MARKETING
Real People, Real Choices
Fourth Edition
CHAPTER 4
Marketing Information and Research:
Analyzing the Business Environment
Off-line and Online
Knowledge is Power
• A Marketing Information System (MIS)
determines what information managers
need and then gathers, sorts, analyzes,
stores, and distributes relevant and
timely marketing information to system
users
• What market info. do you need?
– Should we change our ad campaign?
– Should we change our packaging?
4-2
Four types of data
• Internal Data – sales reports, old market
research, complaint records, profit and
loss statements, etc.
– intranet
• Marketing Intelligence - method to get
information about the environment –
newspapers, trade publications, www,
observations in market place
– Mystery shoppers
4-3
Four types of data
• Marketing Research - process of
collecting, analyzing, and interpreting
data about customers, competitors, and
the business environment to improve
marketing effectiveness
• Two types:
– Syndicated research
– Custom research
4-4
Four types of data
• Syndicated research reports
– secondary data collected and
compiled by firms on a regular basis
and sold to many firms. e.g. Nielsen’s
TV ratings, Arbitron ratings, Simmons
Market Research Bureau – CB,
demographics and media usage)
• Custom research reports
– primary data collected to provide
answers to specific questions
4-5
Four types of data
• Acquired databases: many companies
collect information about you and sell it
to others at a cost
• Opt out clauses
• Spam and junkmail
• Do-not-call lists
4-6
Marketing Decision Support Systems
(MDSS)
• MIS System + analysis (statistical and
modeling software) + interactive capabilities
• Allows managers to conduct their own
analyses
• Allows posing “what-if” scenarios
• E.g. How do consumers perceive our brand
w.r.t. competition?
• E.g. Would withdrawing the ad campaign
result in a decline in sales?
4-7
Differences in MIS and MDSS
MIS
• What were our
company sales of
each product during
the last month and
the last year?
MDSS
• Have our sales
declines simply
reflected changes in
overall industry
sales or is there
some portion of the
decline that cannot
be explained by
industry changes?
4-8
Differences in MIS and MDSS
• MIS
– What medium
best reaches my
target audience?
– What were our
sales this season
and the same
time last season?
• MDSS
– How much will my
sales improve if I
use radio instead
of TV?
– Was the
improvement in
our sales this
season due to the
new pricing plan?
4-9
Search for Gold: Data Mining
• Data mining is a process in which analysts sift
through data to identify unique patterns of behavior
among different customer groups
• 4 key applications for marketers:
– customer acquisition (e.g. make offers based on
matched key customer characteristics)
– customer retention (isolate big-spenders and send
them special offers other do not receive)
– customer abandonment (Fedex and “the good, the
bad and the ugly”
– market basket analysis (Fingerhut and mailers for
gas grilles based on purchases of outdoor patio
furniture)
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Marketing Research Process: Step 1
• Specify the research objectives
• Identify the consumer population of
interest
• Place the problem in an environmental
context
– What factors may be influencing the
situation
4-11
Step 2: Determine the Design
• Can the information be acquired from
existing data?
– If so, secondary data sources will be
utilized (e.g. if you want to know zip
code-wise population clusters, you
can get this data from the Census)
– If not, primary research will be
necessary
4-12
Exploratory Research
• Generally provides qualitative data
• May take several forms
– Consumer interviews
– Focus groups
– Case studies
– Ethnography
– Projective techniques – explore underlying
feelings in the face of unwillingness or
inarticulation
• E.g.
– What thoughts come to your mind when you think
of “Winthrop”?
– What do you think about high gas prices?
4-13
Descriptive Research
• Utilizes a large sample of participants as
base
• Generally provides quantitative data
• Designs
– Cross-sectional design involves the
systematic collection of quantitative
information from one or more samples of
respondents at one point in time
– Longitudinal design tracks the responses
of the same sample of respondents over
time
4-14
Descriptive Research
•
Cross-sectional Designs:
– Measuring consumer response to a new
product in the market
• Longitudinal Design:
– Measuring consumer attitude to a brand
every one month
4-15
Causal Research
• Attempts to understand cause-andeffect relationships
• Factors that might cause a change are
independent variables while the
variables that are affected are
dependent variables
• Experimental design allows researchers
to control possible explanations for the
effect
4-16
Causal Research
• Example:
– Measuring consumer response to a
brand before and after seeing a new
commercial
• It is important to rule out other possible
causes of the effect
– E.g. Existing brand loyalties may
influence the effect. This has be
controlled.
4-17
Step 3: Choose the Data Collection Method
• Communication
– Mail questionnaires
– Telephone interviews
– Face-to-face interviews
– Online questionnaires
• Observation
– Personal
– Mechanical
4-18
Mail Questionnaires
• Advantages
– Respondents feel
anonymous
– Low cost
– Good for ongoing
research
• Disadvantages
– Slow return speed
– Low response
rates typical
– Inflexible
questionnaire
– Length of survey
is limited
4-19
Telephone Interviews
• Advantages
– Fast
– Low cost
– Limited
interviewer bias
• Disadvantages
– Decreasing levels
of cooperation
– Limited
questionnaire
length
– Consumers
screen calls
4-20
Face-to-Face Interviews
• Advantages
– Flexibility of
questioning
– Long
questionnaires
possible
– Can help explain
questions
– Can use visuals
• Disadvantages
– High cost
– Interviewer bias
possible
– Time
requirements are
high
4-21
Online Questionnaires
Advantages
• Instant data
collection
• Low cost
• No interviewer bias
• Access regardless
of geographic
location
Disadvantages
• Unclear who is
responding
• No assurance of
honesty
• Limited
questionnaire length
• Limitations inherent
with self-selected
samples
4-22
Observation
• Personal observation
– traffic analysis
– recording how products are used
• Unobtrusive measures
– pantry checks
– garbage search
• Mechanical observation
– people meters
4-23
Data Quality
• Reliability - extent to which research measurement
techniques are free of errors.
– Measuring alcohol dependency by a survey
question vs. measuring it by a pantry check.
• Validity - extent to which the research measures what
it was intended to measure
– If you intend to measure if a consumer will buy the
brand, then a question that asks him how much
he/she likes the brand is not a valid question.
• Representativeness - extent to which consumers in
the study are similar to the target of interest
– If your target of interest is housewives, surveying
female university students is not the appropriate
sample.
4-24
Step 4: Design the Sample
• Probability samples
– each member of the population has an
equal and known chance of being included
in the sample
– allows for inferences to be made about the
population
• Non-probability samples
– unequal chance of being included in the
sample
– limits inferences to the population
4-25
Probability Samples
• Simple random sample
• Systematic random sample
• Stratified sample
– Divide the population into segments of
interest
– Random selection from each segment
separately
– e.g. dividing the population into males and
females first and then making a random
selection from each segment
4-26
Non-Probability Samples
• Convenience sample
• Quota sample
– Decide a quota and once it is full stop
further selection
– E.g. if you decide to have 50 females
in your sample, you recruit the first 50
you meet and stop any further
selection.
4-27
Step 5: Collect the Data
• Implementation phase
• Special issues in data collection
– Single Source Data
• Data on purchasing behavior and
advertising exposure are measured for
members of a consumer panel using
television meters, retail scanners, and
split-cable technology
– E.g. Did a new campaign influence brand
switching?
4-28
Step 6: Analyze and Interpret Data
• Enter, clean, and code data
• Choose appropriate techniques for
analysis
• Interpret analysis
4-29
Step 7: Prepare the Research Report
•
•
•
•
•
Executive summary
A description of research methods
Discussion of results
Limitations of study
Conclusions and recommendations
4-30
Online Research
• Online Tracking – online consumer
behavior
• Cookies – text files which track online
consumer behavior
– Tradeoff between privacy and
customization
• Testing, Questionnaires, and Focus
Groups
4-31
Online Tracking
• The Internet offers the ability to track
and monitor consumers while they surf
• Several behaviors can be monitored
– What sites are visited?
– How long did the visitor stay?
– What types of information did they
collect at the site?
– Where did they go after they left?
4-32
Cookies
• Cookies are text files inserted on a user’s
hard drive by an Internet site
• Cookies allow for details of a Web visit to be
stored and tracked with future visits
• For marketers, cookies allow a way of
observing behavior and customizing Web
sites and offerings to specific users
• For consumers, cookies represent a trade-off
between privacy and customization
4-33