Mourdet Winery: Danville Winery's new wine was introduced to

Danville Winery's response: The two bottles can be readily distinguished.
D says that the occasional buyers generally buy bottles on the basis of most obvious feature of the bottle. These .buyers, going per the stimulus, will focus on the general features the bottle has and not on the gold sticker that this bottle carries.
Hence D undermines Danny Winery's response that the two bottles can be readily distinguished.

Mourdet Winery: Danville Winery's new wine was introduced to compete with our most popular wine, which is sold in a distinctive tall, black bottle. Danville uses a similar bottle. Thus, it is likely that many customers intending to buy our wine will mistakenly buy theirs instead.

Danville Winery: Not so. The two bottles can be readily distinguished: the label on ours, but not on theirs, is gold colored.

Which of the following, if true, most undermines Danville Winery's response?

(A) Gold is the background color on the label of many of the wines produced by Danville Winery.
(B) When the bottles are viewed side by side, Danville Winery's bottle is perceptibly taller than Mourdet Winery's.
(C) Danville Winery, unlike Mourdet Winery, displays its wine's label prominently in advertisements.
(D) It is common for occasional purchasers to buy a bottle of wine on the basis of a general impression of the most obvious feature of the bottle.
(E) Many popular wines are sold in bottles of a standard design.

isn't there a difference between many customers and occasional purchasers ??
though any other option doesn't fit.

Hi ConnectTheDots,

Yes, there is a difference between "many customers" and "occasional purchasers", this means that (D) is not undermining Danville's response greatly; however it does undermine the Winery's response. Other answer choices do not undermine the response.

If it is common for occasional purchasers to buy a wine base on bottles most prominent characteristic, then some people would ignore the gold label on the bottle, thus, undermining Danville's response.

Hope this helps,

Vercules

D

Danville's response is that the gold label is sufficient for customers to be able to discern the difference between D and M's bottles, even though they are both tall and black.

Choice D addresses the problem which is that the occasional customers will buy a bottle based on general impressions, which D and M's bottles both share.

Mourdet Winery: Danville Winery's new wine was introduced to compete with our most popular wine, which is sold in a distinctive tall, black bottle.
Danville uses a similar bottle. Thus, it is likely that many customers intending to buy our wine will mistakenly buy theirs instead.

Danville Winery: Not so. The two bottles can be readily distinguished: the label on ours, but not on theirs, is gold colored.

Which of the following, if true, most undermines Danville Winery's response?

A. Gold is the background color on the label of many of the wines produced by Danville Winery.
>>Not relevant.
B. When the bottles are viewed side by side, Danville Winery's bottle is perceptibly taller than Mourdet Winery's.
>>Strengthen.
C. Danville Winery, unlike Mourdet Winery, displays its wine's label prominently in advertisements.
>>Strengthen.
D. It is common for occasional purchasers to buy a bottle of wine on the basis of a general impression of the most obvious feature of the bottle.
>>Correct. If that is the case , they wont look at the label and would buy based upon their general impression abt the MW's wine bottle. [most obvious feature of the bottle => height of the bottle.]
E. Many popular wines are sold in bottles of a standard design.
>>Not relevant

Mourdet Winery: Danville Winery's new wine was introduced to compete with our most popular wine, which is sold in a distinctive tall, black bottle. Danville uses a similar bottle. Thus, it is likely that many customers intending to buy our wine will mistakenly buy theirs instead.
Danville Winery: Not so. The two bottles can be readily distinguished: the label on ours, but not on theirs, is gold colored.

Which of the following, if true, most undermines Danville Winery's response?

A. Gold is the background color on the label of many of the wines produced by Danville Winery.will strengthen D's argument
B. When the bottles are viewed side by side, Danville Winery's bottle is perceptibly taller than Mourdet Winery's.This again would help customers to distinguish. Strenghtner
C. Danville Winery, unlike Mourdet Winery, displays its wine's label prominently in advertisements.Again would help to distinguish between the two.
D. It is common for occasional purchasers to buy a bottle of wine on the basis of a general impression of the most obvious feature of the bottle.Gold colour can be distinguishable as an obvious feature. Hence this most undermines the argument given by D.
E. Many popular wines are sold in bottles of a standard design. This would make the wines indistinguishable but it doesnt tell us anything about the role that the label can have on the customers.

D. It is common for occasional purchasers to buy a bottle of wine on the basis of a general impression of the most obvious feature of the bottle.

Are we not assuming that the most obvious feature of the bottle is it's height and not the label. The answer choice 'must' weaken the argument but here it does weaken but only after taking an 'assumption'.

Can someone explain why D undermines and B doesn't ?

Danville winery's conclusion - "Customers will not buy mistakenly by Danville winery. Two bottles can be distinguished, how? the danville winery's label is gold color".

B explains that they are distinguished by one more factor.

D explains that their's distinguishable factors are intangible. So customers will buy mistakenly.

mikemcgarry, GMATNinja, GMATNinjaTwo, sayantanc2k
I am unable to understand the OA D. My confusion is that the argument conclusion is taling abou "many customers"and OA is talking about "occasional purchasers". The two terms are not synchronised.
I feel that had it been regarding the revenues, the OA would have made sense.
Clarify??

"Occasional purchasers" are simply people who do not buy wine regularly. Who is buying Mourdet's most popular wine? Maybe a significant portion of the sales come from occasional purchasers (i.e. they don't buy wine regularly, but when they do, they go for the one with the distinctive tall, black bottle).

When they say, "many customers intending to buy our wine," they could certainly be referring to occasional wine purchasers. Even if occasional wine purchasers accounted for, say, a quarter of total sales, that group could still qualify as "many customers" (note the use of "many", not "all" or "most").

Also, we are only talking about "customers intending to buy our wine." So we are only looking at the subset of wine shoppers who intend to buy Mourdet wine. That doesn't necessarily constitute a large portion of ALL wine shoppers. Perhaps most customers intending to buy Mourdet wines are, in fact, occasional wine purchasers.

There is nothing incongruous about "occasional purchasers" and "many customers intending to buy our wine", so (D) is the best answer.

I hope that helps!

Mourdet Winery: Danville Winery's new wine was introduced to compete with our most popular wine, which is sold in a distinctive tall, black bottle. Danville uses a similar bottle. Thus, it is likely that many customers intending to buy our wine will mistakenly buy theirs instead.

Danville Winery: Not so. The two bottles can be readily distinguished: the label on ours, but not on theirs, is gold colored.

Which of the following, if true, most undermines Danville Winery's response?

(D) It is common for occasional purchasers to buy a bottle of wine on the basis of a general impression of the most obvious feature of the bottle.

I understand why option (D) is correct. But in option (D) aren't we assuming that the general impression of the obvious feature of the bottle does not include 'label'?

Kindly help clarify!

KarishmaB GMATNinja
I didn't understand what's wrong with option A. Option A Says that the gold label is there on all the bottles of Danville Winery but not on the bottles of Mourdet Winery, thus making it a distinctive feature..although it's not a feature feature, it distinguishes one brand from the other brand.

Please help.

The argument is all about Mourdet complaining that Danville has introduced a bottle of wine which is just like their most popular bottle (tall black bottle). They say that Danville is confusing people into buying Danville bottle by mistake.
Danville says that they have a gold label that Mourdet doesn't have. (So the customers are able to easily distinguish Danville bottle from Mourdet's most popular bottle)
We need to weaken Danville's argument.

So we have to find a reason why the gold label may not be enough of a distinguishing feature.

(D) It is common for occasional purchasers to buy a bottle of wine on the basis of a general impression of the most obvious feature of the bottle.

This option says that people who buy occasionally (say not every week but once a month) buy based on general impression of the most obvious features (tall black bottle). It implies that they may not notice the label.

(A) Gold is the background color on the label of many of the wines produced by Danville Winery.

Other wines produced by Danville are irrelevant to us. We are trying to establish whether Danville is trying to copy the Mourdet's most popular wine bottle by introducing a tall black bottle of their own.

 

­Hi KarishmaB

Why option B is wrong here? I am a bit confused with that, my thinking is if bottles are viewed side by side, then the perceptible tallness of the wine bottle would be an alternate cause other than the gold label to distinguish DW's bottle from MW's, hence, weakening DW's response.
Please let me know if I am missing any angle here to think.