The Marketing Mix (AQA A Level Business): Exam Questions

Source A: Gymshark Ltd

Ben Francis was 19 when he asked his parents if he could use their garage to start making gym clothes he had designed. Whilst studying business at university, Ben teamed up with a school friend, and the gymwear business Gymshark Ltd was born.

Ben used his £5-an-hour wage at Pizza Hut and £1000 savings to invest in equipment like a sewing machine. Ben taught himself to sew and went to bodybuilding events to raise brand awareness. In 2012, Ben dropped out of university to focus on the business full-time.

The Gymshark Ltd brand has become a hit with younger gym goers and is doing well in a highly competitive market. Its competitors include Nike, Adidas and Puma. Instead of using traditional advertising or selling in high street shops, Gymshark Ltd has grown by having athletes and social media 'influencers' wear its clothes on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Ben is also well known and still shares his own fitness videos online to promote the brand. The company now has 18 million followers on social media.

Gymshark Ltd is a private limited company. In 2021, it raised £200 million by selling shares to a company called General Atlantic. This made Gymshark Ltd one of relatively few British businesses valued at over $1 billion. Ben still owns a 70% stake in the company and has a clear vision of how he wants the business to develop. General Atlantic owns just over 20%. Managers at Gymshark Ltd own 10%. The funds were raised with the aim of expanding the business in North America, where Gymshark Ltd already makes a large part of its sales, and to grow the business rapidly in Asia. Ben has ambitious plans and wants to make the Gymshark Ltd brand the UK equivalent of Nike. The Nike brand was worth $31 billion in 2023 globally; market research suggests that 43% of people who buy Nike sportswear would do so again.

In October 2022, Gymshark Ltd made a significant investment and opened its first physical store on Regent Street in London.

Source: information sourced from Gymshark, 2024

Appendix C: Social networks by number of monthly active users globally, 2024

• Facebook: 3.0 billion users, with the highest proportion of users aged 25 to 34

• Instagram: 2.0 billion users, with the highest proportion of users aged 25 to 34

• TikTok: 1.6 billion users, with the highest proportion of users aged 18 to 24

Source: Statista, 2024

Assess whether increasing spending on influencers would lead to higher profits for Gymshark Ltd.

Source B: Apple's Vision Pro

In September 2023, Apple launched the Vision Pro in North America. Vision Pro is a virtual reality (VR) headset. Unlike rival headsets which require hand-held controllers, Vision Pro is controlled by hand movements, voice commands and eye tracking. Analysts estimated over $8 billion had been spent developing Vision Pro over five years.

The Vision Pro may turn out to be one of Apple's lowest-selling products. Apple reportedly hoped to sell 3 million units in the first year. Some experts expected sales would be below 200,000 units in this period, lower than any of Apple's other major product launches. Others were more optimistic about Vision Pro's long-term sales. Apple set a high price of $3499. This price was three times more expensive than Meta's competing headset, the Quest. Other issues with the product included a battery that lasted only two-hours and a headset that some users said was awkward to wear.

Apple was keen to release the Vision Pro because of strong competition, especially from Meta. Meta had been selling the Quest at a loss to increase its market share.

Steve Jobs, Apple's founder, once said that customers do not know what they want until Apple makes it.

Over 2 billion Apple devices are in use around the world. Apple also has:

• a huge database of information about current users of its products.

• a wide product portfolio including iPads, Mac computers, iPods, Apple TV, and the Apple watch.

• a trusted brand. In a 2021 survey, three times as many people said they would buy a headset from Apple compared to its closest competitor.

In 2023, Apple increased its dividend payments to about 15% of its yearly profits.

Source: Apple, 2024

Appendix D: Selected financial data for Apple in 2021 and 2023

• Sales: $365 817 million in 2021, rising to $394 328 million in 2023

• Operating profit: $108 949 million in 2021, rising to $125 344 million in 2023

• Investment in new product development: $21 914 million in 2021, rising to $29 915 million in 2023

Source: Apple, 2024

Appendix F: Apple sales by product, 2003 - 2023

Assess whether a large investment in new product development is likely to increase Apple's market share.

Source A: Meadowbank Pet Foods Ltd

Meadowbank Pet Foods Ltd makes dry dog food at a single factory in Shropshire. It is a private limited company owned by Ros Calderwood, who started it after eleven years as a vet, and it employs 34 people.

It does not sell in supermarkets and has never wanted to. Its food reaches customers through independent pet shops, veterinary practices and its own website, where about a third of customers buy on a repeating subscription. A 12 kilogram bag costs £48. Supermarket own label sells at around £22 for the same weight, and the mid-range brands sit between the two.

What the company sells is an explanation. Every bag lists the percentage of each ingredient, names the farm the meat came from and carries a batch number that a customer can look up. Ros Calderwood's view is that people who read the label are the only customers worth having, because they are the ones who do not switch when a rival runs a promotion.

Last year Meadowbank Pet Foods Ltd took £9.02 million, up from £8.20 million. Almost all of it is still British: £8.06 million against £7.71 million the year before. The two export markets are small and growing quickly. Ireland went from £0.38 million to £0.62 million and the Netherlands from £0.11 million to £0.34 million, both sold through independent pet shops in the same way as at home.

Ros Calderwood has £400 000 to spend and two ways to spend it. She has been offered a distributor in Germany, which is one of the largest pet food markets in Europe and one Meadowbank Pet Foods Ltd has never sold into. Or she can spend the money at home, where growth has slowed to 4.5% and where nine tenths of the revenue already is.

Before deciding anything she ran a test. For three months the price of the 12 kilogram bag went up from £48 to £52, and she watched what happened to the number of bags sold.

Assess whether listing every ingredient and naming the farm the meat came from is likely to increase Meadowbank Pet Foods Ltd's sales.

Source A: Nine Acres Kitchen Ltd

Nine Acres Kitchen Ltd delivers meal kits: a box of measured ingredients and a recipe card for each meal. It is a private limited company founded by Dan Ferreira and Aisha Nkemelu, it employs 210 people across a packing site in Northamptonshire and an office in Manchester, and it has 12 600 active subscribers.

A subscriber chooses their meals on an app each week. The standard box costs £48.99 and the average subscriber takes two a month, which gives revenue of £14.8 million a year. Ingredients, packing and delivery cost £31.20 a box.

Getting people to try it is not the problem. The first box costs £14.99, and the offer works: the company recruits about 1 400 new subscribers a month. Keeping them is a different matter. Appendix B shows what happens to every hundred people who join. By the fourth box, the third charged at the full £48.99, 41 of them have gone.

The company knows a great deal about all of this. The app records what each subscriber cooks, what they skip, when they pause and what they were looking at before they cancelled. Dan Ferreira wants to use it to work out who is about to leave so the company can offer them something. Aisha Nkemelu wants to use it to suggest what they might cook next, on the grounds that people who enjoy the food do not cancel.

There is a third thing neither of them has raised at a board meeting. Starting a subscription takes about two minutes on the app. Cancelling one requires a telephone call, on weekdays between nine and five.

Appendix A: Nine Acres Kitchen Ltd, last year

Source: Analyst

Assess whether Nine Acres Kitchen Ltd was right to spend £240 000 on redesigning its boxes and recipe cards.

Calculate the return on investment of the redesign to support your answer.

Give your answer to one decimal place.

Source B: Brompton Bicycle Ltd

Brompton Bicycle Limited makes folding bicycles. Andrew Ritchie designed the first one in 1975 and built it in a workshop under a railway arch, and the company was registered the following year. Fifty years on, every Brompton is still made by hand and quality checked at the company's own factory in Greenford, west London. It is a private limited company with around 100 shareholders and is led by chief executive Will Butler-Adams, who joined the company in 2002 and has led it since 2008.

In principle the product has barely changed. A Brompton folds into a small package in under 20 seconds, so an owner can carry it onto a train, put it in a car boot or tuck it under a restaurant table. The range now includes electric, lightweight titanium and larger-wheel models. Brompton describes its purpose as creating urban freedom for happier lives, and it sells durability as part of the deal. Every frame carries a seven-year warranty, the bikes are designed to be repaired rather than replaced, and there are now more than a million Brompton owners and over 300 owners' groups around the world.

The year to 31 March 2025 was harder than usual. Turnover slipped by 0.9% to £121.45 million, the workforce fell by 54 people to 790, and cash at the bank almost halved. Over the same year the company's total liabilities rose by 53.5%.

Brompton would like to invest £15 million in its factory so that it can build more bikes at a lower cost per bike. It does not hold enough cash to pay for this out of its own resources. It could borrow the money from a bank, or it could ask its existing shareholders to buy new shares. Appendix F shows information on the two options.

Source: information sourced from Companies House and Brompton Bicycle Ltd, 2026

Appendix D: Brompton Bicycle Ltd selected financial data

Source: Companies House

Appendix E: Analyst estimates of pricing for the Brompton C Line model

• Average selling price, 2024 = £1 650

• Average selling price, 2025 = £1 815

• C Line bicycles sold, 2024 = 38 000

• C Line bicycles sold, 2025 = 36 480

Source: Analyst

Assess the importance of price, compared with the other elements of the marketing mix, in Brompton Bicycle Ltd's ability to sell its folding bicycles.

Source A: Jet2 plc

Jet2 plc describes itself as the UK's leading provider of package holidays and its third largest airline. It is a public limited company with shares traded on the London Stock Exchange, based at Leeds Bradford Airport, and it employs more than 14 000 people. Steve Heapy is the chief executive.

The company sells two different things. A package holiday combines flights, a hotel and transfers in one booking. A flight-only seat is just the flight. In the year to 31 March 2026 Jet2 flew a record 20.83 million passengers, up 5%. Within that total, flight-only passengers rose 15% to 7.64 million while package holiday customers rose 1% to 6.62 million. Jet2 counts each package holiday customer once, while flown passengers are counted on every flight, outbound and return. Appendix B shows the two side by side.

Customers pay for a holiday months before they take it, so money arrives long before the flight happens. At the year end the company held £3 292.5 million in cash and money market deposits, and net cash of £2 012.9 million.

The year's results were mixed. Revenue reached a record £7 482.1 million, up 4%. But operating profit fell 2% to £439.6 million, after absorbing £11.0 million of start-up costs for a new base at London Gatwick and £50 million of increased costs from employment taxes and sustainable aviation fuel. Profit before tax fell 7% and earnings per share fell 1% to 211.2p.

Source: Jet2 plc preliminary results, 8 July 2026, and Companies House

Appendix A: Jet2 plc selected financial results

Appendix B: Jet2 plc passengers by type

Appendix C: Jet2 plc marketing information for the year to 31 March 2026

Source: Analyst

Appendix C shows how Jet2 plc's marketing spending is divided between package holidays and flight-only seats.

Evaluate whether Jet2 plc should move more of its marketing spending towards flight-only seats or keep it weighted towards package holidays.

Source A: Skylark Adventure Ltd

Skylark Adventure Ltd runs six indoor adventure parks, in converted warehouses on the edges of northern towns. Each one has climbing walls, trampolines, an obstacle course and a café. It is a private limited company owned by Ben Attah and Priya Shergill, who opened the first site in 2016, and it employs 148 people, most of them part time.

Almost all of the money comes from families. Last year 412 000 family visits brought in £4.86 million, an average of £11.80 a head once the café is counted. The rest, £1.34 million, came from schools and nurseries, who book weekday mornings a whole year ahead.

The two kinds of customer behave nothing like each other. A school booking is made in September for the following July and is almost never cancelled. A family visit is decided on a Saturday morning and is the first thing to go when money is tight. Appendix B shows what happened to family visits over five years as real household disposable income moved, and the two lines are hard to look at separately.

Ben Attah and Priya Shergill have £250 000 to spend across the six sites. They can lower prices, which they have never done, or they can put a new activity into every site and leave the price where it is. They are also arguing about something larger: whether a business that depends on families having spare money is one they should be trying to change.

Appendix A: Skylark Adventure Ltd, where the money comes from

Source: Analyst

Appendix B: Skylark Adventure Ltd family visits and household income

Source: Analyst

Appendix C: Data for two ways of spending £250 000

Source: Analyst

Appendix C shows two ways in which Skylark Adventure Ltd could spend £250,000.

Evaluate whether Skylark Adventure Ltd should cut its prices by 10% or put a new activity into every site.

Source A: Wrenfield Schoolwear Ltd

Wrenfield Schoolwear Ltd makes and sells school uniform from a unit in Nottingham: blazers, jumpers, skirts, trousers and PE kit, most of it carrying an embroidered school badge. Priya Wrenfield started it in 2009 after both her children came home in December with blazers that had already worn through at the elbow. The objective written into the company's own documents has never changed: to make uniform that lasts three years, and to keep a full set below £60. It is a private limited company and it employs 41 people.

It sells in two ways. Sixty-two schools have an exclusive supply contract with Wrenfield Schoolwear Ltd, which means a parent at one of those schools cannot buy the uniform anywhere else; the school receives a share of everything sold. That brought in £3 320 000 last year. The rest, £1 165 000, came from Wrenfield Schoolwear Ltd's own website, mostly from parents at schools with no exclusive supplier.

The marketing objective set two years ago was to grow sales by 5% by 2025. Sales rose from £4 200 000 to £4 485 000, which is 6.8%, and Priya Wrenfield has told the board the objective was met. Appendix A contains the figure she has not put in front of them.

A full set of uniform now costs a parent £61.

Wrenfield Schoolwear Ltd commissioned a survey last spring of 400 parents, 400 pupils and 96 school business managers, asking each of them to score four things out of ten. The results are in Appendix B. Priya Wrenfield has read them several times and has not yet decided what to do about them.

Appendix A: Wrenfield Schoolwear Ltd and the UK schoolwear market

Source: Analyst

Appendix C: Data for two routes to market

Source: Analyst

Appendix C sets out two routes to market for Wrenfield Schoolwear Ltd.

Evaluate both routes and recommend which one would be the better for Wrenfield Schoolwear Ltd.