- To Understand the Importance of Consumer Research for Firms and Their Brands, as Well as Consumers. -To Navigate Steps in the Consumer Research Process using Models & Frameworks. - To Explain the Importance of Establishing Specific Research Objectives as the First Step in the Design of a Consumer Research Project.

1. Consumer Behavior
The Consumer
Research
Process
Marc Wachtfogel, Ph.D.
Chapter 2

2. Learning Objectives
1. To Understand the Importance of Consumer Research for
Firms and Their Brands, as Well as Consumers.
2. To Articulate the Steps in the Consumer Research Process.
3. To Explain the Importance of Establishing Specific Research
Objectives as the First Step in the Design of a Consumer
Research Project.
Note: Digital Marketing, Data & Analytics will be covered in a different section.
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Chapter Two Slide 2

3. Dare
To
Be
Different!

4. Market research is often needed to ensure that we
produce what customers really want and not what
we think they want.
Photo: AOL
The primary goal of consumer research is to produce
knowledge about consumer behavior (Calder & Tybout, 1987).

5. The Trends Report

6. The Consumer Value Framework (CVF) Babin & Harris
External and internal factors contribute to the formulation of self-concept and lifestyle, which
affects the consumer decision process. During this process, experiences and acquisitions update
the original external and internal influences.

7. Why Do Marketers Regularly Test Print Ads Like This
Before They Are Placed in the Media?
Chapter Two Slide 7

8. To Test the Impact of the Message Before Spending
Large Amounts of Money
Four out of every five new products will fail in the marketplace.
Chapter Two Slide 8

9. The Importance of the Consumer Research Process
• Marketers must understand customers
to design effective:
– marketing strategies
– products
– promotional messages
Chapter Two Slide 9
One of the biggest mistakes people make in
business is spending money on product
development BEFORE test marketing the idea.
Testing your product/service idea is your key
to success in marketing.

10. The Consumer Research Process
Figure 2.2
Chapter Two Slide 10

11. Developing Research Objectives
• It is extremely important that research objectives
are determined at the beginning of the process.
• Defining purposes and objectives helps ensure an
appropriate research design.
• A written statement of objectives helps to define the
type and level of information needed.
• Without this agreed-upon roadmap for the research,
money can easily be wasted and research objectives
not fulfilled.
Chapter Two Slide 11

12. Discussion Questions
• Assume you are planning to open a new pizza
restaurant near campus.
– What are three objectives of your research plan
for your new business?
– How would you gather the data?
Chapter Two Slide 12

13. The Consumer Research Process
MMaarrkkeettiinngg rreesseeaarrcchh:
– Market research methods fall into two categories –
Primary and Secondary Research
– Primary research is gathered to answer a specific
marketing question
- You are gathering the data
- Varies based on the problem you are solving
– Secondary research is already gathered for some other
purpose
Chapter Two Slide 13

14. Primary Research Techniques
What do customers think of a new version of a popular product?
• To collect primary data a business must carry out field research. The
main methods of field research are:
• Product Tests
• Ethnographic Tests (i.e. observational)
• Face-to-face interviews
• Telephone interviews
• Online surveys
• Questionnaires
• Focus groups and consumer panels – a small group of people meet
together with a “facilitator” who asks the panel to examine a product
and then asks in depth questions. This method is often used when a
business is planning to introduce a new product or brand name.
In most cases it is not possible to ask all existing or potential customers -
So primary research makes use of surveys and sampling to obtain valid
results.

15. What are some of the advantages of
using primary research?
What are the disadvantages?

16. Advantages and Disadvantages of Primary
Research
The main advantages of primary research and data are that it is:
• Up to date.
• Specific to the purpose – asks the questions the business wants answers to.
• Collects data which no other business will have access to (the results are
confidential).
• In the case of online surveys and telephone interviews, the data can be
obtained quite quickly (think about how quickly political opinion polls come
out).
The main disadvantages of primary research are that it:
• Can be difficult to collect and/or take a long time to collect.
• Is expensive to collect.
• May provide mis-leading results if the sample is not large enough or chosen
with care; or if the questionnaire questions are not worded properly.

17. What is the difference between qualitative
and quantitative market research?

18. Quantitative v. Qualitative Market Research
Quantitative Research:
• By definition, measurement must be objective, quantitative and statistically
valid. Simply put, it's about numbers, objective hard data.
– A scientifically calculated sample of people from a population is asked a set of
questions on a survey to determine the frequency and percentage of their
responses.
Qualitative Research:
• Qualitative research, is much more subjective than quantitative research
and uses very different methods of collecting information, mainly individual,
in-depth interviews and focus groups. The nature of this type of research is
exploratory and open-ended.
– Participants are asked to respond to general questions, and the interviewer or
group moderator probes and explores their responses to identify and define
peoples' perceptions, opinions and feelings.

19. Marketing Research - Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches (Examples: focus groups and surveys)
What is a Focus Group?
• A qualitative research tool
• Focus groups are "small group discussions, addressing a
specific topic, which usually involve 6-12 participants, either
matched or varied on specific characteristics of interest to the
researcher". (Fern, 1982; Morgan & Spanish, 1984).
• Focus groups require skilled facilitators or moderators to guide
the discussion and maintain the focus. They are found to be
most effective for learning about opinions and attitudes, pilot
testing materials for assessments and generating
recommendations.

20. Focus Group For Advertisement
What did you think? Did it work well?

21. Focus Groups
ADVANTAGES:
▪ Relatively easy to assemble, inexpensive and flexible in terms of format,
▪ Open recording allows participants to confirm their contributions
▪ Provide rich data through direct interaction
▪ Spontaneous, participants not required to answer every question; able to build on one
another's responses;
LIMITATIONS:
▪ Findings may not represent the views of larger segments
▪ Requires good facilitation skills, including ability to handle various roles people may
play (“expert”, “quiet”, “outsider’, “friend”)
▪ Tough rich, data may be difficult to analyze because it is unstructured
▪ Possible conformance, censoring, conflict avoidance, or other unintended outcomes of
the group process need to be addressed as part of the data analysis (Carey, 1995)

23. Marketing Research – Surveys
Quantitative Analytics
Surveys – descriptive.
• Why is consumption falling?
• Who are the consumers of our brand?
• What do they think about it?
• When do they use it?
• How do they use it?
QQuueessttiioonn ttyyppeess:
– SSccaallaarr qquueessttiioonnss: answered by some sort of scale
• “On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you like this book?”
– DDiicchhoottoommoouuss qquueessttiioonnss: only two possible choices
• “Have you shopped here before?”
– CCaatteeggoorriiccaall qquueessttiioonnss: answered by selecting the category
• “What is your ethnicity?”
– OOppeenn--eennddeedd qquueessttiioonnss: allows respondents to express themselves

25. Surveys
Advantages:
• Surveys are relatively inexpensive (especially self-administered surveys).
• Surveys are useful in describing the characteristics of a large population. No
other method of observation can provide this general capability.
• They can be administered from remote locations using mail, email or
telephone.
Limitations:
• A methodology relying on standardization forces the researcher to develop
general questions
• Surveys are inflexible in that they require the initial study design (the tool
and administration of the tool) to remain unchanged throughout the data
collection.
• The researcher must ensure that a large number of the selected sample will
reply.

26. Survey Bias
• Surveys, as any kind of research, are vulnerable to
bias.
• The wording of a question can influence the
outcome a great deal.
• For example, more people answered no to the
question, should speeches against democracy be
allowed, than answered yes to the question should
speeches against democracy be forbidden.

27. Discussion Questions
Personal Privacy
• Many people do not like the fact that their
personal data are used for marketing.
• How can marketers justify their need for data?
• How can they acquire data and maintain
customer privacy?
Chapter Two Slide 27

28. Discussion Guides for Research
• Discussion guides are an important
part of focus groups and depth
interview.
• They provide an agenda for the
session and help ensure that the
researcher’s objectives that were
established for the research plan
are met.
• Some interviewers follow the guide
exactly, but most will “go with the
flow” and let the participants partly
drive the direction of the research.
Chapter Two Slide 28

29. Focus Group Discussion Guide - Figure 2.4
Chapter Two Slide 29

30. Qualitative Collection Method
Projective Techniques
• Research procedures designed to identify
consumers’ subconscious feelings and underlying
motivations
• Consist of a variety of disguised “tests”
Chapter Two Slide 30

31. Common Projective Exercises
Table 2.1 (excerpt)
Description
Word
Associations
The researcher has a list of words, some of them to be studied and some
just as “filler.” The researcher asks the respondent(s) to react, one-at-a
time, to each word by stating or (in a focus group setting) writing on a
pad the first word that comes to mind, and to explain the link.
Sentence
Completion
The researcher has a series of incomplete sentences that the
respondent(s) needs to complete with a word or phrase.
Photo/Visual
for
Storytelling
The researcher creates/selects a series of photos of consumers, different
brands or products, range of print ads, etc., to serve as stimuli. The
respondents are asked to discuss or tell a story based on their response
to a photo or some other visual stimulus.
Role Playing Is quite similar to storytelling; however, instead of telling a story, the
participant(s) will be given a situation and asked to “act out” the role(s),
often with regard to a product or brand, or particular selling situation.
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Two Slide 31

32. Qualitative Collection Method
Metaphor Analysis
• Based on belief that metaphors are the most
basic method of thought and communication
• Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique
(ZMET) combines collage research and
metaphor analysis to bring to the surface the
mental models and the major themes or
constructs that drive consumer thinking and
behavior.
Chapter Two Slide 32

33. Qualitative Collection Method
“Looking-In”
• Look at information from threads and postings on social
media.
• Methodology to capture consumers’ experiences, opinions,
forecasts, needs, and interests
Chapter Two Slide 33

34. Data Collection Methods
Table 2.2
Mail Telephone Personal
Interview
Online
Cost Low Moderate High Low
Speed Slow Immediate Slow Fast
Response rate Low Moderate High Self-selected
Geographic
Excellent Good Difficult Excellent
flexibility
Interviewer
bias
N/A Moderate Problematic N/A
Interviewer
Supervision
N/A Easy Difficult N/A
Chapter Two Slide 34

35. Validity and Reliability
It is important for research to be both valid and reliable.
• It is only with these two characteristics that you can ensure
that the data you have collected is useful for the purpose and
can be expanded from the sample to the population
•Validity asks the question of whether the data is really applying
to the objectives you have set.
•Reliability tells you, the researcher, if the results would be
repeated if conducted on a similar group at the same time.
Chapter Two Slide 35

36. Sampling and Data Collection
• Samples are a subset of the population used
to estimate characteristics of the entire
population.
• A sampling plan addresses:
– Whom to survey
– How many to survey
– How to select them
• Researcher must choose probability or
nonprobabililty sample.
Chapter Two Slide 36

37. Data Analysis and Reporting Findings
• Open-ended questions are coded and quantified.
• All responses are tabulated and analyzed.
• Final report includes executive summary, body,
tables, and graphs.
Chapter Two Slide 37

38. Types of Secondary Data
Internal Data
• Data generated in-house
• May include analysis of
customer files
• Useful for calculating
customer lifetime value
External Data
• Data collected by an outside
organization
• Includes federal
government, periodicals,
newspapers, books, search
engines
• Commercial data is also
available from market
research firms
Chapter Two Slide 38

39. Customer Satisfaction Measurement
• Customer Satisfaction
Surveys
– Analysis of Expectations
versus Experience
• Mystery Shoppers
• Customer Complaint
Analysis
Chapter Two Slide 39

40. Probing Options for Interviews
Figure 2.3
Chapter Two Slide 40

41. Attitude Scales
Chapter Two Slide 41

42. Marketing Research –Surveys
Quantitative Analytics
Surveys – descriptive.
• Why is consumption falling?
• Who are the consumers of our brand?
• What do they think about it?
• When do they use it?
• How do they use it?
QQuueessttiioonn ttyyppeess:
– SSccaallaarr qquueessttiioonnss: answered by some sort of scale
• “On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you like this book?”
– DDiicchhoottoommoouuss qquueessttiioonnss: only two possible choices
• “Have you shopped here before?”
– CCaatteeggoorriiccaall qquueessttiioonnss: answered by selecting the category
• “What is your ethnicity?”
– OOppeenn--eennddeedd qquueessttiioonnss: allows respondents to express themselves

43. Marketing guru Seth Godin spells out
why, when it comes to getting our
attention, bad or bizarre ideas are
more successful than boring ones.

44. Case Study
• Neutrogena is a manufacturer of personal care products for
young adults, The company would like to extend its facial
cleansers product line. Design (1) a qualitative and (2) a
quantitative research design for the company focused on this
objective.
Deep Clean Gentle Scrub
Deep Clean Gentle Scrub contains Beta Hydroxy
proven to clean deep down into pores.
This daily scrub deep cleans below the surface, yet
is gentle enough to use every day. Microbeads
gently exfoliate surface skin while Beta Hydroxy
cleans deep into pores for soft, smooth skin.
Oil-free Non-comedogenic (won't clog pores)

45. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not
freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more
dissatisfied.
Does more choice lead to more freedom?