Marketing Research (MKT 470.

8) – Final Assessment

Date of submission: September 08, 2020

Submitted to:
Mr. Rafsan Elahi (RfE)
Senior Lecturer, Department of Marketing & International Business
School of Business & Economics, North South University

Submitted by:

No. Name ID
1 Abu Farhad Romel 1431120030

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Table of Contents

Answer to question number 1:................................................................................................................ 3

Answer to Question Number 2 ................................................................................................................ 7

Answer to Question Number 3 .............................................................................................................. 12

Answer to Question Number 4 .............................................................................................................. 16

References ................................................................................................................................................. 18

Originality Report: Plagiarism .............................................................................................................. 20

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Answer to question number 1:

Secondary data refers to the data that has been collected from sources which were already
existing. The data is primary already available from researches by primary sources and made
readily available for usage through secondary data search. This data could be from a
researcher who conducted a research or collected for previous purpose. It could also be
different facts which are available for variety of segments.

An online electronic secondary data search refers to fetching data available online through
different sources including online journals, newspapers, social media, online magazines,
government data center etc.

In case of this online electronic secondary data search, I will be conducting the secondary
search from sources including social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, online
newspaper sources, government sources, online magazines and through tag searches in the
online media to collect certain evidences or data which will help to understand the variables
better. This will enable to make the decision in a more logical and rational manner, of
opening up the casual dining restaurant. In terms of my local community, the two areas I
would choose are:

1. Segunbagicha, Ramna, Dhaka. (Ward 23)

2. Khilgaon, Rampura, Dhaka. (Ward 53)

The electronic data search in this case scenario of opening up a casual dining restaurant will
include searches on variables like demographic characteristics, psychographic
characteristics, socio-economic characteristics, competitive analysis, customer types &
buying patterns or consumption patterns, media consumption & behavior to promotions,
price-sensitivity etc. The data has been collected for both the areas of local community and
the analysis is given below with two of the localities in comparison with each other:

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 Variables of Segunbagicha, Ramna, Dhaka Khilgaon, Rampura, Dhaka
Research (Ward 23). (Ward 53).
Demographic Population wise this area is lagging Population wise denser area.
characteristics behind the other. People in this area People in this area are not as
are socio-economically better in socio-economically better.
most perspective. Mostly consists of Targeted by mostly young
people from Socio-Economic class A people of socio-economic class
& B. Rents & property price can be B & C. Residential property is
an indicator for that, which is quite cheap, however commercial
high in this case scenario. The property is expensive due to
population aspires luxury to some increasing number of
extent and household incomes are restaurants & cafés. People
significantly better. People from from this area are mostly
this area are usually top youth and comes from diverse
government officials, bankers, backgrounds.
artists, business persons etc.

Psychographic They are rather more luxury aspiring The people in this area are
characteristics and tend to focus more on lifestyle. mostly youth seeking
Due to the existence of various affordability and tend to
famous sites including Bangla switch preferences a lot due
Academy, Art Galleries, Shilpakala to different options being
Academy, cultural values & lifestyle there in a much smaller
seeking people from across the city area. These people are not
come here (Dhaka Tribune, n.d.). usually the target audience
More than affordability, they seek for fine/casual dining.
convenience & quality.
Socio-Economic Property rent, values and location Property prices are
Characteristics wise, this area is quite expensive in comparatively lower in this
comparison to Khilgaon as per case scenario. People tend
research from property sites from to earn less with lower
Bikroy.com. People tend to earn more income per capital, and
and income per capita is significantly seeks affordability than
higher. luxury.

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 Competitive There are approximately 15 There are more than 30
Analysis restaurants & café in this area and restaurants & café in this area
are mostly selling local food with and few affordable & cheap
three casual dining restaurants. dining restaurants. The
The population here seeks quality population here can be easily
& convenience. Competition is pleased with affordability. Since
comparatively less and there is most of the population is youth,
opportunity to target various it will not be feasible for
customers from offices, families, fine/casual dining.
corporates, government etc.
Geographic This area is more pleasing and This area is rather more
Characteristics soothing with less crowd. Suitable crowded and not very soothing
for families, formal dinner & to spend time. Suitable for
corporates/meetings. People from youth mostly. People from
across the city come here due to around the locality only tend to
the culture, heritage and is close come here and is close to many
to most offices in Dhaka. schools/colleges.
Price Customers in this area are not very Customers here are quite price
Sensitivity sensitive to price and the sensitive due to a lot of options
switching is usually low. People available. Therefore, switching is
tend to stick to one choice, if they very high among consumers.
really like the place, in this case
restaurant.
Customer types Most customers in this area looks Most of the customers here look
& consumption for something different and for affordable food and there is
patters something that resonates culture, not a lot of attraction in this
heritage etc. As this area is one of location apart from the youth.
the most culturally active places in This area is known for cheap
Dhaka, people from across the city and affordable food and people
comes to visit and looks out for come here with this objective
places to eat. Since most of the only. Consumption levels are
population are young adults & very high, but customers tend to
adults, they prefer quality along switch a lot and thus low levels
with convenience. Consumption of loyalty.
levels are quite high with loyalty.
Media Media consumption is high Media consumption is very
consumption among the population. However, high, since mostly youth and are
& behavior to people are not very sensitive to very sensitive to sales
promotions sales promotion, as they seek promotions. They seek
quality over quantity in most case affordability and switches very
scenarios easily.

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Casual dining restaurants are mostly for families, official meetings, formal parties, dinner
programs, small wedding programs, large gatherings and of similar purpose in nature. These
types of restaurants tend to be more expensive that fast food restaurants or coffee shops.
The target audiences also tend to be adult and high-income earners & tend to come from
socio-economic class A & B only. The target audience for casual dining restaurants seek
convenient and quality in most cases, in comparison to affordability.

Based on the analysis of the comparative variables, the first location, i.e. Segunbagicha seems
to be more suited for opening up the casual dining restaurants. In this case scenario,
competition is less in Segunbagicha due to lower number of restaurants. From a
demographic & economic perspective, Segunbagicha fits the characteristics well due to many
offices, cultural areas and other similar offering are available here where people from across
Dhaka come, which is not in the case of Khilgaon. Consumers in this area are thus most suited
to casual dining. Thus, my decision will be to open up the restaurant in this area and create
sense of uniqueness targeting people who comes to the near areas for visiting the art
galleries, cultural programs, works in offices and other like-minded consumers who prefer
casual dining.

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Answer to Question Number 2

a. Zales jewelry retailer wants to better understand why men buy jewelry for women
and how they select what they buy.

- Observation & Focus Group

Observation techniques should be used by the retailer and see how men react when they are
purchasing jewelries for men. The retailer should focus on the purchasing pattern and buying
behavior of the men and how they select & decide which jewelry to choose. This will help
Zales Jewelry retailer to understand the natural buying behavior and also understand how
they respond to certain stimuli based on price, choices, design, shelfing, decoration,
packaging, external opinion etc. (Research Methodology, 2017). Thus, providing a proper
understanding of how men react while buying jewelries for women and how they select what
they buy.

We can also use Focus Group techniques will be suitable to better understand the reasons
behind men buying jewelries for women. This will help to understand the perspective of the
men and based on what criteria they make the purchase decisions. The focus group will build
up a snowballing effect providing more scrutinized and precise output from the perspective
of decision making while men purchase jewelries for women (David Stokes, 2006). Zales
jewelry retailer should ask the participants of the focus group about the times they have
purchased jewelries for female, ask about for whom they purchased it, how they searched
for it, selected it and also how was the response after giving/gifting the jewelry. The retailer
can also ask if the objective was successful and what they have learned overtime, in terms of
purchasing jewelries. Focus group will provide the retailer with a rather spontaneous
feedback and also help to get the expected output efficiently & effectively in a proper
structure with good level of accuracy providing serendipity, synergy & specialization (David
Stokes, 2006). However, in case of focus group, moderators & participants should be selected
properly and participants with experience of purchasing more than once should be chosen.

However, there are some limitations to these techniques as results or outputs might often be
misrepresented. Focus groups and observation techniques might get misjudged, as focus

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groups tend to create conflicts and become disorganized in many cases. But, based on the
scenario, both these techniques are the most suitable for Zales jewelry retailer to get the
most accurate and successful end results.

b. The owner of the local Burger king located by your university is planning to build a
play land and wants to know which play equipment is most interesting to children.

- Observation & Netnography

Observation technique will be a very useful tool in terms of understanding how children
react to certain play equipment and the data received from the observation can help to build
a playland for the local Burger King located by university. Observation technique involves
studying and observing the children and their spontaneous behavior with respect to certain
stimuli and natural surroundings (Cassell, 2004). The play equipment in this case scenario
will act as the stimuli and the play land will act as the surrounding. Burger King can conduct
this observation technique by creating a sample play land with different play equipment and
invite children from various groups to play and participate in this. They can also observe
children in other play lands in the locality or other restaurants/shops/malls with different
kinds of play equipment and how children react to those. Parents are also important in this
case scenario, since they are the one purchasing play equipment for their children. Thus,
Burger king should also observe their buying patterns for such products. They can simply
observe and record the behavior of the children & the parents to get a better understanding
of their liking. Thus, providing proper grounds for building the play land successfully.

Children these days spend a lot of time over YouTube, watching videos, cartoon and a lot of
other contents. Netnography will thus be a useful tool to understanding what type of
contents they like the most and this will help Burger King to replicate similar play equipment,
which are liked by the children. Netnography refers to an online research technique which
helps to understand social interaction in the regular day to day digital communication
spectrum (Netnography: Understanding Networked Communication Society). This
technique collects data, analyzes the data and comes up with findings from the participants
in the digital platforms. In this case scenario, Burger king can analyze different YouTube

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videos that children watch and what they watch the most. This will help them to perceive the
behavior of the children and understand what attracts them. Thus, help to build the play land
accordingly.

Thus, both of these techniques are the most appropriate in terms of getting the best results
out of the research and build the play land successfully. However, both of the techniques have
their disadvantages since it is very tough to actually understand children’s behavior, since
they often tend to fluctuate and change overtime, making it difficult to perceive accurately

c. Victoria’s secret wants to better understand women’s body images.

- In depth interviews & projective techniques
In-Depth interview refers to an unstructured interview which uses extensive probing to get
the respondent talk independently and willingly to express detailed beliefs and feelings on a
topic (Webb, 1995). In-Depth interviews should be the first and foremost technique for a
better understanding of women’s body images. In-depth interviews will help to delve deep
into the minds of women and understand their school of thoughts and perspective based on
their own body images. Since, it is a very sensitive topic of discussion for everyone, it should
be dealt with individually and this will help to better understand the body image of women.
In-depth interviews will help to sort the hidden issue questioning, enabling Victoria’s secret
to gain insights on individual and personal sore spots, lifestyle traits, concerns, perceptions
and inner feelings about women’s body image.

Victoria’s secret can also use projective techniques to better understand the women’s body
images. This technique is a rather indirect and unstructured form of technique, which allows
participants or respondents to project their underlying perceptions, attitude, belief,
motivation and feelings regarding the matter of concern (Cronbach, 1970). This technique
also helps to interpret the behavior of others. Thus, respondents can indirectly project their
own perceptions, attitude, belief, motivation and feelings for the given situation. In this case
scenario, since this is a very sensitive topic of research, projective technique will be a great
fit for understanding women’s body images better.

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d. The director of on campus housing proposes some significant changes to the
physical configuration of the current on-campus dorm rooms for freshman and new
transferred students.

- Ethnography & Projective Techniques

In terms of consumer usability & in context with the field of user-centric designs,
ethnography can be a great tool to understanding consumer perception and help to support
the deeper understanding of the design problems related to products, enabling it make
relevant changes in a much better manner (Anderson, 2009). In this case scenario,
ethnography will help to understand the current physical configuration of the dorm rooms
and get a clear perception from the freshman and new students regarding their school of
thought about the configuration and design. The students should be exposed to the current
configuration of the door rooms, this will help to understand the design problems perceived
by the students and help the director to make changes accordingly. Thus, ensuring a proper
user experience for the new students, catering to it successfully.

We can also use projective techniques to identify the useful and valuable design changes
required for the physical configuration of the dorm rooms. The director can conduct a
research with story competitions, sentence completions & word associations and ensure
exposure of different stimulus to understand how the students react to it (Cronbach, 1970).
This will give a clear perception of what the students think and what they need in terms of
on-campus dorm rooms.

However, focus group discussions will also be feasible as it will help to dig deeper and come
up with valuable outputs through a snow-balling effect.

e. The corporate VP of merchandising for Whole Foods supermarkets would like to

know the popularity of a new brand of cereal that is produced by General Mills.

- Observation & Netnography

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Observation techniques will help to observe the behavior of consumers in any given
situation. In this case scenario, Whole Food Supermarkets can conduct and observation
research and observe the purchasing patterns of consumers purchasing cereal products.
They can change shelf spaces and see how it effects the consumers. This will help to observe
and understand the popularity of the new brand as consumers are exposed with the new
brand of cereal over a period of time. They can record and capture data on what the
consumers do when purchasing cereals and how often they purchase the new brand of cereal
by General Mills. This will give a very reliable set of data and proper gain insights on the
popularity of this new brand of cereal.

Nowadays, consumers often review products or brands over different social media and
digital platforms. This gives a very strong ground to conduct netnography research
technique for this specific case scenario. As different people share their reviews, comments
and likings over the internet and social media platforms, this will give insights on the social
media traction and help to understand the perception of consumers about the new brand of
cereal. The social media interaction will help to gain further insights on shopper experience
and help to collect extensive data, analyze them and come up with findings to understand the
popularity of this brand.

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Answer to Question Number 3
In the given case scenario, the regional sales manager of Procter & Gamble interviewed the
sales representatives only in the perspective of how the sales representatives communicated
with the customers and the job efforts. The interviews did not incorporate different other
necessary aspects which could have result into more accurate and meaningful outputs for
the regional sales manager, being the interviewer.

There are different potential sources of error which might be associated with the manager’s
line of questioning. The following are the sources of error from both the perspective of the
interviewer and the respondents:

Reactions to responses: When the manager reacts in a certain manner to different

responses by the sales representatives, there is a high chance that the representatives will
become nervous and result into wrong results (Dillon, 1994). The sense of surprise or
negative feeling from the reaction can cause bias in the response from the sales
representatives. Thus, the regional sales manager should react in a uniform manner and only
give out positive, polite & honest reactions during the interview.

Helping the respondent – creating bias: If the manager tries to help the representatives
answer the questions and becomes sympathetic to the scenario or the problem, this will
create a clear bias in the interview process (Dillon, 1994). This can affect the outcome of the
interview and the results will not be very useful. This will not fulfil the objectives of the
interview and result into an error. Thus, it should be taken care of and the interviewer should
ensure integrity and maintain righteousness for all the representatives.

Dishonesty & Lack of Integrity: Many representatives might provide false and dishonest
information to the manager. Many representatives might try to exaggerate their responses
to prove that their effort or outputs better. This will happen if the respondents feel that this
interview might give them a raise or promotion. Therefore, the manager must be aware of
the facts and should look for inconsistencies during the interview if there is any sort of misled

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information. Thus, the manager should confirm the information being collected with other
sources as well to ensure proper data collection and outputs.

Unclear memory: There could be many representatives who could share wrong information
due to unclear memory as they might not be able to recall everything accurately. This should
be taken care of by the manager, and he/she should provide questions which are rather
relatable and the participants can easily remember.

Unwillingness to answer correctly: In many cases the sales representatives might be

unwilling to provide the currect answers and will be hesitant to share information if they are
not comfortable enough. The information being provided will not be proper and might not
be sufficient in that case (Welch, 1985). This might also happen, if the representatives do not
understand the question properly and might be scared to respond, if the boss/manager is
intimidating. Therefore, the manager must ensure comfortableness for the representatives
and makes sure that the respondents understand the questions properly. This will ensure
more accuracy and reduce the chances of error.

Interview Purpose: Many representatives might not clearly understand the purpose of the
interview and can lead to misleading answers, resulting into inaccuracy. Many
representatives might feel that this is related to promotion or is related to any sort of
appraisal, which will change the answers eventually. If the manager is trying to get accurate
insights, the misleading purpose will result into inaccurate answers by the respondents.
Therefore, the objective, purpose and context of the interview should be made clear to all the
sales representatives. This will help to avoid such problems, thus reduce the probability of
making an error (Dillon, 1994). The representatives should also get a clear idea of what is
required of them before the interview starts.

External influence/Influence in groups: External influences, interruptions and other

group members influence during the interview might hamper the respondent as he/she
might become nervous or might be scared to share his/her true perspective or views. This
can have a lot of implications on the data being collected and the overall output of the
interview might not be successful (Malhotra, 2012). The sales representatives might answer

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in a way, to please the other participants or group members, instead of providing honest
responses. To avoid such errors, the interviewer must ensure that the environment is
comfortable and calm for the sales representatives, enabling the them to provide proper
responses while being interviewed. The interviewer should also be aware and observe the
respondent properly, to understand if he/she is interacting and providing honest responses.

Cordial bias: During the interview, the respondent might feel the need to please the manager
and respond as per what the manager wants to hear (Dillon, 1994). The respondents may
not want to be harsh or provide information which the manager will not take properly. This
can result into results which are not reliable, meaningful or useful to the manager. As for
example: if the sales representative confronted a customer who did not like the product,
he/she might be reluctant to say this to the manager, thinking that it might make him feel
angry/frustrated/displeased. The manager can try to open up and create a comfortable
environment for the sales representatives to respond. This can help to minimize the bias and
error

Failure to follow instructions in organizing the questions: The manager might change
the instructions and order of questions for different respondents. This can create an error or
bias during the interview as the probability of making an error increase (Fitzgerald, 2011).
This can mislead the respondents as well, creating a misunderstanding situation and result
into biased output. The change in language, structure or sequence might lead to wrong
answers as well as it can change what the question is trying to ask. Thus, questioned should
be structured proper and consistency should be maintained to ensure more accuracy and
less errors.

Lack of expertise: Lack of expertise can result into wrong output or collection of data. If the
manager did not take in-depth interviews before and does not have proper practice or
knowledge about this, the results could be misinterpreted (Fitzgerald, 2011). The same can
happen for the sales representatives, they did not participate in any interviews before. Thus,
instructions should be properly maintained by both the managers and the sales
representatives to ensure accuracy and reduce errors.

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Poor source question design: The questions of the interview might not get the desired
output due to its poor design and probable cause of misinterpretation (Dillon, 1994). Thus,
the manager should create the questions in a structured manner and discuss it with peers
and colleagues to ensure that the results being collected through the interviews are
meaningful and accurate (Fitzgerald, 2011). This will help to reduce the error significantly.

Cultural adaptability: The regional manager and the sales representatives might be from
different culture and speak different languages as well. Thus, it is important to come to
common ground regarding this and ensure that both the parties are understanding what is
being asked for (Fitzgerald, 2011). The questions should be asked in the native Midwest
language for the sales representatives to understand better. Both the parties should also ask
each other if they do not understand any question or answer probably. The manager can also
recheck and reconfirm the answers at the end of the interview. They should also consider
the cultural differences of both the parties and ensure the questionnaire is being designed
accordingly and so that the interview is conducted properly as well.

If the following sources of errors are considered and proper actions are taken to enhance
accuracy and minimize errors, the interviews will be more successful. This will provide more
meaningful data to collect and analyze, thus providing better output for Procter & Gamble.

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Answer to Question Number 4

Decision Problem in case of marketing research refers to the fundamental question a firm or
organization asks and seeks answer to from a research perspective. The marketing decision
problems can be further broken down and segregated in order to answer rather specific
questions. The marketing decision problem will help to look at the bigger picture and get a
clear perspective & understanding of the symptoms related to the problem.

Decision problems are rather broad and reflect upon the whole scenario to understand the
underlying symptoms for the continuous decline in beef sales over the past five years. The
marketing decision problem in this case scenario is “How can supermarket X compensate the
continuous decrease in sales of beef over the past 5 years?” The following questions can be
asked from the perspective of marketing decision problem:

o What are the ways in which we can induce customers to start purchasing beef? o
Can we launch new and healthier variants on beef for the conscious people? o Is the
decline in sales due to loss in customer trust?
o How can we ensure the safety & health of the animals?

These decision problems questions will pave the way to improve the overall situation and
create a roadmap to enhance sales and solve the problems accordingly, thus dealing with the
decision problems successfully.

The marketing research problem is much information focused and oriented. Through this we
can determine what information is required and suited to make the best possible decision.
The marketing research problems determines what information is required to solve the
problem and how the information or data can be obtained effectively and efficiently. It
focuses on understanding the key data and conduct research to properly establish a
relationship among the factors and variables related to the problems. The following are some
marketing research problem areas we could ponder upon:

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 • Determine the relationship between people dieting and those boycotting beef. This
will give a good based to actually understanding if there is problem with the beef or
health problems of the consumers.

• Conduct a focus group study of consumers, farmers and other stakeholders to

understand their objectives, opinions and discretions regarding the regarding the
production, purchase and consumption of beef. This will give the consumers a clear
perception on how the animals are being raised and how the health of the animals is
being protected. This will give a holistic understanding of the whole process and will
significantly alleviate the problems creating better understanding for all the
stakeholders.
• Conduct an online and offline consumer satisfaction & trust survey to understand the
prevalence of foot & mouth diseases among animals in terms of consumption. This
will help us to understand how this problem is related to the aversion & declining
sales of red meat.
• Conduct focused group discussions and survey to understand what factors can ensure
healthy beef consumptions and how new variants like Kobe beef could be introduced,
as an alternative for more health-conscious consumers.

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References

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research-a-keyto-strategy

Bikroy. (n.d.).

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Dhaka Tribune. (n.d.). Dhaka Tribune - Bangaldesh Shilpakala Academy.

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cademy

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The International Encyclopedia of Digital Communication and Society (pp. 3-6).
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Salkind, N. (2010). Encyclopedia of Research Design. London: SAGE.

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Originality Report: Plagiarism

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