The following appeared in a memo from the marketing director of Bargain Brand Cereals.
"One year ago we introduced our first product, 'Bargain Brand' breakfast cereal. Our very low prices quickly drew many customers away from the top-selling cereal companies. Although the companies producing the top brands have since tried to compete with us by lowering their prices, and although several plan to introduce their own budget brands, not once have we needed to raise our prices to continue making a profit. Given our success selling cereal, Bargain Brand should now expand its business and begin marketing other low-priced food products as quickly as possible.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the augment on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
At first blush, the recommendation appears obvious: Even since the commencement and introduction of the low-priced ‘Bargain Brand’ breakfast cereal, the company has been witnessing customers shifting away from other cerebral brands by other companies and yielding large increases in profits. The author therefore argues that the company should emulate the success of the low-priced breakfast cereals by marketing other low-priced food merchandise as fast as possible. This recommendation cannot, however, stay foolproof and whether such recommendation would augur well for other low-priced products cannot be ascertained until several major questions are answered first.
The first area of deficit in the argument lies in the fact that the author of the memo singly ascribes the success of the breakfast cereals to their low prices. However, more questions need to be addressed in terms of this spurious causal relation. That is, the author nonchalantly regards the success of the cereals to their prices being low without considering other plausible variables that might factor into customers embracing the product. The robustness of this line of questioning can be further buttressed by the fact that other competing companies failed to retain their customers even after they had managed to lower the prices of their products. Therefore, it appears that price alone cannot be most singly important factor. Maybe the Bargain Brand cereals incorporated fresher and healthier ingredients which many customers relished. Or maybe customers had this predilection of novel products on the market since Bargain Brand Cereals was launched just last year. The fad might not endure once customers find this brand vapid. Or a new flavor was exclusively introduced by Bargain Brand Cereals. Are there any other factors that contributed to the thriving and popularity of Bargain Brand Cereals? Only by asking such a highly pertinent question can the the argument made in the author’s memo be sound.
A second major question stems from the company expanding its business. To make this connection of expanding the business and marketing other low-priced foo products soon, one needs to answer this question of whether customers’ interests in these products would likely stay long or of whether their buying behaviors would remain unchanged. Granted, the current low prices seem to have prevented the company from raising their product’s prices to continue making a profit. However, one can never be so intransigent in terms of foreshadowing the conditions of the future. Maybe last year the economy was adverse and the customers resorted to low-priced cereals. If the economic condition was freed from such plight, then customers might stop shopping for low-priced food products, given the possibility of the economy recovering in the near future. In this case, the company would need to increase the prices of their products in order to be able to compete with the other companies. Accordingly, the author of the memo would have to address the question of customers’ buying behaviors and tendencies to substantiate the soundness of his argument.
Last, assuming that the answers to all the previous questions are furnished and can give give credence to the author’s conclusion, one last critical question remain unaddressed: would introducing a new product succeed as the cereals introduced last year? Whenever a company intends to market a new product, it has to deliberate over an array of factors, such as the expiration of the food products or the demands of the market. Contingencies on the success of food products can vary not only within but also outside. Failure in meeting any one of the aforementioned might lead the company to a grave loss. Without proper assessment of the similarities and the differences shared the breakfast cereals and other low-priced products,the efficacy of launching other low-priced products cannot be unqualifiedly established.
All told, while introducing other low-priced products seems appealing to the Bargain Brand Cereals given the tremendous success of its cereal products, several questions are not properly addressed in order for such recommendation to be completely validated. Without a consideration of other factors that contributed to the successful selling of the breakfast cereals, a discussion of whether customers’ buying behaviors and their interests in low-priced food products would remain the same, and a thorough investigation into the market conditions, it is impossible to properly evaluate the argument in favor of launching and marketing other low-priced food products.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- not OK. Need to argue against the conclusion here. For this topic it is:
Given our success selling cereal, Bargain Brand should now expand its business and begin marketing other low-priced food products as quickly as possible.
something like: it works for A, it may not work for B
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 715 350
No. of Characters: 3844 1500
No. of Different Words: 304 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.171 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.376 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.852 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 300 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 249 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 175 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 121 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.655 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.484 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.448 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.308 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.459 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.082 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 1265, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...ng such a highly pertinent question can the the argument made in the author's memo...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 1265, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...ng such a highly pertinent question can the the argument made in the author's memo...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 86, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: give
...revious questions are furnished and can give give credence to the author's conclusio...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 191, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'introduce'
Suggestion: introduce
...ical question remain unaddressed: would introducing a new product succeed as the cereals in...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 737, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , the
...st cereals and other low-priced products,the efficacy of launching other low-priced ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, but, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, therefore, well, while, as to, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 100.0 55.5748502994 180% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3956.0 2260.96107784 175% => OK
No of words: 714.0 441.139720559 162% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.5406162465 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.16921448885 4.56307096286 113% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.02327461688 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 313.0 204.123752495 153% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.43837535014 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1190.7 705.55239521 169% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 81.7149856653 57.8364921388 141% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.413793103 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6206896552 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.62068965517 5.70786347227 63% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 18.0 8.20758483034 219% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.353883731123 0.218282227539 162% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.10997408419 0.0743258471296 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0755739230271 0.0701772020484 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.239046636789 0.128457276422 186% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0494642476697 0.0628817314937 79% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.0 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.15 12.5979740519 120% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.76 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 178.0 98.500998004 181% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.