Marketing Research Exam: Final Year - Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

QUESTION 1

A – WHAT ARE THE PURPOSES OF FOCUS GROUP?  (8MKS)

In other to elaborate on the importance of focus group, it is essential that we start off by defining what focus group means. A focus group is a form of interview, conducted in an unstructured and natural manner by a trained moderator. Focus groups are homogenous since they comprise carefully selected loyal customers and are mainly few in number. It is designed with the intention of the moderator to gain insight into market perceptions and demands. Thus, based on the above argument, it can be deduced that the purpose of focus groups are to:

• Understand customers' perception, preference and behaviour with regards to a particular product category – this implies that, is conducted with the intention of understanding what customers think about a product, and added features they would like the product to have, as well as why they prefer the product instead of other substitutes in the market.
• Obtain impressions of new products – bla bla bla …
• Generate new ideas about older products.
• Obtain consumers' reactions in specific marketing program and secure price impression.
• Define problem more precisely and develop an approach to the problem
• Generate alternative courses of actions

Apply to purposes of focus group – from the above purposes, it can easily be assumed that focus group help Coca-Cola to identify their problems and develop solution to the problem (repackaging) for coke zero. It also helped them to understand why diet coke was successful in the female market of generation x.

3 reasons why using focus group is a popular method in qualitative research – qualitative research can be defined as an exploratory and unstructured research method based on small sample with the objective of providing insights and understanding of a specific problem

• Stimulation – generally, focus group encourages new ideas, thoughts and feeling about a topic due to the unstructured manner at which it is conducted. In focus, the moderator raises a question and the respondents answer these questions according to their own thoughts and feeling, thus enabling an open system of response that the focus groups has helps in producing more than one response when compared to questionnaire where responders have to choose from specified answers.
• Synergism – by bringing a group of responders together, focus group produces a wider range of information, insight, and ideas compared to questionnaire where responders offer individual response in privately secured manner.
• Sense of security – because the feelings of the responders are similar, and the comfortable atmosphere at which focus group is conducted, responders are more willing to express their ideas and feeling.
• Participation – focus group has the ability to bring together responders who are not willing to participate in questionnaires e.g. busy working personnel.

B – 3 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF USING INTERNET SURVEY (8MKS)

Internet survey is a form of interview that involves placing a self-administered questionnaire on a website (URL) for potential responders to go through and offer their response in regards to questions asked.

Advantages:

• Offer possibilities of gathering large samples – due to the absence of boundary in the internet, responders from all over the world can participate in the survey. This offers possibility for the researcher to gather wide range of survey samples and response when compared to other form of survey.
• Easy recording and storage – compared to other form of survey, the internet offers easy recording (because all responders need to do is just to click on answers) and storage (their responses are stored in secured database and are retrievable).
• Easy to resolve error – due to the interactive nature of the internet, responders can be conducted through their emails to verify their answers if the researcher is unclear. This is better compared to other form of survey where responders might not be able to be contacted.
• Less bias – due to the comfortable nature of internet survey in the sense that it offer privacy, responders are more likely to be less bias and provide response that is in line with their true feeling instead of responding with socially acceptable terms in mind. For instance, a responder is more likely to provide her bra size in the internet instead of face-to-face administered questionnaire.

Disadvantages:

• Limited to computer literate responders with access to the internet – just having a computer or being computer literate does not guarantee participation in online survey. This is because, internet survey requires responders to be computer literate and also be able to connect to the internet before being able to participate in the survey. This limitation can result in low response rate when compared to other forms of survey.
• Possibility of response from unwanted (unintended) responders – because the internet environment is not controlled, responders who do not meet the requirement can undertake the survey and this can result in unreliability of the overall survey. For instance, a male responder can answer an internet survey designed to find females preference from panty liner, sanitary pads, lip sticks etc.
• Possibility of incomplete or misinterpreted survey – due to the effect of the external environment on responders, there is a high possibility of questions being misinterpreted or unfinished questionnaire in internet survey. For instance, when a responder is answering an online survey, she might be cooking or the power might go off and these external stimuli can influence response as compared to face-to-face interview.

C – HOW IS SYSTEMATIC SAMPLING USED IN MALL-INTERCEPT INTERVIEWS? WHY NOT USE CONVENIENCE SAMPLING METHOD? (10MKS)

Systematic sampling is a probability (used when elements within the population have a known chance of being chosen subjects in the sample) based sampling method that involves drawing every nth (total chosen responders) in the population beginning with elements chosen on random bases between 1 and n.

• The sample is chosen by selecting a random starting point and then picking every ith element in succession from the sampling frame. 
• The sampling interval, i, is determined by dividing the population size N by the sample size n and rounding to the nearest integer. 
• When the ordering of the elements is related to the characteristic of interest, systematic sampling increases the representativeness of the sample.  
• If the ordering of the elements produces a cyclical pattern, systematic sampling may decrease the representativeness of the sample. 

For example, if they are 1,000 male customers in the shopping mall, and a sample of 100 male responders (between the ages of 15 to 30) are desired.  In this case the sampling interval, i, is can be 5.  A random number between 1 and 5 is selected.  If, for example, this number is 2, the sample consists of elements 2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27, and so on. So the elements that fall within this number will be made subject to response. This form of interview is preferable when consumers have finished shopping (for instance at the payment counter) to ensure that the elements are carefully selected, and no element is represented more than once as compared to sampling systematically within the shopping mall.

Convenience sampling is a non-probability (a sampling method where elements from the population does not have attached possibility of being selected as subjects) sampling method that attempts to obtain a sample of convenient elements.  Often, respondents are selected because they happen to be in the right place at the right time.  For instance, mall intercepts interviews without qualifying the respondents. Not recommended for mall intercepts because:

• It increases sample biases – due to the fact that responders are selected on availability; this form of sampling can increase biases. For instance, referencing the above case of 100 men (between the ages of 15 to 30), responders might not be available and the question might end up being answered by Male responders who do not fall within this age group and possibly by females.
• Sample is not representative of population (not generalized) – this is true as responders are selected based on availability instead of qualification. Referencing the above example of 100 men (between the ages of 15 to 30) again, if the researcher wanted to get response from only 100 people, he might end up seeing that they are 10,000 male shopper in the shopping mall during that day and 100 is might not be a fair representative of the population.

D – USE PAIRED COMPARISON SCALE TO DETERMINE PREFERENCE BETWEEN 4 COCA-COLA BRANDS. THEN, USE LIKERT'S SCALE TO MEASURE CONSUMER ATTITUDES TO COKE-ZERO (8MKS)

Paired comparison is ranking method of scaling used among a small number of objects, where responders are asked to choose between two items at a time. It is used to assess preference level. In the case of Coca-Cola, it will be as illustrated below:

	BRAND W	BRAND X	BRAND Y	BRAND Z
BRAND W	-	5	3	4
BRAND X	-	-	3	2
BRAND Y	-	-	-	5
BRAND Z	-	-	-	-

 Preference ranking scales among the four brands

1 = 0% – 20%

2 = 21% - 40%

3 = 41% – 60%

4 = 61% - 80%

5 = 81% - 100%

Likert's scale is a point-rating method that is used to determine how strong a subject agrees or disagree with a statement. It can be in the form of 3, 5 or 7 anchored questions with "strong positivity", "neutral" and "strong negativity." The format for Coca-Cola will be as illustrated below.

Please answer the following questions where 1 = strong disagree, 2  = agree, 3 = not sure, 4 = disagree, and 5 = strongly disagree.

QUESTIONS	1	2	3	4	5
Coke zero contains much calories
The taste of Coke zero is sweet and nice
Coke zero is well packages in attractive and matured labelling

 E – DATA ANALYSIS. IN A SCALE OF 1-7 WHERE 1 = DEFINITELY WILL NOT BUY AND 7 = DEFINITELY WILL BUY, PLOT A HISTOGRAM AND SKETCH NORMAL DISTRIBUTION.

Sale: 1 = definitely will not buy

         2 = will not buy

         3 = maybe will not buy

         4 = not sure

         5 = maybe will buy

         6 = will buy

        7 = definitely will buy

Normal distribution sketch (inside pdf file below)

F – TYPES OF STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

• Independent sample t-Test - The Independent Samples T Test compares the mean scores of two groups on a given variable. Does male have higher purchasing intention than women for Coke-Zero? (Question 5)
• ANOVA - The Analysis Of Variance, popularly known as the ANOVA test, can be used in cases where there are more than two groups. If age is divided into 5 groups, does purchasing intention of Coke Zero Differ? (Question 4)
• Correlation or multiple correlations – In statistics, multiple correlation is a linear relationship among more than two variables. It is measured by the coefficient of multiple determinations, denoted as R2, which is a measure of the fit of a linear regression. Which attribute is the purchasing intention associate with Coke Zero? (Question 3)
• Multiple regression - is a flexible method of data analysis that may be appropriate whenever a quantitative variable (the dependent or criterion variable) is to be examined in relationship to any other factors (expressed as independent or predictor variables). Which attributes jointly influences purchasing intentions of coke zero? (Question 2)
• Paired samples t-Test - The Paired Samples T Test compares the means of two variables. It computes the difference between the two variables for each case, and tests to see if the average difference is significantly different from zero. Does responder have higher purchasing intention for coke zero or diet coke?  (Question 1)

QUESTION 3

A – DISCUSS 4 SITUATIONS WHERE DEPTH INTERVIEW CAN BE APPLIED (8MKS). DISCUSS ADVANTAGED AND DISADVANTAGES (10KMS)

Depth interview is an unstructured, direct and personal interview in which one responder is surveyed by a highly skilled interviewer to understand hidden motivations, beliefs, attitudes and feelings on a given topic. Depth interview also known as in-depth interview can be used in situations such as:

Need assessment – depth interview can be used to access the need of a specific program before planning invention and possible implementation, in order to ensure that the company meet the requirements of the customers. For instance, prior to added features in credit cards, customers were intervened to understand the features they would love to have in credit cards by asking them questions such as what are important to me? What problem do I have? How do I wish I could live? The interviewers ended up noticing that responders merely mentioned the features currently contained in the credit card. This depth uncovered the need for a "smart credit card" that can keep track record of credit card and account balance, investments, emergency phone number and also needed verification before customer can have access to these information in order to improve security.

In place of focus group – it can be used in place of a focus group were potential responders may not be included, or to distinguish between individual and group opinion or were potential responders are not comfortable talking in group. For instance, responders from the highly individualistic or high context culture countries would make better responders in depth interview than focus group. This is because such responders such as (Chinese and Japanese) try their best to avoid conflict (Confucianism – long term orientated profit through building strong relationship) and will likely not be able to participate much in focus group as they might assume that their personal opinion might be offensive to other members.

Strategic planning – another situation where depth interview can be applied is in strategic planning, as organisations can interview their managers to gain best knowledge about what solution they deem appropriate to move the company forward. For instance, is Inti College have recently noticed a decrease in enrolment, a depth interview can be conducted to understand what are the possible causes of the decrease in enrolment in the college as well are ways to improve it, by referencing past experiences in such situations (if possible) which can also include comparative analysis of the college with their competitors, and understanding the managerial capabilities of the system.

To identify and explore new issue – normally, organisations can fall into dilemma when they are faced with new issue and don't understand possibly ways to handle them. This can lead to possible lose in terms of financial capital and other organisational assets. However, depth interview can play a crucial role in determining the cause of the issue and possible solution if negative. For instance, assume that there is an increased sale at the Boulevard shopping mall on Fridays, the manager might approach the customer and ask why they are shopping on Friday and the customer might respond that "it was because of the advert he saw which offered 20% for any goods bought on Fridays." This is an issue to the company as they might not be able to have such sales except if they offered discount, thus, the manager can assign interviewers to understand Boulevard's customer service relationship by conducting a depth interview with the customer service relationship department.

ADVANTAGES OF DEPTH INTERVIEW

• Uncover greater depth of insight than focus group – due to the comfortable nature of depth interview, responder can provide much detailed information since they are the only one being interviewed as compared to the grouped nature of focus group.
• Can yield information exchange that is not possible in focus group – compared to focus group, depth interview does not require the responder to conform to socially acceptable response and this can result in the responder offering sensitive information that he or she might not be able to offer in focus group
• Response can be attributed to a particular responder - depth interview offers the possibility of linking a particular response to a responder and the responder can be contacted directed for further explanations if need be. This is restricted in cases such as survey and focus group where it hard to attribute specific response with a specific responder.

DISADVANTAGES OF DEPTH INTERVIEW

• Requires especially skilled interviewers – depth interviews require the skilled interviewers who are capable of conducting the interview and they are both expensive to hire and scare to find. This is an advantage because it can increase the time needed to obtain results, thus influencing the intended outcome negatively especially when results are needed on an urgency bases.
• Prone to biasness – because an employee might want to prove that he is capable of handling the job, in other to secure his position in the company, there is high possibility that he will be bias when undertaking depth interview. This can critically influence the result of the interview in a negative way.
• Difficult to analyse data – due to the fact that response are based on personal opinion and feeling, compared to other form of interview such as questionnaires, data obtained from depth interview are hard to analyse as interviewer might either misunderstand or misinterpret interviewee's response.

B – DESCRIBE 2 PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES AND ILLUSTRATE HOW THEY MAY BE APPLIED TO THE RESEARCH PROBLEM IN THE CASE STUDY (12MKS)

Projective technique can be described as an indirect and unstructured form of questioning that persuades respondents to project their underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes, or feeling regarding a particular issue of concern. In this form of interview, respondents are given a particular situation in relation to other people and asked to rate these people. It is believe that in so doing, they are indirectly revealing their qualities and how they would have handle the same particular situation if they were to face it. Projective technique can take numerous forms but two of these forms will be discussed below.

Association technique – this is a form of projective technique in which the respondent is provided with stimulus (object) and asked to respond with the first thing that comes into his or her mind. The most common isword association which involves respondents being presented with a list of words, one at a time, and asked to give the first word that comes into their mind in relation to the words presented to them. For instance, respondents can be provided with the word "coffee" and asked to associate it with what comes in mind. In my case for instance, it would be almost instantaneous to hear the word "Nescafe."          

Association technique is analysed by (1) the frequency at which a specific word is given in response; (2) the amount of time taken to get response; and (3) the number of respondents who do not respond at all to test word within reasonable time frame.

In the case of Tiger biscuit, they can use these to determine their competitors and how the biscuit is perceived in the market. In determination of the competitors, respondents will be given the word "biscuit" and their associated brand will be listed down in order of frequent occurrences. From the list their main competitors will be determined and the place tiger biscuit current occupy in the market in terms of competition can also be estimated. On the same hand, the perception of the biscuit can be determined by giving respondents the word "Tiger biscuit" and noting down what comes in their mind. This way, the company can determine is the biscuit is occupying desired position in the market's mind.

Completion technique – this is another form of projective technique where respondents are required to complete and incomplete stimulus situation (question). The two common form of completion technique are sentence completion and story completion. In sentence completion, respondents are presented with a number of incomplete sentences and asked to complete them. This technique is similar to word association, as respondents are generally asked to use the first word that comes in mind to complete the sentence. Story completion technique on the other hand, is an approach where respondents are giving part of a story – detailed enough to direct attention to a particular topic or situation but not hinting at the ending, and then asked to give the conclusion in their own words.

In the case of Tiger biscuits, completion technique can be applied in the following ways:

Sentence completion

• People should but Tiger biscuit because they are …………………..
• What I think of Tiger biscuit is ………………
• ……………….. Biscuit tastes the best amongst all biscuit brands I know

Story completion

A boy was playing with his primary school friend in the school garden, and then they decided to have a piece of biscuit. As they proceeded, they started to argue on what brand to buy. When they reached at the canteen, the waiter told them that they have 6 brands of biscuit and Tiger biscuit was one of them. If you were his friend, what brand would you chose? Why would you choose that brand?

From the completion techniques highlighted above, consumers perception of the biscuit in relation to value and their emotional attachment to Tiger biscuits can be determined by carefully examining their response.

QUESTION 4

A – ILLUSTRATE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A RESEARCH QUESTION AND HYPOTHESES (6MKS)

DIFFERENCES IN TERMS OF DEFINITION

"A hypothesis is a conjectural statement of the relation between two or more variables". (Kerlinger, 1956)

"Hypothesis is a formal statement that presents the expected relationship between an independent and dependent variable."(Creswell, 1994)

"A research question is basically a hypothesis asked in the form of a question."

The difference between research question and hypotheses can be illustrated based on their definitions given above. While a hypotheses is an imaginary declaration between two variables in the form of their relationship, a research question makes the same statement but in the form of question. Thus the, difference will be based on the way they are stated.

For instance, if we are to find the rate at which quality of teaching influences student performance in Inti College, we can hypothesize that: quality education (independent variable) system will yield increase (expected result) of enrolment at Inti College (dependent variable). On the other hand, the research question can be deduced as: what is the probability of quality educational system to yield increase enrolment in Inti College?

DIFFERENCE IN TERMS OF NATURE

HYPOTHESES	RESEARCH QUESTION	ILLUSTRATIONS
Hypotheses are not moral or ethical questions	Can be moral or ethical questions	A question can also be: are students with low grades from high school more likely to enrol in Inti? But this cannot be hypotheses.
It can be tested –verifiable or falsifiable	Are not always testable	From the above question, the probability of increase in enrolment due to quality educational system is not testable as different semesters have different level of enrolment, but it can be hypothesized.
It is neither too specific nor to general	It can be specific or general.
It is a prediction of consequences	It is a statement of cause
It is considered valuable even if proven false	It is considered invaluable if proven false.

Bi - DEFINE PROBLEM STATEMENT (2MKS)

Problem definition is a clear, précises and distinctive statement of the issue or question to the investigated, with the goal of finding an answer or solution. From the above case study, the problem can be defined as:

• Does smoking in movies influencing smoking intention in adolescents?
• To what extent does smoking in movies influence smoking intentions in adolescents?
• Is there any connectivity between visible cigarette brand in MBO movie hits and increase in smoking intention amongst adolescents that watch these movies?

BII - IDENTIFY AND DISCUSS THE DEPENDENT VARIABLE, INDEPENDENT VARIABLE, MODERATING VARIABLE AND INTERVENING VARIABLES (12MKS)

Dependent variable – this is the variable of primary interest to the research. It is the main variable that lays the foundation of investigation as a viable factor. That is, the presumed effects outcomes, consequences or response that results from a given factor.  From the definition, it can easily be seen that the dependent variable is smoking intentions in adolescents. This is because; it is the main variable that the researcher wants to study on. The research wants to study on the increasing influence for smoking intention amongst adolescents. This variable 'increasing smoking intention amongst adolescents' depends on numerous factors, of which increasing smoking in movies is highlighted as one of them.

Independent variable – the independent variable is the variable that influences the dependent variable either negatively or positively. It is the presumed cause or manipulated antecedent stimulus of a given factor. That is, when the independent variable is present, the dependent variable is also present and for any given increase in the unit of the independent variable, there is a resulting increase or decrease to the dependent variable. In this case, the independent variable is increasing incidence of smoking and visible cigarette brand in movies. By watching these movies, the adolescents have tendency to remember the brand and be lured to smoking especially when they are fans of the actors or actresses. Thus, the more smoking incidence appears in movies, the more smoking intentions will increase in adolescents.

Moderating variables – this is a third-party variable that has a contingent effect on the relationship between dependent and independent variables, by modifying the original relationship between the independent and dependent variable. Indeed, the most notable moderating variable in this case study will be the visible cigarette brands. By making the cigarette brands, they are creating awareness for the brand and interest to the audience (adolescents) by indirectly persuading them to develop an interest in cigarette smoking and go for the brand. As highlighted earlier, this will have much greater effect if the audience (adolescents) are fans of (adore) the actors or actresses that smoke or show the cigarette brands in the movies.

Intervening variables – this is the variable that surfaces between the time the independent variable starts operating to influence the dependent variable and the time the impact if felt on the dependent variable. Intervening variables surface as a function of the independent variable and helps to explain the impact of the independent variables on the dependent variable. In this case, they represent the adolescents' level of education and awareness on the effects of smoking on human body. Others can include their morale beliefs, cultural values, laws against smoking amongst adolescent and parental advisory. If they are convinced enough that smoking will yield negative effects on the human body, by a function of the intervening variables, then the influence of smoking in movies on adolescents smoking intention will be negative (they won't be influenced to smoke).

Biii – SKETCH THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK (5MKS)

(see in pdf below)

Biv – DEVELOP 2 HYPOTHESES FOR TESTING (5MKS)

• Adolescents who are frequently exposed to smoking incidence and cigarette brands in movies are likely to develop intention towards smoking.
• Adolescents that are aware of the consequences of smoking (intervening variable) are less likely to develop smoking intentions by watching movies with smoking incidence and cigarette brands.

Good luck to myselfJ