Marketing Exam 1

Marketing Research

Marketing Research

A process of designing, gathering, analyzing, and resporting information that may be used to solve a specific marketing problem

Problem

Situations with obvious negative effects on the business. (dramatic drop in sales)

Opportunity

Situations with potential to positively affect business (new product developed by R and D team)

Unplanned Change

Responding to changes in the marketing environment (reactive)

Planned Change

Looking forward and making voluntary changes

Decision Problem (Manager’s Perspective)

Details like planned or unplanned change, discovery or strategy oriented etc.

Research Problem (Researcher’s Perspective)

Research problems to be finally addressed. (cost and benefit analysis of all possible research problems)

Unplanned

Discovery oriented decision problems are ________

Planned

Strategy Oriented decision problems are ______

types of exploratory research designs

Literature Review, In-Dept Interviews, Focus Groups

Exploratory Research Designs

Gather info about an issue (flexible approach), understand & clarify problem, develop hypothesis

Descriptive

guided by specific research questions (non-flexible) describe & analyze characteristics of customers, determine proportion of people behaving in a certain way, make predictions about the future of business, determine definite relationship between variables

Types of Descriptive Research Design

Cross sectional, panel data (continuous & discontinuous panel)

Cross Sectional

• Measure units from a sample of the population at only one point in time

• Samples are drawn to be representative of a specific population

Panel Data (longitudinal)

• Repeatedly measure the same sample units of a population over time

• This sample of people has agreed to answer questions at periodic intervals.

Continuous Panel

Sample of respondents who are measured repeatedly over time with respect to the same variables

Discontinuous Panel

Sample of respondents who are measured repeatedly over time with respect to different variables

Casual Research Design

Descriptive research is good for testing hypothesis about relationships between variables, casualty is used to suggest variable ‘X’ affects variable ‘Y’, much stronger evidence than descriptive research

Causal Research Design Examples

Does change in advertisements schedule affect sales? Does next day delivery increase consumer satisfaction?

Casual Experiment Parts

Independent variables (cause), Dependent Variables (effects), Extraneous Variables (controls)

Primary Data

refers to information that is developed or gathered by the researcher specifically for the research project at hand

Secondary Data

have previously been gathered by someone other than the researcher and/or for some other purpose than the research project at hand

Internal Secondary Data

• Data that originate within the organization for which the research is being done

• Internal data are generally available in Decision support systems (DSS)

External Secondary Data

Data that originate outside the organization for which the research is being done

3 Components of DSS

Databases, Analytical Models, Dialog System

Dialog System

User interface which allows interactions with the database and facilitates requests for data analysis.

Analytical Models

Data is analyzed and converted into charts, reports, etc.  

Databases

Where information is stored

Data Mining

Explore data to understand relationships among variables

Published External Secondary Data

Business journals and material published by trade associations etc.  

Syndicated Services External Secondary Data

Companies that sell standardized marketing data

Data Mining

Explore data to understand relationships among variables

Demographics

Occupation, Education, Age, Income, Gender, Marital Status

Lifestyle

Encompasses an individual's patterns of living, including their daily activities, choices related to how they spend their time and the activities and interests that define their way of life.

Personality

An individual's enduring, stable set of psychological traits and behaviors that influence how they think, feel, and interact with the world.

Attitude

Individual’s overall evaluation of the brand

Awareness

Understanding what customers know about your brand.

Intentions

refer to anticipated or planned future behavior

Motivations

• Consumers are driven by certain needs/wants that drives their purchase 

• Understanding latent needs/wants can help marketers position a product 

• Determining why people behave a certain way.

Behaviors

• What individuals have done or are doing 

• Capturing purchase and use patterns 

• You can record behavioral data through?

Unstructured Observation

Asking observers to record overall aspects of behavior.

Undisguised Observation

1. Subjects are aware of the nature of the research and that they are being observed 

2. Subjects may shift away from natural behavior

Structured Observation

1. Asking observers to note specific aspects of the behavior. 

2. Number of brands picked up; time spent in the aisle etc.

Disguised Observation

1. Subjects are not aware of somebody observing their behavior. 

2. Not possible to get further information 

3. Possible ethical issues

Natural Observation

study conducted at a natural setting like a retail store

Contrived Observation

Study conducted in a lab setting or using computer simulations and virtual reality

Sampling Control

Ability to effectively get responses from the target audience

Information Control

Ability to ask certain type of questions and get unbiased responses

Administrative Control

Ability to collect data in time-efficient and cost-efficient manner

Measurement

Rules for assigning numbers to objects in such a way as to represent quantities of attributes

Attributes have qualities that dictate how the numbers can be assigned

4

_____ types of scales or levels of measurement are used to measure attributes of objects

Nominal Scale

Used to identify or categorize objects or individuals EX: University ID, Cellphone number, Gender (M/ F)

Ordinal Scale

Used to order objects EX: Brand preference, Customer satisfaction

Interval Scale

Used to compare intervals EX: SAT scores, Credit card scores

Ratio Scale

Used to compare absolute magnitudes EX: Income, Sales

Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio

Scale of measurement lowest to highest level

Nominal

Order does not matter • Differences can’t be measured • Ratios can’t be measured

Ordinal

Order matters • Differences can’t be measured • Ratios can’t be measured

Interval

Order matters • Differences can be measured • Ratios can’t be measured

Ratio

Order matters • Differences can be measured • Ratios can be measured

Summated-Rating (Likert) Scale :

measures participants’ agreement to a statement.

The food quality was excellent.

Strongly Disagree, Disagree ,Neutral, Agree, Strongly Agree

Semantic-Differential Scale (Positive and Negative words)

measures where the participant’s view or attitude lies to a statement on a bipolar adjective scale.

Please rate your experience with the recent order Bad 1 2 3 4 5 Good

Graphic Rating Scales

Similar to semantic differential scale with many options to choose from on a constant line

Comparative Rating Scales: Constant Sum Method

: Judging importance of attribute relative to other attributes