MKT – 344

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Lecture #3 & 4:
Marketing Research
Why Do Marketers Regularly Test Print Ads Like This
One Before They Are Placed in the Media?

2
 Why do market research?
• People will not buy products or services
they do not want.
• Learning what customers want and how to
present it drives the need for marketing
research.
• Small business has an edge over larger
businesses in this regard.
– Small business owners have a sense of their
customers' needs from years of experience, but
this informal information may not be timely or
relevant to the current market.
The Consumer Research
Process

4
 THE CONSUMER
RESEARCH PROCESS
•Secondary research
•Primary research: Primary research is
original information gathered for a
specific purpose.
» Qualitative
» Quantitative
5
SECONDARY DATA
• Secondary research is
information that already
exists somewhere.
• Secondary research is faster
and less expensive than
primary research.
• Gathering secondary
research may be as simple
as making a trip to your local
library or business
information center or
browsing the Internet.
• It utilizes information already
published.
– Surveys, books, magazines, etc.

6
TYPES OF SECONDARY DATA
Internal Data External Data
• Data generated in- • Data collected by an
house outside organization
• May include • Includes federal
analysis of government,
customer files periodicals,
newspapers, books,
• Useful for search engines
calculating • Commercial data is
customer lifetime also available from
value market research firms

7
DESIGNING PRIMARY
RESEARCH
Qualitative
Research
• Depth Interviews
• Focus Groups
• Projective
Techniques
• Metaphor Analysis

8
 QUALITATIVE COLLECTION METHOD:
DEPTH INTERVIEW
• Also called one-on-one interview
• Usually 20 minutes to 1 hour
• Non-structured
• Interviewer will often probe to get
more feedback (see following slide for
probing)
• Session is usually recorded
9
PROBING OPTIONS FOR
INTERVIEWS

10
 QUALITATIVE COLLECTION
METHOD: FOCUS GROUP
• 8-10 participants
• Respondents are recruited through a
screener questionnaire
• Lasts about 2 hours
• Always taped or videotaped to assist
analysis
• Often held in front of two-way mirrors
• Online focus groups are growing

11
FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION
GUIDE

12
 QUALITATIVE COLLECTION METHOD:
PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES
•Research procedures designed to
identify consumers’ subconscious
feelings and underlying motivations
•Consist of a variety of disguised
“tests”

13
 COMMON PROJECTIVE
EXERCISES
Description
Word The researcher has a list of words, some of them to be studied and
Associations some just as “filler.” The researcher asks the respondent (s) to react,
one-at-a time, to each word by stating or (in a focus group setting)
writing on a pad the first word that comes to mind, and to explain
the link.
Sentence The researcher has a series of incomplete sentences that the
Completion respondent (s) needs to complete with a word or phrase.

Photo/Visual The researcher creates/selects a series of photos of consumers,

for Storytelling different brands or products, range of print ads, etc., to serve as
stimuli. The respondents are asked to discuss or tell a story based
on their response to a photo or some other visual stimulus.
Role Playing Is quite similar to storytelling; however, instead of telling a story,
the participant (s) will be given a situation and asked to “act out”
the role (s), often with regard to a product or brand, or particular
selling situation.

14
 QUALITATIVE COLLECTION
METHOD: METAPHOR ANALYSIS
•Based on belief that metaphors are
the most basic method of thought
and communication.
•Consumer values also play an
important role in understanding
consumer behavior.
–Sky – blue
–Water – deep

15
DESIGNING PRIMARY
RESEARCH

Quantitative
Research
• Observation
• Experimentation
• Survey
questionnaires

16
 DATA COLLECTION METHODS:
OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH
• Helps marketers gain an in-depth
understanding of the relationship between
people and products by watching them
buying and using products
• Helps researchers gain a better
understanding of what the product
symbolizes
Uses mechanical or electronic device to
record consumer behavior or response
Consumers’ increased use of highly
convenient technologies will create more
records for marketers
TV ratings are a type of mechanical
observation which monitor channel viewers.
17
 DATA COLLECTION METHODS:
EXPERIMENTATION
•Can be used to test the relative
sales appeal of many types of
variables
•An experiment is usually
controlled with only some
variables manipulated at a time
while the others are constant
•Test markets are conducted on a
single market area
•Experimentation can be
conducted in laboratories or in
the field
18
 DATA COLLECTION METHODS
Mail Telephone Personal Online
Interview

Cost Low Moderate High Low

Speed Slow Immediate Slow Fast

Response rate Low Moderate High Self-selected

Geographic Excellent Good Difficult Excellent
flexibility

Interviewer bias N/A Moderate Problematic N/A

Interviewer N/A Easy Difficult N/A

Supervision
19
 SAMPLING AND DATA
COLLECTION
• Samples are a subset of the population used to
estimate characteristics of the entire population.
• A sampling plan addresses:
– Whom to survey
– How many to survey
– How to select them
• Researcher must choose probability or non-
probability sample.
20
 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
If a study has validity,
it collects the
appropriate data for
the study.
A study has reliability
if the same questions,
asked of a similar
sample, produce the
same findings.
21
 DATA ANALYSIS AND REPORTING
FINDINGS
•Close-ended questions are coded and
quantified.
•All responses are tabulated and analyzed.
•Final report includes executive summary,
body, tables, and graphs.

22
 LIKERT SCALE
Please place the number that best indicates how strongly you agree or disagree
with each of the following statements about shopping on-line in the space to the
left of the statement.

1 = Agree Strongly
2 = Agree
3 = Neither Agree or Disagree
4 = Disagree
5 = Disagree Strongly

_____ a. It is fun to shop online.

_____ b. Products often cost more on-line than they are worth.
_____ c. It is a good way to find out about new products.
_____ d. I’m afraid to give out my credit card number on-line.
_____ e. I can shop whenever I want--even at 2 o’clock in the morning.
_____ f. Some Web sites really encourage you to browse. 23
_____ g. It’s easy to compare different makes and models one-line.
 RANK-ORDER SCALES
A. Please rank the following e-mail providers in terms of ease of access by
placing a 1 in front of the service you think is best, a 2 alongside the second
best, and continuing until you have ranked all six service providers.

_____ America Online _____ AT&T Worldnet

_____ Netscape _____ Juno
_____ Microsoft Explorer _____ Erols

B. Rank the following computer manufacturers in terms of hotline help by

placing a 1 next to the one who provides the best telephone help a 2 next to
the second best, until you have ranked all six.

_____ IBM _____Hewlett Packard

_____ Dell _____ Toshiba
_____ Compaq _____ NEC

24