Marketing Research

Planning, Process, Practice

Riccardo Benzo, Marwa G. Mohsen, Chahid Fourali

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781526422354
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing Research
• Index: Business

Marketing Research outlines the key principles and skills involved at each step of the marketing research process, providing readers with targeted, practical solutions to a range of issues and equipping them with the tools they need to overcome the common pitfalls of designing research projects. The chapters are arranged into core sections which progress systematically through the marketing research process, starting with designing and setting up research, to undertaking qualitative and quantitative research, and finally, summarizing and reporting research. To aid students in their research project, each chapter features a collection of learning features, such as:

• Case studies and international real-world examples
• Ethics boxes – Highlighting ethical implications in research projects
• Advanced boxes – Signaling more challenging topics students can return to after they have mastered the basics
• Activity boxes – Encouraging students to understand how what they have learned applies to their own experiences

The book is complemented by a range of online resources, including PowerPoint slides, multiple choice questions, free online exercise links, and discussion guides for Case Study & Additional Reading sections. Suitable reading for students who are undertaking a marketing research project.

Part I Setting Up Marketing Research

Chapter 1 Introduction: Adding Value with Marketing Research

Learning Objectives

The key learning objectives of this chapter are:

1. To define marketing research and its key dimensions
2. To appreciate different perspectives in marketing research and their significance
3. To discuss principles of and practices in marketing research
4. To highlight key skills and capabilities for marketing research practitioners

Key Concepts

By the end of this chapter, the reader should be familiar with the following concepts:

1. Complexity and its impact on organisations
2. What marketing research is
3. Basic and applied marketing research
4. Historical perspectives and the significance of marketing research
5. Technology in marketing research: scope and application
6. Creating value with marketing research
7. Attitude, confidence and skills for learners
8. Careers in marketing research

Introduction

Marketing is an essential function in any organisation: it relates to understanding and predicting current and future market trends, potential consumer demand, as well as responding to what stakeholders need and want. Moreover, it is the outward-facing department of a company. This is why learning how to do proper marketing research is critical to anyone studying and practising marketing around the world.

This opening chapter outlines the foundations of marketing research by introducing and clarifying a series of relevant topics in and around the field. More precisely, it deals with the idea of complexity in the modern business environment and how it informs the way companies compete. Key perspectives on the evolution of marketing and marketing research are also presented, together with a discussion of their influence on how research is, could and should be conducted. Continuing on this theme, we explore the impact of technology on the collection, handling, interpretation and use of data, especially considering the increasing ease with which information is now exchanged between different parties. Examples illustrating how to take full advantage of marketing research in relation to the application of its basic principles in a given context are provided.

Learners and non-specialist practitioners should not feel daunted when embarking on the study of marketing research. On the contrary, they should be excited as becoming familiar with a systematic process of discovery is going to enable them to understand their surroundings and how organisations operate within different environments and markets. The purpose is to acquaint you with the building blocks of marketing research and, in so doing, provide you with the practical skills and knowledge to facilitate overall critical reflection.

Marketing research is not a rigid sequence of steps that leads to a definitive conclusion. Rather, it is an iterative process, which requires an open mind and a drive for a holistic (i.e. the ‘bigger picture’) overview – sometimes a project may simply unearth the need for more research. With this in mind, let’s start unpacking marketing research!

Snapshot: Nokia

In November 2011, Nokia executives were preparing to do battle in the highly competitive ‘smartphone’ market (Costa, 2011) while also planning to reinvent their brand to appeal to a youth segment, which had progressively shifted away from the Finnish handset manufacturer. This transformation appeared to be linked to a series of changes from brand principles to empowering local teams, from targeting to product development, and from recruiting marketing talent to innovation.

During Nokia World, Craig Hepburn – Global Director of Digital – reminded the audience that ‘people don’t want you to sell them products any more, they want you to add value to their lives’ (Marketing Week, 2011). This statement was far-reaching in its implications as it meant that the company would effectively need to put more emphasis on social relationships and brand experiences (Joseph, 2011).

In other words, Nokia’s new strategic perspective would aim to exploit commonalities between people around the world as further attention would be paid to understanding how to become more consumer-centric. Research took centre stage ‘on every continent and really looking hard at what Nokia means to [consumers], who they are, what do they aspire to [be], what are their passions and what resonates with them’ (Costa, 2011).

Doubts still remained about the suitability of the partnership with Microsoft, which had been announced just a year earlier, effectively as a result of the appointment to CEO of Steve Elop, previously head of Microsoft’s Business Division (Peacock, 2010). Some analysts were critical of this move as they predicted it would not have the desired effect of allowing both businesses to compete against the might of Apple and Google (Troianowski, Grundberg, and Ante, 2012). It looked like Microsoft had chosen the wrong partner with whom to build a substantial presence in mobile technology.

It seemed as though Nokia had forgotten the words of former CEO Jorma Ollila, who between 1998 and 2001 had anticipated that ‘the convergence of Internet to mobile phones will not lead to one single player becoming master of the universe’. He stated that the key challenge for technology companies at that point was how to remain novel in the face of shorter technological cycles. Highlighting that the full advantage of 3G mobile phone technology was dependent on the number of types of software built into the device, Ollila emphasised the key role played by software in shaping the industry going forward (Malik, 2011).

Nokia prided itself on conducting extensive marketing research to respond to market demands, yet many of its strategic choices from the mid-2000s have been debatable.

Complexity: Breaking Down Research into Manageable Bites

The relationship between management practices and complexity has never been a comfortable one, especially in an environment where control is a critical aspect of managerial activities. This is partly due to the fact that making decisions is far less demanding in a simpler context where fewer variables exist or are taken into account, and partly because of the lack of the necessary support, such as technology.

Complexity The quality of something that is made of many different parts and, as such, is difficult to understand

However, complexity is the norm in the world around us. The conditions in which we operate change, sometimes even suddenly and/or dramatically, bringing about fundamental disruptions as summarised in Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction (Elliot, 1980). More than ever, we need to come to terms with and understand the modern business environment, its evolution and its composition because ‘its collective characteristics cannot easily be predicted from underlying components: the whole is greater than, and often significantly different from, the sum of its parts’ (West, 2013: 14).

This is the reason why organisations need to acknowledge how much harder understanding our surroundings has become. What used to be relatively simple conditions where patterns could be recognised have transformed into complex, interconnected and interdependent systems. As organisations juggle their limited resources, it is reasonable to assume that the gap between what we can know and what we should know is growing ever wider, making us realise the fundamental role of marketing research further.

Companies must thrive despite operating in such complex environments. They need to be able to identify the key supporting aspects of decision making as efficiently and effectively as possible:

• identifying issues (before they become problems)
• solving problems (together with their causes)
• understanding phenomena (about the world around us)
• taking advantage of opportunities
• fending off threats.

This book explains how marketing research can help make sense of a reality that is increasingly hard to grasp and data that are more wide-ranging than ever, thus adding further layers of uncertainty as to what truly matters when designing and implementing strategy. It goes without saying that it is important to be selective in the way that research is conducted. Reflection is paramount because only good questions eventually lead to valuable findings and discoveries, which can aid the process of decision making.

Good marketing research is not just about turning data and information into knowledge. It is about making sure that findings are understood, appreciated and used in as productive a way as possible.

Understanding World Issues

Marketing as a business function provides analytic capability to organisations. Indeed, a business has to deal wi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Table of Contents
• Extended Table of Contents
• About the Authors
• Online Resources
• Part I Setting Up Marketing Research
• Chapter 1 Introduction: Adding Value with Marketing Research
• Chapter 2 Identifying Marketing-Related (Business) Issues
• Chapter 3 Secondary Research: Facts and Theory
• Part II Planning Marketing Research
• Chapter 4 Conceptualising Research: From Secondary to Primary Research
• Chapter 5 Marketing Research Designs
• Chapter 6 Sampling
• Part III Qualitative Research in Marketing
• Chapter 7 Qualitative Research Methods: Elements of a Good Design
• Chapter 8 Determining a Robust Qualitative Research Approach: Reviewing the Methodological and Data-Gathering Options
• Chapter 9 The Merits of Mixed Design Research Methodology: Illustration through Action Research and Case Studies
• Chapter 10 From Theory to Practice: Illustrating the Qualitative Research Process
• Part IV Quantitative Research in Marketing
• Chapter 11 Hypothesis Building and Testing
• Chapter 12 Quantitative Research Methodology
• Chapter 13 Questionnaire Design and Data Preparation for Analysis
• CHapter 14 Data Analysis Using Descriptive and Inferential Statistics
• Part V Reporting Marketing Research
• Chapter 15 Discussing Findings, Drawing Recommendations and Conclusions: Writing the Research Report
• Index