Exam 4: Decision Support Systems and Marketing Research

Erica Cicarelli is an advertising sales representative for BOB,a radio station that has a play list limited to recordings from the 1980s.Cicarelli believes the listener ratings of her station provided by a marketing research company are inaccurate.BOB is ranked ninth in the city.Cicarelli believes her station is more likely ranked at least fifth and possibly higher with young professional listeners.Listener rankings determine the rates Cicarelli can charge for advertising time.Cicarelli decided her station needed to conduct its own ratings study to determine the size of the audience and a profile of current listeners.First,Cicarelli reviewed all data from the current ratings providers to see if she could find any trends in listenership.Next,she completed a background investigation of her station,competitive stations,and the market to determine what the ratings problem may be. Cicarelli then prepared a questionnaire for current and potential listeners.The questionnaire contained a long list of yes/no questions on whether the respondent listens to a specific station.The data were collected via telephone with 1,000 radio listeners using random-digit dialling.Cicarelli chose telephone interviewing because previous research has shown that nearly 100 percent of radio listeners have telephones,and it is faster than mail surveys. -Refer to BOB a Radio Station.The yes/no questions about listening to particular stations are an example of which type of questions?

What are three advantages and three disadvantages inherent in the use of a mail survey? Distinguish between a mail survey and a mail panel.

The Durham Bulls are a Minor League Baseball team.The team plans on using the same questionnaire to determine how its fans would feel about moving the stadium to a new location and how they like the team's newly designed uniforms.What is this research an example of?

CyberAlert,Inc. ,a worldwide media monitoring company,has launched BlogSquirrel,a new service that enables businesses to monitor efficiently the contents of over 100,000 blogs.Subscribers to the blog tracking service automatically receive daily (or more frequent)e-mail alerts on new blog postings that contain the client's specified keywords and phrases.Why would a marketer purchase such a service?

What is one of the two most expensive types of survey research?

When the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra wanted to determine how to make classical music appeal to younger concertgoers,it hired AMN to conduct a survey.What is AMN most likely an example of?

If Canadian Blood Services sent out a questionnaire that included the question,"Why are so many people reluctant to donate blood?" what would it be an example of?

Why would marketing managers typically use marketing research?

Which type of research is the study of human behaviour in its natural condition and often proves that consumers do not do what they say they do,such as how they use a computer or what they watch on television?

What is the first step in the marketing research process?

A manufacturer of bed linens made from 100 percent all-natural fabrics wants to know if the addition of a line of mixed-blend linens would attract current nonusers to its products and cause them to become users.What should it do to research this problem?

Bruno Harkin would like to open a local delivery service in Oakville,,but he has no idea who his competitors might be.Harkin should first use which of the following external sources of competitive intelligence?

A survey by Nelson asked consumers to check where they were most likely to look for information about a new book.Possible answers were book club catalogues,book reviews in newspapers,book reviews in magazines,television programs,friends,radio programs,local reading groups,or the Internet.What type of question was used in this survey?

Post Properties is a company that manages apartments in various communities.It is concerned with a glut of apartments in Toronto,Hamilton,and Kitchener-Waterloo.Its market researcher begins by examining the rental markets in southern Ontario,the history of apartment buildings,local economies,competitive rents,and ownership-all information that was on hand and did not require any new research to locate.What did the market researcher look at?

An engineer from Volkswagen's European headquarters spent three and a half hours on a Greyhound bus to experience the vast distances North Americans travel in their automobiles and to try to understand why North Americans treat their automobiles as rolling extensions of their living rooms. -Refer to Volkswagen.What kind of data did the engineer collect?

Dryel is a Procter & Gamble product that allows consumers to dry-clean their clothes in a dryer.Before launching the product,P&G researchers visited consumers' homes and watched as people sorted laundry,creating piles of darks,whites,delicates,and items that would go to the dry cleaner because the people were unsure how to clean them.What type of research was this?

Stair Specialist,Inc.builds customized circular staircases for homes in Vancouver.Its sales have plateaued.Nothing it does seems to change its sales picture.Its owner has asked you to advise the company on what it should do to increase its sales.Which of the following is an example of primary data that could be used for examining this marketing research problem?

A research company was hired to determine the emotional drivers behind lipstick use.(The results were to be used to create new products. )It conducted a study of 40 women living throughout Canada and ranging in age from 19 to 55.Researchers spent 12 to 15 hours with each subject in an attempt to discover what's working in their lives,what isn't,where they want to be,what they want to do,and what they might want or need in order to live a full life.Which type of research would be used?

Erica Cicarelli is an advertising sales representative for BOB,a radio station that has a play list limited to recordings from the 1980s.Cicarelli believes the listener ratings of her station provided by a marketing research company are inaccurate.BOB is ranked ninth in the city.Cicarelli believes her station is more likely ranked at least fifth and possibly higher with young professional listeners.Listener rankings determine the rates Cicarelli can charge for advertising time.Cicarelli decided her station needed to conduct its own ratings study to determine the size of the audience and a profile of current listeners.First,Cicarelli reviewed all data from the current ratings providers to see if she could find any trends in listenership.Next,she completed a background investigation of her station,competitive stations,and the market to determine what the ratings problem may be. Cicarelli then prepared a questionnaire for current and potential listeners.The questionnaire contained a long list of yes/no questions on whether the respondent listens to a specific station.The data were collected via telephone with 1,000 radio listeners using random-digit dialling.Cicarelli chose telephone interviewing because previous research has shown that nearly 100 percent of radio listeners have telephones,and it is faster than mail surveys. -Refer to BOB a Radio Station.Cicarelli's initial background study of her company,competitors,and market represents which step in the marketing research decision process?

Observers of the supermarket industry see no letup in the use of checkout-counter-based target marketing.Sav-More supermarkets have installed an electronic marketing system in their stores.The system allows the stores to do more direct mail promotions by combining the current Sav-More's cheque-cashing cards with the new Sav-More's Bonus Club frequent-shopper cards.The new system uses bar-code scanners and magnetic cards issued to shoppers to track all purchases.As with most customer databases,demographic information is gathered for subsequent offers to frequent-shopper club members,and psychographic information is tracked whenever customers use the magnetic strip cards to make purchases.Generally,marketing to these consumers achieves better results than free-standing insert (FSI)coupons and flyers. -Refer to Sav-More Supermarkets.Al Edisto,Sav-More's frozen-food manager,decided the best way to determine what is causing the drop in orange juice sales was to conduct a survey among shoppers in the frozen-food section of Sav-More.What is the term for the data Edisto collected?.