Advertising tends to have a greater influence on consumer preferences

Question

Advertising tends to have a greater influence on consumer preferences regarding brands of yogurt than it does on consumer preferences regarding brands of milk. Yet, since the LargeCo supermarket chain began advertising its store-brand products, sales of its storebrand milk increased more than sales of its store-brand yogurt.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy described above?

(A) There has recently been increased demand at LargeCo stores for the chain's own brand of yogurt as well as for other brands of yogurt.
(B) The typical shopper going to LargeCo for the purpose of buying milk does not go with the intention of also buying yogurt.
(C) Shoppers at LargeCo tend to purchase the chain's own brand of dairy products more frequently than other brands of dairy products.
(D) Supermarkets throughout the entire nation have experienced a sharp decrease in sales of yogurt recently.
(E) Consumers tend to purchase store brands of yogurt, but purchase whichever brand of milk is least expensive.

LSAT

bishalpodder · Answer

should be E, how can it be D????... Can tou post the Oa!

DeepakGargISM · Answer

I am confused between B and D. D does not talk about the particular store but does give a good reason why sales for Yogurt were less.

But B specifically talks about the store in question and also gives a reason for less Yogurt sale.

Sent from my ONE A2003 using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

techiesam · Answer

It's a straight D,considering the others are mostly irrivalent.

What we have got in the question is

1) Advertising influence consumer to buy more yogurt than milk.

2) LargeCo supermarket chain found they sale more milk than yogurt after they began the advertising of their product.

Now crosscheck the answer choices

(A) There has recently been increased demand at LargeCo stores for the chain's own brand of yogurt as well as for other brands of yogurt.- Irrelevant as its compare the sale of different brand of yogurt.We are interested in milk vs yogurt . 
(B) The typical shopper going to LargeCo for the purpose of buying milk does not go with the intention of also buying yogurt.- That means advertisment helps to sale more milk,so it does not solve the paradox but strengthen it.  Remember you need to find out a reasoning that would solve the paradox 
(C) Shoppers at LargeCo tend to purchase the chain's own brand of dairy products more frequently than other brands of dairy products.- Irrelevant as its compare the sale of different brand of airy products.We are interested in milk vs yogurt .Its sort of like option A. 
(D) Supermarkets throughout the entire nation have experienced a sharp decrease in sales of yogurt recently.- Correct as it explain the paradox.The yogurt sale is down nationwide and advertisement has nothing to do with it. 
(E) Consumers tend to purchase store brands of yogurt, but purchase whichever brand of milk is least expensive.-  it does not solve the paradox.If it were true then LargeCo would have sold more yogurt by advertising its brand.besides the comparison among different brand of milk is irrelevant.

jackky · Answer

Hello,

GMATNinja 
How is option D correct?
 The premise says that  since  the LargeCo supermarket chain began advertising its store-brand products, sales of its storebrand milk increased more than sales of its store-brand yogurt. So the sales difference has been observed since the advertisement began, which bdw we dont know when it began, how can we say that recent sharp decline in demand of Yogurt solves this descripancy

GMATNinja · Answer

You're right that we cannot know precisely whether LargeCo's advertising campaign happened at the same time as the sharp decrease in the sales of yogurt in the entire nation. It looks like you're trying to  completely prove  that (D) resolves the discrepancy, but the question only asks which of the answer choices  most helps  resolve the discrepancy. It's ok to have SOME doubt in the correct answer choice, it just needs to be better than all the others.

In the end, the reason why (D) is the correct answer is that all the others can be eliminated. Let's take a look at this question to demonstrate this.

We're asked which of the answer choices  most helps  to resolve the following discrepancy:

Advertising affects consumer preference on the brand of yogurt chosen more than the brand of milk chosen.

BUT

Since LargeCo began advertising its products, sales of its store-brand milk increased more than sales of its store-brand yogurt.

First, looking at (A):
 
This would not help us resolve the discrepancy. Knowing there has been an increase in demand for  all brands of yogurt  at LargeCo does not help us explain why sales of  LargeCo milk  have increased more than sales of  LargeCo yogurt .

Since (A) cannot help resolve this discrepancy, (A) cannot be the answer.

(B) tells us:
 
We can't tell much by only looking at the shoppers that go to LargeCo  for the purpose of buying milk . We're interested in the buying decisions of  every  shopper.

(B) does not help us resolve the discrepancy because we can't tell what the other shoppers are doing -- (B) is out.

(C) says:
 
We're interested in the difference between the amount of  LargeCo branded milk and yogurt  purchased, we're not concerned with how much LargeCo produce is purchased compared to  other brands .

(C) does not help resolve the discrepancy, so (C) is not our answer.

(D) tells us:
 
This looks good -- it gives us a reason why yogurt sales are not increasing as much as milk sales. If yogurt sales throughout the nation have experienced a sharp decrease but LargeCo has been advertising their yogurt brand then perhaps LargeCo has been bucking the national trend a bit. However, it cannot completely reverse the national trend so the increase in its yogurt sales is lower than that of its milk sales.

While we cannot tell whether these two phenomena are taking place at precisely the same time and (D) does not resolve the discrepancy  entirely , (D) does go  some way  towards helping us resolve this discrepancy. Let's keep it for now while we look at (E).

Finally, (E) says:
 
We don't know whether LargeCo's milk is the cheapest in the store so we can't use this piece of information to resolve the discrepancy.

(E) does not help resolve the discrepancy, so we can cross (E) out.

The only answer left standing is (D), so it's our winner.

I hope that helps!

VerbalBot · Answer

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Advertising tends to have a greater influence on consumer preferences

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