Introduction & Ch. 1 What is marketing? Who markets? What is marketed? What is a market? What is a market segment? What is meant by forward marketing practice? What is meant by reverse marketing practice? What are the necessary conditions for marketing to occur? Define the marketing concept. How do we operationalize the marketing concept? What is the Strategic Marketing Process (SMP) Model? What is the role and importance of marketing research? First, MR is seen as a way to implement the marketing concept, but ultimately it is seen as a means to connect the marketer/company with/to the consumer!!! Mistakenly, many see this as an easy task – IT IS NOT!!!!!! • • • Obtaining info. to help us satisfy consumer needs & wants. Measuring levels of consumer satisfaction – this plays a major role in consumer retention efforts in that it provides info. about likelihood of keeping current customers. Helping eliminate commercialization of products that are not consumer oriented (a review of the NDP Model – Berkowitz et al. 2005, will help you here). • • • • Helps to improve firm efficiency, therefore improving profitability, via analysis of company data. Helps us to identify market opportunities. Facilitates efforts to monitor marketing performance. MR is about improving our own marketing capabilities – and as we know, this is a core competency. • And, MR helps generate, refine & evaluate potential marketing actions. In order to understand the value of MR one needs to understand the source of the data and what it is saying, or telling you. There is an old saying in research: “God gives us the data, it is our duty and responsibility to make sense of it.” “Marketing research is the process of designing, gathering, analyzing, and reporting information that may be used to solve a specific marketing problem.” In this definition, we see the primary value/purpose of conducting market research – ie. To link our customer to our business by providing the best information so that we can make the best decisions for our business/organization. Marketing research can be used to: 1. Identify market opportunities and problems. 2. Monitor marketing performance, & “see where our competitors are”. 3. Generate, refine, & evaluate potential marketing actions. 4. Improve marketing as a process. Marketing research is indeed a process, or a recipe(s) as it were, and it is indeed this process that forms the foundation of this course, one that all of you are ultimately responsible for, and one that you will gain a working knowledge of in this course. Why should we do research? What research should be done? Is it worth doing the research? How should the research be designed to achieve the research objectives? What will we do with the research? See Table 1.1 in text for review, as well as handout entitled “Descriptive Studies”. • What is the R.A.T. Principle? • What is the Iceberg Principle? • • What are the three components of any marketing research problem? What is the task of problem definition? “The secret to success is to know something nobody else know.” Aristotle Onassis “Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought.” Albert Szent-Gyorgyi “The prime managerial value of MR comes from reduced uncertainty thru information that helps improve our decision-making, re: a. Marketing strategies. b. Tactics used to achieve a companies strategic goals.” R. Sheppard • Sugarland Creamery is planning to launch a new flavour of ice-cream and wants to get a snapshot of the potential for this product. The ice-cream is a coconut-white chocolate flavour mixed with pistachios, and is aimed at the premium market. Discuss how you will address (or solve) this market opportunity (or problem).