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OG-12 CR Q-80 brand name

Expert replies
by ankit0411 » Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:19 am
Products sold under a brand name used to command premium prices because, in general, they were superior to non brand rival products. Technical expertise in product development has become so widespread, however, that special quality advantages are very hard to obtain these days and even harder to maintain. As a consequence,brand-name products generally neither offer higher quality nor sell at higher prices. Paradoxically, brand names are a bigger marketing advantage than ever.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the paradox outlined above?

(A) Brand names are taken by consumers as a guarantee of getting a product as good as the best rival
products.
(B) Consumers recognize that the quality of products sold under invariant brand names can drift over time.
(C) In many acquisitions of one corporation by another, the acquiring corporation is interested more in acquiring the right to use certain brand names than in acquiring existing production facilities.

(D) In the days when special quality advantages were easier to obtain than they are now, it was also easier to get new brand names established.

(E) The advertising of a company’s brand-name products is at times transferred to a new advertising agency, especially when sales are declining.

I'd chosen option D ; it totally explains about the advantages of getting an easier brand name.
I'm half heartedly convinced of A being the OA .

Guys help ? :(
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by Bill@VeritasPrep » Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:32 am
The paradox is that brand name products no longer have a quality advantage (because product development has gotten much better across the board) but still have a marketing advantage.

A works by saying that consumers will still prefer the brand name products. Since they had a quality advantage for many years, consumers are still inclined to trust those brands even if the previous advantage has disappeared. This advantage will be hard to overcome since non-brand name products cannot tout a quality or price advantage.

D explains how the marketing advantage could have originated, but it does not explain why it persists today.
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by sam2304 » Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:35 am
Branded products were superior to non brand products then. Technical advantages are so widespread now that branded products are no different from non brand products yet branded products have advantage over rival products. How ?

Only A answers this question. D is irrelevant here.
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by ankit0411 » Tue Apr 24, 2012 9:34 am
Thanks a lot guys ! That clears out the confusion :)
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by anjalimanas » Wed May 02, 2012 3:36 am
In the argument the branded product is being compared to non branded products and the not the best rival products as stated in option A
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D is right

by Kronrod » Sat Jul 06, 2013 5:36 am
I'm not happy with Bill's explanation. Like ankit, I tend to answer D.

Bill says: "The paradox is that brand name products no longer have a quality advantage (because product development has gotten much better across the board) but still have a marketing advantage."

This is not entirely correct. If you read carefully, the paradox is that brands have a bigger advantage than ever.

As a consequence, we must look for an answer that explains the change over time. Thus, we can rule out answer A as it provides a static statement. A can explain why brand names remain a big marketing advantage, but it cannot explain a growing marketing advantage. As an example, imagine that there is an established brand X with known good quality and a second brand Y with the same quality enters the market. What will happen over time? Will brand X be able to keep its market share? Maybe. Will it be able to expand its market share and gain the trust of new consumers faster than brand Y based on its brand alone? Probably not. So statement A cannot explain an increasing advantage.

Bill also writes in his explanation: "This advantage will be hard to overcome since non-brand name products cannot tout a quality or price advantage."

Note that this is basically the reasoning of answer D. So given the fact that Bill uses a statement so similar to D in his explanation is a strong hint that answer D is required to explain the paradox. Don't you think?

I think the last sentence of the question should be rephrased to "Paradoxically, brand names are still a big marketing advantage." That way, the answer must not be able to explain the difference over time any more.
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