Part 2.

Overview of the basic types of Marketing Research and the basic

advantages / disadvantages of each type
 2.1 - What are the three major types of research design? What are they used for?
What are their basic advantages / disadvantages?

Research Design: is a set of advance decisions that make up the master plan specifying
the methods and procedures for collecting and analyzing the needed information.

3 types of Research Designs depend on the objectives of the research
 Aim of the research Designs: gain background information and to develop hypothesis,
measure the state of variable of interest, test the hypothesis that specify the
relationship between two or more variables.
1. Exploratory Research: collection of information in an unstructured and informal
manner. (Secondary Data, focus groups, one on one, experience surveys, case
analysis, projective techniques)
- Objective / use for: to gain background information, define terms, clarify problems and
hypothesis and to establish research priorities (Help the firm prioritize research topics.
- does not have predetermined set of procedures
- nature of the research changes as the researcher gains information
- No formal set of objectives, sample plan or questionnaire
- Advantage: secondary data analysis -> fast, cheap; provides information to meet the
research objective or assists in gathering current information necessary to construct
either a descriptive or causal research design.
1. Descriptive Research: incorporate a set of methods and procedures that describe
marketing variables. Answering who, when, what and how questions. Consumers
attitude, intentions and behaviors
- Done through surveys, observational
- better for large population
- Objective: describe and measure marketing phenomena
- 2 types: (1) Cross-sectional studies: measure units from a sample of the population at
one point in time (Snapshots) -> Sample surveys are used to representative of a
specific population; (2) Longitudinal Studies: repeatedly measure the same sample
units of a population over a period of time. Panels: Continuous (same questions) or
discontinuous (varies)
- Advantage: Longitudinal studies allow us to measure the change being made by each
sample unit between time periods, we gain much richer information for analysis
purposes
1. Causal Research: isolates causes and effects -> answers why questions; designs
experiments; understanding a phenomenon in terms of conditional statement of the
form if x, they y
- Manipulating variables of interest

- Objective: determine the causality and to make if-then statement

- Difficult
- Obtained by using experiments

Quantitative: data sets containing precise measurements of variables -> tests for
statistical significance

Qualitative: used to explore and know more about the problem in hand; closely related to
exploratory research
 2.2 - What is the difference between observational and communication-based
research? What are the basic pros and cons of each approach?

Observational studies vs Focus Group + In depth Interview

Depth Interview: a set of probing questions posed one on one to a subject by a trained
interviewer to gain an idea of what the subject thinks about something or why the
subject behaves in one way.

Objective: obtain unrestricted comments or opinions and to ask questions that will help
the marketing researcher better understand the various dimensions of these opinions
as well as the reasons for them

new concepts, designs, advertising and promotional messages can arise from this
method

Advantages: ability to probe, asking many additional questions -> enables the research
technique to generate rich, deep, in-depth information

offer great consumer behavior

Disadvantage: lack of structure -> too varied to give sufficient insight into the problem
 2.3 - What is the difference between research based on primary and secondary
data generation? What are the basic advantages and disadvantages of each?
Primary data VS Secondary Data

Primary Data: information-processing that is developed or gathered by the researcher
specifically for the research project at hand

Secondary Data: data have been previously been gathered by someone other than the
researcher and/ or for some purpose other than the research project at hand
Uses of Secondary Data

Identifying demographic groups as market segments - market segmentation

lifestyle of demographic groups such as baby boomers, Gen Yers, Gen Xers

Competitive Analysis or Benchmarking

Marketing environment analysis

Direct marketing campaigns

Measuring advertising reach or performance
Advantages of Secondary Data



Obtained Quickly (internet - no expense)

inexpensive relative to primary data
Usually available
Enhance Primary Data - to familiarize the researcher with the industry that may be useful
when conducting primary data

May achieve the Research Objective
Disadvantages of Secondary Data

Problems exist in secondary data because they have not been collected specifically to
address the problem at hand but for some other problems
I. Incompatible Reporting Units
II. Measurement units do not match
III. Class definitions are not usable
IV. Data are outdated