Marketing COURSE NUMBER: 22:630:604 COURSE TITLE: Marketing Research

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Marketing research is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information – information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process.

Marketing research specifies the information required to addresses these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the findings and their implications. American Marketing Association

The Market Research course is structured to provide students with an understanding of the design and execution of marketing research projects utilized by firms’ to achieve their business objectives. Cases, lectures, problem sets, and projects may be used to illustrate effective approaches to current marketing research problems. A variety of industry settings, that encompass both B-to-C and B-to-B marketing contexts, are used to explore the wide-range of marketing research concepts and practices.

It is important to note that the course assumes a basic understanding of both marketing concepts and statistics. However, the focus of this course is not on statistical techniques. Rather, the course is intended to provide a broad overview of both qualitative and quantitative market research practices, along with their managerial implications.

COURSE MATERIALS

Text: Carl McDaniel, Jr. and Roger Gates, Marketing Research, Wiley; 9th edition, ISBN-13: 978-1118074619

Cases: A number of case studies will be required and may be purchased directly from Harvard Business School

Publishing online. A link to the HBS Publishing website will be sent to you via a Blackboard announcement.

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LEARNING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Provide students with an overview and general understanding of the major aspects of marketing research. Develop within students an enhanced facility for applying sound decision-making, problem-solving, and analytic techniques in addressing a variety of important marketing research issues.

Cases For each case, Case Assignment Questions may be found on Blackboard under the Course Documents section. These questions are to be answered (approximately 2-3 pages, single spaced in Microsoft Word) and handed in prior to the case discussions. No participation credit will be given for a case discussion without submission of the associated Case Assignment Questions in hard copy format on the assigned date, prior to the discussion. No Case Assignment Question answers will be accepted late or in electronic format. Please retain an electronic or hard copy for your personal use in the case discussion.

Cases describe interesting marketing/marketing research problems encountered by real firms. We will use cases as examples that illustrate and apply marketing concepts and skills in the course. Cases will give you an opportunity to make and justify marketing decisions. We will focus on identifying the marketing problems, introducing marketing research concepts and skills that can help solve these problems, and applying these concepts and skills to recommend a course of action for the firm. There is no "right" answer to a case, but usually some answers are better than others. The strength of your reasoning and analysis is as important as your recommendations. We are not most concerned with what a firm did, since the firm may not have made a good decision, but rather how to analyze and solve the firm’s problem. Be sure and support you point of view with information from the case.

Course Requirements and Grading

Class Participation, Projects, and Assignments– 33⅓ % Preparation and discussion of cases, notes, exercises, and other assigned materials for each of the class sessions, as well as, the preparation and presentation of any projects that are assigned. Assigned materials are to be read and prepared before class. There is no credit for attendance.

Midterm Exam – 33⅓ % The examination will be comprised of short cases and/or problem sets that require the student to apply the principles discussed in class.

Final Exam – 33⅓ % The examination will be comprised of short cases and/or problem sets that require the student to apply the principles discussed in class.

All students are required to attend the midterm and final examinations. There are no make- up exams.

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Please note that all assignments are to be completed using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and/or the assigned statistical software program.

Note on class attendance: You are expected to attend all classes. If you are unable to attend the class meetings be sure to contact me beforehand to discuss your absence. I suggest that you use a “buddy” system to ensure that if you miss a class that you get the appropriate notes from the lecture.

Course Schedule Session Day Topic Text (Chap.) 1 3-Sep Intro to MR, Research Design 1 , 2, 3 2 10-Sep Secondary Data, Qualitative Research 4 , 5 3 17-Sep Survey Modes and Data Collection 6 , 7, 8, 9 4 24-Sep Measurement and Scales 10 , 11 5 1-Oct Questionnaire Design 12 6 8-Oct Sampling 13 7 15-Oct Midterm Exam 8 22-Oct Sample Size Determination 14 9 29-Oct Fundamental Data Analysis 15 10 5-Nov Hypothesis Testing 16 11 12-Nov Hypothesis Testing 16 12 19-Nov Correlation and Regression 17 , 18 26-Nov Holiday - Friday Schedule 13 3-Dec Mini-Project Presentations 18 14 10-Dec Final Exam

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