BPL 5100 Homework Assignment
Homework Handout 1: What Is a Central Message?
Directions. Read this page, and then complete the task at the end.
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Central messages. The central message of your presentation is the guiding claim (or set of claims)you seek to communicate to the audience. For example:
In order to compete with low-cost airlines, we recommend that Fancy Airlines focus on advertising its brand image as the industry leader in on-time flight arrivals, and retain its commitment to high-quality and reliable service in the form of spacious seating, generous luggage allowances, and complimentary entertainment. Rather than pivot to a cost leadership strategy, Fancy Airlines should undertake a differentiated broad market approach designed to attract more business travelers and low-cost airline customers fed up with hidden fees and poor service.
Note that the above central message asserts a debatable claim supported by specific evidence, thereby overviewing the presentation’s main ideas.
The central message above contains specific evidence in support of its debatable claim. That evidence is:
· Fancy Airlines is the industry leader in on-time flight arrivals
· Fancy Airlines provides high quality, reliable flight experiences
· Business travelers make up a significant part of Fancy Airlines’ consumer base, but there is room for Fancy Airlines to grow their market share of business travel
· Other airlines cut costs to attract customers looking for lower fares
· Customers are increasingly frustrated by their experiences with lower-cost airlines
Draft an alternate central message.Because central messages contain claims that are debatable, the same evidence can be used to make very different claims. Use the above evidence about Fancy Airlines to draft a new central message that makes a recommendation for their future strategy. Your alternate central message should be different from the example at the top of the page.
Alternate central message:
1. To compete with other low-cost airlines, Fancy Airlines should focus on other areas tobuild up a good brand image, such as on-time flight arrivals high-quality and reliable service in the form of spacious seating, generous luggage allowances and complementary entertainment.
2. Fancy Airlines should undertake a differentiated broad market approach to attract more targeted customers.
Homework Handout 2: Extracting Evidence to Construct Central Messages
Directions. Read The Hangers Case on the next page (Homework Handout 3). Then complete the two tasks below.
Extracting evidence.Respond to the following questions. Practice using disciplinary language whenever possible.
When reading about Hangers, what trends did you observe?
· The number of storefront is decreasing
· The number of vans is increasing
· The dollar amount spent on contribution to local schools is increasing.
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What were some significant moments of change?
· In 2011, the number of storefront cut half. And the number of vans almost double, and the company began to do some community outreach events and contribute to some local schools
· From 2009 to 2010, the development of the whole company is not positive, so they changed some strategy to help the whole company out of trouble.
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What are the biggest challenges?
· Maintaining the previous strategy make the whole company trapped in.
· A new strategy which is on the basis of current situation should be created and implemented.
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What are the biggest successes?
· The company succeeded in making a change in the strategy creating and implementing. Analyzing the outside environment and combining with the inside operation, the company finally get back on track.
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Constructing a central message.Imagine you’ve been hired by Hangers to analyze their previous strategy and performance and make recommendations for future strategy in a 20-minute presentation. What would be the central message of your presentation?
Central message:
∙ There is a strong competitor who can beat us to provide the same service with the lower expense.
∙ A new competitive advantage should be considered to maintain the market share.
We should give up the original model of drive-through and drop-off model because it is no longer competitive, we could consider to provide delivery service to make the customers more convenient.
At the same time, we should focus on the outside environment and expand our target so we should do some community outreach events to expand our company’s influence.
Contributing to local schools is a good way to build up a great company image and to keep the strong ties to the local community.
Homework Handout 3: The Hangers Case [Show Less]