Marketing Mix Assignment (Insert Your Name) (Del Beverages Company) Product or Service Price -Iced Tea -Fruit Juice -Coffee -Tomato juice -Sparkling water -Big Can drink -What will make this company competitive is its ability to drive the costs of various beverages down. The company also provides beverages on the same day they have been ordered, and also plans to increase the nutritional value of the drinks considering the health effects to the consumers. Since the company understands the changes in the dietary needs of customers, it plans to supply beverages with zero sugar due to the increasing linkage of sugar with various diseases such as diabetes. The company will, however, maintain the normal beverages with certain sugar content. $5 $ 10 $ 8 $ 10 $ 4 $ 10 The prices are set based on the initial prices set by the manufacturers. The prices remain the same in various areas because equal transportation costs are incurred. The company does not depend on a sole company as a source of its beverages. It distributes beverages from the nearest company, however, quality is considered when choosing a beverage manufacturing company. The prices are also set based on the prices set by competitors. Value-based and competitive pricing have been used to set the price ranges. For the iced tea, the customers believe that it should cost $5, therefore, the price was set at 5 dollars. Other beverages such as coffee, fruit juice, and tomato juice were priced considering the prices set by competitors. This is because many customers would easily go for cheaper alternatives. Place Promotion Consumers will be able to purchase the beverages at various restaurants, gas stations and supermarkets located in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, and Austin. The company will also be distributing beverages to cities in Canada such as Toronto, Winnipeg and Ottawa and Colombia such as Bogota and Cali. The selection of these locations is based on the population of the cities, purchasing power and preferences of consumers in these locations. After conducting research, the company identified various towns in which people are interested in beverages such as iced coffee and tea. Consumers can, however, make special orders using the company’s official website. Direct marketing will be used as the company will have tailored messages for the consumers. Online advertising will be used to advertise Del Beverages Company. There will be sponsored ads posted on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube to inform potential customers that they can purchase their favorite beverages at very low prices. The company will also be giving promotional beverages as gifts which will be branded the company’s name. It will also make use of product giveaways. The target market of the Del Beverages Company is high school students, college students, workers of various companies and businessmen. The company targets the middle class since it sets prices based on wh.

1. Marketing Mix Assignment
(Insert Your Name)
(Del Beverages Company)
Product or Service
Price
-Iced Tea
-Fruit Juice
-Coffee
-Tomato juice
-Sparkling water
-Big Can drink
-What will make this company competitive is its ability to drive
the costs of various beverages down. The company also
provides beverages on the same day they have been ordered, and
also plans to increase the nutritional value of the drinks
considering the health effects to the consumers. Since the
company understands the changes in the dietary needs of
customers, it plans to supply beverages with zero sugar due to
the increasing linkage of sugar with various diseases such as
diabetes. The company will, however, maintain the normal
beverages with certain sugar content.
$5
$ 10

2. $ 8
$ 10
$ 4
$ 10
The prices are set based on the initial prices set by the
manufacturers. The prices remain the same in various areas
because equal transportation costs are incurred. The company
does not depend on a sole company as a source of its beverages.
It distributes beverages from the nearest company, however,
quality is considered when choosing a beverage manufacturing
company. The prices are also set based on the prices set by
competitors. Value-based and competitive pricing have been
used to set the price ranges. For the iced tea, the customers
believe that it should cost $5, therefore, the price was set at 5
dollars. Other beverages such as coffee, fruit juice, and tomato
juice were priced considering the prices set by competitors.
This is because many customers would easily go for cheaper
alternatives.
Place
Promotion
Consumers will be able to purchase the beverages at various
restaurants, gas stations and supermarkets located in New York
City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, and Austin. The
company will also be distributing beverages to cities in Canada

3. such as Toronto, Winnipeg and Ottawa and Colombia such as
Bogota and Cali. The selection of these locations is based on
the population of the cities, purchasing power and preferences
of consumers in these locations. After conducting research, the
company identified various towns in which people are interested
in beverages such as iced coffee and tea. Consumers can,
however, make special orders using the company’s official
website.
Direct marketing will be used as the company will have tailored
messages for the consumers. Online advertising will be used to
advertise Del Beverages Company. There will be sponsored ads
posted on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube to inform potential
customers that they can purchase their favorite beverages at
very low prices.
The company will also be giving promotional beverages as gifts
which will be branded the company’s name. It will also make
use of product giveaways.
The target market of the Del Beverages Company is high school
students, college students, workers of various companies and
businessmen. The company targets the middle class since it sets
prices based on what they can afford.
Page 1“Th e Wolf, the Moose, and the Fir Tree” by Gary M.
Fortier

4. NATIONAL CENTER FOR CASE STUDY TEACHING IN
SCIENCE
by
Gary M. Fortier
Department of Small Animal Science
Delaware Valley College
The Wolf, the Moose,
and the Fir Tree:
A Case Study of
Trophic Interactions
Part I – Introduction
Isle Royale National Park, the largest island in Lake Superior,
provides biologists with a fairly unique system for
studying the interactions between diff erent trophic levels. Isle
Royale has a rather simple food chain consisting of
producers and a single large herbivore that in turn has only a
single predator, the gray wolf (Canis lupus). Th e island
had a rather large abundance of balsam fi r (Abies balsamea)
until the park was colonized by moose (Alces alces) that
swam to the island in the early 1900s. After the establishment
of this large herbivore, the balsam fi r declined from 46%
of the overstory in the 19th century to about 5% today. Nearby
islands that are inaccessible to moose continue to have
a large fi r component in their forests; thus the decline of the fi
r on Isle Royale has been attributed to moose herbivory.
Balsam fi r is not considered optimal forage for moose but it
can comprise up to 59% of their winter diet.
Over the last several decades, signifi cant temporal fl uctuations
have been observed in the densities of the wolf and
moose populations and the growth rates of balsam fi rs. Two
hypotheses have been suggested to account for these
fl uctuations. Th e primary productivity or "bottom up"

5. hypothesis suggests that plant growth is limited by the energy
available to plants, which is determined in turn by temperature
and precipitation. Additional plant growth means
more forage is available—thus herbivores, and ultimately
carnivores, should increase in abundance. Alternatively, the
trophic cascade or "top down" model predicts that
changes in one trophic level are caused by opposite
changes in the trophic level immediately above
it. For example, a decrease in moose abundance
should produce increased plant growth if moose
herbivory limits plant growth. Changes in primary
productivity would only have a discernible eff ect
on vegetation if higher level interactions had been
removed.
Th e Isle Royale ecosystem provides us with a good
opportunity to test the predictions of these alternative
hypotheses. Longitudinal data are available for each
of the key variables, including annual plant growth,
NATIONAL CENTER FOR CASE STUDY TEACHING IN
SCIENCE
Page 2“Th e Wolf, the Moose, and the Fir Tree” by Gary M.
Fortier
herbivore density, and carnivore density. Th e historical
growth rates of balsam fi r have been determined
through tree-ring analysis. When herbivores remove
large quantities of the foliar biomass, annual wood
accrual decreases and ring widths are reduced. Th us
tree ring data allow us to estimate the intensity of
herbivory over time. Moose and wolf populations have

6. been censused for decades on Isle Royale, providing
us with annual estimates of herbivore and carnivore
densities. Long-term records are available for each
trophic level in the Isle Royale ecosystem, providing
the necessary data to evaluate both hypotheses.
Questions
1. What type of correlation (positive or negative)
would you expect to see between the population
densities or growth rates of each trophic level in
this system (fi r/moose/wolves) under the primary
productivity hypothesis?
2. What type of correlations would you predict under
the trophic cascade hypothesis?
3. What would you predict as the eff ect of wolf
removal on plant growth under each hypothesis?
4. What assumptions are made regarding the
measurement of growth rates in balsam fi r?
Regarding the long-term impact of moose
herbivory on balsam fi r? Do these assumptions
seem warranted?
Photo credits: Wolf (Canis lupus) by Gary Kramer, U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, public domain. Swimming moose and
hikers in
Isle Royale National Park are from the National Park Service
Digital Image Archives, public domain.
NATIONAL CENTER FOR CASE STUDY TEACHING IN
SCIENCE

7. Page 3“Th e Wolf, the Moose, and the Fir Tree” by Gary M.
Fortier
Part II – Trophic System Data
Th e data in Figure 1 include census information for the moose
and wolf populations, ring width indices from fi rs on each
end of the island, and actual evapotranspiration rates (AET)
from April to October. Th e east and west ends of the island
diff er substantially in terms of climate and fl ora. Th e west
end consists of hardwood forests with a higher AET rate and
warmer, earlier summers relative to the boreal forests in the
east. Th e AET rate varies with temperature and rainfall and
serves as an index of the amount of water available for plant
growth. Th is rate is strongly tied to primary productivity.
Questions
1. What is the purpose of each fi gure? Are there
unclear terms or confusing aspects to any fi gure?
2. How do the maxima and minima of the ring-width
indices correspond to changes in moose density?
Does this support the primary productivity
hypothesis, the trophic cascade hypothesis, or
neither?
3. Do fi rs from either end of the island (east/west)
respond the same way to changes in moose density?
How can you account for any observed diff erences?
4. How do the maxima and minima of the wolves
correspond to changes in moose density? How
might you account for this relationship?
5. Which hypothesis is supported by the data on

8. annual AET?
Fig. 1. Population parameters of the Isle Royale ecosystem from
1958–
1994. Shaded areas signify periods of forage suppression that
may be
connected to interactions between herbivores and carnivores.
A. Population size of wolves each winter (based on aerial
counts).
B. Population size of moose each winter (based on aerial counts
and
skeletal remains).
C. Ring-widths from the west end of Isle Royale, N=8.
D. Ring-widths from the east end of Isle Royale, N=8.
E. Actual evapotranspiration rates (AET), annual calculations
based on
data from April–October at a weather station 20 km from Isle
Royale.
AET is an approximation of primary productivity, it represents
water
availability as a function of temperature and rainfall.
Credit: Regraphed from information published in Science 226
(December 2, 1994): 1557.
NATIONAL CENTER FOR CASE STUDY TEACHING IN
SCIENCE
Page 4“Th e Wolf, the Moose, and the Fir Tree” by Gary M.

9. Fortier
•
Case copyright held by the National Center for Case Study
Teaching in Science, University at Buff alo, State University of
New
York. Originally published October 6, 1999. Please see our
usage guidelines, which outline our policy concerning
permissible
reproduction of this work.
Part III – Ring Width Indices
Th e local topographies for the two samples depicted below are
substantially diff erent. Th e chronologies in fi gure A are
from an east-end subsample of trees designated RH (Rock
Harbor). Th is area contained an open-canopy section of
previously disturbed boreal forest; it exhibits an increase in
growth rates after a period of high wolf predation in the
late 1970s. Figure B depicts a west-end subsample designated
SS (Siskiwit Swamp). Th ese fi rs are in a closed-canopy
hardwood forest that has been heavily browsed by moose for
some time.
Questions
1. Are there any confusing aspects to the fi gures or caption
above?
2. Th e moose population peaked in the mid 1970s and then
declined over the next decade. How did the trees at
each site respond in the years following the peak? Are the
results for these samples surprising given the larger
data sets for tree ring-width on the previous page?
3. How should the diff erence in canopy cover aff ect growth
rates? How will the height of the trees at each site

10. aff ect their response to changes in primary productivity? Th e
authors suggest that primary productivity was
increasing during the late 1970s and most of the 1980s—does
either ring-width index appear to refl ect that
change?
4. Which hypothesis do you feel is best supported by the ring-
width chronologies above?
5. What fi nal conclusions can you draw about the interactions
between each trophic level on Isle Royale? Is control
exerted from the top down, as suggested by the trophic cascade
model, or are interactions between trophic levels
ultimately controlled by primary productivity?
6. Design an experiment that would allow you to clarify any
ambiguities from Figures 1 or 2. Why might an
experimental approach prove advantageous in this situation?
Fig. 2. Ring-widths of balsam fi rs from Isle Royale. Each line
represents data from an individual tree harvested in 1992. Note
that moose are able to browse as high as 3m.
A. Location RH (N=10), fi rs from this area were 26–48 years
old
and exceeded 3m in height during the late 1970s.
B. Location SS (N=9), fi rs from this area were 48–60 years old
and were less than 2m in height.
Credit: Regraphed from information published in Science 226
(December 2, 1994): 1557.
SWOT ANALYSIS

11. Del Beverages Company
STRENGTHS
1. Reliable suppliers-Del Beverages Company has suppliers who
always deliver raw materials and some finished beverages on
time. When an order is made by a customer, the company never
fails to have stock because of its reliable suppliers. Customer
orders are, therefore, processed immediately.
2. Large distribution network- the Company is connected to
distributors in various countries. This enhances the likelihood
of reaching the maximum number of customers for the available
beverages. The large distribution network also ensures that the
company can enjoy diverse customers thereby sell various
beverages.
3. Customer satisfaction- many customers give positive
feedback on the beverages sold by Del. High school students
always prefer the coffee and tea sold by Del.
4. Online presence- customers can place orders using the
company’s website.
WEAKNESSES
1. Transportation costs- the company has to incur high costs
during the transportation of beverages to various locations. This
affects its profitability.
2. High level of competition- Del faces competition from
already established companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
3. Health concerns- the increasing health concerns on sugary
drinks has made a lot of customers avoid purchasing beverages.
The company, therefore, has its sales decreasing because some
customers do not think it is healthy to drink the beverages.
4. Product diversification- the company only offers a few
beverages such as coffee, tea, and juices. This limits the types
of beverages that customers can order. The company has not
ventured into selling other products besides the beverages.
OPPORTUNITIES

12. 1. Additional stores- Del can expand to many other cities
around the globe by establishing distribution stores or
contacting the distributors in those cities. The developing
nations provide a non-utilized market for Del Beverages.
2. Online sales expansion- due to the growing number of
internet users, the company is likely to expand its sales through
online platforms.
3. More schools were built- since Del mostly targets high school
students, the construction of schools in various places presents
new markets for the company.
4. Introduction of new beverages- Since Del only sells a few
beverages, it has the opportunity to introduce more beverages
and make high profits. The company can get more consumers by
introducing a variety of drinks.
THREATS
1. Increase in the cost of raw materials- the raw materials for
making various drinks can increase, and this could adversely
affect Del since it is a small company.
2. Changes in consumer preferences- the consumers could stop
consuming the beverages due to health reports on the drinks.
The competitors could also make better beverages to take all the
customers.
3. Unskilled workforce- For a company such as Del, it may be
difficult to get workers who are skilled enough to make the
company competitive. They may also be unable to solve the
challenges faced by the company.