The Elements of the Marketing Mix Practice Questions

Item A: Coastline Kayaks Ltd

Coastline Kayaks Ltd is a small private limited company based in Seaton Bay, Devon. It hires out kayaks and runs guided sea-kayaking tours. A half-day guided tour is priced at £45 per person. The company is owned by Tamsin Pascoe, who employs four part-time guides during the summer.

Until 2023, Tamsin promoted the business only by handing out printed leaflets in the town centre. In January 2024 she set up social media accounts for Coastline Kayaks. She now posts photographs and short videos of the tours, replies to messages from people asking about tour dates, and shares reviews written by customers who have been on a tour.

Table 1: Number of tour bookings in July

	July 2023	July 2024
Number of tour bookings	480	612

Item B: Coastline Kayaks Ltd

The Seaton Bay Surf Festival is held every August and attracts around 8 000 visitors, most of them aged between 18 and 35 and interested in water sports. Local bloggers film the weekend and post videos of it online.

For £2 500, Coastline Kayaks could become the festival's main sponsor. The company name would appear on all festival banners, on the main stage and on the event website, and Tamsin would be allowed to display two of her kayaks beside the stage. Tamsin's main competitor, Tide Riders, already sponsors a local running race.

Answer all parts of this question. You do not need to refer to a particular business in your answers.

Item A: Cobbleford Drinks Ltd

Cobbleford Drinks Ltd is a private limited company based in Shropshire. It was set up in 2014 by Harriet Cole and now employs 32 people. It makes four sparkling fruit drinks, which it sells to supermarkets and through its own website.

Its best-selling drink, Orchard Fizz, was launched in 2016 and now provides 60% of the company's revenue. Supermarkets pay Cobbleford £1.20 for each 500 ml bottle. The bottle and label have not been changed since 2016.

Since 2022, two much larger drinks manufacturers have launched similar sparkling fruit drinks and have paid supermarkets for shelf space at the front of the chiller cabinets.

Table 1 Bottles of Orchard Fizz sold each year (000s)

Year	Bottles sold (000s)
2020	540
2021	720
2022	800
2023	744
2024	680

Item B: Cobbleford Drinks Ltd

Harriet wants to increase sales of Orchard Fizz. Market research with 500 supermarket shoppers found that 68% of them were trying to reduce the amount of sugar they eat and drink.

Cobbleford has £260 000 of retained profit available. This is enough to pay for only one of the two options Harriet is considering.

Option 1: Change the recipe to a low-sugar version and sell it in a redesigned bottle. The new recipe and bottle would cost £180 000 and would take four months to introduce. Two supermarket buyers have said they would give a low-sugar drink shelf space at the front of the chiller cabinets.

Option 2: Run a 12-week advertising campaign on television and social media, costing £150 000. A similar campaign in 2021 was followed by an 18% rise in sales of Orchard Fizz. Both of the larger competitors advertise on television all year.

Item C: Thistlewood Games Ltd

Thistlewood Games Ltd is a private limited company based in Derby. It was started in 2016 by Joanne Pike and employs 24 people making wooden family board games. Its best-known game, Castle Quest, was launched in 2017. Castle Quest is sold in the same box, with the same rules and the same playing pieces as at launch, and its sales have fallen in each of the last three years.

Thistlewood sells its games directly to customers through its own website and also supplies 180 independent toy shops. It does not use a wholesaler. Joanne spends about £18 000 each year on social media advertising and the business has a stand at two toy fairs every year.

Table 2 Thistlewood Games product portfolio, 2025

Game	Thistlewood's share of the market	Growth of that market in 2025
Castle Quest	22%	1%
Harvest Moonrise	4%	18%
Tiny Explorers	19%	15%
Dockside Dash	3%	2%

Item D: Thistlewood Games Ltd

Thistlewood's revenue in 2025 was £1.4 million. Joanne wants to increase revenue and is considering two options.

The first option is to develop Castle Quest Juniors, a simpler version of Castle Quest aimed at children aged 5–8. New moulds and development work would cost £95 000 and the game would not be ready for sale for ten months. Thistlewood has never sold a game aimed at this age group.

The second option is to supply Burnhill Toys, a national wholesaler. Burnhill Toys would buy Thistlewood's games at a price 35% below the price Thistlewood normally charges, but would place the games in up to 900 toy shops across the UK. Burnhill Toys would decide which of Thistlewood's games it stocks.

Item A: Mango Lantern

Kofi Mensah opened Mango Lantern, a juice and smoothie bar, in 2021. It is a single kiosk inside a busy railway station in Bristol, where more than 20 000 passengers pass through each weekday.

Mango Lantern sells freshly made juices and smoothies at £4.50, which is 50p more than the two chain cafés in the same station. Every drink is made to order from fruit delivered each morning by a local wholesaler, and customers can add a 'boost', such as ginger or protein powder, for 60p. Cups are compostable, and customers who bring their own cup pay £4.

Kofi posts a 'drink of the week' on social media every Monday and has 6 000 followers. Students who show a university card get 10% off between 2pm and 4pm, the quietest part of the day. Mango Lantern does not deliver and has no website.

Kofi rents the kiosk for £1 400 a month and employs two part-time staff. He believes the queue moves quickly because the menu is short, and that regular customers come back because they are served by name.

Table 1: Number of drinks sold at Mango Lantern over four weeks

Week	Number of drinks sold
1	620
2	540
3	700
4	660

Kofi is considering setting up a website so that offices near the station can order drinks for delivery. He would need to employ a delivery rider.

Item A: Pedal & Pump

Craig Hollis is a sole trader who owns Pedal & Pump, a bicycle repair shop in Hull. The shop is on a side street close to a cycle path and opens from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday.

A standard service costs £35 and takes about an hour. A mobile mechanic who works in the same part of Hull charges £28 and repairs bikes at the customer's home. Pedal & Pump also sells accessories such as lights, locks and helmets, and every repair is guaranteed for three months.

Craig promotes the business by running a free bike-check event at a local school each September and by sponsoring a junior cycling club, whose 40 members wear shirts with the shop's name on them. He has 300 followers on social media.

Customers tell Craig that they like the three-month guarantee and that he always explains what he has done to their bike. However, since the mobile mechanic started, the number of services booked at Pedal & Pump has fallen from an average of 38 a week to 26 a week.

To win customers back, Craig is considering reducing the price of a standard service from £35 to £28.

Item A: Wrenford Audio plc

Wrenford Audio plc designs headphones and portable speakers. It was founded in 2009 by Euan Ramsay and now employs 1 400 people. Its products are on sale in 23 countries.

Until 2022, Wrenford sold all of its products through electrical retailers. These retailers buy the headphones from Wrenford at £65 per pair, display them in their stores, let customers listen to them, and sell them at around £109 per pair.

In 2022 Wrenford launched its own website. Customers in every country Wrenford supplies can order the same headphones directly for £99 per pair, with delivery in four days. Wrenford now rents two warehouses to hold its own stock and employs 60 people to deal with returns and customer questions.

Sales through the website have grown quickly. However, several electrical retailers have told Euan that they will give Wrenford products less shelf space because the website sells the headphones for £10 less than they do. Euan is reviewing how Wrenford should distribute its products in future.

Table 1: Wrenford Audio plc sales for the year ended 2024

Distribution channel	Pairs of headphones sold	Price received by Wrenford per pair (£)
Electrical retailers	420 000	65
Wrenford website	180 000	99

Item A: Pantrell

Pantrell delivers weekly recipe boxes to customers' homes. Each box contains the ingredients and recipe cards for three evening meals and costs £38. The business was founded in 2015 by Lina Carver and now delivers in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands, employing 480 people.

Four other businesses deliver recipe boxes in the same three markets and most of them charge a similar weekly price. Pantrell tries to stand out from these rivals. Every month its recipes are designed by a guest chef, its packaging is made entirely from recycled card that customers can recycle again, and customers can choose any delivery day of the week and pause their deliveries for up to eight weeks.

Pantrell spends £1.6 million a year advertising on social media. Customers can cancel at any time and about one in five subscribers leaves within six months of joining. Lina is reviewing how Pantrell can keep its boxes different from those of its rivals.

Table 1: Number of Pantrell subscribers

Quarter	Subscribers
Quarter 1	36 400
Quarter 2	38 000
Quarter 3	41 200
Quarter 4	44 400

Item B: Pantrell

To cut costs, the finance director has suggested replacing the recycled card packaging with cheaper plastic packaging. This would reduce the cost of each box by £1.50.

Item A: Tavrin plc

Tavrin plc designs robot vacuum cleaners. It was founded in 2012 by Grace Khatri and now employs 600 people, selling its products in 18 countries through electrical retailers and its own website.

Tavrin has spent £4 million developing a new model, the Tavrin One. The Tavrin One uses mapping technology that no rival model offers, runs at only 42 decibels so it is quieter than any competing machine, and comes with a five-year guarantee. It costs Tavrin £85 to make each one.

The two best-selling rival models sell for £199 and £229. In the last two years, three new businesses have entered the market selling basic robot vacuum cleaners for under £120. Grace expects rivals to copy the mapping technology within about a year.

Grace must decide on a pricing method for the launch of the Tavrin One.

Option 1: Launch the Tavrin One at a high price of £349 and reduce the price after nine months.

Option 2: Launch the Tavrin One at a low price of £179, below the price of both best-selling rival models.

Item A: Nordvik Outdoor plc

Nordvik Outdoor plc makes waterproof jackets and fleeces for walkers and climbers. It was founded in 1998 and now employs 2 100 people, selling through 60 of its own stores in 15 countries and through its website.

A Nordvik waterproof jacket sells for £180 and a fleece for £65. Every jacket is guaranteed for five years and Nordvik will repair a damaged jacket free of charge. Several newer businesses now sell similar-looking waterproof jackets for around £90. Nordvik's sales revenue fell by 6% last year, from £250 million the year before.

Nordvik spends heavily on promotion. It sponsors a series of mountain running races watched by millions online, pays outdoor influencers to use its jackets on social media, and sends a monthly e-newsletter to 900 000 registered customers, each containing a link to its online shop.

The marketing director, Jonas Lindqvist, wants to increase spending on promotion again next year. Other directors disagree. One argues that customers only pay £180 because of the five-year guarantee and the quality of the material, and that money would be better spent improving the jackets. Another says that Nordvik should cut its prices or open shops in more countries.

Item A: Halden Lights plc

Halden Lights plc designs and sells smart bike lights. The business was started in Manchester in 2012 and now sells in 14 countries, employing 600 people. Its best known product is the Halden X3, launched in 2019 at a price of £129. The X3 was the first smart bike light in its market to offer 40 hours of battery life.

Sales of the X3 grew quickly for three years. Since then, several rival manufacturers have launched bike lights with a similar battery life at prices of around £70. Halden has not changed the price of the X3.

Halden spends £4 million a year on promotion, most of it on targeted online advertising aimed at 16–30 year olds. The bike lights are also sold through large electrical retailers, who take a share of the selling price.

The marketing director has been asked to review the X3 before Halden launches a new model. The director is considering reducing the price of the X3 from £129 to £79.

Table 1: Unit sales of the Halden X3

Year	Unit sales
2021	420 000
2022	560 000
2023	480 000
2024	360 000

Item A: Copperleaf plc

Copperleaf plc designs and sells cookware. It was founded in Sheffield in 2004 and now sells in 22 countries, employing 1 400 people.

Its best-selling product is the Copperleaf Pro frying pan, which sells for £68. The pan is made from recycled aluminium with a hard ceramic non-stick coating. It is sold in six colours and carries a 25-year guarantee. Rival manufacturers sell frying pans of a similar size for around £30, but most of these are guaranteed for only two years.

Copperleaf promotes the Pro pan using short cooking videos posted on social media by well-known chefs. In customer research carried out last year, 71% of buyers said the main reason they chose Copperleaf was that the pan "looks good enough to leave on the hob".

Copperleaf is now developing a new range of saucepans. The design team has been told that the range must be cheap enough to manufacture in the company's own factory, but must still be recognisable as a Copperleaf product. The finance director has warned that a thicker base and a longer guarantee would add £9 to the cost of making each saucepan.

Item A: Velora plc

Velora plc designs and sells activewear such as leggings and running tops. It was started in Leeds in 2015 and now sells in 30 countries. A pair of Velora leggings sells for £54 on the company's own website.

Velora also supplies department stores, which sell the same leggings for £60 and keep 40% of that price. The department stores decide which colours they stock and when to put the leggings into their sales.

Most of Velora's promotion takes place online. It pays fitness instructors to post training videos wearing Velora clothing, and it sends an e-newsletter to the 900 000 customers who have bought from its website.

The directors are reviewing how Velora sells its products.

Table 1: Velora's sales revenue by sales channel

Sales channel	2023 (£m)	2024 (£m)
Velora's own website	48.0	63.0
Department stores	26.0	21.0
Total	74.0	84.0

Item B: Velora plc

Two thirds of visits to Velora's website are now made on mobile phones. The directors are considering spending £1.2 million developing a mobile app so that customers can browse and buy Velora clothing on their phones.

Item A: Fenwood Beverages plc

Fenwood Beverages plc makes soft drinks. It employs 2 100 people and sells in 18 countries. Its standard cans of lemonade and cola sell in supermarkets for £1.10 and are stocked in almost every large store.

Fenwood is launching a new range called Fenwood Botanics: sparkling drinks flavoured with herbs and real fruit, in recycled cans with a matt finish. Each can will sell for £2.40. Fenwood's research found that 64% of 25–40 year olds said they would pay more for a soft drink made with natural ingredients. The same research found that two rival premium drinks already on sale cost £2.00 a can.

It costs Fenwood 86p to make and deliver each can of Botanics, compared with 34p for a standard can.

Fenwood has set aside £6 million to launch Botanics. Most of this will be spent on targeted online advertising and on videos made by social media personalities. Supermarkets have agreed to stock Botanics in 400 of their largest stores for a six-month trial. If sales are poor during the trial, the supermarkets will remove the range.

The marketing director believes the price of £2.40 is the decision that will make or break the launch. Another director has suggested launching Botanics at £2.00 a can, the same price as the two rival premium drinks.

Item A: Ambleway Coffee plc

Ambleway Coffee plc runs 185 coffee shops in England and Wales and sells bags of its own roasted beans through its website. A large latte costs £3.40, which is 30p more than the price charged by the two largest chains.

Ambleway's cafés are in city centres and railway stations. The business has built its reputation on serving coffee roasted in its own factory in Bristol, and its dark green cups are easily recognised.

Ambleway's share of the market has fallen from 14% to 11% in three years as rival chains have opened new branches and as supermarkets have begun selling cheaper takeaway coffee. The directors want to win market share back and have set aside £800 000 for promotion over the next year. Two options are being considered.

Option 1: Sponsor a national music festival tour, with Ambleway coffee sold at every event.

Option 2: Spend the money on targeted online advertising, sending offers to people who use the Ambleway app or who search for coffee shops nearby.

Table 1: Share of the UK coffee shop market

Business	Market share (%)
Beanhouse	28
Café Noto	19
Ambleway Coffee	11
All other businesses	42