Student Name _______________________

STONEHILL COLLEGE

Fall 2006

BA341 Marketing Research

First Hour Exam

Dr. Geoffrey P. Lantos

Part 1 20 points ______

Part 2 24 points ______

Part 3 65 points ______

Total Points Deducted ______

Total Points Earned 109 points ______

Your Grade ______

PART I: CONCEPTS (20 points - 4 points each)

Please briefly define in your own words, and in one or two sentences, five of the following seven concepts as each relates to marketing research. You may use examples to help clarify your answers where examples are not specifically asked for.

1. Decision support system -

2. The sweet spot -

3. Backward linkage (Define and cite an example) -

4. Syndicated research service -

5. Picture frustration -

6. Data mining –

7. Simmons Market Research Bureau (SMRB) and Mediamark Research Inc. (MRI) -

PART II: DESCRIPTIVE SHORT ANSWERS (24 points)

Please briefly answer the required number of questions for each Section as they relate to marketing research in either a short paragraph or else in outline form—complete sentences need not be used. You may use graphs, figures, charts, equations, etc., where appropriate. Be sure you answer all parts of all questions that you choose to answer. (Questions begin on the next page.)

Section A (4 points): Answer one of the following two 4-point questions

1. (4 points) According to Fortini-Campbell, how will you know when you’ve discovered a consumer insight?

2. (4 points) The first question to ask during the marketing research process is: “Do we even need to conduct marketing research?” Cite the four major considerations for deciding when marketing research is needed.

Section B (12 points): Answer two of the following three 6-point questions

3. (6 points) Explain the difference between the decision-maker’s objectives and the research objectives, including examples of each.

4.( 6 points) What is a professional consumer detective? Cite an example. What is the reasoning behind using professional detectives?

5. (6 points) Cite three examples of internal and proprietary data sources and three examples of external sources of secondary data.

Section C (8 points): Answer one the following two 8-point question

6. (8 points) Marketing research is said to be a science. Cite and briefly describe/explain four criteria a field or discipline should meet in order to be considered scientific. (More room on next page)

7. (8 points) Why is problem definition said to be the most important as well as the most difficult stage in the marketing research process? What can the researcher and manager do to reduce this difficulty?

PART III: APPLIED SHORT ANSWERS (65 points)

Please read the following scenarios and then briefly answer the required number of the following questions for each Section in either a short paragraph or else in outline form—complete sentences need not be used. Be sure to answer all parts of all questions.

Section A (59 points): Answer all of the following questions related to the following case study

Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Measuring Service Quality

Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s executives believe that the company has become the largest rent-a-car company in the U.S. (in terms of number of cars, rental locations, and rental revenue) in a very competitive industry because of its laser-like focus on customer satisfaction. Throughout its history, Enterprise had followed founder Jack Taylor’s advice: If the company takes care of its customers and employees first, profits will follow.

Consequently, Enterprise is careful to track customer satisfaction, a key marketing objective (along with rental revenue and profitability). About one in twenty customers receives a mail survey asking whether the customer was satisfied with his or her recent rental. Each questionnaire consists of a series of 5-point scaled questions (1= very dissatisfied to 5 = very satisfied) about various aspects of the rental service (e.g., friendly employees, quick service, etc.). They were also asked about their basic demographic characteristics (age, household income, etc).

An independent company mailed the surveys, received the results, and analyzed them for Enterprise. Enterprise used the percentage of customers who were completely satisfied to develop its Enterprise Customer Service Quality index (ESQi). It used the survey results to calculate an average ESQi score for the company as well as for each individual branch. These branch scores were used as a consideration in evaluating branch managers for a promotion. Enterprise also asked branch managers to evaluate attitudes and behaviors of key customer contact employees. And, the ESQis were used regarding decisions on customer service, pricing, and product mix.

Required:

1. (4 points) Which of the three basic types of strategic marketing planning process research was Enterprise using in doing the customer satisfaction studies—situation analysis, planning, or control? Explain.

2. (6 points) What evidence is there that Enterprise is practicing the marketing concept? Explain the role of marketing research here.

3. (4 points) What evidence is there that Enterprise is practicing total quality management (TQM)? Explain.

4. (8 points) Structure the decision-making situation in this case by citing an example of each of the following elements of the decision-making situation (make reasonable assumptions where necessary). Briefly explain why each is this type of variable:

(1) Alternative course of action variable

(2) State of nature variable

(3) Outcome variable

(4) Environmental variable

5. (4 points) What type(s) of marketing research (classified by function, not technique) is Enterprise using when conducting the customer satisfaction surveys—exploratory, descriptive, and/or causal? Explain.

6. (3 points) Assuming Enterprise decided to all three types of research (classified by function) over a period of time, what would be the logical chronological progression, i.e., which research types would come first, second, and last? Explain.

7. (4 points) Does the survey research seem to be selective, predictive or evaluative in nature? Explain.

8. (4 points) Which level in Zikmund's continuum of decision making faced Enterprise just before the latest customer satisfaction survey was conducted—certainty, uncertainty, and/or ambiguity? Explain.

9. (12 points) From the information in the case, write a complete statement of each of the following. You might need to make reasonable assumptions beyond information in the case to make some of these statements complete:

a. Decision maker’s objectives

b. Research objectives

c. Marketing management problem definition/problem statement

d. Research questions

10. (8 points) Identify an example of each of the following types of variables in this situation (you can include variables that might not be directly mentioned in this case):

a. A predictor variable

b. A dependent variable

c. A categorical variable

d. A continuous variable

Section B (6 points): Answer one of the following two 6–point questions

11. (6 points) In class we described four degrees of research sophistication which a marketing manager can be characterized as having (we broke out Zikmund's "stage of development" into "stage of blind faith" and "stage of disillusionment"). Which stage is illustrated by each of the following marketing manager comments? Why? What, if anything, would you tell the manager to enlighten him or her in each case?

a. "You know how I make all my important marketing decisions? Gut feel. I can just sense when a decision is right. If I don't feel a peace about an idea, I search for other ideas until I get one I think I can live with."

b. "Marketing research sucks. Last month the research department spewed out a report. The bottom-line recommendations were that I raise the price and pull out of stores with a cheaper image - you know, the K-Marts of the world. Well I did all this, and you know what? Sales are down, profits are down, and my boss is breathing down -- my neck!"

12. (6 points) Which of the following scenarios involves exploratory research? Explain why or why you don't classify each as exploratory research. Which exploratory research method is being used in each case, if any?

a. The Kartoflpuffer Corp. marketing director had a suspicion that her corporate advertising campaign just wasn’t working. But she wasn’t sure how to go about verifying this. To learn more, she held informal discussions with key marketing managers who reported to her, such as the sales manager, new products manager, and manager of customer relations. Additionally, she phoned and probed several friends of hers who worked at various advertising agencies to get their input.

b. Liz Befriends wanted to learn about the frustrations young mothers felt when toilet training their youngsters in order to effectively advertise the pull-up training pants she marketed. So, she interviewed scores of young mothers, asking each to play the part of a child who was being toilet trained by a mother. Liz played the part of the mother. She found that the mothers in the role of children complained about Liz being too demanding of them. She concluded that the mothers were really telling her that they felt guilty about being too hard on their children.