Research Methodology-2

Assignment – A

Question 1. “Food Mania” is a chain of fast food restaurants located in major metropolitan areas in the south. Sales have been growing very slowly for the last two years. Management has decided to add some new items to the menu, but first they want to know more about their customers and their preferences.
(a) List two Hypothesis
(b) What kind of research design is appropriate? Why?

Question 2. Develop a plan for conducting a focus group to determine consumers’ attitudes towards and preferences for imported automobiles. Specify the objectives of the focus group, write a screening questionnaire, and develop a moderato’s outline.

Question 3. You are in the marketing research department of a firm specializing in developing decision support system (DCS) for the health care Industry. Your firm would like to measure the attitudes of hospital administrators towards DSS. The interview would be conducted by telephone. You have been asked to develop an appropriate scale for this purpose. Management would like you to explain and justify your reasoning in constructing the scale.

Question 4. After receiving some complaints from readers, your campus newspaper decides to redesign its front page. Two new formats B and C were developed and tested against the current format, A. A total of 75 students were randomly selected and 25 students were randomly assigned to each of three format conditions. The students were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the format on an 11-point scale. ( 1 = Poor, 11 = excellent )
(a) State the null hypothesis
(b) What statistical test should you use?
(c) What are the degrees of freedom associated with the test statistic?

Question 5. Describe the appropriate target population and the sampling frame in each of the following situations:
(a) The manufacturer of a new cereal brands want to conduct in home product usage test in Chicago.
(b) A national chain store wants to determine the shopping behavior of customers who have in store charge card.
(c) A local TV station wants to determine households’ viewing habits and programming preferences.
(d) The local chapter of the American Marketing Association wants to test the effectiveness of its new member drive in Atlanta.

Question 6. Develop a series of questions for determining the proportion of households with children under age 10 where child abuse takes place. Use the randomized response technique.

Question 7. A manufacturer would like to survey users to determine the demand potential for a new power press. The new press has a capacity of 500 tons and cost $225,000.It is used for forming products from lightweight ad heavyweight steel can be used by automobile, construction equipment and major appliance manufacturers.

a. Identify the population and sampling frame that could be used. b. Describe how a simple random sample can be drawn using the identified sampling frame. c. Could a stratified sample be used? If so , how? d. Could a cluster sample be used? If so, how? e. Which sampling technique would you recommend? Why?

Question 8. A major department store chain is having an end -of -season sale on refrigerators. The number of refrigerators sold during this sale at a sample of 10 stores was:
a. Is there evidence that an average of more than 50 refrigerators per store were sold during this sale? Use alpha = 0.05
b What assumption is necessary to perform this test?

Case Study

Nike Sprints Ahead of the Competition, Yet H as a Long Way to Run Nike Inc. locate d in Beaverton, Oregon is the number one U.S. athletic footwear company and one of the most recognized American brands among foreign consumers. The high degree of recognition is one of the main reasons Nike has been so successful. For the 2005 fiscal year ending May 31, 2005 the company continued to soar, with sales of over $13.7 billion. As of 2006 the company’s trademarks included Nike and Swoosh design and were sold under the brand names Cole Hann, Bauer, and N ike. The company operated 23 distribution centers in Europe, Asia, Australia, Latin America, Africa and Canada. Perhaps such success could be attributed to its concept based advertising campaigns. The company uses a process that is often called “image transfer”. Nike ads traditionally did not specifically place a product or mention the brand name. A mood or atmosphere is created and than brand is associated with that mood. “We don’t set out to make ad the ultimate goal is to make connection.” States Dan Wieden, executive at one of Nike’s ad agency. One ad features the Beatles and clips of Nike athletes, Michael Jordan and John McEnroe, Juxtaposed with pictures of regular folk also engaged in sports. It was use to infer that real athletes preferred Nike and that perhaps if general audience buy the brand they will play better, too. Nike’s unpredictable image -based ads have ranged from the shocking, such as its portrayal of real blood and guts in the” search and destroy” campaign used during the 1996 Olympics games, to humors, such as the first ad used to launch Michael Jordan’s brand wear. The latter advertising made the tongue-in-check suggestion that Jordan himself had a hand in the production by sleeping away from a bull’s game at half to run over to his company and than return in time for the games second half. In 1998 Nike shifted to a new phase in its marketing strategy. Nike emphasized more of its product innovation skills than the jokey, edgy attitude that it displayed in previous year.” We recognize that our ads need to tell consumers that we are about product innovation and not just athletes and exposure. We need to prove to consumer that we are not just slapping a swoosh on stuff to make a buck,” said Chris Zimmerman director of Nike’s U.S. advertising. With the launch of the “I can” campaign, Nike showed fewer of the celebrity athletes who previously usage than in the previous “Just Do It” campaign. Competitors Reebok and Adidas recently featured more product focused ads and were met with a great deal of success. Despite this rearranged focus, Nike did not back away from innovative marketing. On September 4, 2003 Nike acquired converse Inc. And on august 11, 2004, the company acquired starter properties LLC and Official Starter LLC. On august 4, 2005, Adidas confirmed that it had agreed to acquire Reebok for $3.8 billion. Industry official saw more consolidated ahead. In 2005, Bill Perez, president and CEO of Nike, stated that developing markets – India, Thailand, Indonesia China, Russia- and the development of Converse , Starter and Nike’s other subsidiary presented big growth opportunity. “We’ve just scratched the surface in the women’s fitness. In soccer, we have become world’s leading on-field performance brand. And we have been able to leverage that on-field success by creating entirely new category of soccer street foot ware. And we see opportunities like this throughout the portfolio.”

As the company looks ahead of 2010, at the heart of the Nike’s future strategy is the international arena, which could prove to be the most difficult element for Nike to undertake. There seems to be a pretty strong recognition that by 2010, Nike would be largest outside the U S than inside. Most recently Nike bought out many of its worldwide distribution centers in order to have greater control of its operation. In the future Nike would like to build up its presence in the key market of India, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, China, and Russia. Nike will focus its advertising on sports and will feature sports that are of particular interest in specific region. Nike realizes that while it is ahead of its competition, it still has a long, long way to run.

Questions:
1. Should N ike switch a focus on celebrity to a focus on its products in its advertising? Discuss the role of marketing research in helping N ike management take the decision. What kind of research should be undertaken?
2. How would you describe the buying behavior of consumers with respect to athlete footwear?
3. What is the management decision problem facing Nike as it attempt to retain its leadership position?
4. Define the marketing research problem facing N ike, given the management decision problem you have identified?
5. How can the internet be used to help Nike in conducting marketing research and in marketing its products?

Assignment – C

1. The respondent’s perceptions that their identities will not be discerned by the interviewer or the researcher
(a) Social desirability
(b) Critical request
(c) Perceived anonymity
(d) Non response bias

2. Observation bias for mechanical observation
(a) Low
(b) High
(c) Medium
(d) Extremely high

3. Pretest-Posttest Control Group is which type of Experimental design
(a) Pre-experimental
(b) Quasi experimental
(c) True experimental
(d) Statistical

4. The process of correcting data to reduce them to the sample scale by subtracting the sample mean and dividing by the standard deviation
(a) Generalization
(b) Scale transformation
(c) Standardization
(d) Variable re – specification

5. Scale intervals can be used for
(a) Family lifestyle
(b) Age
(c) Occupation
(d) Sampling

6. The process of recognizing and noting people
(a) Direct observation method
(b) Experimental method
(c) Attitude research
(d) Data gathering

7. Descriptive research is a type of
(a) Exploratory Research
(b) Attitude research
(c) Conclusive research
(d) Experimental research

8. What is meant by value of research information?
(a) How valuable the data is for the client
(b) cost benefit analysis of the data
(c) Information collected from various sources
(d) Total time collected in gathering information

9. The efficiency of OTC products is checked by
(a) Retailers only
(b) Consumers only
(c) Manufacturers only
(d) Distributors only

10. An extraneous variable involving changes in the measuring instrument or in the observers or scores themselves
(a) Interactive testing effect
(b) Instrumentation
(c) Statistic
(d) Sampling

11. _____may be broadly classified as exploratory or conclusive
(a) Job design
(b) Longitudinal design
(c) Cross-sectional design
(d) Research design

12. The time which a respondent takes before answering the question
(a) Response error
(b) Response Latency
(c) Verbal models
(d) Voice pitch analysis

13. An extraneous variable attributable to the loss of test units while the experiment is in process
(a) Interactive testing effect
(b) Instrumentation
(c) Statistic
(d) Mortality

14. Which one of these is a Market Research Firm?
(a) PWC
(b) Ernst and Young
(c) AC Nielsen
(d) Voltas

15. A focus group technique using a telecommunication network
(a) Telephonic group

(b) Telephonic interview
(c) Tele session group
(d) Mortality

16. In Exploratory research design the methods are used
(a) Expert surveys
(b) pilot surveys
(c) Qualitative research
(d) all of them

17. The research methodology which provides insights and understanding to the problem is
(a) Causal research
(b) Descriptive research
(c) Exploratory research
(d) all of them

18. When is the transcribing process of data preparation irrelevant?
(a) CAPI
(b) Mall panel
(c) In home interview
(d) all of them

19. A scale for measuring attitudes that consists of a single adjective in the middle of an even-numbered range of values, from -5 to +5, without a neutral point
(a) Semantic differential scale
(b) likert scale
(c) Continuous rating scale
(d) Staple scale

20. Companies that collect and sell common pools of data designed to serve information needs shared by a
number of clients
(a) Customized services
(b) Syndicated services
(c) Field services

(d) all of them

21. Which is a type of limited services?
(a) Analytical services
(b) Customized services
(c) Standardized services
(d) Internet services

22. Types of syndicated services
(a) Purchase panel
(b) Tracking data
(c) Audit services
(d) all of them

23. The research design which is used to obtain the evidence of cause and effect relationship
(a) Exploratory research
(b) Descriptive
(c) Cause and effect
(d) Cross-sectional

24. What is list of all units/observations is known as?
(a) Sampling frame
(b) Sampling size
(c) Parameter
(d) Statistics

25. Promotion of cable TV affects the health of a child 1) strongly agrees 2) agree 3) disagree 4) strongly disagree 5) undecided is an example of:
(a) Ordinal scale
(b) Summated scale
(c) Nominal scale
(d) Arbitrary scale

26. Multiple choice questions for which usually only two responses are given such as : yes -no , male-female.
(a) Open-ended questions
(b) Multiple choice questions
(c) Dichotomous questions
(d) Unstructured questions

27. The summary description of a fixed characteristic or measure of a target population is known as :
(a) Parameter
(b) Precision
(c) Statistic
(d) Quota

28. Which of the following is a technique of exploratory research design?
(a) Focus group interviews
(b) Simulation
(c) Secondary data
(d) Interrogation of respondents

29. Which of the following techniques is commonly used in social science research?
(a) Deliberate sampling
(b) Multistage sampling
(c) Cluster sampling
(d) Systematic sampling

30. Ranking of a team can de done with the help of :
(a) Ratio scale
(b) Interval scale
(c) Ordinal scale
(d) Nominal scale

31. What is the degree of freedom for F-test?
(a) n-k-2
(b) n
(c) n-k
(d) n-k-1

32. Which of the following is the source of secondary data?
(a) Mail interviews
(b) Focus groups
(c) Delphi technique
(d) Sales records

33. What is the another name for single cross-sectional designs?
(a) Longitudinal designs
(b) Sample survey design techniques
(c) Projective techniques
(d) Causal design

34. Questions to which the respondents can answer in their own words
(a) Dichotomous questions
(b) Unstructured questions
(c) Structured questions
(d) None of the above

35. Number of units to be included in the study is called
(a) Sampling frame
(b) Sampling
(c) Sample size
(d) Sampling unit

36. Technique used to motivate respondents to enlarge on, clarify or explain their answers
(a) Interviewing
(b) Sampling
(c) Probing
(d) Questioning

37. Non-metric data can be measured on
(a) Interval
(b) Nominal or ordinal scale
(c) Ratio scale
(d) None of the above

38. Which of the following represents the middle value when the data is arranged in the ascending or descending order?
(a) Mode
(b) Median
(c) Mean
(d) Average

39. Story – telling is an example of
(a) Delphi technique
(b) Observational methods
(c) Depth interviews
(d) Projective technique

40. “A Local radio station asks people to call in and express their reactions to some controversial issues “is an example of:
(a) Judgment sample
(b) Convenience sample
(c) Quota sample
(d) Probabilistic sample