Marketing Research: key to

understanding customers better

Module 2
How marketing research helps Marketers
1. Helps identify new product opportunities: for e.g.: Lego unveiled its
line of toys specifically tailored to the playing needs of girls. These new
toys were designed as per the customer requirements.
2. Helps identify product features customers prefer: Through regular MR,
Apple came up with different designs and modifications of Apple
products. Such modifications include having bigger screens to view
videos and games more clearly.
3. Helps understand changing needs of customers and improve product
offerings accordingly: Through MR, McDonald’s understood customers’
growing concern for health and introduced healthier options in its
menu.
4. Helps track brand health:
• Here’s a measurement of Brand Awareness:
 How many customers recognize a brand: Brand
Recognition
 How many customers remember/recall a brand
within a product category?: Brand Recall
 How many customers know about a brand: Brand
knowledge
• In this example, Brand B has highest brand
awareness: marketing implication: It should
maintain high brand awareness
• Brands F and below have particularly low brand
awareness: These brands need to invest more in
building brand awareness
4(ii): Helps track Brand Health:
• In this example, an attempt is made to measure
Brand Image: The associations that come to
customers’ minds when they think of a brand.
• Here, a customers mostly view Brand D as
“outdoorsy’, ‘down to earth’ and ‘reliable’.
Customers also agree the brand is ‘spirited’ and to a
lesser extent, ‘charming’.
• This brand seems to have a positive brand image
especially if it is in the product category of jeans, a 4
wheel drive or sports shoes.
• If the brand management wants the brand to be
viewed more as ‘Charming’, it needs to change the
current brand image as currently, the brand is not
viewed by customers as ‘charming’
Marketing problems
A. You are a marketing manager for shampoos in a major MNC. You
are to launch a new brand of shampoo. How would you go about it?
What market related information would you need to launch a new
brand of shampoo successfully?
B. The sales of your brand of mobile phone have been declining for
sometime. What market information would you need to try to
revive the sales of your mobile phone?
C. Your restaurant is witnessing customers not returning to your
restaurant. How would you use marketing research to save this
situation?
A. You are a marketing manager for shampoos in a major MNC. You are to launch a new brand of shampoo. How
would you go about it? What market related information would you need to launch a new brand of shampoo
successfully?
Market Research can be carried out to collect market information of the following:
1. Shampoo market data: how big is the shampoo market, at what rate is the shampoo market growing; who are the major players/competitors?; what
segments exist and are forming in the market?
2. Current shampoo portfolio analysis: what shampoo brands are you currently offering? Which needs do your current shampoo brands fulfill? How are
current shampoo brands doing? Is there any gap in the current shampoo portfolio?
3. What do customers want in a shampoo? What are their preferences in the shampoo brands available? What is the customer satisfaction levels for the
shampoo brands currently available in the market? Are there any need gaps: needs which no shampoo brand is currently satisfying?

Implications of the above research questions:

 If the answers to question set (1) suggest the segments for shampoos include beauty, dryness, strong hair, dandruff care and suggests a smaller but
growing segment of ‘colour protection’, the new shampoo brand can be designed such that it has hair colour protection properties.
 If answer to question set (1) suggest that most competition cater to the need of ‘beauty’ at medium to low prices, suggesting a gap in the ‘colour
protection’ segment at higher prices, there is an opportunity for a ‘colour protection’ shampoo that also offers multiple hair health benefits, at a premium
price, a price which may signal higher value to customers.
Current shampoo portfolio analysis may suggest if any gaps are evident. For instance, if the current portfolio shows there are no brands the company is
offering in the ‘protect hair colour’ category and the answers to question set (1) shows there is growing demand for such shampoos as more and more
customers are colouring their hair, you may think of adding a new hair colour protection shampoo.
 Answer to Question set (3) would, perhaps be the most important. Understanding what are the current and evolving customers needs for shampoos
would help launch a new shampoo which matches customer needs. A new shampoo which matches customer needs not being fulfilled by any other brand
currently stands a higher change for success.
B . The sales of your brand of mobile phone have been declining for sometime. What market
information would you need to try to revive the sales of your mobile phone?
Some information to collect:
Which stage of the PLC is the product in?
How are customers using mobile phones?-for what purposes- does out mobile phone brand
help customers fit well with current and evolving customer usage of phones?
How are customer needs changing?
What is the current competition like?
Which competing brand sales are increasing?
What features do the customers seek in a mobile phone: does out brand of mobile phone
fulfill these customer requirements satisfactorily?
What product improvements are needed for our phone?
C. Your restaurant is witnessing customers not returning to your
restaurant. How would you use marketing research to save this
situation?
What do customers prefer in their restaurant dining experience?
Which features are wanted to a higher extent and which to a lower
extent?
How are we doing in each of the features customers look for in their
restaurant dining experience?: Customer Satisfaction
Features Weightage Rating (on a Rating(on a Score: our Competitio
(on a scale scale of 10)- scale of 10: score n score
of 10) our competition
restaurant )
Food quality 8 5 7 40 56
Ambience 8 4 8 32 64
Price 5 6 5 30 25
Overall score 102 145
• The examples further show:
• Market research can help in:
1. Introduction of a new product: as in the case of a new shampoo
brand
2. Reviving sales of a product facing declining sales: as in the case of
the mobile phone
3. Measuring customer satisfaction: as in the case of the restaurant
 The Marketing Research Process
1. Define the research problem or research objectives:
• Marketing problems are different from Market research problems/objectives.
• For e.g: in the restaurant case, in Caselet (C ),the restaurant’s marketing problem was customers not returning which meant
decline in revenue growth. “Why are our customers not returning?”
• The marketing research problem or objective may be stated as:
i. To measure current customer satisfaction levels
ii. To measure brand image
iii. To assess our restaurant performance against competing restaurants’.
• American Airlines has to take a decision on whether to provide high speed Wifi at $25 in their flight from Chicago to Tokyo.
• This is a marketing decision or marketing problem the answer to which has to be provided by Market research.
• This marketing decision or Marketing Problem may be specified by marketing managers in following questions:
i. Should American Airlines offer ultra high speed wifi service?
ii. If so, should it offer it to first class only or include business class and possibly economy class?
iii. What prices should be charged?
iv. On what types of places and lengths of trips should the service be offered?
• The Marketing research problem or objectives may be as follows:
i. What type of passengers would respond most favourable to ultra speed Wi-Fi service?
ii. How important is ultra high speed WiFi service to passengers and for which type of flights?
iii. How many are likely to use it at different price levels?
iv. How many might choose American Airlines because of this new service?
v. How much long term goodwill will this service add to American Airline’s image?
Step 2: Develop the Research Plan:
• Development of the most efficient and reliable plan for gathering the needed information
• Research plan includes:
i. Data sources: Researchers may collect information from primary sources, secondary
sources or both
ii. Research approaches: primary data can be collected via these main ways: observation,
focus groups, surveys, depth interviews and experiments.
iii. Research instruments: Marketing researchers have to decide whether to use
Questionnaires or not and if so, what kind of questions would be asked: Closed ended
or open ended?; Rating scales or ranking scales?; what wordings?
iv. Sampling plans: who to collect information from. How many respondents to include in
the research? Decisions on sampling unit; sampling technique; sample size.
Surveys: Collecting Demographic
details
 Ranking:
Rank the following from 1 to 5 in terms of
how important these factors are in your
purchase decision of a mobile phone:
Factors Rank (1 to 5,
where 1 means is
first in terms of
importance and 5
is last in terms of
importance. )

Brand name

Questionnaire: Open ended and close ended questions; Price

Rating and Ranking Large screen
High quality
camera
Longer lasting
battery
Example of a rating scale to measure customer satisfaction
Research Approaches
• Surveys:
Companies undertake surveys to understand people’s knowledge, beliefs, preferences,
satisfaction levels, etc.
Surveys involve preparing questionnaires and having the respondents fill the questionnaire.
• Observation Research:
Researchers can gather customer information by observing unobtrusively as consumers
shop or use products.
Sometimes customers are equipped with writing pads and asked to write about what they
are doing whenever prompted.
Some retailers use video-cameras to record how customers shop,
In its 1000s of retail stores, T-Mobile, can track how people move around, how long they
stand in front of displays, and which phones they select and how.
• Focus Group Research:
A focus group is a gathering of 6 to 10 people who are carefully selected based on
demographics, psychographics or other considerations and convened to discuss
various topics at length and in detail.
A moderator guides the discussion by asking questions and probes the focus group
members to uncover customers’ real motivations and reasons they say and do
certain things.
In the case of American Airlines, a focus group can be organized to understand why
customers fly, what motivates them to choose a particular airline, how they describe
a pleasing flying experience, their thoughts, opinions and preferences for ultra speed
Wi-fi connection on long flights.
Focus group interviews are often followed by surveys.
• Experiments:
Best suited for causal research , experimental research calls for selecting matched groups of respondents,
subjecting them to different treatments, controlling extraneous variables, and analyzing the observed
results.
Causal research means finding if select independent variables such as packaging, colour, price have an
impact on dependent variable such as positive customer attitude or sales.
For e.g, a marketer may be interested in knowing the impact of a new packaging or new price would have
on customer purchase decision.
A research may be conducted to compare customer purchase with old package and old price and then the
purchase decision of the same respondents with new package and new price.
E.g. Sales with old packaging; Rs. 1000; Sales with new packing : Rs. 2000 which may suggest the new
packaging is more effective in generating higher sales. Or two sets of respondents may be studied: one set
of respondent exposed to old packaging and their purchases recorded and the other set exposed to the
new packaging and their purchases recorded. A comparison is made between purchase of the two
respondent sets.
 EXPERIMENT 1
EXPERIMENT 2

A B

C
TEA IN RED OUTLET 1, Sales= Rs.
J PACKAGING WHERE TEA IN 2200
D RED PACKAGING
TEA IN YELLOW IS STORED
PACKAGING
I
E
OUTLET 2,
H F WHERE TEA IN SALES= Rs.
G
YELLOW 1000
PACKAGING IS
STORED

TEA IN YELLOW PACKAGING IS

CHOSEN BY 6 RESPONDENTS;
TEA IN RED PACKAGING IS
CHOSEN BY 4 RESPONDENTS
• Depth Interviews:
A lengthy, non-structured interview(often of 20-60 mins) between a single respondent and a highly
skilled trained researcher
The interviewer asks probing questions and while minimizing his own talking time, provides as much
time as possible for the customer being interviewed to express his or her own thoughts and behaviours.
For instance, in the MTR- a major brand in ready to eat, ready to cook foods is interested to understand
customer attitude towards ready to eat and ready to cook foods.
Have you used ready to eat/ready to cook foods?
Why/why not?
What do you think of ready to eat/ready to cook foods?
Do you see any benefits in ready to eat/ready to cook foods?
[if the respondent says: “ its easy. Its hassle-free”… since, this is an unstructured interview, the
interviewer can probe further by asking “ what do you mean by ‘hassle-free’; ‘easy’ in terms of ready to
eat/ready to cook?”
Would you serve ready to eat/ready to cook food to your family?
Why/why not?
What do you think of women who use ready to eat/ready to cook foods?
What makes you think this way about them?
• Depth interviews provide marketers with valuable insights about product design or redesign, and with
insights on positioning and repositioning. (insights on positioning and repositioning can be achieved by
assessing what a brand means to a customer)
• In an in-depth interview, interviewer uses a variety of stimulus materials to enhance the discussion
between the researcher and respondent
• This stimulus material may include written concept statements (describing a new product idea); pictures
or photos; actual product samples; print Ads or snippets of TV commercials.
• Step 3: Collect the information:
Questionnaire
Through phone
Personal interviewing
• Step 4: Analyse the information:
Analyse the responses such that in the case of American Airlines, data can be expressed in the following
manner:
What % of people said they would like to have ultra speed Wi-Fi in their flights
What is the average rating of services provided by American Airlines
What is the average customer satisfaction rating with American Airlines
What is the average rating for a rating scale used in the questionnaire: “ I would use Wifi on long flights if
provided” (rate on a scale of 1 to 5 such that 1 means ‘completely disagree’ and 5 means ‘strongly agree’ ; “ I
would like to pay $15-$25 for such a service” (rate on a scale of 1 to 5 such that 1 means ‘completely
disagree’ and 5 means ‘strongly agree)
• Step 5: Present the findings in the form of a report.
Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique
(ZMET)
• ZMET is a pioneering technique that for over 20 years has revealed what is hidden even from consumers' themselves -- their
unconscious thoughts, feelings, needs and desires.
• When you know what was unknown, you have a comprehensive map to connect deeply with your consumers.
• People usually don't know why they do what they do. A ZMET interview gives consumers a safe place to explore the deeply
personal feelings and beliefs that unconsciously shape their behavior.
• The study participants collect images that represent their thoughts and feelings in response to a strategically crafted topic
prompt.
• Those images are the jumping off point for an intense, soul-searching conversation with a trained and certified ZMET
interviewer. The interview taps a bottomless well of unconscious beliefs, experiences, and emotions.
• Careful analysis of your consumers' images and metaphoric language reveals the unconscious mental orientations that
guide their choices.
• For example: A customer may be asked if he would purchase Nike. The respondent may give a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ as an answer.
This does not provide much details
• Marketers would like to know the subconscious meanings of Nike that the customer may hold in his mind that make him
decide whether or buy Nike or not.
• The researcher may ask the respondent to collect images that he relates to Nike
• These images or metaphors help to understand the respondents hidden meaning for the brand Nike and reveals reasons
why the respondent may or may not buy Nike
ZMET used for
understanding customer
perceptions for the brand,
Nike
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• A projective technique where participants are presented with one or
more pictures or cartoons that depict a situation. They are asked to
suggest what will happen or what one character may be saying or
thinking in response to another character or a situation.
• Bubble Test: A projective technique where participants are presented
with one or more pictures or cartoons that depict a situation. They
are asked to suggest what will happen or what one character may be
saying or thinking in response to another character or a situation.
 An attempt to receive customer’s
feedback

A study on behaviour
and preferences for
KFC bucket of chicken
versus frying the
chicken by oneself An understanding
of customer’s real
opinions on a new
packaging
introduced
TAT: presenting a picture to understand the customer’s mind:
This picture could help understand customer’s attitude towards milk.
The respondent can be asked to share what he assumes / feels about the
two women in the picture.
He can be asked to share a story about the two women and milk.
He can be asked to share what he thinks each of the two women think This picture can be shown to respondents to
about milk and how their milk consumption is different and why elicit their attitude towards elderly people.
Respondents can be asked to tell a story of
what is happening based on the picture.
Respondent can be asked to make and share a A TAT asking respondent what the man
story based on this picture to reveal his attitude in the picture might be thinking/share a
towards traveling by train. story based on this picture- may help to
understand respondent’s perception of
himself-his self concept