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Chapter 1
Marketing Research for
Managerial Decision Making
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Marketing Research
• Links an organization to its market through the gathering
of information
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The Growing Complexity of Marketing
Research
• Marketing research is a systematic process
• Tasks include:
– Designing methods for collecting information
– Managing the information collection process
– Analyzing and interpreting results
– Communicating findings to decision makers
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The Role and Value of Marketing
Research
• Marketing research draws heavily on the
social sciences both for methods and theory
• Marketing research methods:
– Span a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative
techniques
– Borrow from disciplines such as psychology,
sociology, and anthropology
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The Role and Value of Marketing
Research
• Marketing research can be applied to a wide
variety of problems involving the four Ps:
– Price
– Place
– Promotion
– Product
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Marketing Research and Marketing
Mix Variables
• Product Decisions
– New product development and introduction:
What should we introduce and what
features/benefits are important/desired?
– Branding: How best to brand our product?
– Positioning products: How best to position our
product?
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Marketing Research and Marketing
Mix Variables
• Place/Distribution Decisions
• Include choosing and evaluating:
– Locations
– Channels
– Distribution partners
• Retailing research: Focus on trade area
analysis, store image/perception, in-store
traffic patterns, and location analysis
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Marketing Research and Marketing
Mix Variables
• Behavioral targeting: Displays ads on a
website based on the 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 Decisions
– Essential that companies know how to obtain
good returns from their promotional budgets
– Advertising effectiveness studies
– Attitudinal research
– Sales tracking
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Marketing Research and Marketing
Mix Variables
• Price Decisions
–
–
–
–
Pricing new products
Establishing price levels in test marketing
Modifying prices for existing products
How large is the demand potential within the target
market at various price levels?
– How sensitive is demand to changes in price levels?
– Are there identifiable segments that have different
price sensitivities?
– Are there opportunities to offer different price points
to different target markets (i.e. price discriminate)?
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Consumers and Markets –
Segmentation Studies
• Marketing Research helps inform “STP”
efforts:
– Developing a segmentation scheme
– Creating customer profiles
– Benefit and lifestyle studies: Understanding
behavioral characteristics of the different
segments (commonalities and differences)
– Estimating target audience sizes
– Testing positioning statements with targets
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Skills Needed
• Top five skills:
– Ability to understand, analyze and interpret data
– Presentation skills
– Foreign-language competency
– Negotiation skills
– Computer proficiency
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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 clients’ business
– Client pressure to perform research to prove a
predetermined conclusion
– Cost cutting
– Interviewers working for research firms may also
engage in unethical behavior
• Curbstoning: Data collection personnel filling out
surveys for fake respondents
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Abuse of Respondents
• Potential ways to abuse respondents in
marketing research:
– By not providing promised incentive to
respondents for completing interviews or
questionnaires
– By stating that interviews are very short when in
reality they may last an hour or more
– By using “fake” sponsors
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Abuse of Respondents
• At the end of any study involving deception,
subjects must be “debriefed” to explain
deception
– Subject debriefing: Fully explaining to
respondents any deception that was used during
research and why
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Abuse of Respondents
• Sugging/frugging: Claiming that a survey is for
research purposes and then asking for a sale
or donation
• De-anonymizing data:
• Linking info with participant’s identity,
• Combining different publicly available information,
usually unethically, to determine consumers’
identities, especially on the Internet
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Unethical Activities of the
Client/Research User
• Requesting detailed research proposals from
several competing research providers with no
intention of actually selecting a firm to
conduct the research
• Promising a prospective research provider a
long-term relationship or additional projects
in order to obtain a very low price on the
initial research project
• Overstating results of a marketing research
project
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Unethical Activities by Respondents
• Providing dishonest answers
– Faking behavior / lying
– Careless participation
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Marketing Research Codes of Ethics
• The ESOMAR 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 purposes
– Conduct projects with accuracy, transparency, objectivity,
and quality
– Conform to principles of fair competition
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