Answers to The Strategist Quiz (#536)

Answers to The Strategist Quiz, November 2, 2017

1. Connect a famous article titled “Cancer by the Carton” and the ad agency Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BBDO) and arrive at a historic decision taken by the ad agency in the late 50s.

Reader’s Digest ran one of its many anti-cigarette articles with the title. American Tobacco, maker of Lucky Strike, was a major client whose PR man J T Ross was enraged by the article. He got the client to insist that BBDO decide between the magazine and the tobacco firm. Since the latter billed $30 million or so, and the Digest a couple of million, the agency reluctantly dropped the Digest

2. Connect John D Rockefeller, H C Frick, Henry Ford, Charles M Schwab, Andrew Carnegie, George F Baker, William Rockefeller, Edward S Harkness, J Ogden Armour and Pierre S du Pont and what do you arrive at?

The top 10 who were part of the very first listing of the Forbes’ 30 richest Americans published in 1918

3. This company was founded in the early 1920s by two brothers, H__ and H__. It first sold textile remnants or cut pieces as one would call it and subsequently got into the business of making pencil boxes and school supplies. It created history in 1952 when it revolutionised the toy industry and one of its creations was the first to get advertised on TV. Name it and the revolutionary product it launched.

Hasbro toys founded by Henry and Hillel Hassenfield. Mr. Potato Head was the revolutionary toy product

4. These two stocks, SHLD and WHR, recently plunged at the same because the investors were rattled by an announcement. What was it?

Sears and Whirlpool ended their 100-year partnership because of pricing demands from Whirlpool

5. What is the buzzword used to describe a phenomenon when a brand is overexposed in the marketplace? Many attribute it to a particular brand from US that gets its name from a Greek goddess. Of course the brand continues to do well even now and is big worldwide.

Overswooshification. After Nike’s Swoosh

6. Connect the South African rand, Botswana pula, pound sterling, Indian rupee, euro, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Chinese yuan, and the United States dollar and what do you arrive at?

These are all official currencies that are used in Zimbabwe in lieu of its erstwhile Zimbabwean dollar

7. Grid compass is considered as the first to be designed in 1979 by a Briton. It was used by NASA for space shuttle programmes. What was it? Who designed it?

The Grid compass is considered by many to be the first laptop computer. It was designed by “Bill” Moggridge, a British designer, author and educator who co-founded IDEO and was director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York

8. Which brand’s punchlines are “Role Models not Male Models”?

The Bonobos stores in the US. A unique hybrid online/offline menswear brand that is accelerating its growth under new owner Walmart, having established the trend of showrooming, browsing in-store and buying online

9. What is the term used to describe the process by which a trademark loses its ability to function as a differentiating source identifier and becomes the common descriptive term for that particular type/category of product or service? Consumers use the mark or brand name as a general term that describes any product or service, regardless of the source, and so the trademark loses its distinctiveness.

Genericide

10. Identify the brand and explain why it is so special. They are handmade products.

Cigarettes made by Morland’s of 83 Grosvenor Street London exclusively for James Bond 007

Compiled by Gaurav Sri Krishna, www.facebook.com/gaurav.s.krishna

There were two correct entries to Quiz No 536. The winner is Raja Laxmi of Bhubaneswar