978-0135078228 Chapter 4 Solution Manual Part 2

ANSWERS TO APPLICATION QUESTIONS

23. Think of a past job that you have held. List three areas in which you, or some other

person in the organization, could have benefited from having information generated

by research. What would be the most appropriate research design for each of the

three areas of research you have listed?

Students will have different answers due to different job situations so there is no set

answer to this question. The following are some examples that might be used to

stimulate class discussion:

Area Issue Research Design

24. You are no doubt familiar with Internet search engine companies that find online

sources pertaining to words, phrases, or questions that users type in. Can you identify

research problems likely to be addressed by a search engine company such as

Google™? What type of research design would you recommend for these problems?

Google and its competitors are search engine services. They provide four types of

searches—web, pictures, news, and products. As such, Internet search engines can be

useful in exploratory research where the researcher is gaining background (e.g. who

25. Design an experiment. Select an independent variable and a dependent variable.

What are some possible extraneous variables that may cause problems? Explain how

you would control for the effects these variables may have on your dependent

variable. Is your experiment a valid one?

The purpose is to have students apply an experimental design and thus pick out

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student “present” his or her design to the class.

26. The Maximum Company has invented an extra-strength, instant coffee brand to be

called “Max-Caff” and positioned to be stronger tasting than any competing brands.

Design a taste test experiment that compares Max-Caff to the two leading instant

coffee brands to determine which brand consumers consider to taste the strongest.

Identify and diagram your experiment. Indicate how the experiment is to be

conducted, and assess the internal and external validity of your experiment.

There is no need to perform a pretest as there is no baseline to taste tests. Max-Caff is

to be compared to the leading brands, A and B (Maxwell House and Folger’s, for

With an across subjects design, three groups are used, each with its own stimulus.

No control group is used as it does not make sense to have subjects rate the strength

of a nonstimulus.

Internal validity is addressed in the following ways:

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External validity is an issue as the taste test is conducted in an artificial setting

(perhaps at a shopping mall or some other facility), and the subjects are told that they

are to rate the taste so they will be especially vigilant to the taste. Also, the long term

27. Coca-Cola markets PowerAde as a sports drink that competes with Gatorade.

Competition for sports drinks is fierce where they are sold in the coolers of

convenience stores. Coca-Cola is thinking about using a special holder that fits in a

standard convenience-store cooler but moves PowerAde to eye level and makes it

more conspicuous than Gatorade. Design an experiment that determines whether the

special holder increases the sales of PowerAde in convenience stores. Identify and

diagram your experiment. Indicate how the experiment is to be conducted and assess

the internal and external validity of your experiment.

There is one treatment (the cooler holder for PowerAde) and one control situation

(the current stocking of PowerAde without the cooler holder). A before-after with

The groups are randomly assigned convenience stores such as Circle K’s or

7-Eleven’s, and the Os are store sales, and the effect of the PowerAde cooler holder is

Internal validity is addressed in the following ways:

External validity is taken care of if the groups are representative of all convenience

stores.

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The test is realistic and generalizable.

28. SplitScreen is a marketing research company that tests television advertisements.

SplitScreen has an agreement with a cable television company in a medium-size city

in Iowa. The cable company can send up to four different television ads

simultaneously to different households. SplitScreen also has agreements with the

three largest grocery store chains, which will provide scanner data to SplitScreen.

About 25% of the residents have SplitScreen scan cards that are scanned when items

are bought at the grocery store and that allow SplitScreen to identify who bought

which grocery products. For allowing SplitScreen access to their television hookups

and their grocery-purchase information, residents receive bonus points that can be

used to buy products in a special points catalog. Identify and diagram the true

experimental design possible using the SplitScreen system. Assess the internal and

external validity of SplitScreen’s system.

Virtually any true experimental design is possible with the SplitScreen system, but the

most powerful ones would be before-after with control group or after-only design.

All internal validity problems are under control assuming that groups are equivalent,

drop-outs are replaced, commercials are seen at the same time, stores maintain

constant, etc. The external validity may concern some students who will point out the

29. A tire store chain is concerned that women have concerns about bringing their car to

tire stores which are typically dominated by men—employees and customers. What

type of research would you conduct to determine if this concern is prevalent among

female drivers and what techniques the chain may adopt that would alleviate some of

these concerns?

This is a sensitive topic because it concerns subtle or deep fears on the part of female

customers who are threatened by the male-dominated situation. So, a projective

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CASE SOLUTIONS

Case 4.1 Memos from a Researcher

Case Objective: This case presents the student with three different situations where

they must determine the appropriate research design.

Answers to Case Questions

1. Describe what research design you would recommend for each client.

2. For each research design you selected for the three clients, discuss why you believe

your choice of design is the correct choice.

The answers are provided in the table below.

Client Research Design Reason(s)

Client A Exploratory research

All we know is that an important symptom of a

Client B Descriptive research

Unlike Client A, we know a good deal more about

Client C An experiment is

We need to manipulate the independent variables of

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Case 4.2 Integrated Case: Advanced Automobile Concepts

Case Objective: This case requires students to identify appropriate research designs for

the Advanced Automobile Concepts marketing research project.

Answers to Case Questions

1. To deal with the first set of issues—determining how consumers feel about certain

issues, how important these issues are to them, and what terms they use to discuss

these issues—what research design would you suggest? Why?

At this point in the marketing research process, Nick should strongly consider using

exploratory research. He is at the beginning of the process where he needs to gain

2. Consider the second paragraph in the case. What research design would you suggest

to determine all of the following: Which attitudes are strongly associated with

purchase intentions of different auto models? Will these relationships vary around the

country and will they exist for definable market segments? Why?

The critical issues are: determining associations between attitudes and intentions and

investigating if these vary by market segment. This is definitely the realm of

3. Nick Thomas’s last question deals with determining how much of an increase in mpg

will be needed for consumers to have equal preference for ZEN models as those

outselling ZEN today. What research design would you suggest?

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The tip-off is the use of the “require to buy” phrase. It strongly infers cause and effect.

So, a causal research design is called for. The treatments can be the mpg increases

(such as 10%, 20%, 30%, etc.), and the dependent variables would be the preference

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