Consumer Research

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Chapter 2

• Consumer Research

Consumer Research
2
What Is Consumer Research?

• The systematic methods used by marketers to
  study consumer decisions and exchange processes.

3
Understanding The Consumer

• Information about the purchase situation
• Information about the buyers
• Information about product use
• Information about customer loyalty
• Information about market segments
• Information about customer satisfaction

4
Sources of Information

• Secondary data
• Information or statistics not gathered for the
  immediate study at hand.
• Primary data
• Information or statistics originated by the
  researcher for the purpose of the investigation
  at hand.

5
Methods of Gathering Primary Data

• Observation of consumers
• Via human observers vs. mechanical methods
• Disguised vs. undisguised observation
• Natural vs. contrived observation
• Consumer Surveys Personal intercept telephone
  mail on-line
• Focus groups
• Experiments Lab field
• Test markets
• Consumer panels True vs. omnibus panels

6
Current Issues in Consumer Research

• Using the Internet
• Tracking Internet visitors
• On-line surveys
• Data acquisition
• Receiving advice
• Database marketing
• Maintaining specific information on prospects
• Data mining
• Sifting through mounds of data for meaningful
  relationships

7
Station Break

• Firms today are increasingly developing profiles
  of their customers in their databases.
• Learn more about database marketing by visiting
  www.db-marketing.com and www.neovista.com
• What do you think about the privacy issue
  associated with database marketing?

8
Ethical Issues in Consumer Research

• Protecting participants
• Avoiding deception
• Informing participants
• Honoring promises of confidentiality

9
Ethical Issues Protecting Participants

• Researchers have the obligation of protecting
  participants from any physical or psychological
  harm.

10
Ethical Issues Avoiding Deception

• Consumers are often victims of deceit
  practiced by some unscrupulous marketers and
  fund-raisers who, under the guise of conducting
  research, attempt to sell them something or
  solicit donations to some cause.

11
Station Break

• Many companies conduct focus groups which involve
  children.
• Visit the web site of FocusVision at
  www.focusvision.com It is a company that employs
  children to moderate focus group sessions.
• Discuss the ethical issues you feel are
  associated with such practice.
• Do you approve of kid-moderated focus groups? Why
  or why not?

12
Motivation Research

• Explores the why aspects of human behavior
  with qualitative rather than quantitative
  research approaches.

13
Revealing Respondents Hidden Motives

• Projective Techniques
• Subjects project themselves in a scene to
  interpret it hence reveal their own feelings.
• Association Tests
• The immediacy of subjects responses to stimulus
  words or phrases works to curtail their
  self-censorship.
• Other Techniques
• Subjects picture choices reveal their
  stereotypical perceptions.

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Forms of Projective Techniques

• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• Subjects interpret a photograph depicting a
  consumer-related activity
• Cartoons
• Subjects interpret a drawing or provide a missing
  portion of a dialog between its characters
• Verbal Projectives
• Subjects interpret, explain, or complete a
  situation described verbally to them

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Forms of Association Tests

• Free Word Associations
• Seeks immediate word responses that a subject
  utters after hearing a stimulus
• Controlled and Chain Word Associations
• Seeks to discover subjects specific consumption
  habits or associated thought patterns
• Sentence Completions
• Incomplete sentences are completed with first
  thought that comes to a subjects mind

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Other Motivation Research Techniques

• Picture-sorting Technique
• Subjects stereotyping is revealed as they sort
  out a stack of specially designed pictures
• Shopping List Technique
• Subjects surmise the type of person who buys
  items appearing on a shopping list
• Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET)
• Subjects provide pictures that express their
  feelings about a topic or situation