Marketing research

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Chapter 1
Marketing Research for
Managerial Decision
Making

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Learning Objectives
• Describe the impact marketing research has
on marketing decision making
• Demonstrate how marketing research fits into
the marketing planning process
• Provide examples of marketing research
studies
• Understand the scope and focus of the
marketing research industry

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Learning Objectives
• Recognize ethical issues associated with
marketing research
• Discuss new skills and emerging trends in
marketing research

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Growing Complexity of Marketing
Research
• Reasons
– Technology and growth of global business
– New data collection tools pose serious questions
to consumer privacy
– Current variety of tools and techniques make
method selection challenging
• Marketing research: Systematic process that
links an organization to its market through the
gathering of information

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Tasks in Marketing Research
• Designing methods for collecting information
• Managing the information collection process
• Analyzing and interpreting results
• Communicating findings to decision makers

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Role and Value of Marketing
Research
• Draws on social sciences for methods and
theory
• Methods are diverse
– Span a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative
techniques
– Borrow from disciplines such as psychology,
sociology, and anthropology
• Can be applied to problems involving price,
place, promotion, and product

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Marketing Research and Marketing
Mix Variables
• Product decisions
– Include:
• New product development and introduction
• Branding
• Positioning products
– Concept and product testing help provide
information
• Branding
– Regular research enables early detection of
change in attitude and meaning toward a brand

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Marketing Research and Marketing
Mix Variables
• Positioning
– Perceptual mapping: Used to picture the relative
position of products on two or more product
dimensions important to consumer purchase
decisions
• Place/distribution - Decisions include choosing
and evaluating locations, channels, and
distribution partners

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Marketing Research and Marketing
Mix Variables
– Retailing research: Focuses on trade area analysis,
store image/perception, in-store traffic patterns,
and location analysis
– Behavioral targeting: Displaying ads at one
website based on a user’s previous surfing
behavior
– Shopper marketing: Marketing to consumers
based on research of the entire process
consumers go through when making a purchase

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Marketing Research and Marketing
Mix Variables
• Promotion - Important influence on a
company’s sales
– Reliable metrics should be in place to obtain good
returns from promotional budgets
– Common research tasks in integrated marketing
communications
• Advertising effectiveness studies
• Attitudinal research
• Sales tracking

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Marketing Research and Marketing
Mix Variables
• Price
– Pricing decisions involve:
• Pricing new products
• Establishing price levels in test marketing
• Modifying prices for existing products

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Consumers and Markets –
Segmentation Studies
• Segmentation studies
– Major focuses of a marketing research project
• Creating customer profiles
• Understanding behavioral characteristics
• Benefit and lifestyle studies: Examine
similarities and differences in consumers’
needs
– Used to identify two or more segments within a
market for a particular company’s products

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Consumers and Markets –
Segmentation Studies
• Marketers use ethnographic research that:
– Studies consumer behavior as activities
embedded in cultural contexts and having identity
– Requires extended observation of consumers in
context

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Marketing Theory
• Important to many businesses
– Useful in thinking about business problems and
opportunities

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Types of Marketing Research Firms
Internal
• Organizational units that
reside within a company
• Benefits
– Research method consistency
– Shared information across the
company
– Lower research costs
– Ability to produce actionable
research results
External
• Perform all aspects of the
research
• Benefits
– Objective suppliers
– Less subject to company
politics and regulations
– Match specific project
requirements to specialized
talent at the same cost
– Greater flexibility in
scheduling studies

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Types of Marketing Research Firms
• Brokers or facilitators
• Customized research firms: Provide tailored
services for clients
• Standardized research firms
– Use an established format so that results of
studies conducted for different clients can be
compared
– Provide syndicated business services
• Include data made from a common database

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Changing Skills for a Changing Industry
• Requirements for successfully executing
projects change with the expansion of
marketing research firms
• Top skills
– Ability to understand and interpret secondary data
– Presentation skills
– Foreign-language competency
– Negotiation skills
– Computer proficiency

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Exhibit 1.1 - Ethical Challenges in
Marketing Research

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Ethical Questions in General
Business Practices
• Potential ethical pitfalls for research providers
– Unethical pricing
– Unnecessary or unwarranted research services
– Client confidentiality issues
– Use of black-box methodologies
• Branded black-box methodologies: Offered by
research firms that are branded
– Do not provide information about how the methodology
works

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Conducting Research Not Meeting
Professional Standards
• Reasons
– Fearful of losing a business entirely
– Client pressure to perform research to prove a
predetermined conclusion
– Cost-cutting
– Interviewers working for research firms engaging
in unethical behavior
• Curbstoning: Data collection personnel filling out
surveys for fake respondents

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Abuse of Respondents in Marketing
Research
• Potential ways
– Not providing promised incentive to respondents
for completing interviews or questionnaires
– Stating that interviews are very short when in
reality they may last an hour or more
– Using fake sponsors
• At the end of any study involving deception,
subjects must be debriefed

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Abuse of Respondents in Marketing
Research
– Subject debriefing: Fully explaining to
respondents any deception that was used during
research
• Sugging/frugging: Claiming that a survey is for
research purposes and then asking for a sale
or donation
• Deanonymizing data: Combining different
publicly available information, mostly
unethically, to find consumers’ identities

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Unethical Activities
Client/research user Respondent
Requesting detailed research
proposals from competing
research providers without
actually selecting a firm to conduct
research
Providing dishonest answers
Promising a prospective research
provider long-term relationships or
additional projects to obtain a low
price on the initial research project
Faking behavior
Overstating the results of a
marketing research project

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Marketing Research Codes of Ethics
in ESOMAR's Code
• Marketing Research Society summarizes the
central principles in ESOMAR’s code
Conform to all national and international laws
Behave ethically
Be particularly careful with children and other vulnerable groups
Ensure respondents are cooperating voluntarily and are well
informed of risks
Respect rights of respondents
Protect personal data and use only for intended purpose
Conduct projects with accuracy, transparency, objectivity, and
quality
Conform to principles of fair competition

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Emerging Trends
• Increased emphasis on secondary data collection
methods
• Movement toward technology-related data
management
• Expanded use of digital technology for
information acquisition and retrieval
• Broader international client base
• Movement beyond data analysis toward a data
interpretation/information management
environment

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Marketing Research in Action
Continuing Case: The Santa Fe Grill
• What kind of information about products,
services, and customers should the owners of
Santa Fe Grill consider collecting?
• Is a research project actually needed?
– Is the best approach a survey of customers?
– Should employees also be surveyed?
– Why or why not?