Critical Reasoning

bblast wrote:Products sold under a brand name used to command premium prices because, in general, they were superior to
nonbrand 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.

A
[spoiler]why C is wrong ?[/spoiler]

The key to discrepancy or paradox questions is to first understand the problem.
(1) Brand names used to be better than non-brand but not anymore
(2) Brand names are better for marketing than ever before (meaning consumers really want brand names now)

Paradox: Brand names aren't any better but consumers want them even more - why? (we're looking for a choice that will explain the CONSUMER behavior towards brand names)

A: consumers see the brand name as some form of guarantee (gives a potential reason for why consumers might still prefer the brand names to the non-brand names)

B: consumers understand that lesser brands can get better or worse (may further deepen the paradox because it tells us that consumers might know that non-brands have become as good as brand names)

C: companies often use buyouts as a chance to get the brand, not the actual product (explains a possible consequence of the paradox - companies still want brand names in takeovers - but it does not give an explanation for the paradox itself - why consumers want brand names)

D: brand names used to be easier to establish (doesn't explain why consumers still demand the brand names)

E: with low sales, new ad firms take over the campaigns (WAY out of scope!!)

Only choice A gives us support of the consumer behavior described in the paradox. Therefore, the correct answer is A.


Whit