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🍒RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS🍒
Marketing researches have a choice of three main research instruments in collecting primary data questionnaires, qualitative measures, and technological devices.
Questionnaires
A questionnaire consists of a set of questions presented to respondents. Because of its flexibility, it is by far the most common instrument used to collect primary data. The form, wording, and sequence of the questions can all influence the responses, so testing and debugging are necessary. Closed-end questions specify all the possible answers, and the responses are easier to interpret and tabulate. Open-end questions allow respondents to answer in their own words. They are especially useful in exploratory research, where the researcher is looking for insight into how people think rather than measuring how many think a certain way.

Qualitative Measures
Some marketers prefer qualitative methods for gauging consumer opinion because they feel consumers’ actions don’t always match their answers to survey questions. Qualitative research techniques are relatively indirect and unstructured measurement approaches, limited only by the marketing researcher’s creativity, that permit a range of responses. They can be an especially useful first step in exploring consumers’ perceptions because respondents may be less guarded and reveal more about themselves in the process.
Qualitative research does have its drawbacks. The samples are often very small, and results mat not generalize to broader populations. And different researchers examining the same qualitative results may draw very different conclusions.
Nevertheless, there is increasing interest in using qualitative methods. “Marketing Insight: Getting into the Heads of Consumers” describes the pioneering ZMET approach. Other popular methods include:
Word associations.
To identify the range of possible brand associations, ask subjects what words come to mind when they hear the brand’s name. “What does the Timex name mean to you? Tell me what comes to mind when you think of Timex watches”
Projective techniques.
Give people an incomplete or ambiguous stimulus and ask them to complete or explain it. In “bubble exercises” empty bubbles, like those in cartoons, appear in scenes of people buying or using certain products or services. Subjects fill in the bubble, indicating what they believe is happening or being said. In comparison tasks people compare brands to people, countries, animals, activities, cars, nationalities, or even other brands.
Visualization
Visualization requires people to create a collage from magazine photos or drawings to depict their perceptions.
Brand personification
Ask “ If the brand were to come alive as a person, what would it be like, what would it do, where would it live, what would it wear, who would it talk to if it went to a party (and what would it talk about)? For example, the John Deere brand might make someone think of a rugged Midwestern male who is hardworking and trustworthy.
Laddering
A series of increasingly specific “why” questions can reveal consumer motivation and deeper goals. Ask why someone wants to buy a Nokia cell phone. “They look well built” (attribute). “Why is it important that the phone be well built?” “It suggests Nokia is reliable'' (a functional benefit). “Why is reliability important?” “Because my colleagues or family can be sure to reach me” (an emotional benefit”. “Why must you be available to them at all times?” “I can help them if they’re in trouble” (a core value). The brand makes this person feel like a Good Samaritan, ready to help others.
Marketers don’t have to choose between qualitative and quantitative measures. Many use both, recognizing that their pros and cons can offset each other. For example, companies can recruit someone from an online panel to participate in an in-home product use test by capturing his or her reactions and intentions with a video diary or an online survey.
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#21/10/2021

🍒THE MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS🍒

STEP 2: DEVELOP THE RESEARCH PLAN
In the second stage of marketing research we develop the most efficient plan for gathering the needed information and discover what that will cost. Suppose American made a prior estimate that launching ultra high-speed Wifi service would yield a long-term profit of $50,000. If the manager believes the marketing research will lead to an improved pricing and promotional plan and a long-term profit of $90,000, he should be willing to spend up to $40,000 on this research. If the research will cost more than $40,000, it’s not worth doing.
To design a research plan, we need to make decisions about the data sources, research approaches, research instruments, sampling plan, and contact methods.

DATA SOURCES The researcher can gather secondary data, primary data, or both. Secondary data are data that were collected for another purpose and already exist somewhere. Primary data are data freshly gathered for a specific purpose or project.
Researchers usually start their investigation by examining some of the rich variety of low-cost and readily available secondary data to see whether that can partly or wholly solve the problem without collecting costly primary data. For instance, auto advertisers looking to get a better return on their online car ads might purchase a copy of a J.D. Power and Associates survey that gives insights into who buys specific brands and where advertisers can find them online.
When the needed data don’t exist or are dated or unreliable, the researcher will need to collect primary data. Most marketing research projects do include some primary-data collection.

RESEARCH APPROACHES Marketers collect primary data in five main ways: through observation, focus groups, surveys, behavioral data, and experiments.
Observational Research
Researchers can gather fresh data by observing unobtrusively as customers shop or consume products. Sometimes they equip consumers with pagers and instruct them to write down or text what they’re doing whenever prompted, or they hold informal interview sessions at a cafe or bar. Photographs and videos can also provide a wealth of detailed information. Although privacy concerns have been expressed, some retailers are linking security cameras with software to record shopper behaviiors in stores. In its 1,000 retail stores. T-mobile can track how people move around, how long they stand in front of displays, and which phones they pick up and for how long.

Ethnographic research uses concepts and tools from anthropology and other social science disciplines to provide deep cultural understanding of how people live and work. The goal is to immerse the researcher into customs' lives to uncover unarticulated desires that might not surface in any other form of research. Fujitsu Laboratories, Herman Miller, Steelcase, and Xerox have embraced ethnographic research to design breakthrough products. technology companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard use anthropologists and ethnologists working alongside systems engineers and software developers.
Any type of firm can benefit from the deep consumer insights of ethnographic research. To boost sagging sales for its Orville Redenbacher popcorn, ConAgra spent nine months observing families at home and studying weekly diaries of how they felt about various snacks. Researchers found a key insight: the essence of popcorn was that it was a “facilitator of interaction”. Four nationwide TV ads followed with the tagline “Spending Time Together: That’s the Power of Orville Redenbacher”
Ethnographic research isn’t limited to consumer products. UK-based Smith&Nephew, a global medical technology business, used extensive international ethnographic research with patients and clinicians to understand the physical and emotional toll of wounds, developing ALLEVYN Life, a new wound-management dressing, in the process. In a business-to-business setting, a sharper focus on end users helped propel Thomson Reuters to greater financial heights.
The American Airlines researchers might meander around first-class lounges to hear how travelers talk about different carriers and their features or sit next to passengers on planes. They can fly on competitors’ planes to observe in-flight service.

Focus Group Research A focus group is a gathering of 6 to 10 people carefully selected for demographic, psychographic, or other considerations and convened to discuss various topics at length for a small payment. A professional moderator asks questions and probes based on the marketing managers’ agenda; the goal is to uncover consumers’ real motivation and the reasons they say and do certain things. Sessions are typically recorded, and marketing managers often observe from behind two-way mirrors. To allow more in-depth discussion, focus groups are trending smaller in size.
Focus group research is a useful exploratory step, but researchers must avoid generalizing to the whole market because the sample is too small and is not drawn randomly. Some marketers feel this research setting is too contrivel and prefer ess artificial means. “Marketing Memo: Conducting Informative Focus Groups” has some practical tips to improve the quality of focus groups.
In the American Airlines research, the moderator might start with a broad question, such as “ How do you feel about first-class air travel?” Questions then move to how people view the different airlines, different existing services, different proposed services, and, specifically, ultra high-speed Wifi service.

Survey Research Companies undertake surveys to assess people’s knowledge, beliefs, preferences, and satisfaction and to measure these magnitudes in the general population. A company such as American Airlines might prepare its own survey instrument, or it might add questions to an omnibus survey that carries the questions of several companies at a much lower cost. I can also pose questions to an ongoing consumer panel run by itself or another company. It may do a mall intercept study by having researchers approach people in a shopping mall and ask them questions. Or it might add a survey request at the end of calls to its customer service department.
However they conduct their surveys-online, by phone, or in person-companies must feel the information they’re getting from the mounds of data makes it all worthwhile. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo bank collects more than 50,000 customer surveys each month through its bank branches. It has used customers’ comments to begin more stringent new wait-time standards designed to improve customer satisfaction.
Of course, companies may risk creating “survey burnout” and seeing response rates plummet. Keeping a survey short and simple is one key to drawing participants. Offering incentives is another. Walmart, Rite Aid, Petco, and Staples include an invitation to fill out a survey on the cash register receipt with a chance to win a prize.

Behavioral Research Customers leave traces of their purchasing behavior in store scanning data, catalog purchases, and customer databases. Marketers can learn much by analyzing these data. Actual purchases reflect consumers’ preferences and often are more reliable than statements they offer to market researchers. For example, grocery shopping data show that high-income people don’t necessarily buy the more expensive brands, contrary to what they might state in interviews, and many low-income people buy some expensive brands. Chapter 3 useful things about its passengers by analyzing ticket purchase records and online behavior.
The most scientifically valid research is experimental research, designed to capture cause-and-effect relationships by eliminating competing explanations of the findings. If the experiment is well designed and executed, research and marketing managers can have confidence in the conclusions. Experiments call for selecting matched groups of subjects, subjecting them to different treatments, controlling extraneous variables, and checking whether observed response differences are statistically significant. If we can eliminate or control extraneous factors, we can relate the observed effects to the variations in the treatments or stimuli.
American Airlines might introduce ultra high-speed Wifi service on one of its regular flights from Chicago to Tokyo and charge $25 one week and $15 the next week. If the plane carried approximately the same number of first-class passengers each week and particular weeks made no difference, the airline could relate any significant difference in the number of passengers using the service to the price charged.
#20/10/2021

🍒OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO THE USE OF MARKETING RESEARCH🍒

In spite of the rapid growth of marketing research, many companies still fail to use it sufficiently or correctly. They may not understand what it is capable of or provide the researcher the right problem definition and information from which to work. They may also have unrealistic expectations about what research can offer. Failure to use marketing research properly has led to numerous gaffes, including the following historic one.

THE MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS
To take advantage of all the resources and practices available, good marketers adopt a formal marketing research process that follows the six steps.
Step 1: Define the problem and research objectives
Step 2: Develop the research plan
Step 3: Collect the information
Step 4: Analyze the information
Step 5: Present the findings
Step 6: Make the decisions.

STEP 1: DEFINE THE PROBLEM, THE DECISION ALTERNATIVES AND THE RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

Marketing managers must be careful not to define the problem too broadly or too narrowly for the marketing researcher. A marketing manager who says “Find out everything you can about first - class air travelers needs” will collect a lot of unnecessary information. One who says “Find out whether enough passengers aboard a B777 flying direct between Chicago and Tokyo would pay $25 for ultra high-speed Wifi service so we can break even in one year on the cost of offering this service” is taking a narrow view of the problem.

The marketing researcher might ask, “Why does Wifi have to be priced at $25 as opposed to $15, $35, or some other price? Why does American have to break even on the service, especially if it attracts new customers?” Another relevant question is, “How important is it to be first in the market, and how long can the company sustain its lead?”
The marketing manager and marketing researcher agreed to define the problem as follows: “Will offering ultra high-speed Wifi service create enough incremental preference and profit to justify its cost against other service enhancements American might make?” To help design the research, management outlines these decisions:
Should American offer ultra high-speed Wifi service?
If so, should it offer it to first-class only or include usiness class and possibly economy class?
What price(s) should be charged?
On what types of planes and lengths of trips should the service be offered?
Now management and marketing researchers are ready to set specific research objectives:
What types of first-class passengers would respond most to ultra high-speed Wifi service?
How many are likely to use it at different price levels?
how many Americans might choose American because of this new service?
How much long term goodwill will this service add to America's image?
How important is ultra high-speed Wifi service to first-class passengers relative to other services, such as a power plug or enhanced entertainment?

Not all research can be this specific. Some is exploratory - its goal is to identify the problem and to suggest possible solutions. Some is descriptive-it seeks to quantify demand such as how many first-class passengers would purchase ultra high-speed Wifi service at $25. Some research is causal-its purpose is to test cause-and-effect relationship.

#19/10/2021

🍒CONDUCTING MARKETING RESEARCH 🍒

To make the best possible tactical decisions in the short run and strategic decisions in the long run, marketers need timely, accurate, actionable information about customers, competitions, and their brands. Discovering a marketing insight and understanding its implications can often lead to successful product launch or spur the growth of a brand. It is especially important to stay turned in online.

In this chapter, we review the scope of marketing research and the steps involved in the marketing research process. We also consider how marketers can develop effective metrics for measuring marketing productivity.

PART 1: THE SCOPE OF MARKETING RESEARCH
Marketing managers often commission formal marketing studies of specific problems and opportunities, like market survey, a product-preference test, a sales forecast by region, or an advertising evaluation. It’s the job of marketing researchers to produce insight to help the marketing manager’s decision making. Formally, the American Marketing Association says:
Marketing research is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information-information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the findings and their implications.

IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING INSIGHTS
Marketing research is all about generating insights. Marketing insights provide diagnostic information about how and why we observe certain effects in the marketplace and what that means to marketers.
Good marketing insights often form the basis of successful marketing programs.
*When an extensive consumer research study of U.S retail shoppers by Walmart revealed that the store’s key competitive advantages were the functional of “offers low prices” and the emotional benefits of “makes me feel like a smart shopper”, its marketers used those insights to develop their “Save money, Live Better” campaign.
*When marketing research showed that consumers viewed Walgreens largely as a convenience store with a pharmacy in the back, the company took steps to reposition itself as a premium health care brand, putting more emphasis on its wellness offerings such as its walk-in-clinics.
Gaining marketing insights is crucial for marketing success. To improve the marketing of its $3 billion Pantene hair care brand, Procter & Gamble conducted a deep dive into women’s feelings about hair, using surveys with mood scales from psychology, high-resolution EEG research to measure brainwaves and other methods. As a result, the company reformulated Pantene products, redesigned packages, pared the line down from 14 “collections” to eight, and fine-tuned the ad campaign.
If marketers lack consumer insights, they often get in trouble. When Tropicana redesigned its orange juice packaging, dropping the iconic image of an orange skewered by a straw, it failed to adequately test for consumer reactions-with disastrous results. Sales dropped by 20 percent, and Tropicana reinstated the old package design after only a few months.
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#17/10/2021

🍒WHO DOES MARKETING RESEARCH?🍒
Spending on marketing research topped $40,2 billion globally in 2013, according to ESOMAR, the world association of opinion and market research professionals. Most large companies have their own marketing research departments, which often play crucial roles within the organization. Here is how Procter & Gamble describes its marketing research department.
Consumer Market Knowledge (CMK) Department is P&G’s key internal compass guiding and championing decisions related to brand and customer business development strategy based on in-depth analysis of consumers, shoppers and retail trade. CML leads analysis of market trends and consumer habits/motivations, shopper behavior, customer and competitive dynamics; designs and analyzes qualitative and quantitative consumer and shopper research studies as well as syndicated market data. CMK is an integral partner, involved in all the stages of the brand life cycle starting with design of a concept to final product development and through to the in-market launch driving business growth. CMK brings to life P&G stated global strategy “Consumer is Boss”.

Marketing research, however, its not limited to large companies with big budgets and marketing research departments. Often ar much smaller companies, everyone carries out marketing research - including the customer. Small companies can also hire the services of a marketing research firm or conduct research in creative and affordable ways, such as:

Engaging students or professors to design and carry out projects - AT&T, GE, Samsung, Shell oil, and others have engaged in a “crowdcasting” exercise by sponsoring the Innovation Challenge, where top MBA students compete in teams to address company problems. The students gain experience and visibility; the companies get fresh sets of eyes to solve problems at a fraction of what consultants would charge. The nonprofit United Way uses graduate students and interns as critical marketing research resources to collect and consolidate marketplace data and set up larger research projects.
Using the Internet: A company can collect considerable information at little cost by examining competitors’ Websites, monitoring chat rooms and blogs, and accessing published data. Social media monitoring tools from companies like Radian6, Attensity, and Lithium keep firm on top of online buzz. Home water filtration company Aquasana uses tools from Netbase to collect what people are saying about Brita and other competitors on Twitter, Facebook, news sites, blogs, message boards, and any other place where there are relevant online conversations.
Checking out rivals: Many small businesses, such as restaurants, hotels, or specialty retailers, routinely visit competitors to learn about changes they have made. Tom Stemberg, who founded the office supply superstore Staples, made weekly unannounced visits to his own stores, competitors’ stores, and other stores outside his category, always focused on “what the store was doing right” to get ideas for improving Staples.
Tapping into marketing partner expertise: Marketing research firms, ad agencies, distributors, and other marketing partners may be able to share relevant market knowledge they have accumulated. Partners targeting small or medium-sized businesses may be especially helpful. For example, to promote more shipping to China, UPS conducted several in-depth surveys of the Chinese market to portray its complexities but also its opportunities for even small and medium-sized businesses.
Tapping into employee creativity and wisdom: There is no one way come into more contact with customers and understand a company’s products, services, and brands better than its employees. Software maker Intuit puts employees into four- to six-person “two pizza” teams - called that because it takes only two pizzas to feed them. They observe customers in all walks of life and try to identify problems Intuit might be able to solve. Intuit takes all the employees’ proposed solutions and experiments with them, building products behind the ideas that seem to work best.

Most companies use a combination of resources to study their industries, competitors, audiences, and channel strategies. They normally budget marketing research at 1 percentage of that on the services of outside firms. Marketing research firms fall into three categories:
Syndicated-service research firms - These firms gather consumer and trade information, which they sell for a fee. Examples include the Nielsen Company, Kantar Group, Westat, and IRI.
Custom marketing research firms - These firms are hired to carry out specific projects. They design the study and report the findings.
Specialty-line marketing research firms - These firms provide specialized research services. The best example is the field-service firm, which sells field interviewing services to other firms.
#18/10/2021

FORECASTING AND DEMAND MEASUREMENT] - PART 5
A VOCABULARY FOR DEMAND MEASUREMENT
COMPANY SALES FORECAST
Once marketers have estimated company demand, their next task is to choose a level of marketing effort. The company sales forecast is the expected level of company sales based on a chosen marketing plan and an assumed marketing environment.
We often hear that the company should develop its marketing plan on the basis of its sales forecast. This forecast-to-plan sequence is valid if forecast means an estimate of national economic activity or if company demand is non expansible. The sequence is not valid, however, where market demand is expansible or where forecast means an estimate of company sales. The company sales forecast does not establish a basis for deciding what to spend on marketing. On the contrary, the sales forecast is the result of an assumed marketing expenditure plan.
Two other concepts are important here. A sales quota is the sales goal set for a product line, company division, or sales representative. It is primarily a managerial device for defining and stimulating sales effort, often set slightly higher than estimated sales to stretch the sales force’s effort.
A sales budget is a convervative estimate of the expected volume of sales, primarily for making current purchasing, production, and cash flow decisions. It’s based on the need to avoid excessive risk and is generally set slightly lower than the sales forecast.

#04/10/2021

[FORECASTING AND DEMAND MEASUREMENT] - PART 4
A VOCABULARY FOR DEMAND MEASUREMENT
MARKET POTENTIAL
The market forecast shows expected market demand, not maximum market demand. For the latter, we need to visualize the level of market demand resulting from a very high level of industry marketing expenditure, where further increases in marketing effort would have little effect. Market potential is the limit approached by market demand as industry marketing expenditures approach infinity for a given marketing environment.
The phrase “for a given market environment” is crucial. Consider the market potential for automobiles. It’s higher during prosperity than during a recession. Market analysts distinguish between the position of the market demand function and movement along it. Companies can not do anything about the position of the market demand function which is determined by the marketing environment. However, they influence their particular location on the function when they decide how much to spend on marketing.
Companies interested in market potential have a special interest in the product-penetration percentage, the percentage of ownership or use of a product or service in a population. The lower the product-penetration percentage, the higher the market potential, although this also assumes everyone will eventually be in the market for every product.

COMPANY DEMAND
Company demand is the company’s estimated share of market demand at alternative levels of company marketing effort in a given time period. It depends on how the company’s products, services, prices, and communications are perceived relative to the competitors’. Other things equal, the company’s market share depends on the relative scale and effectiveness of its market expenditures. As noted previously, marketing model builders have developed sales response functions to measure how a company’s sales are affected by its marketing expenditure level, marketing mix, and marketing effectiveness.

#03/10/2021

[FORECASTING AND DEMAND MEASUREMENT] - PART 3
A VOCABULARY FOR DEMAND MEASUREMENT
The major concepts in demand measurement are market demand and company demand. Within each, we distinguish among a demand function, a sales forecast, and a potential.

MARKET DEMAND
The marketer’s first step in evaluating marketing opportunities is to estimate total market demand. Market demand for a product is the total volume that would be bought by a defined customer group in a defined geographical area in a defined time period in a defined marketing environment under a defined marketing program.
Market demand is not a fixed number, but rather a function of stated conditions. For this reason, we call it the market demand function.
It pays to compare the current and potential levels of market demand. The result is the market-penetration index. A low index indicates substantial growth potential for all the firms. A high index suggests it will be expensive to attract the few remaining prospects. Generally, price competition increases and margins fall when the market-penetration index is already high.
Camparing current and potential market shares yields a firm’s share-penetration index. If this index is low, the company can greatly expand its share. Holding it back could be low brand awareness, low availability, benefit deficiencies, or high price. A firm should calculate the share-penetration increases from removing each factor to see which investments produce the greatest improvement.
Remember that the market demand function is not a picture of market demand over time. Rather, it shows alternate current forecasts of market demand associated with possible levels of industry marketing effort.

MARKET FORECAST
Only one level of industry marketing expenditure will actually occur. The market demand corresponding to this level is called the market forecast.

#02/10/2021

[FORECASTING AND DEMAND MEASUREMENT] - PART 2
THE MEASURES OF MARKET DEMAND
Companies can prepare as many as 90 different types of demand estimates for six different product levels, fice space levels, and three time periods. Each serves a specific purpose. A company might forecast short-run demand to order raw materials, plan production, and borrow cash. It might forecast regional demand to decide whether to set up regional distribution.
There are many productive ways to break down the market:
*The Potential market is the set of consumers with a sufficient level of interest in a market offer. However, their interest is not enough to define a market unless they also have sufficient income and access to the product.
*The available market is the set of consumers who have interest, income, and access to a particular offer. The company or government may restrict sales to certain groups; a dtate might ban motorcycle sales to anymore under 21. Eligible adults constitute the qualified available market- the set of consumers who have interest, income, access, and qualifications for the market offer.
*The target market is the part of the qualified available market the company decides to pursue. The company might concentrate its marketing and distribution effort on the East Coast.
*The penetrated market is the set of consumers who are buying the company’s product.
These definitions are a useful tool for market planning. If the company isn’t satisfied with its current sales, it can try to attract a larger percentage of buyers from its target market. It can lower the qualifications for potential buyers. It can expand its available market by opening distribution elsewhere or lowering its price, or it can reposition itself in the minds of its customers.

#01/10/2021