GMAT Essays (AWA)

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."

My Response


To launch a new product , such as coffee , one needs to study the need of the market and to just provide what others are already providing will not guarantee the success of the new product in the market. Other details such as Market positioning also needs to be taken in account. The author asserts that if the Excelsior company does to introduce the new brand of coffee in market what Superior did in the past for introducing the newest brand in its line of coffees , the company will gain customers . The author presents a poorly reasoned argument based on various unsupported premises and assumptions and based primarily on the evidence provided , we cannot accept the argument as valid.

The author's claim is based on the assumptions that remain unproven. The author assumes that what Superior company did in the past to introduce the new brand of coffee will hold true in the present for the Excelsior company to introduce its own brand of coffee. The same may not hold true because it is evident from the argument that the Superior company is already a well established brand in coffee market and Superior company adopted the methodology mentioned in the argument to introduce yet another brand of coffee but Excelsior company has yet to launch the coffee brand under its name.

The author assumes that what has held true in the past will hold true even today. That may not be the case with the product. The author needs to explicate the relationship between the strategies of the past and the present by citing evidentiary support to the assumptions made. Since the author has failed to explicate the assumptions made , that renders the argument unacceptable.

The author also assumes that just by following the old strategy of Superior Company , The Excelsior company can gain the customers . The author needs to give basis for this assumption. The author also assumes that it is the only factor that will help in gaining the customers for the Excelsior's product. The different companies have their own unique selling prepositions and just by following the successful strategies of the successful companies does not guarantee the success of the business.The author's unwarranted assumptions , the basis for his argument , renders the conclusion as invalid.

Though the author argument has several key issues , that is not to say the whole argument is without base. The author needs to explicate the relationship between the following of the strategy of the Superior company and the success in gaining the customers . The author needs to explicate the assumption of the validity of the strategies in the past and the present. By research and clarification , the author can improve the argument reasonably well.

In sum , the author presents a poorly reasoned argument by failing to provide the legitimate evidentiary support to the premises and explicate the assumptions made. The author assumes that the strategy that held true in the past will hold true in the present too. If the author wishes to change the reader's minds , the author has to largely restructure the argument , fix the flaws in his logic , provide evidentiary support to the premises and explicate the assumptions made. Without these , it is less likely that the readers accept the argument as valid and true.