Marketing Research Ch4

• Outside agency
• In-house research

• • Research Suppliers
• >> Commercial providers of marketing research services.

• • Syndicated Service
• >> A marketing research supplier that provides standardized information for many clients in return for a fee.

• • Standardized Research Service
• >> Companies that develop a unique methodology for investigating a business specialty area.

• • Limited-Service Research Suppliers
• >> Specialize in particular research activities, such as syndicated service, field interviewing, data warehousing, or data processing.

Projects that are tailored specifically to a client’s unique needs.

Skilled research professionals like conducting research better than managing people.

The research management role often is not formally recognized.

Outstanding research professionals often have trouble delegating responsibility.

Research is often seen as a hodgepodge of techniques available to answer individual, unrelated questions.

Composed of individuals from various functional areas such as engineering, production, finance, and marketing who share a common purpose.

>> Help organizations focus on a core business process, such as new-product development.

>> Reduce the tendency for employees to focus single-mindedly on an isolated functional activity.

>> Help to better communicate customers’ desires and opinions across thefirm.

• • Marketing ethics
• >> The application of morals to behavior related to the exchange environment.

• • Moral standards
• >> Principles that reflect beliefs about what is ethical and what is unethical.

• • Ethical dilemma
• >> A situation in which one chooses from alternative courses of actions, each with different ethical implications.

• • Relativism
• >> A term that reflects the degree to which one rejects moral standards in favor of the acceptability of some action.

>> This way of thinking rejects absolute principles in favor of situation-based evaluations.

• • Idealism
• >> A term that reflects the degree to which one bases one’s morality on moral standards.

• Everyone involved in marketing research can face an ethical dilemma:

>> The people actually performing the research—the “doers.”

>> The research client, sponsor, or the management team requesting the research—the “users.”

>> The research participants—the actual research respondents or subjects.

• Each party has certain rights and obligations toward the other parties.

• • Rights:
• >> To be informed
• >> To privacy
• >> Protected from harm

• • Obligations:
• >> To be truthful

• • Informed Consent:
• >> The individual understands what the researcher wants him/her to do and consents to the research study.

• • Confidentiality:
• >> The information involved in the research will not be shared with others.

• • Experimental Designs
• >> Placebo
• i.e.:
• A false experimental effect used to create the perception of a true effect.

• >> Debriefing
• i.e.:
• Research subjects are fully informed and provided with a chance to ask any questions
• they may have about the experiment.

• >> Mystery shoppers
• i.e.:
• Employees of a research firm that are paid to pretend to be actual shoppers.

• • Issues in the client-researcher relationship
• >> Ethical behavior between buyer and seller
• >> An open relationship with research suppliers and interested parties
• >> Privacy rights of research participants

• • The researcher should:
• >> Understand that the purpose of research is research (no sales pitch to research participants)
• >> Maintain objectivity
• >> Not misrepresent research
• >> Be honest in reporting errors
• >> Protect the confidentiality of both subjects and clients

• • Pseudo-research
• >> Conducted not to gather information for marketing decisions but to bolster a point of view and satisfy other needs.

• • Push poll
• >> Telemarketing under guise of research.

• • Service monitoring
• >> Contacting customers about their experience with a product, there is no selling attempt.

Occurs when one researcher works for two competing companies.