81 0.89 -0.21 1.25
breakout (max 10)
sessions Unlimited
0.19 2.94 -1.08 1.02
groups
20 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Maximum
50 2.31 0.28 1.92 2.01
participants
100 1.02 1.59 0.20 0.83
Price (per 30 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
license/per 50 -1.22 -2.31 -3.72 -0.83
year) 70 -2.24 -2.71 -2.34 -1.21
Baseline utility 2.84 4.18 5.23 3.17

d) Based on the results, what would be the best combination of products for each of the strategic
business units [4 points]?
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]
e) What is the most important feature for each of the strategic business units [4 points]?
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]
f) Among all the features, the unlimited group function and the in-window chat display are truly
Polkaly’s competitive advantages. Taking all the information you have in the case, which
group(s) would you recommend to target, with what kind of product, and at what price point?
[10 points]
[PLEASE TYPE YOUR SOLUTION HERE]