10-1: Check Yourself 1. Define objectives and research needs,
designing the research project, deciding on
the data collection process and collecting
the data, analyze and interpret the data,
prepare the findings for presentation.
2. Data can be defined as raw numbers or
other factual information that, on their
own, have limited value to marketers.
However, when the data are interpreted,
they become information.
10-2: External Secondary Data Syndicated
Data
Secondary data are plentiful and free, whereas
syndicated data generally are more detailed but
can be very costly.
Ask students: Why might firms subscribe to a
data service and collect their own primary and
secondary data at the same time?
10-3: External Secondary Data Scanner
Research
Students may not remember a time before
grocery stores used scanners, but highlight how
the installation of scanners created a huge new
data source for marketers.
Ask students: What can researchers take from
scanner data?
Students might note that researchers can
discover which consumers purchase what
products together and how often.
They also can immediately track the impact of
any price or promotional adjustments.
This web link brings you to IRI homepage—
explore their many products with the students.
10-4: External Secondary Data Panel
Research
In recent years, response rates to marketing
research surveys have declined, which has
increased usage of research panels.
10-5: Internal Secondary Data Every day, consumers provide wide-ranging
data that get stored in increasingly large
databases.
Ask students: How might firms and
organizations collect information about you? Do
you always know when you are providing such
data? Who uses these data?
In the United States, firms use opt-out
programs, so when consumers fill out a
registration form or application, the firm
automatically has permission to market to that
customer and share information with its
partners, unless consumers explicitly revoke this
permission.
In contrast, the EU regulations state that
customers must opt-in to such information uses.
10-6: Check Yourself 1. Secondary sources can be taken from
internal sources, including the company’s
sales invoices, customer lists, and other
reports generated by the company itself.
Secondary data might come from free or
very inexpensive external sources, such as
census data, information from trade
associations, and reports published in
magazines.
10-7: Qualitative versus Quantitative
Data Collection Techniques
Managers commonly use several exploratory
research methods: observation, in-depth
interviewing, focus group interviews, and
projective techniques.
If the firm is ready to move beyond preliminary
insights, it likely is ready to engage in
conclusive research, which provides the
information needed to confirm those insights
and which managers can use to pursue
appropriate courses of action.
10-8: Data Collection Example of observation: When a museum
wanted to know which exhibits people visited
most often, it conducted a unique study to
determine the wear patterns in the floor.
This “human trace” evidence allowed the
museum to study flow patterns.
Interviews provide extremely valuable
information, because researchers can probe
respondents to elicit more information about
interesting topics.
Focus groups similarly provide a snapshot of
customers’ opinions and allow some follow-up
but also are relatively fast and inexpensive to
conduct.
Video: “The Brave New World of
Shopper-Tracking Technology”
Ask students: What are the advantages to a
company in tracking a customer’s behavior
inside a store?
Ask students: What are the advantages to a
company of combining a customer’s in-store
behavior with their online shopping behavior?
10-9: Describing the benefits They might have observed how people tested
the durability of bags—perhaps several turned
them upside down.
They may have conducted interviews about
problems, and leaking was a very big issue.
Finally, during a focus group, they might have
had one participant mention leaking and another
to discuss how you would test for leaking—
turning the bag upside down.
10-10: Check Yourself 1. Observation, In-Depth Interviews, Focus
Groups, and Social Media.
10-11: Survey Research Marketing research relies heavily on
questionnaires, and questionnaire design is
virtually an art form.
Ask students: What are the advantages and
disadvantages of each type of question
(unstructured and structured)?
Group activity: Create a questionnaire. First
determine the form of the questions (i.e.,
structured versus unstructured).
On the basis of these questions, what types of
analysis will you be able to perform on your
collected data?
10-12: Web Surveying Ask students: Do you fill out Internet surveys?
If so, were you honest in your responses?
Ask students whether they took their time with
the survey and gave quality responses.
10-13: Using Web Surveying The Internet offers researchers a new way to
reach customers, but its use requires adaptations
and new research methods.
10-14: Experimental Research Using an experiment, McDonald’s would “test”
the price of a new menu item to determine
which is the most profitable.
An example of an experiment could involve two
groups of subjects.
One tastes cookies with a national brand and the
other with a store brand.
Each group rates the cookie on a seven-point
scale from poor to great taste.
The group with the branded name tends to rate
the cookie as better tasting, demonstrating the
power of a brand name.
Group Activity: Ask students to design a taste
test experiment for Coke vs. Pepsi.
10-15: Advantages and Disadvantages of
Secondary and Primary Data
A summary of the advantages and disadvantages
of each type of research.
10-16: Check Yourself 1. Experiments, Survey, Scanner, and Panel
2. See Exhibit 10.9
10-17: Debating Domestic Eavesdropping This video covers domestic eavesdropping. As
companies and the government get more
technical, they are able to collect much more
information.
The question in this video is whether the
government has the right to eavesdrop on
citizens’ communications.
Note: Please make sure that the video file is
located in the same folder as the PowerPoint
slides.
10-18: The Ethics of Using Customer
Information
A strong ethical orientation must be an integral
part of a firm’s marketing strategy and decision
making.
It is extremely important for marketers to adhere
to ethical practices when conducting marketing
research.
10-19: Check Yourself 1. Marketers must adhere to legislative and
company policies, as well as respect
consumers’ desires for privacy.
2. As technology continues to advance though,
the potential threats to consumers’
personal information grow in number and
intensity.
Additional Teaching Tips
This chapter explores how information systems create greater value for the customer. The
research process is one of the main concepts in this chapter as well as introducing the student to
research vocabulary and concepts.
This chapter is one that quite often students don’t like. They have difficulty in applying the
research vocabulary and understanding the research process. Students can often regurgitate the
process but when asked how it applies they are often confused. A teaching tip on understanding
how information systems can create value is to have students write down a product website they
often visit and why they visit it (the value they find in the website). Have them partner up in
class and exchange papers. The partner will then think of ways (using the book as an aid) that
information systems can add value to that website. A discussion between the partners after this
exercise often leads to clarity of how information systems create greater value to the customer
and the instructor can write some of these on the board during classroom discussion.
Online Tip: This exercise can be easily transferred to a discussion posting in the online forum
where students are partnered up in the same way (or perhaps they can answer anyone’s post that
hasn’t had a reply yet) resulting in a short summary paper addressing how information systems
create value.
The second concept is the research process. Again, students can often regurgitate the process but
can’t apply the concepts or the research terminology. After a discussion on vocabulary and
concepts led by the instructor, students can learn this process by applying critical thinking. This
can be done either in groups or as a class (for the online forum it can be a virtual team
exercise). Assign either the class or the teams a problem to solve (usually one that is widely
understood by students) that is marketing based and haves students use their critical thinking to
apply each step of the research process and 3-5 terms (such as exploratory, causal,
descriptive).
Some examples of assigned research topics: (1) Will moving the pizza from the back to the front
of the college cafeteria result in more pizza sales? (2) Will offering an additional incentive to
students to return used book to the books store (instead of selling them on Amazon.com) provide
more buy-back opportunity for the college. The important aspect of this exercise is to keep the
problem market related and have students use the vocabulary words correctly and understand
how the process can lead to problem solving of marketing related issues.