GMAT Essays (AWA)

Hello,

Can you please help rate this essay? This is from MGMAT CAT. Thanks for your help.

ESSAY QUESTION:
The following appeared in a market research report examining consumer perceptions of a chain of clothing stores:

"A recent survey commissioned by the market research department of XY Gen Stores indicated a high level of recognition among consumers of the brand and the nature of the apparel sold in XY Gen Stores. However, the survey also indicated that approximately 60% of those surveyed that recognized the name of XY Gen Stores had never shopped at one of the company's stores. Because of this result, XY Gen Stores executives should launch a significant rebranding and marketing campaign to change the company's image and thereby bring new consumers into the stores.

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.

YOUR RESPONSE:
In this argument the author is saying that a recent survey commisioned by the market research department of XY Gen stores indicated a high level of recongnition among consumers of the brand and nature of the apparel sold in XY Gen stores. However, about 60% of those who were surveyed and who recognized the name of XY Gen stores had never shopped at one of the company's stores. Hence, the author is concluding that the executives of XY Gen stores should launch a significant rebranding and marketing campaign to change the company's image thereby brining new consumers into the stores.

Though this conclusion does appear valid there are some other issues that need to be analyzed before overhauling the entire brand of XY Gen stores. It shouldn't happen that this rebranding alienates the current loyal customers of XY Gen stores! The 60% of those surveyed who claim to have never shopped at any of the stores of XY Gen Stores might just not be the market segment whom XY Gen store targets. It is also possible that XY Gen store might be a lot more expensive than it's competitors. As a result, though these consumers might be aware of the brand and the nature of the apparel sold at XY Gen stores they might have never shopped at any of the stores of XY Gen store just because it is more expensive.

Launching a significant rebranding and marketing campaign might seem like a good idea. However, without knowing how expensive the apparel sold at XY Gen store is, it would be very hard to justify whether this strategy will help in brining new customers to the store. The author could have greatly strengthened his argument had he mentioned how expensive the apparel sold at XY Gen store was. Also, the author has not mentioned anything about the type of demography that is being targeted by XY Gen store whether it is Male/Female, young/old etc. Changing a company's image also carries the risk that consumers might get confused about what the company really stands for. Hence XY Gen store might not only not attract new consumers but also alienate the existing ones!

Also, the sample size of the survey also matters. If it is a small sample size then the results might not be accurate. Hence, the author could have strengthened his argument by mentioning about the type of segment that XY Gen store targets, some basic pricing information and also the number of people who were actually surveyed. This would have helped to strengthen his argument.

brianlange77 wrote:I'd say this is somewhere around a 3.5-4.0. I'd love to see any sort of organizing principle here...

A - Intro Paragraph (3-5 sentences)
B, C, D - Support Paragraphs (4-6 sentences)
E - Conclusion (3-5 sentences)

I'm also not sure if I've ever seen anyone use an exclamation point in a GMAT essay before -- it's not wrong, per se, but also might think about shying away from it.

Thanks.

-Brian

Hello Brian,

Thank you very much for reviewing my essay and for your feedback. I will keep these points in my mind for my essay. Thanks again.

Best Regards,
Sri

Hi Brian,would you mind reviewing my response. It would be really helpful to have an idea on what are possible points i missed and other aspects i should consider in framing my response.

Here is my response:

In the given argument, author states that the recent survey by XY Gen stores suggests high recognition among consumers because of its collection, though 60% of these consumers who participated in survey do not buy apparel from XY Gen store, so XY Gen stores executives are planning to launch a significant re-branding and marketing Campaign. At a glance, the argument looks fairly strong but on a closer analysis, the argument failed to consider other aspects which may be critical to the argument. The author has not considered some other aspects such as will the new campaign will help it to retain other 40% consumers?, if 60% people who knew about the brand are future buyers?, and if no improvement possible in the present approach that would help to attract new customers or increase buyers with current customer base ?.
To start with, author has not mentioned anything regarding the effect on remaining 40% buyers because of this re-branding campaign. If the present consumers buy the apparel due to its existing popularity, but may not continue to buy the apparels under the new brand name, then this would result in significant loss of revenue to the XY Gen stores. Thus weakens the author's conclusion that re-branding would help XY Gen stores.
Furthermore, author has failed to account any relative importance of the 60% consumers who knew about the brand but don't buy from the stores at present. If among these 60% consumers there are majority of the new prospective buyers then there is reasonably high possibility that re-branding may impact their buying decisions. Thus with re-branding the company would lose known customers to the possible new consumers.
In addition, the author missed other ways of increasing the sales and revenue of XY Gen store. Instead of re-branding, if store executives have focused on how to increase the sales among the 40% current buyers and how to woo 60% consumers who knew about the brand but still not buying it.
It is possible that most of people don't buy because of higher prices compared to other competitive brands or many consumers visit the store in anticipation of new patterns which are available in other stores but XY Gen stores has not yet capitalized on them, though company has the resources to do so. This point hurts the author's effort to suggest a fresh start for a brand image, which is already famous among consumers.
To conclude, author has made a reasonably good argument but failed to consider various aspects like wooing 60% consumers who know about the brand, impact on the 40% current buyers and other ways to enhance and increase revenue or sales base. Trying to capitalize on the known image rather than re- branding to woo new customers may sound a good reason but lacks support to implement the new strategy.