Question 1: Some services marketers vehemently maintain that service marketing is fundamentally different from product marketing and that different skills are involved. Some traditional product marketers disagree, saying,*good marketing is good marketing: Take a position: Product and services marketing are fundamentally different versus product and services marketing are highly related.

Question 2: Describe the process you would use to determine the best marketing communication mix for any one of the following (no need to do more than one):

• A breakfast cereal targeting children

• A nonprofit organization focused on foster care

• A line of power tools targeting women

• A brand of shampoo

(Be sure to avoid just using all modes of communication or basing your choices on your own thoughts and predisposition. Ensure that the focus is on the process that would be used to determine the mix.)

Question 3: Five characteristics influence the rate of adoption of an innovation. These are relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, divisibility, and finally communicability. Other characteristics include costs, risk and uncertainty, scientific credibility, and social approval.

• Discuss each of these characteristics in light of how they mimic or refute the consumer-buying process discussed in Chapter 6 of this text.

• Is there a correlation to the consumer-buying influences and the adoption of a new product innovation?

• Might the marketer learn how to successfully market a new product innovation by studying consumer buying influences?

• Discuss the pros and cons of taking such an undertaking.