A company sets its primary marketing objective for 2025 to be the dominant market leader in the product it distributes - HSC - SSCE Business Studies - Question 20 - 2024 - Paper 1

To achieve the marketing objective of becoming the dominant market leader by 2025, the marketing manager must make strategic decisions.

First, compare the advertising budget with sales increase and market share figures:

• In 2023, the advertising budget was $1 million, resulting in$10 million in sales and a market share of 20%.
• In 2024, the advertising budget increased to $2 million with sales at$15 million, but market share dropped to 15%.

This indicates that while sales are increasing, the return on the advertising budget is not yielding a proportional increase in market share.

Evaluating the options:

• Option A suggests increasing the advertising budget to boost market share, but given that the current strategy did not yield a higher market share, this may not be effective.
• Option B proposes to make no changes since sales increased by $5 million; however, the decreased market share indicates a potential problem that needs addressing.
• Option C suggests decreasing the budget as the market grows, which runs counter to the objective of increasing market share.
• Option D is to control the marketing mix as the market share has declined. This option allows for adjusting marketing strategies and reallocating resources effectively to regain market position.

Given the analysis, Option D is the most appropriate answer.