Hi,

Is the main assertion of the analyst that the company should delay the announcement or that the announcement may backfire?
If the main assertion is that the company should delay the announcement, then IMO E should be the correct answer. This is because if the customers of the company are not loyal to it then no matter how much the company delays the new announcement, if another company makes a similar announcement the existing customers are likely to switch to the new company and thus the support of delaying the announcement will fall apart.

Please correct me if I have misunderstood something.

Br
Jagveer

The author is using the fact that early announcements backfire as evidence to support the conclusion that the company should delay the announcement. So we want to delay the announcement to prevent a backfire, i.e. a drop in sale. Sounds good, right? AS LONG AS that drop in sales actually happens. If media outlets don’t report an announcement (eg. if the company announces the new technology on a bulletin board in their break room but the public doesn’t find out about it), the public won’t have a chance to respond to the announcement. This is why B is the best answer. Your introduction of a new company into the analysis is reading too much into the problem. Customer loyalty itself isn’t going to lead to a drop in sales the way premature media reports will..

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

Aren't you assuming that the only way the media can hear about the release of a new product is if it's directly from the company?

This also seems like an unwarranted assumption.

remenyi, another student asked an identical question on the first page. To address your question, I've quoted the question and Tim's post from the first page. Please read his explanation and let us know if you have further questions.

The student asked:
"Hi,
Isn't the indicated correct choice "B" making the following assumption :
The Media gets its information ONLY from the company and the Customer in turn gets his/her information ONLY from the Media?"

_________________
Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

I'm still not convinced. In fact, I think if I look at this questions and the answer choices the way you advocate (which is without any assumptions/outside knowledge), then none of the options are nearly satisfactory.

quoting B:
Media outlets, such as television programs and magazines, often report on the planned introduction of new devices while the sales of old devices are still strong.

It's clearly the timing that is focused on here: "while the sales of the old ones are still strong"! simply presented as a fact. It's just talking about a trend within the media, which at best weakens the argument IMO.
What if the media find out about the "planned introduction of new devices" through some other channel than the company itself (which is also not even implied in B as THE source of the news and Tim believes "is not absolutely necessary") and then report on it as they "often" do, "while the sales of the old devices are still strong". Wouldn't that make the company strategy of holding off the announcements less effective to the say the least?

sorry if I'm repeating some of the things that were said before. but this question is really mind boggling. thanks again for your time n effort!

parthian, your question does cover some ground that we've covered before in this thread, so let me ask you this . . . which answer choice do you think is better than B? I think that would be a great discussion at this point, and we can compare and contrast answer B and your preferred answer.

_________________
Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor