The following was presented as part of a business plan by Apex Corporation.
"To answer the increased demand for artisan coffee, Apex Corporation is releasing a new line of coffee, "Gourmet Select." Apex Corporation will first introduce the coffee into major supermarkets, where it hopes word-of-mouth advertising will sustain sales. After a few months Apex Corp. will run an advertising campaign aimed at television and radio while simultaneously releasing the brand to several major chain restaurants. Based on this strategy, Apex Corporation hopes to make "Gourmet Select" one of the top sellers in the coffee market."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument here states a proposal made by Apex corporation about making Gourment select one of the top sellers in the coffee market. The proposal is to introduce Gourmet Select coffee into major supermarkets and after a few months, simultaneously release the brand into several major chain television and advertising campaigns. Although this argument has some merits, it is riddled with quite a few unstated assumptions and unless we determine the veracity of these assumptions, the success of Gourmet coffee cannot be guaranteed.
The argument here states that after intoducing Gourmet coffee into major supermarkets, word-of-mouth will spread and it will sustain sales. The argument does not provide any backing for this assertion. It is entirely possible that people do not like the taste of this coffee and a negative word of mouth spreads which will hamper the sales and it will create difficulty to sustain this Gourmet coffee. It is also possible that in some parts, people like the coffee and in some areas, they do not. In this case, positvie word of mouth will spread in some areas and negative word-of-mouth will spread in other areas. This does not guarantee sustainibility. The argument also assumes that word-of-mouth alone is suffice for the new customers to try out the coffee. It does not give any backing for this. In spite of good word-of-mouth, it is entirely possible that people will not drink Gourmet coffee from Apex corporation.
The argument also states that after a few months, Apex corporation wil run advertising campaign and introduce the brand to several major chain restaurants. Here, 'few months' is a vague language. It is possible that the argument meant 12-14 months to be few months and the consumers might not like the taste of the coffee after 12-14 months. The consumers might reach their saturation level of drinking Gourmet coffee after a few months. In short, we do not know the behavioral pattern of consumers after a few months, so we cannot prove it that people will still like Gourmet coffee after a few months.
The argument also states that it will run advertising campaigns aimed at television and radio while simultaneously relaeasing brand into major chain restaurants. Here, the argument is assuming that these advertisements will reach people in the first place and the major chain restaurants will be accepting Gourmet coffee from Apex corporation into their menu. Coffee drinkers are usually young people and it is possbile that the young people are not interested on listening Radios, so this method of advertising might not work. The argument also does not take into account the competitors of Apex corporation selling Gourmet coffee. The argument itself states that there is an increased demand of the Artisan coffee, so it is entirely possible that a lot of major Coffee companies will start their own Gourmet coffee.
To strengthen this argument, the argument should clearly establish a correlation between Consumer demands between first introducing the coffee and running advertising campaings. The arugment should also take into account the competition for Artisan coffee. Apex corporation should also conduct some research on the propostion that people will come after good word-of-mouth spreads initially and Apex corporation needs to enusre that the quality of coffee and pricing are good so that a good word-of-mouth spreads.
Due to all the assumptions like consumer expectations will be same after a few months, quality of Gourmet coffee will be good so that a positive word of mouth spreads and if that the advertising campaign will reach masses , it is difficult to determine whether this strategy will work and it does not make the argument cogent.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 9 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 12 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 604 350
No. of Characters: 3067 1500
No. of Different Words: 210 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.957 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.078 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.704 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 224 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 156 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 111 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.231 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.185 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.538 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.364 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.56 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.141 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 710, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'sufficed'.
Suggestion: sufficed
...lso assumes that word-of-mouth alone is suffice for the new customers to try out the co...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 506, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'spread'?
Suggestion: spread
...g are good so that a good word-of-mouth spreads. Due to all the assumptions like con...
^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 222, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...e advertising campaign will reach masses , it is difficult to determine whether th...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, if, so, still, then, while, in short, in spite of, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 25.0 12.9520958084 193% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 52.0 28.8173652695 180% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3131.0 2260.96107784 138% => OK
No of words: 604.0 441.139720559 137% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.18377483444 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.95746018188 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76631903487 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.365894039735 0.468620217663 78% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 949.5 705.55239521 135% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 66.6950136972 57.8364921388 115% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.423076923 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2307692308 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.15384615385 5.70786347227 55% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 17.0 6.88822355289 247% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.313367529881 0.218282227539 144% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.10558158755 0.0743258471296 142% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0773437424366 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.198547106085 0.128457276422 155% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0751027267667 0.0628817314937 119% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.06 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.52 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.