20 question Marketing IQ test.....
mark kortum
http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/iq/index.htm
don't be embarassed to post your score.
Mine? 112 (14 of 20 correct) - all questions answered.
Anne Avellone
I got:
You scored 75% (15 out of 20 correct).
Your IQ: 120
You ARE: An up-and-coming consultant
150-160: A marketing genius
130-149: A guru, a maven
110-129: An up-and-coming consultant
But then, I don't claim to be a marketing expert or offer professional
advice in those areas.
Maybe I should?
David M. Geshwind
Registered Patent Agent
UNIPAT.ORG
http://www.unipat.org
aca...@mindspring.com
PS: It's not hard to improve your score the second time around. No cheating
now.
mark kortum <blu...@toast.com> wrote in article
<66f56682.02052...@posting.google.com>...
Michael F. Brown
> for all the resident "experts".
You scored 85% (17 out of 20 correct).
Your IQ: 136
You ARE: A guru, a maven
--
Michael F. Brown
Registered Patent Attorney No. 29,619
http://www.bpmlegal.com/
http://www.pandora.clarityconnect.com/bpmlegal/ (mirror site)
James White
> Mine? 112 (14 of 20 correct) - all questions answered.
Good for you. What does it mean?
My score and comments on the q's and a's.
You scored 40% (8 out of 20 correct).
Your IQ: 72
You ARE: A typical marketer
I seriously debated making the "assumption" that the questions were often
intentional "trick" questions then decided to answer with answers I could
justify. For those who haven't taken the test but want to, stop reading and
take the test. The rest can read my "debate" of the points.
1. "Speed-branding" (i.e. establishing a brand at warp-speed, often within
3-6 months) is a highly successful new approach to marketing.
You said false. The answer is false. Speed-branding is a wonderful way of
spending money quickly and seeing failure sooner! When the goal is to
achieve success through the creation of an enduring brand, time and money
will be better spent planning and powerfully executing a great strategy.
***Amen--proven many times.
2. During the coming decade, most marketers will earn more profits from new
products than from existing ones.
You said true. The answer is false. In most product categories, more than
90% of the sales and profits come from existing brands. Moreover, the
difficulty and cost of gaining and adding new customers is usually much
greater than that of maintaining - perhaps even increasing - sales for an
established franchise. (Chap. 2)
***Define "marketers." If you define "marketer" as any company selling then
it's absolutely correct that most money will come from existing "BRANDS"
(note they change the question from products to brands) and "products." But
if you define "marketers" as folks outside the product manufacturing
corporation--e.g., marketing consultants--and/or define "products" in the
strict sense--today's Oldsmobile is NOT your father's Oldsmobile--and
understand that even "Tide" today is not the "Tide" product of a decade ago
then I believe the answer is the way I stated it. 3M brags, if I recall
correctly, that 50% or more of their profits come from products that were
new in the last 5 years. IBM, HP, even AT&T would, I'm sure, all believe
it's way more than that for them.
3. Companies should do everything possible to achieve a high market share
because a high share leads to economies of scale that result in enhanced
profitability.
You said false. The answer is false. Recent evidence suggests that the
relationship between market share and ROI is much weaker than previously
thought. In fact, in many cases, it's actually negative. Companies think
that economies of scale will result from buying share through promotions and
discounted prices. They don't. In order to achieve economies of scale, you
need to build a powerful brand and this requires a great strategy and
implementation. (Chap. 2)
***The area between middle and high has always produced--over the long
run--the best profits. For a "new" product with minimal, as yet,
competitors, this would not be the case.
4. There is little agreement among marketers about what the concept 'brand
equity' means.
You said false. The answer is true. Brand equity still has no consistent
meaning in the field of marketing; practitioners must agree on a meaning in
order for it to be measured and used effectively as a tool. (Chap. 2)
***I don't think there is any disagreement in 2002 about what the "concept"
means. How to actually apply a number to it without just counting it as
"goodwill" AFTER a sale can be intensely debated. Of course even "goodwill"
can be determined well after the sale to have been mispriced.
5. A reasonable way to set the marketing budget is to take last year's
figure and adjust for inflation.
You said false. The answer is false. Because marketing climate and customer
and prospect needs do not follow such formulas, setting marketing budgets
this way does not make sense. Marketers should use serious modeling
approaches to estimate budgets based on defined objectives. (Chap. 4)
***Agree--in fact by tuning effort to targeted objectives many marketers get
more managerial brownie points for hitting the numbers than they would have
for wildly exceeding them to the benefit of company ownership.
6. Line extensions are a very risky way to introduce new products.
You said false. The answer is true. Line extensions are risky for several
reasons, but particularly because they tend to cannibalize the present
product. (Chap. 7)
***Is Cadillac's introduction of the Escalade SUV possibly cannibalizing car
sales? Maybe--but that's a useless distinction. What happened to market
share and profits overall. I don't believe for a second that the big brand
names are being actively extended to more things and more things and more
things IN SPITE OF "CANNIBALIZATION" --I believe they are being line
extended because it increases profits overall. If what these academics said
was true--i.e., "line extensions are a very risky way to introduce new
products"-- you'd see a confusing plethora of brands by established firms.
7. Focus group interviews are a serious marketing research tool that a
manager can safely use to help make serious marketing decisions.
You said true. The answer is false. Focus groups can be a helpful first
step in a serious research process, but many marketers make the mistake of
making focus groups the only step. (Chap. 5)
***Wait a minute, they say the answer is "false" then explain EXACTLY how
they SHOULD be used to SAFELY HELP MAKE SERIOUS MARKETING DECISIONS. Guess
they didn't understand their question's "trick." They may certainly be
correct that many (but far far from all) managers misuse focus gropes as a
(nearly) "only" step but that was not the question asked.
8. Businesses today invest more money in finding new customers than in
further developing current customers.
You said true. The answer is true. Most companies do not know what a loyal
customer is worth in dollars and cents; generally, a current customer is
worth 5 times more than a new customer. Nevertheless, most companies seem
fixated on acquisition strategies (i.e. seeking out new customers), a
phenomenon we have labeled the Death Wish Paradox. (Chap. 8)
***While the answer is certainly true it is often a fact of life that most
money MUST be spent on getting the new customers. What has to be figured is
the lifetime value of a customer--even a properly stroked ongoing
customer--and how to maximize the sum of that.
9. The most profitable customers of a firm are usually its biggest
customers.
You said false. The answer is false. After profit contribution analysis,
firms often discover that big customers are not the most profitable and,
sometimes, not at all profitable. (Chap. 8)
***It's pretty much always true that the smallest and largest customers are
way less profitable than the mid-size non-demanding customer.
10. Big companies generally make their marketing decisions after evaluating
many alternatives in terms of profitability.
You said true. The answer is false. Marketers often make their decisions
based on a product's appeal, demand, share, and/or sales, not taking into
account profitability. (Chap. 4)
***Geeze, here we go again. The question was "Big companies" making
"marketing decisions," not marketers making product decisions as their
answer discusses. Guess we'll fire all the sharp pencil MBAs computing IRRs
and ROIs.
11. The more appealing a new product concept is to prospective buyers, the
more likely it is it will be a success.
You said true. The answer is false. Our research has revealed that the most
appealing concept (meaning people say they intend to buy it) is nearly
always the least profitable. (Chap. 7)
***I guess I'd question their research (maybe they only deal with cute but
non-useful products). It would be interesting to know if they always tell
their clients to run with the dud ideas and see if those managers taking
that advice were keeping their jobs. It would also be interesting to see how
they are asking the questions.
12. Every company should strive to hold on to all of its customers.
You said false. The answer is false. In every industry we have looked at,
not every customer is so valuable to a company that they have to be
retained - some may actually cost money. (Chap. 18)
***In fact a lot of difficult customers should be ditched as quick as
possible--especially true in the service industry.
13. The click-through rates of Internet banner advertisements are on the
rise.
You said false. The answer is false. Click-through rates for Internet
banner advertisements are actually on the decline.
***And will get lower and lower and lower especially as the obnoxiousness
goes up I'll bet.
14. One-hundred-percent customer satisfaction is not an intelligent business
objective.
You said false. The answer is true. As customer satisfaction increases,
sales and profits increase, but only up to a point. After that, the costs
associated with increasing levels of satisfaction begin to erode profits.
(Chap. 18)
***The difference between an "intelligent objective" (the question asked)
and an "intelligent expense to the nth degree" (the trick one answered) are
night and day. I'll stick with my answer.
15. Media planners at major advertising agencies know a great deal about the
relative effectiveness of print, television, and radio advertising.
You said true. The answer is false. Media planners do not know a great deal
about the relative effectiveness of different media because there is little
available data comparing it for different media types. (Chap. 11)
***"major advertising agencies"??? I'll listen all day to the numbers
"Ogilvie" (who does a lot of bid and performance based marketing) collects
but, the question askers are right, I won't put much stock in what the local
agency's media planners--compensated on commission--tell me.
16. Because pricing is such an important component in the marketing mix,
most big companies have a serious pricing strategy based on serious pricing
research.
You said true. The answer is false. Only about 12% of all American
companies do any serious pricing research, and a third of these have no
strategy with which to use it. (Chap. 14)
***"12% of all American companies" is NOT "big companies" as the question
asked and I haven't read the book to see if the two are equal for the
purposes of their answer. But I probably missed the "trick" which was
"***serious*** pricing strategy" from "***serious*** pricing research. Many
have read the when to use $x.95 versus $x.99 and $20, $30, $40... studies
done by others--why repeat them?
17. More than five percent of visitors to e-commerce sites buy something.
You said don't know. The answer is false. Today, the correct number is
under 3%.
***I couldn't decide whether the question was:
"More than 5 percent of visitors to all/any e-commerce sites buy
something on each site on that visit", or
"More than 5 percent of e-commerce site visitors ever buy something via
e-commerce"
The first is what they obviously meant but their answer is still perhaps a
1994 answer. I would bet that serious shoppers are doing a far better buying
average than just 5% of visits on sites they return to again and again (such
as Amazon.com) expressly to buy. True there are many "e-commerce" sites
that are hit for 60 seconds with no purchase ever by that buyer on that
site.
If the question were the latter I'm pretty certain that the number of web
users that are buyers has long ago exceeded 5% and for certain the less than
3% that may have been true in 1994.
18. Consumer and trade promotional programs tend to be more profitable than
advertising.
You said false. The answer is false. Only advertising can build a strong
identity for a brand. If a brand is average (or inferior), promotion is
simply a vehicle for offering it more cheaply, which can help sales but hurt
profitability. (Chap. 12)
***(whew, I guessed "short term") "promotion is simply a vehicle for
offering it more cheaply" is a gross under statement of the whole range of
the meaning of "promotion" but which they are correct generally does--at
least short term--hurt immediate profitability. But then again "promotions"
aren't done for short term profitability they are done EXPRESSLY for LONG
term profitability.
19. American e-businesses have more repeat customers and lower levels of
customer churn than do European e-businesses.
You said don't know. The answer is false. American e-businesses have higher
levels of customer churn and less repeat business than their European
counterparts.
***Never studied it so had no way of knowing but would have guessed that
European customers were more loyal even for e-businesses.
20. Most marketing and advertising programs usually are measured in terms of
their profitability.
You said true. The answer is false. But they should be. In order to
effectively track them, marketing programs must be tied to specific,
realistic, and measurable objectives such as a percentage of repeat
purchases, market share, and profitability goals in order to be effectively
tracked. (Chap. 20)
***I don't know any small business who doesn't use the seat of his pants to
"measure" profitability of any marketing efforts. But the question answerers
are absolutely correct that most businesses (over 11 million) don't do it
systematically and carefully and they do no "testing" of one approach versus
another. In fact that is usually one of the first things I introduce to new
clients first because that's the basis on which I get paid--my new efforts
versus their old marketing. On a jewelers list I belong to this issue just
came up recently and it was surprising how many of the jewelers had the same
seat-of-the-pants evaluation of an advertising media one party asked
about--don't do it, it hadn't appeared to work for them.
***What is the purpose of this questionnaire on that particular site? The
answer is it's there for one and only one reason--FUD.
Bonus points if you can say what that means.
--
James E. White
Inventor, Marketer, and Author of "Will It Sell?
How to Determine If Your Invention Is Profitably Marketable
(Before Wasting Money on a Patent)" www.willitsell.com
Also: www.booksforinventors.com www.inventorslibrary.com
[Follow sig link for e-mail address. Replies go to spam bit-bucket]
Rodney
Heck I only missed number four, I did not have a clue about their
private understanding,, but I got the rest right :-)
--
Rodney Long,
Inventor of the
Boomerang Fishing Pro.
http://boomerangfp.com/Boomerang.htm
& EZKnot http://ezknot.com/ezknottyer.htm
Rodney
sorry, forgot to post the score
You scored 95% (19 out of 20 correct).
Your IQ: 152
You ARE: A marketing genius
150-160: A marketing genius
Jeff
"mark kortum" <blu...@toast.com> wrote in message
news:66f56682.02052...@posting.google.com...What does this tell you:
You scored 50% (10 out of 20 correct).
Your IQ: 80
You ARE: A typical marketer
I have been in the business for just over 2 months now with no, formal,
higher level schooling in business.
Have I grasped the concept? I know there is much more to learn!
Or is this, truly, what the typical marketer knows?
Charles Crosbie
Sorry, I think that this test is horrible.
Firstly, we’ve never met, but trust me that I’m the smartest person I’ll ever meet, and a marketing/advertising Ninja...
I didn’t finish the test (got 1 out of 20), went back and randomly answered questions (got 5 of 20), and skimmed over their answers:
I’m losing it over what I know and what they say...
I feel that most of their questions and answers are subjective, non-contemporaneous, persuasive, green, arbitrary, and flat-out arguable when not wrong (in my experience/perspective); all are relative to the models and methods (and books or services or whatever) that they’re peddling.
“There is MUCH agreement among marketers about what the concept 'brand equity' means.”
(I don’t know where Auburndale, MA is – maybe ‘brand equity’ is just that city slicker hogwash. All I know is that I yelled at the screen when it said I hadn’t correctly guessed their opinion). Any time someone uses this term in my circles, we know what it means. Every time it’s taught in a classroom, the teacher and pupil seem to know what it means. Their response that “Brand equity still has no consistent meaning in the field of marketing; practitioners must agree on a meaning in order for it to be measured and used effectively as a tool” is a grammatical nightmare of rhetoric a kin to prepubescent dinner-table shit-talking. “Brand equity” and cliché’s like it were created for a reason: because they have a meaning and utility in someone’s dialogue.
And, most professionals use Focus Groups as a regular war chest weapon – not in the junior way they sensationalized.
The test is tailored to misinform you into thinking you fit the mold of their services, to nudge you to the center of their market-target. There are independent, academic business tests to take – do not use this as a barometer for your savvy.
Speed Branding is highly effective in many cases – and, if I weren’t bound in confidences, I could give you millions worth of recent case studies (and many to come).
And, everything in business is measured by its profitability. (They answer their own last question wrong). “...percentage of repeat purchases, market share, and profitability goals...” are all indices of PROFITABILITY, and the work of someone trying to have an opinion.
On that note,
Thanks for this!
And, am glad to find this Newsgroup,
- cdhc
Tom Simonds
40% (8 out of 20 correct).
IQ: 76
A typical marketer
Rusty Mase
<useSig...@willitsell.com> wrote:
>For those who haven't taken the test but want to, stop reading and
>take the test.
OK, my results were dismal
You scored 30% (6 out of 20 correct).
Your IQ: 60
You ARE: A death-wish marketer
Part of my problem was the terminology. Phrases like "Trade
promotional programs" seem to mean something to me but maybe not the
right thing. Other topics I may have read something about - banner
ads for instance - but I have no specific knowledge of their success
rate.
Now I can read your review of the test.
Rusty Mase
PS - Do not hire me as a marketing manager
Tom Simonds
> Rusty Mase
> PS - Do not hire me as a marketing manager
I don't think it's necessarily bad to have weaknesses in some field like
marketing. You might be an above genius at inventing things, and a lousy
marketer. Human societies work on a division of labor. Edison was a lousy
businessman, but a great inventor.
Wisdom lies in recognizing one's own limitations, and farming out those jobs
that someone else can do better.
Rodney
> I don't think it's necessarily bad to have weaknesses in some field like
> marketing. You might be an above genius at inventing things, and a lousy
> marketer. Human societies work on a division of labor. Edison was a lousy
> businessman, but a great inventor.
Edison's biggest problem was he was always blindly in love with his
inventions, when someone else improved his work, or put a different spin
on it (the phonograph) , or even obsoleted it (AC vs *DC ) Edison hung
on to his original, instead of moving on, improving on the other
inventors way. This cost him millions.
* DC is not obsolete, but it is for the market Edison was trying to
market to. (power distribution). Edison should have worked on a AC to Dc
converter for the home owner, to make electricity safer in the home. Of
course now it would never go over, but back when electricity was just
used for lighting, it would have, big time. Edison would not except AC
for power distribution for many years
>
> Wisdom lies in recognizing one's own limitations, and farming out those jobs
> that someone else can do better.
>
>
>
Rusty Mase
<tsim...@world.std.com> wrote:
>Wisdom lies in recognizing one's own limitations, and farming out those jobs
>that someone else can do better.
Yes, and this newsgroup really does a great job in attracting the
participation of people with diverse specialties. It makes very
interesting and informative reading.
Rusty Mase
Mike Turco
"Tom Simonds" <tsim...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:aco2j9$8co$1...@pcls4.std.com...
>
> > Rusty Mase
> > PS - Do not hire me as a marketing manager
>
> I don't think it's necessarily bad to have weaknesses in some field like
> marketing.
I don't think the score to that test meant much. What matters is results. I
had no idea of how to define most of those buzzwords. So, I'm not "Mr.
Markiting with all the buzzwords". But I do know how to market my business.
Mike Turco
--
Develop your product
http://miketurco.com
tonyp
Rodney <r...@ezknot.com> wrote
> * DC is not obsolete, but it is for the market Edison was trying to
> market to. (power distribution). Edison should have worked on a AC to Dc
> converter for the home owner, to make electricity safer in the home. Of
> course now it would never go over, but back when electricity was just
> used for lighting, it would have, big time.
Maybe it's time to reconsider DC in the home. My house is full of gadgets
that run on DC, and full of little AC-DC converters for them. Pain in the
butt to keep track of them all, aside from the fact that they cost money.
The first thing my computer does with AC is ... convert it to a few
flavors of DC and distribute those to all the sockets in the box. I'd
love it if my house was like that. Instead, we have now a situtation which
is analogous to wiring AC to all the sockets in the PC, and requiring
every card in the machine to carry its own transformer, rectifier,
capacitor, etc. If my house had a DC bus with 3.3V, 5V, 12V, and say 48V
available at each outlet, and if (but it's a huge if) I could buy lighter,
cheaper DC-only versions of computers, phones, electric shavers and
toothbrushes, radios and CD players, cordless dustbusters, etc., etc., I
think I'd be better off.
Aside from the fact that our little silicon friends all live on it,
another nice thing about DC is that you can store it in a battery. Our
cars have batteries to run all their electrical gadgets. Why can't our
houses? If they did, we could reduce peak demand on the power grid, and
(where it makes economic sense) use solar cells to help charge our own
batteries.
Of course, this notion of running houses on DC, like we do cars and
computers, is pointless, in a world full of "house peripherals" that are
mass produced with AC-DC power supplies already in them.
-- Tony Prentakis
Tom Simonds
> computers, is pointless, in a world full of "house peripherals" that are
> mass produced with AC-DC power supplies already in them.
Supposedly this will happen in the next ten years: Buildings will all be
equipped with fuel cells, hydrogen or natural gas will flow through a pipe
to the building, into the fuel cell, and elect. will come out. This will
reduce the power loss from power lines. So you can start designing those
appliances that use DC current right now.
athmasudar
you are welcome to visit our website at http://www.athmasudar.com
What you will see here is unimaginable. People here are able to look
into human upto cellular level,talk with plants and animals, but above that
some are capable of healing diseases witout even touching them and some are
able to have vision of devices that was never invented.
No matter what may be your interest, you will find something relevant to your
needs here.
We are looking for capable individuals to undergo training at our centre here
in Malaysia and proclaim to the rest of the world of what human potential is.
NO shaman,mantras,tantra,yoga,mysticism,religion is involved here,
it just your forgotten human potential because we were diverted all these
days.
thank
Michael F. Brown
> that run on DC, and full of little AC-DC converters for them. Pain in the
> butt to keep track of them all, aside from the fact that they cost money.
They do, but they run on low voltage DC (and not all the same low
voltage, either - my laptop wants 18 volts, my ham rig wants 12, the
digital camera wants 8, the calculator and CD player 4, and so on). We
could probably standardize on the 12 volts (13.6, nominally) which we're
used to in cars - just in time for cars to change to 48 or 96 volts.
There are some devices (say, the microwave) which could easily run on
12v if the manufacturer wanted to, but it would still need 1500 watts or
so, and therein lies the rub. The problem is that at these low voltages
you need high currents to get equivalent wattage, and high currents need
big wires which are expensive and bulky. Think of having jumper cables
run through your walls...
If you converted to high-voltage DC, as Edison was using, the safety is
not much greater than AC, if at all, and you'd still need regulator
boxes to get the voltage down to what the devices wanted. Unfortunately,
you would lose the ability to use transformers to easily change voltages
both down (for that ham rig) and up (for the fluorescent lights or the
tube in the microwave) - you'll need to convert back to AC again for
that. TANSTAAFL.
Rodney
> If you converted to high-voltage DC, as Edison was using, the safety is
> not much greater than AC, if at all, and you'd still need regulator
> boxes to get the voltage down to what the devices wanted. Unfortunately,
> you would lose the ability to use transformers to easily change voltages
> both down (for that ham rig) and up (for the fluorescent lights or the
> tube in the microwave) - you'll need to convert back to AC again for
> that. TANSTAAFL.
I think this man knows his electricity
Great Post Michael
Ben Hoff
didn't want to sound like an admiring child. I am impressed, how easily I
don't know.
"Rodney" <r...@ezknot.com> wrote in message
news:3CF39434...@ezknot.com...
tonyp
Michael F. Brown <br...@bpmlegal.com> wrote
> Think of having jumper cables run through your walls...
Well, that might be an exaggeration. Those things carry hundreds of amps,
I think. But you're right:
> TANSTAAFL.
However, some things _look_ like they're "free". My ability to
simultaneously run the AC, the vacuum, the oven, the washer, the
dishwasher, most of the lights, and lots of electronics is "free" in the
sense that I pay per KWH, not per KW. The electric grid, from the
generators to my service entrance, has to be sized for peak KW demand.
That costs money, but it costs _everybody_ money. At any particular
moment, for any particular customer, extra power capacity looks "free".
Imagine, OTOH, that the day comes when the grid can't keep growing fast
enough to accomodate peak demand, although it can still manage to keep up
with average demand over, say, 24 hours. If that day ever comes, local
storage would make economic sense for some (most?) houses. By then, of
course, it's entirely possible that somebody will have come up with a
better storage mechanism than electrolytic batteries. Maybe even
something like superconducting flywheels that can "store" AC. The
important point is, if you had to pay, directly and explicitly, for your
own ability to consume peak power for short periods, even a bank of car
batteries in the basement might not sound so crazy.
-- Tony Prentakis
Rodney
>
> Imagine, OTOH, that the day comes when the grid can't keep growing fast
> enough to accomodate peak demand, although it can still manage to keep up
> with average demand over, say, 24 hours. If that day ever comes,
ThaT DAY has already come, last summer, on the west coast
Michael F. Brown
> I think. But you're right:
They do, but a 1500 watt microwave would need 100+ amps at 12V, so it's
not far off.
> At any particular
> moment, for any particular customer, extra power capacity looks "free".
At the home level, certainly, at least up to the limits of your service.
Commercial customers have long had to pay peak demand fees based on the
largest amount of electricity they could use at any one time. I spoke at
a convention of sawmill operators some years ago, and one of the other
speakers was talking about just that problem - they had installed a
generating plant to provide peak demand, and paid for it by the
difference in utility demand charges.
> Imagine, OTOH, that the day comes when the grid can't keep growing fast
> enough to accomodate peak demand, although it can still manage to keep up
> with average demand over, say, 24 hours. If that day ever comes, local
> storage would make economic sense for some (most?) houses.
That's a problem power companies have been struggling with for years -
at least since I worked for the local utility in the early 70's. At that
time the NY Power Pool was building an artificial lake down along the
Hudson - pump water from the river up onto a mountaintop valley
off-peak, and let it run back into the river during peak periods. The
turbines would turn the generators going into the river, or reverse the
generators into motors, and the turbines pumped water back uphill.
Whether or not it makes sense to do the storage small-scale on a
house-by-house basis, or to use economies of scale to store power at the
substation or generating plant level will depend on technology yet to be
developed.
I don't know if it's still true, but back then the utility I worked for
used to play off the differing weather patterns between here and NYC, in
that they had a summer peak (air-conditioning), and our peak was winter
(heating). Summers, we sold power to Con Ed, winters we bought it back.
We also offered our customers a break on electricity off-peak, so many
people around here had dual meters and ran their water heaters only at
night.
mark kortum
> Sorry, I think that this test is horrible.
Has time has come to confront the copernicus cabal with some of the
valid criticisms expressed?
I think they could have made it more intriguing by factoring in a time
element - rewarding the quick thinkers/guessers and penalizing those
who may have mulled it over for 20 minutes. Of course that's probably
because I only devoted 5 to 10 seconds to select a response after
reading the question.
Who knows, maybe this type of trivial pursuit testing will become an
element of
the hiring process someday. Sort of like a weakest link approach.
Hell, it can't be any worse than those psychological profiling tests
employers once used (and still may) to arbitrarily weed out the
non-conformists and deviants.
>
> Firstly, weąve never met, but trust me that Iąm the smartest person Iąll
> ever meet, and a marketing/advertising Ninja...
>
> I didnąt finish the test (got 1 out of 20), went back and randomly answered
> questions (got 5 of 20), and skimmed over their answers:
>
> Iąm losing it over what I know and what they say...
> I feel that most of their questions and answers are subjective,
> non-contemporaneous, persuasive, green, arbitrary, and flat-out arguable
> when not wrong (in my experience/perspective); all are relative to the
> models and methods (and books or services or whatever) that theyąre
> peddling.
>
> łThere is MUCH agreement among marketers about what the concept 'brand
> equity' means.˛
>
> (I donąt know where Auburndale, MA is maybe Śbrand equityą is just that
> city slicker hogwash. All I know is that I yelled at the screen when it said
> I hadnąt correctly guessed their opinion). Any time someone uses this term
> in my circles, we know what it means. Every time itąs taught in a classroom,
> the teacher and pupil seem to know what it means. Their response that łBrand
> equity still has no consistent meaning in the field of marketing;
> practitioners must agree on a meaning in order for it to be measured and
> used effectively as a tool˛ is a grammatical nightmare of rhetoric a kin to
> prepubescent dinner-table shit-talking. łBrand equity˛ and clichéąs like it
> were created for a reason: because they have a meaning and utility in
> someoneąs dialogue.
>
> And, most professionals use Focus Groups as a regular war chest weapon not
> in the junior way they sensationalized.
>
> The test is tailored to misinform you into thinking you fit the mold of
> their services, to nudge you to the center of their market-target. There are
> independent, academic business tests to take do not use this as a
> barometer for your savvy.
>
> Speed Branding is highly effective in many cases and, if I werenąt bound
> in confidences, I could give you millions worth of recent case studies (and
> many to come).
>
> And, everything in business is measured by its profitability. (They answer
> their own last question wrong). ł...percentage of repeat purchases, market
> share, and profitability goals...˛ are all indices of PROFITABILITY, and the
> work of someone trying to have an opinion.
>
> On that note,
> Thanks for this!
>
> And, am glad to find this Newsgroup,
>
> - cdhc
>
>
> in article bGH8.59551$Q93.3...@news1.west.cox.net, Jeff at
> jsga...@cox.net wrote on 05:25:2002 2:30 AM:
>
> >
> > "mark kortum" <blu...@toast.com> wrote in message
> > news:66f56682.02052...@posting.google.com...
> >> > for all the resident "experts".
> >> >
> >> > http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/iq/index.htm
> >> >
> > What does this tell you:
> >
> > You scored 50% (10 out of 20 correct).
> > Your IQ: 80
> >
> > You ARE: A typical marketer
> >
> > I have been in the business for just over 2 months now with no, formal,
> > higher level schooling in business.
> > Have I grasped the concept? I know there is much more to learn!
> > Or is this, truly, what the typical marketer knows?
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
mark kortum
> I got:
>
> You scored 75% (15 out of 20 correct).
>
> Your IQ: 120
>
> You ARE: An up-and-coming consultant
>
> 150-160: A marketing genius
> 130-149: A guru, a maven
> 110-129: An up-and-coming consultant
>
> But then, I don't claim to be a marketing expert or offer professional
> advice in those areas.
>
> Maybe I should?
Perhaps that 120 score represents a basis to increase your fees by 12%?
bob kochem
snip...
> They do, but they run on low voltage DC (and not all the same low
> voltage, either - my laptop wants 18 volts, my ham rig wants 12, the
> digital camera wants 8, the calculator and CD player 4, and so on). We
> could probably standardize on the 12 volts (13.6, nominally) which we're
> used to in cars - just in time for cars to change to 48 or 96 volts.
> There are some devices (say, the microwave) which could easily run on
> 12v if the manufacturer wanted to, but it would still need 1500 watts or
> so, and therein lies the rub. The problem is that at these low voltages
> you need high currents to get equivalent wattage, and high currents need
> big wires which are expensive and bulky. Think of having jumper cables
> run through your walls...
If I may add to this excellent post...a secondary benefit or use of AC
is that a number of devices use the AC frequency as a time-base. AC
motors derive their speed as multiples or sub-multiples of the
powerline frequency. (DC Motors vary a bit in speed depending on load
unless elaborate control mechanisms are employed. AC Motors develop
"slip" but to a lesser extend than DC, IIRC) A lot of clocks, digital
and mechanical, also depend on the 60Hz or 50Hz as a time reference. I
believe Televisions develop their frame and line scan rates from the
line frequency (although you can obviously buy TVs that run on DC) I
used to work with Electric Utilities and they go to great lengths to
insure that, while the 60Hz may vary a little at any point in time,
the average is incredibly accurate; something like one cycle per month
IIRC.
Bob Kochem
zzz...@gmail.com
> for all the resident "experts".
>
> http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/iq/index.htm
>
> don't be embarassed to post your score.
>
> Mine? 112 (14 of 20 correct) - all questions answered.