Drill 14 ·
AP Business with Personal Finance: Promotion and Marketing Communications Drill 14 is a practice drill. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.
A granola maker compares four promotional channels for a stated target audience; uses an invented company and original figures.
Greavesly Granola is a small breakfast-foods company launching a new high-protein granola aimed at busy weekday gym-goers aged 18 to 34. The marketing lead built a table of four promotional channels, each showing the estimated number of people the channel will reach overall, the total cost of the campaign, and a short note on how well the channel fits that target audience.
Greavesly Granola: promotional channel options (target audience: gym-goers aged 18-34)
| Channel | Estimated people reached | Total cost | Audience-fit note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gym-app banner ads | 40,000 | $3,200 | Seen only by active app users in this age group |
| Local fitness podcast spots | 25,000 | $2,000 | Listeners are mostly the target group; host reads the ad |
| Regional newspaper print ad | 60,000 | $6,000 | Broad readership; few are gym-goers aged 18-34 |
| Billboard near highway | 50,000 | $5,500 | Very broad; little control over who sees it |
Question 1. According to the table, which channel reaches the most people overall?
Explanation: Q14.1: The regional newspaper print ad (A) reaches 60,000 people overall, the largest figure in the 'estimated people reached' column. The billboard (B) reaches 50,000, the gym-app ads (C) 40,000, and the podcast (D) 25,000, all smaller. Note that reaching the most people overall is not the same as the best fit for the target audience, which later questions address.
Question 2. A host personally reading an ad during a fitness podcast is an example of which element of the promotion mix?
Explanation: Q14.2: A paid ad delivered through a media channel, even when a host reads it aloud, is advertising (B): the firm pays to place a message in front of an audience. It is not sales promotion (A), which is a short-term incentive like a coupon. It is not personal selling (C), which is a direct one-to-one conversation with an individual buyer. It is not public relations (D), because the firm is paying for the placement rather than earning unpaid coverage.
Question 3. Using the figures in the table, what is the cost per 1,000 people reached for the gym-app banner ads? Round to the nearest whole cent.
Explanation: Q14.3: Cost per 1,000 reached = total cost / (people reached / 1,000) = $3,200 / (40,000 / 1,000) = $3,200 / 40 = $8.00 (A). Choice B, $12.50, comes from dividing people by cost (40,000 / 3,200 = 12.5 people per dollar) and mislabeling the result as dollars. Choice C, $80.00, divides by 40 hundreds instead of 40 thousands. Choice D, $0.08, is the cost per single person, not per 1,000.
Question 4. Why does the local fitness podcast fit Greavesly's target audience better than the regional newspaper, even though the newspaper reaches more people overall?
Explanation: Q14.4: The podcast fits better because a larger share of its listeners are in the target group, so less of the spending is wasted on people outside the target audience (C). The newspaper reaches more people overall, but a smaller share of them are gym-goers aged 18-34, so much of its reach does not match the audience. Choice A is wrong because lower total cost does not by itself mean better audience fit. Choice B misreads the table: the newspaper reaches more total people, not fewer. Choice D is false because the podcast spot costs $2,000, not nothing, and a channel being cheaper does not by itself guarantee the highest return.
Question 5. Greavesly wants the launch promotion to convince busy gym-goers that the new granola is genuinely worth trying, using a message the audience will find credible. Which promotional idea is the most desirable and viable fit for that goal?
Explanation: Q14.5: The podcast spot (B) is the most desirable and viable fit: it reaches the target group, and a trusted host explaining the protein benefit and a real post-workout use gives a credible, audience-relevant reason to try the product. Choice A is an unsupported boast that gives the audience no reason to believe it. Choice C targets the wrong audience entirely (retired readers, not young gym-goers). Choice D communicates nothing about the product, so it cannot persuade anyone to try it.