2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, in whole or in

© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.Part One Chapter 1

The Role of Marketing Research

AT-A-GLANCE

• What is Marketing Research?
• Business and marketing research
• Marketing research defined

II. Applied and Basic Marketing Research

• Applied marketing research
• Basic marketing research
• The scientific method

III. Marketing Research and Strategic Management Orientation

• Customer orientation
• Long-run profitability
• A cross-functional effort
• Keeping customers and building relationships

E. Marketing research: A means for implementing the marketing concept

• Marketing research and strategic marketing management
• Identifying and evaluating market opportunities
• Analyzing and selecting target markets

IV. Planning and Implementing a Marketing Mix

• Product research
• Pricing research
• Distribution research
• Promotion research
• The integrated marketing mix
• Analyzing marketing performance

• When Is Marketing Research Needed?
• Time constraints
• Availability of data
• Nature of the decision
• Benefits versus costs

VI. Marketing Research in the Twenty-First Century

• Communication Technologies
• Global marketing research

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Chapter One: The Role of Marketing Research

© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Know what marketing research is and what it does for business.
• Understand the difference between basic and applied marketing research.
• Understand how the role of marketing research changes with the orientation of the firm.
• Be able to integrate marketing research results into the strategic planning process.
• Know when marketing research should and should not be conducted.
• Appreciate the way that technology and internationalization are changing marketing research.

CHAPTER VIGNETTE: “Samapple!!”

The technology sector is perhaps one of the fastest moving areas of today’s consumer market. As technology continues to change and grow, firms must be aware of consumers’ desires in order to compete effectively. Apple, once America’s favorite technology brand, became complacent, neglecting the critical role that market research plays before the development of new products. As a result, Apple has slipped from first place to fifth place, with other firms rising to the top, particularly Samsung. This vignette clearly illustrates the importance of agile marketing research in the technology sector.

SURVEY THIS!

This feature allows students to better understand the researcher’s job in determining what information is needed so that data can be analyzed and become an intelligent source of information. This first interaction with the “Survey This!” feature is for students to play the role of respondent and complete the survey by going to the URL provided by your instructor. Answers are anonymously stored in the database along with those of other students using this book around the world. Once the survey is completed, students can visit the course website and obtain a copy of the questions.

RESEARCH SNAPSHOT

➢ Care for Some Horns and Halos In marketing parlance, a halo is an effect that indicates a consumer has a positive perception of a product, whereas a horn indicates a consumer’s negative perception of a product. These effects have a particularly strong influence over consumers’ beliefs about food and nutrition.Marketing research has demonstrated that some of these beliefs can be mitigated over time.

➢ A Hog Means Family Harley-Davidson has worked hard to establish long term relationships with its customers by utilizing marketing research. The firm has been particularly skilled in using social media data-mining to assess the interests of its American customers.

When it came time to branch out overseas, Harley-Davidson engaged in marketing research to assess the preferences of Indian consumers, who have long preferred scooters to larger motorcycles. This research allow the company to expand its customer base.

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Chapter One: The Role of Marketing Research

© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

➢ Watching What?The changing landscape of technology has significantly altered the way Americans consume television programming. This shift has led Nielsen, once the foremost research firms for tracking television viewing habits, to make errors in their estimates of viewership. This snapshot illustrates how important it is to maintain accurate data collection techniques, especially in the face of a changing technological landscape.

TIPS OF THE TRADE

Throughout the text, a Tips of the Trade section is provided to give hints for using and doing

marketing research. Here is a summary of this chapter’s tips:

➢ Customers and employees are valuable sources for input.➢ Business problems ultimately boil down to information problems.➢ Good marketing research is as rigorous as good research in other fields.➢ Research plays a role before, during, and after key marketing decisions.➢ Research that costs more than it can ever return should not be conducted.➢ Researchers must stay in touch with changes in media technology.

OUTLINE

I. WHAT IS MARKETING RESEARCH ?

• Business and Marketing Research
• Companies need to produce benefits that people want to buy, and successful

companies must understand the bundle of benefits consumers need. Answering

several key questions help provide this understanding:

• What do we sell? – This includes not only the benefits that are easily seen,

but also the more emotional benefits.

• How do consumers view our company? – All too often, companies define

themselves too narrowly based only on the physical product they sell. Who will the customer do business with if they do not choose your company?

• What does our company/product mean? – What knowledge do people have

of the company and its products?

• What do consumers desire? – How can the company make the lives of its

customers better, and how can it do this in a way that is not easily duplicated by another firm?

• Answering these questions requires information, and marketing research’s

function is supplying that information. With useful information, decisions can be made with less risk.

• The emphasis of marketing research is to shift decision makers from intuitive

information gathering to systematic and objective investigating.

• Marketing Research Defined
• Marketing research is the application of the scientific method in searching for

the truth about marketing phenomena.

2. The process includes:

• Idea and theory development
• Problem definition 3 / 4

Chapter One: The Role of Marketing Research

© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

• Information gathering
• Analyzing data
• Communicating the findings and their implications

3. This definition suggests that marketing research:

• information is not intuitive or haphazardly gathered
• is accurate and objective, using the scientific method
• is relevant to all aspects of the marketing mix
• is limited by one’s definition of marketing
• Marketing research can be used for any aspect of the marketing mix.
• Marketing research can be used by all types of organizations that engage in some

form of marketing activity.

II. APPLIED AND BASIC MARKETING RESEAR CH

• Applied Marketing Research
• Applied marketing research is conducted to address a specific marketing

decision for a specific firm or organization.

• Basic Marketing Research
• Basic marketing research is conducted without a specific decision in mind and

it usually does not address the needs of a specific organization.

• It attempts to expand the limits of marketing knowledge in general, and as such it

is not aimed at solving a particular pragmatic problem.

• The two types of research are not completely independent.
• Some reserve the term marketing research to refer to basic research and the term

market research to capture applied research addressing the needs of a firm within a particular market.

• However, there are very few aspects of research that apply to only basic or only

applied research.

• This text uses the term marketing research more generally to refer to either type

of research.

• The Scientific Method
• All marketing research, whether basic or applied, involves the scientific method.
• The scientific method is the way researchers go about using knowledge and

evidence to reach objective conclusions about the real world.

• The method involves developing hypotheses and testing them against empirical

evidence (facts from observation or experimentation). From these results, new knowledge is acquired.

• Its use in basic research leads to inferences and conclusions about phenomena

and leads to the establishment of general laws.

• Its use in applied research ensures objectivity in gathering facts and testing

creative ideas for alternative marketing strategies.

III. MARKETING RESEARCH AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ORIENTATION

A. In all of business strategy, there are only a few business orientations:

• Product-oriented – the firm prioritizes decision making in a way that

emphasizes technical superiority in the product. Research is not a priority.

• Production-oriented – the firm prioritizes efficiency and effectiveness of the

production processes in making decisions (i.e., to drive costs down). Research is not a priority.

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