Learning about Consumers

1
Learning about Consumers
Chapter
6

• The Role of Marketing Research in Understanding
  Consumer Behavior

2
Todays Objectives

• Describe the basic purposes of consumer research.
• Outline the steps in the research process.
• Have an understanding of available consumer
  behavior research techniques and the kinds of
  questions and data achieved with each.
• Understand how to evaluate research.
• Understand how marketers use their research
  results.

3
Consumer Behavior Research

• Consumer Behavior Research the systematic and
  objective process of gathering, recording and
  analyzing data for aid in understanding and
  predicting consumer thoughts, feelings and
  behaviors.
• Two Primary Purposes of Research
• ________________________
• Attempts to expand the limits of knowledge (e.g.,
  Why do people enjoy attending sporting events?)
• ________________________
• Attempts to solve a particular problem (e.g., If
  people were offered incentives to attend sporting
  events would the go more often, less often, or
  would it have no effect?

4
Exhibit 6.2Outline of the Research Process
Arnould et al. slide 2004
5
Key Features of Market Research

• First, the research process is iterative.
• Second, the use of different methods and
  perspectives ________________________.
• Third, no research is ________. The researcher
  must constantly make trade-offs between the costs
  and benefits of conducting different types and
  amounts of research as well as different types of
  error.

6
Types of Consumer Research

• __________ helps clarify the nature of a
  problem
• e.g. research question Why do people go to
  Frontier Days?
• __________ answers the questions who, what,
  when, where how
• e.g., Who goes to Frontier Days?
• __________ answers why explains cause effect
• e.g., Would more people go to the Frontier Days
  if they had a western art show there?

7
Different Data Collection Methods

• Exploratory
• One-on-one interviews
• Focus groups
• Ethnography participant observation
• Projective Techniques
• TAT (pictorial prompts)
• Open-ended questions, fill-in-the blanks
• Descriptive
• Surveys
• Ethnography observation
• Causal
• Experiments

8
Different Data Collection Methods

• Yield vastly different types of data
• Qualitative
• Quantitative
• Type of data desired depends a great deal on what
  the research question is

9
One-on-One Interviews

• What is your favorite possession?
• Why is this your favorite possession?
• How do you use this item?

10
Focus Groups
11
Discuss Focus Groups

• British consumers are reluctant to talk about
  cockroaches in a focus group setting, but French
  consumers are happy to talk about them in a focus
  group. Why do you think those differences exist?
  What are some topics the people in your home
  country would be reluctant to discuss in a focus
  group?

12
Ethnography Participant Observation

• Elements Examined
• The setting
• The social environment (formal and informal
  activities)
• The language
• Nonverbal communication
• What does not happen

13
Projective Techniques Open-ended Questions

• Word Association
• What is the first word that comes to your mind
  when you hear the following?
• Frost___________
• Verve___________
• Ultra____________
• Masters Choice___________
• Sentence Completion
• People who drink beer are_________
• A man who drinks light beer is__________
• Imported beer is most liked by____________

14
Projective Techniques Pictorial Prompts

• Pictorial Prompts (Thematic Apperception Tests)
• Show a picture and ask you to put yourself in
  that picture to see what you think

15
Projective Techniques Fictional Characters

• What would Tiger Woods think of staying in a
  place like this?
• What does Britney Spears think of Skeechers
  shoes?

16
Surveys

• Most commonly used to assess attitudes,
  preferences, satisfaction, consumer profiles,
  behaviors
• Often use closed ended responses, like Likert
  scales (strongly agree to strongly disagree)
• This ad makes me think of my childhood
• strongly agree agree neutral disagree
  strongly disagree

17
Ethnography -- Observation

• Increasingly used to develop new ideas for
  product development
• Increasingly used to understand how products fit
  into consumers everyday lives

Business Week, Madison Avenue Anthropologists Are
Unearthing Our Secrets
18
Experiments

• Allows control so that _________________ can be
  studied while other things are held constant
• One variable is manipulated (the independent
  variable) and its effect on another variable (the
  dependent variable) is studied

DVs of items purchased, time In store
19
Data

• Primary data
• data collected for a specific purpose
• compared to secondary data collection, primary
  data collection is difficult, expensive, and
  time-consuming
• Secondary data
• data that have already been collected for
  purposes other than the problem at hand
• can be located quickly, easily, and inexpensively
• should represent the starting point for any data
  collection effort
• compared to primary data collection, may lack
  accuracy, relevancy, and/or currency

20
Some Popular Sources for External Data

• REMEMBER THIS FOR YOUR GROUP PROJECT
• Scanner data
• Simmons Market Data, Mediamark Research, Nielsen
  and other syndicated data sources
• Industry (e.g., canned food) broken down by
  product category and brand
• Market Share information
• Attitude and Public Opinion Research (e.g.,
  Business Week, WSJ)
• Internet
• Government Sources (e.g., Census Bureau
  www.Census.gov)

21
Consumer Research Evaluation Criteria

• Relevant
• Timely
• Efficient
• Accurate
• Ethical

22
Guidelines for Ethical Consumer Research Practice

• Expect and prepare to encounter ethical dilemmas
  in consumer research.
• Do not harm participants physically, emotionally,
  or psychologically.
• Hold data in confidence.
• Refuse to conduct research you consider
  unethical.
• Do not distort research results to please
  clients.

23
Discuss Ethics

• What kinds of consumer behavior research do you
  consider unethical? Have you ever been asked to
  participate in a research study that you thought
  was unethical? If so, what?

24
Consumer Behavior Research and Marketing
Strategies

• improves the organization's understanding of how
  consumers' evaluate the product/service category
  in which the organization is interested
• increases the likelihood that the firm will
  segment the potential market in the best possible
  way
• helps the firm to target one or more selected
  market segments
• provides insight into appropriate bases for
  product positioning and
• improves the probability that the marketing mix
  will meet the needs of a target market or markets.