Evaluate the importance of the ethical ‘fair trade' principle to the success of the marketing strategy for AC's chocolate powder.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (May/June 2019). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. Knowledge: Fair trade principles; paying farmers a 'fair' price and possibly in advance to help with cash flow
2. Knowledge: Marketing strategy, including budget, objectives, integrated marketing mix
3. Knowledge: Ethics - moral guidelines that guide business behaviour
4. Application: AC are essentially supplying a raw material / ingredient, reasons why business customers might value fair trade principles, such as the ability to use it on final chocolate products.
5. Application: Reference to chocolate market becoming more competitive and link to fair trade as competitive advantage
6. Application: References to quality of chocolate powder
7. Application: AC produces in a developing country where local companies may be indifferent to fair trade issues
8. Analysis: Development of why fair trade may be important or not – will it attract more customers? Do manufacturers really care? Are consumers willing to pay higher prices for fair trade chocolate products?
9. Analysis: Possible impacts on company image and reputation
10. Evaluation: Future use if fair trade is used to market new chocolate products
11. Evaluation: Judgement as to how important fair trade may be – is quality more important? Not so important in developing country but customers of AC likely to include developed country companies where this is increasingly an important issue.
12. Evaluation: Price more important as it is an ingredient?