GMAT Essays (AWA)

I'm taking the GMAT next week and haven't had time to study for the AWA section until now. I purchased the GMAT WRITE 1, but would appreciate any real feedback from the below essay I wrote.

Thanks!!

The following appeared in an Excelsior Company memorandum.

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.

The statement presented above argues that the best way for Excelsior, a company entering into the coffee market, to gain customers is to conduct a temporary sales promotion that offers free samples, price reductions, and discount coupons. The evidence provided in support of this conclusion is the fact that Superior employed a similar strategy when it introduced its newest brand of coffee. It is implied in the argument that since Superior is the leading coffee company, its techniques should be followed. However, there are many flaws with this reasoning and not enough evidence is provided to support the argument's conclusion.

First of all, the argument omits a key piece of evidence that would support its stated conclusion. We are uncertain of the success Superior had with the promotion of its new coffee brand. While one might assume from the nature of the statement that the promotion must have been a success, this fact is not explicitly known. It is also possible that the argument is made regardless of the previous promotion's success. It is easy to assume that the argument is based on a history of success, but it could merely be based on following Superior's lead as the leading coffee company in the market. If this were the case, the argument would be seriously weakened. Therefore, in the evaluation of this argument it would be helpful to know how successful Superior was with its previous promotion.

Secondly, Excelsior does not already have an established coffee brand. Superior, on the other hand, is the leading coffee company and is likely a well recognized brand among consumers. The argument assumes that since Superior employed a certain tactic, it would be beneficial for Excelsior to employ that same tactic. Assuming that Superior's promotion was successful, it's success could have relied on consumer's knowledge of the Superior coffee brand. With price reductions and discount coupons, consumers might have known they could trust the Superior brand and opted to try the new product at a discount price. Alternatively, consumers may disregard the price reductions and discount coupons because they are unfamiliar with the Excelsior brand. Instead of using Superior's new product as an example, Excelsior would be better suited to analyze how Superior entered the coffee market originally or how another competitor had entered the coffee market.

Lastly, Excelsior is trying to gain a loyal customer base for it's new coffee brand. Coupons and price reductions tend to weaken the value of a brand over time. Consumers who see the lower prices and sales may think that Excelsior is a lessor product than Superior and its other competitors. The promotion itself may drive initial sales volume, as consumers tend to be cost conscious, but the promotion may not gain a lasting customer base. Once the promotion ends and prices return to normal, many of the brand's customers may switch to an different, cheaper brand. Research into the impact price reductions and discount coupons have on establishing a lasting customer base would help validated this aspect of the argument.

Overall, the argument presented in the above statement has some significant weaknesses. More evidence is needed to fully understand the impact a temporary sales promotion would have on Excelsior's product and future customer base. If the success of Superior's previous promotion was known, alternative methods employed by competitors entering the coffee market was known, and research into the impact of price reductions and discount coupons on consumer preferences was available, we would be able to evaluate this argument more effectively.