TEST YOURSELF

Chapter 7: Obtaining Data for Marketing Decision

Essay Questions

1. Marketers use outside firms to conduct their market research when intellectual detachment is important to a project. Explain why intellectual detachment could be important to a research project and why it might be necessary to use outside researchers to get it.

2. Marketing research is conducted using a five-step process: (1) formulate the problem, (2) develop the research design, (3) determine the data collection method, (4) collect the data, and (5) analyze, interpret, and present the information. What are the advantages and disadvantages of following a step-by-step process to gather marketing research information?

3. Figure 7.1 diagrams the marketing research process from the information need to the research-based decision. In this diagram, the decision made in response to the research need leads to feedback on research and decision effectiveness. In turn, this feedback impacts what information is felt to be needed next. Explain as specifically as you can what is meant by “feedback on research and decision effectiveness,” and how this feedback can impact the perception of the need for follow-up information.

4. A hypothetical product, X, is declining in sales and losing market share. At the same time, its major competitor, Y, is growing in both sales and market share. X’s marketing plans for the past three years have featured increasingly heavier TV advertising spending to reach its teenage target market, plus two minor product improvements. These efforts have been funded in part by several small price increases. Y’s plans have not involved any increases in support. Rather, Y is spending less on its advertising budget than it did three years ago because it now focuses its spending entirely on MTV and radio to better reach its teenage target market. Also, it has only taken one medium-sized price increase in the past three years. X’s losses in sales and market share are clearly symptoms of a problem. What marketing research would you recommend be conducted to clarify the problem X is facing with its teenage target market? Based on reviewing the appendix at the end of this chapter, what sources of secondary data might be useful to this research project?

5. The text maintains that “it is crucial that marketing researchers and research users cooperate at every stage in the research design” and that “too many studies go unused because marketing managers view the results as not meaningful to them.” Suppose that you are the marketing manager of a mid-sized company and you have hired a marketing research firm to conduct an important study. What would you do to maximize the cooperation between yourself and the marketing research firm?
   

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