Gathering Marketing Intelligence

CHAPTER 3 NOTES: GATHERING MARKETING INTELLIGENCE: THE PROJECT APPROACH

- Program Strategy – is a company's overall philosophy of how marketing research projects fit into its marketing plan. o Specifies the types of studies that are to be conducted and for what purposes. o "Should we do marketing research?" - Project Strategy – is the design of the individual marketing research studies that are to be conducted. o Deals with how a specific study should be conducted. o "Now that we've decided to go ahead with marketing research, how should we proceed?" - Research Process – is the sequence of steps in the design and implementation of a research study. o Stages in the research process (pg 36) ▪ 1. Formulated the problem (pg 36) • Only when the problem is defined can research be designed to provide the needed information • Includes specifying the manager's decision problem and research problems • Each project should tie back to the decision problem ▪ 2. Determine research design (pg 37) • Depends on how much is know about the problem • Exploratory Research o Used when the problem to be solved is broad or vague o Very flexible • Descriptive or casual Research o Used when a problem is precisely formulated o Not flexible o Focuses on describing a population, emphasizing the frequency with which something occurs o Uses experiments to identify cause-effect relationships between variables o Referred to as "quantitative research" ▪ 3. Determine data collection method (pg 37) • Secondary Data o Data that have already been collected for some purpose other than the question at hand o Sometime from within the company, or has to be bought from another company • Primary Data o Data that is collected specifically for the study being conducted ▪ 4. Design Data collection format (pg 38) • Once they have settled on the method to be used for the study, they must decide on the type of observation form or questionnaire that will best suit the needs of the project ▪ 5. Design sample and collect data (pg 38) • After determining how the information will be collected, they must decide what group will be observed or questioned know as a sample • Designing a sample: o 1. Sampling Frame – the list of population elements from which the sample will be drawn o 2. type of sampling plan to be used (two types) ▪ Probability sample – is the preferred category, each member of the population has a known, nonzero chance of being selected, which allows us to determine what would have been true for the whole population if we had information from or about all the elements ▪ Nonprobability sample – researchers choose which individuals or groups will be part of the study o 3. size of the sample ▪ Addresses the issue of how many institutions or subjects is necessary to use in the project in order to get reliable answers without exceeding the time and money budget. ▪ 6. Analyze and interpret the data (pg 39) • Data analysis involves several steps: o 1. Edited - data collection forms must be scanned to be sure that they are complete and consistent and that the instructions were o 2. Coded – assigning numbers to each of the answers so that they can be analyzed by a computer o 3. Analyze ▪ 7. Prepare the research report (pg 39) • Is the document submitted to management that summarizes the research results and conclusions • Is on of the most important factors affecting whether the research will be useful for its intended purposes

Marketing Research Ethics (pg 41-42) - Ethics – are the moral principles and values that govern the way an individual or group conducts its activities o Apply to all situations in which there can be actual harm of any kind to an individual or group - Marketing Ethics – are the principles, values, and standard of conduct followed by marketers - Marketing researchers can face ethical issues when dealing with: o Research participants o The client for whom the research is being conducted o The research team itself

-Research Participants - Teleology – an ethical or moral reasoning framework that focuses on society and the net consequences that an action may have. If the net result of benefits minus all costs is positive, the act is morally acceptable. If the net result is negative, the act is not morally acceptable o Utilitarianism – focus on society as the unit of analysis and stresses the consequences of an act on all those directly or indirectly affected by it. - Deontology – an ethical or moral reasoning framework that focuses on the welfare of the individual and that uses means, intentions, and features of an act itself in judging its ethicality; sometimes referred to as the rights, or entitlements, model

SUMMARY - Explain the difference between a program strategy and a project strategy in marketing research o A program strategy represents a company's overall philosophy of how marketing research fits into its marketing plan and specifies the types of studies that are to be conducted, and for what purposes. Project strategy concerns the design of the individual studies themselves - Outline the steps in the research process and show how the steps are interrelated o 1. formulated the problem o 2. determine the research design o 3. determine the data collection method o 4. design the data collection forms o 5. design the sample and collect the data o 6. Analyze and interpret the data o 7. Prepare the research report ▪ These steps are highly interrelated; a decision made at one stage will affect decisions in ever other stage, and a revision of the procedure in any stage often requires modification of procedures in every other stage - Cite the most critical error in marketing research o Total error, rather than the size of an error that occurs in any single stage, is the most critical in research work - Highlight the main difference between the teleological and deontological ethical frameworks o Teleological ethics focuses on society as the unit of analysis and stresses the consequences of an act on all those directly or indirectly affected by it. If the benefits of the act to society exceed its costs, the act is ethical; if the net benefits are negative, the act is unethical. o Deontological ethics focused on the individual as the unit of analysis and specifically on the right to which every individual is entitled