BMI3C Exam Review PDF

**UNIT 1 REVIEW:** Marketing" is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy customer\ and organizational objectives. ### **Introduction to Marketing** - **Who Markets?**: All organizati...

**UNIT 1 REVIEW:** Marketing" is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy customer\ and organizational objectives. ### **Introduction to Marketing** - **Who Markets?**: All organizations and many individuals, including: - **Manufacturers:** market their products to potential\ customers - **Service Businesses:** market their expertise to potential customers - **Not-for-profit Organizations: market** their cause to potential donors - **Politicians:** market their ideas to potential voters - **Job applicants:** market their skills to potential employers - **4Ps of Marketing**: - **2Cs**: Customer and Competition -- focusing on understanding customers and outperforming competitors. - **Revenue** is money you receive for selling products/services. - **Expenses** are the money you must spend to sell. ### **Goods and Services** - Divided into two categories 1. **Industrial:** are used by businesses to assist in the production of other products - **finished goods:** Products that don\'t need further processing 2. **Consumer:** Non-industrial products intended for personal use by the general public - **Goods**: Tangible items like electronics, clothing, or cars. - **Services**: Intangible products, such as consulting, education, or healthcare. - Marketing strategies differ between goods (emphasizing product features) and services (emphasizing experience and trust). ### **Target Markets** - Marketers identify **specific groups of consumers** based on characteristics like age, income, location, or behavior. - Tailoring marketing efforts to the right target market increases effectiveness and efficiency. ### **Non-Profit Marketing** - **Non-profits organizations:** does not seek a profit as its main goal. However, their main goal would be to raise funds for a specific purpose such as a cure for heart disease or a cure for breast cancer - **Not-for-profits** **organizations:** also, does not seek profit as the main goal.\ However, any surplus money or profit they do receive is shared in the form\ of improved services to their members. An example of this would be a low- income housing project that offers apartments and houses for lower rent. ### **Marketing Strategies** - Strategies include branding, advertising, digital marketing, and relationship marketing. - The primary goal of a **brand strategy** is to communicate the value of a product or service to the consumer. - **Distribution strategies: Focus** on the best way to deliver a\ product/service to the target market - **The value equation: Value = perceived benefit- perceived cost** **-** identify the benefits and costs of their products ### **Global Marketing** - Marketing on a worldwide scale.\ Involves recognizing that people all over the world have different needs\ Must understand regional differences -- ie: currency, language, customs, interests, values, etc - **WHY GO GLOBAL?** Some foreign markets have higher profit opportunities\ **More revenue;** Corporate income tax is high in\ domestic markets\ **Access to more labor and capital: Creates** more job opportunities.\ Reduces dependency on a single market **Marketing strategies for international marketing:** - A **global Strategy** consists of 0ne marketing mix that is used with minimal changes in all markets\ A global strategy is helpful in gaining worldwide recognition of your brand and with keeping production and promotion costs low\ Example: coca-cola - **Multi-Domestic Strategy:** Making changes in the product, promotion or\ both to meet the target market's culture, needs,\ and wants\ **Example:** McDonalds adapted their menu in India in order to sell items that do not contain beef or pork - **Customized Strategy:** developing a totally new product to meet the specific target markets needs\ Ex: home appliance manufacture developing products\ that can be used without electricity in order to sell to\ developing countries ### **Generational Marketing & Supply and Demand** - **Baby Boomers:** - 1946 to 1964 - seniors focused on living a healthy & relaxing lifestyle - Most are retired - **Generation X:** - 1965 to 1980 - generally married and have children - well into their careers with some even approaching or just retiring. - **Generation Y:** - 1980 to 1996 - finished post-secondary school and are in the early to middle stages of their careers - **Generation Z:** - 1996 -- 2010 - currently in school (high school, or college/university) - work part-time - popular users of social media. - Some may even be in the beginning stages of their careers. - **Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs**: - **Physiological needs: These** include needs such as food, water, warmth, rest, and sleep. - **Safety needs:** These include personal security, employment, health, and safety. - **Belonging needs: These** include friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection, and love. - **Esteem needs: These** include respect, self-esteem, status, prestige, recognition, freedom, and feeling of accomplishment. - **Self-actualization needs: These** include achieving one's full potential, including any creative activities. - **Demand:** Demand is the amount of a specific product or service a buyer (consumer) is able and willing to buy at a certain price. - **Supply:** Supply is the amount of a specific product or service a supplier is willing to provide at a certain price. ### **Product Life Cycle** - Describes the changes in consumer demand over\ time - Products go through stages: **Introduction:** \- Product is a novelty\ - Usually only one brand of product is available\ - Very costly: design, equipment, training, and promotion trendsetters or early adopters (curious, adventurous customers who like to be the first to buy something)\ - Ex: Self-driving cars **Growth:** -target market purchases the product regularly\ - advertising focuses on customer satisfaction\ - competition increases\ - Ex: electric cars (Tesla),\ - this is the most crucial stage for a product: it will either succeed or\ fail **Maturity:** -sales are level or slowing down\ -marketing efforts at this time focus on brand loyalty\ -Profits are highest as development costs are recouped and advertising isn't intensive\ -businesses will use the product's success to fund new product development and use the brand name\ -Ex. iPhones, LED/LCD (BIG SCREEN) TVs,\ Coca-Cola **Decline:** -sales decrease - company is unable to find new customers for a product or service\ -Could be because of an issue with the brand, or the entire product category\ - Ex: Blu-ray and DVD players, diesel ### **Consumer Profiles & Motivation** - **Consumer Profiles**: Detailed information about customer demographics (age, income), psychographics (values, lifestyle, behaviors, shopping habits) and geographics\' (location, country, region) **[Unit 2 Review]** **Lesson 1 - Competition** - In the marketplace, competition is a contest between two or more businesses for customers. As you know already, profit (money) drives businesses; the more successful a business becomes, the more profit it will make - **Benefits of Competition** - Increased Selection, Alternative Choices, Better Prices, Increased Productivity -- better use of resources, new processes, Product Improvements --improved standard of living, Technology Advancements - **Types of markets** - **Sustainable Competitive Advantages:** - Methods by which a business holds on to its customers, in spite of the competition - Create a unique selling proposition (USP) -- the unique feature or aspect of a product that persuades a customer to buy it - These are things that one company's products have that the others do not. - Lowering production costs: cost-efficient, high technology manufacturing systems to reduce the costs associated with its products - Servicing a niche market -- keep competitors out of that market - Create customer loyalty -- relationship marketing - **Non-Sustainable Advantages** - Promotion: "top of mind" - Top of Mind Awareness: this is the product/brand that consumers first think about when they think of a product. - Placement: more placement=more competitive - Quality - A product can compete with other\ products in its category by being the\ best of its type - Benefits of use: do more and better than other products - The more that a product is able to do, the bigger its competitive advantage will be\... - Price: all features being equal\... - price is usually the deciding factor in which will get purchased as the cheaper one has the competitive advantage - Design features: catch consumers' interest -- product design - A design that consumers prefer will have a competitive advantage - **Service competition** **Services** are intangibles, things that cannot be touched 5 ways to gain a competitive advantage: **Convenience**\ - Making some activity easier or more comfortable\ - Value-added services (ex: pizza companies promise delivery in 30 minutes\...) **Degree of Service**\ - businesses offering more services with better quality are often more competitive (ex: hair stylists that also offer manicures)\ - however fewer value-added services will lower costs and will\ gain customers looking for the best deal (ex: IKEA -- customers pick up and assemble) **Selection**\ - Offering a greater selection of services helps companies compete\ - selection can be wide (more brands or types) or deep (larger quantity of one type of item) (Ex: Walmart offering many different brands of tissue paper) **Reputation**\ - Important to maintain a good reputation because it's not a tangible product\ - Word-of-Mouth goes a long way (Ex: Reviews of movies, restaurants, travel destinations.) **Price**\ - If services are similar, customers usually purchase services at the lowest price\ -BUT they may be suspicious of a service if they feel that the price is too low (Ex: Haircut for \$5)\ - the price is also affected by supply and demand (Ex: Vacations in peak season, cheap movies on Tuesdays) - **Product/service mix** ¨ Sometimes when you buy a product you are also paying for services\ ¨ Retail stores merely provide a service to consumers and manufactures (Ex: clothing stores) Ex: clothing stores offer these services:\ - fitting rooms\ - knowledgeable staff\ - return/exchange policies\ - Payment options (cash, credit, debit)\ - convenient locations/hours\... - The opposite may also occur, service-based businesses may also add products - **Market share** - % of revenue that one company earns of the total revenue generated within a particular category (Ex: the beverage market) Two ways of increasing market share: - Increase the size of the overall market\ - Ex: Aspirin (heart disease)\ - Ex: Milk (calcium) - Take sales away from its competitors\ - Ex: Convince consumers to switch over to your product **Lesson 2 - Product development** Factors that marketers can control - When developing a product or service, marketers should consider the things they can control about it: the quality, design, and features - Quality - refers to the degree to which a product or service satisfies a consumer's\ needs and wants - Design - refers to the way a product or service appeals to\ consumers by performing its intended functions. - Features are what the product has in it, or elements\ that upgrade the product's functionality. - **Terminology:** - Product line - A group of closely related products manufactured and/or sold by a business - Product Depth - The number of product items offered within each product line - Product Width -- The number of different product lines a business manufactures or sells - Product Item -- A specific model, brand, or size of a product within a product line - Types of utilities - **Form utility** -- the relationship between a product or services'\ form and its function (ex. boxed detergent can be produced in liquid form, which may be more advantageous for certain consumer requirements) - Form follows function. What the product is meant to\ do will dictate what it looks like - **Information utility** - The value when the consumer knows the product exists and the benefits it offers. (ex. instructions, directions and user manuals or advertising of the product) - **Time utility -** Enhancing a product\'s marketability by making it available at a convenient time.\ For example, a daily newspaper home delivered so that the customer has it available immediately when he/she awakes for the day. - **Place utility -** Where the product or service is made available.\ For example, if it is a retail establishment, people should be provided with easy access. - **Possession utility -** Additional consumer value created by allowing easy transferring of a product\'s ownership - For example, various time payment, leasing, and credit purchase strategies can be important in making a product more attractive to a consumer - **Feasibility study** - Marketing, production, and finance departments assess whether the product/service is viable or profitable enough.\ How will the product be distributed? what will it be made of? how much will it cost to make? How much will advertising cost? What can we sell it for? - **The stages of product development** 1. **Generating Ideas** - Comes from marketing research whereby it is determined that consumers want either a new product or a modification to an existing product. 2. **Screening Ideas** - Testing of consumer reaction and competitive situation in the market. Not all ideas are good! New products or innovations need to be tested before becoming widespread in the market. 3. **Concept Development** - Consider a product's potential sales, costs, and production requirements. If these are favorable than development can proceed. If consumers think the idea is a good one, a "prototype" is created. 4. **Marketing Strategy** (occurs alongside steps 5 and 6) - Marketers develop a marketing strategy. They identify their primary market (target market) and their secondary market. A marketing plan is then created to implement their marketing strategy. 5. **Feasibility study** (occurs alongside steps 4 and 6)\ Marketing, production, and finance departments assess whether\ the product/service is viable or profitable enough. 6. **Product design** (occurs alongside steps 4 and 5)\ Includes product design (physical features) and its warranty,\ instructional manual, packaging and service information. 7. **TEST MARKETING**\ Involves product trial and auditing of consumer reactions. Might give the\ product to members of the target market to 'test out'. 8. **MARKET ENTRY**\ Beginning of the product life cycle.\ This stage also is called commercialization.\ Evaluating Customer Acceptance - **Branding** --is establishing an identity for a product that differentiates it from the\ competition. It can be thought of as the reputation a company has in the minds of a consumer. - **Brand loyalty and equity** - Types of Brands - **National brand or a manufacturer brand** is a brand of a product manufactured and spread nationwide using a brand name and owned by a company. - Simply put, the brand is owned by its producer - **Private label brands** focus on the seller\ -Stores use well-known companies to make products with the store's label on it - **Generic Brands** are also called no name brands. They are the lowest cost because the labeling and packaging is cheaper, and there is sometimes no promotion for this type of brand. - **Logos and slogans** \- A logo is an image, or a picture associated with the brand of a product to convey to consumers what the product is all about **Types of Logos** - **Monogrammatic** - Stylized writing of the company or product's initials or a combination of initials and numbers - **Visual symbols** - Line drawings of people, animals or objects. - Communicate a feature of the company's products or history - **Abstract symbols** - Shapes that carry a visual message but are not representative of identifiable objects. - **Understand the different branding strategies** - Brand strategies are ways of getting that brand to the potential consumer by 5 methods 1. **Support for an Existing Brand** 2. **Development of a Brand Extension** 3. **Licensing a successful brand** - Licensing of a brand is simple - One company's brand appears on another company's products - The brand is sold to another company to use on their products for a fee - An example would be Porsche giving its brand to Nokia to create a high-end cell phone 4. **Co-Branding** 5. **Acquisition of a successful brand** - **What is Positioning?** - Marketers make choices on how to position their product or service in order to create an image of the brand that they want the consumer to accept - Creates an *image* people associate with the product or service. - Ex: Armani products are high end and luxurious - How do business' position themselves in the market? - **Types of positioning** - **[Benefit Positioning]** -  Customers want every product they buy to do something for them, to benefit them in some way - **[Target Positioning ]** - To gain an effective target market position, all of a brand's marketing must be focused on a specific consumer segment (target market) - **[Price Positioning ]** - A marketer has one of two options -- offer the most expensive product in a category, or offer the least expensive product in a category - A business can also use price position to discourage customers that it doesn't want (Example: many exclusive fashion stores in New York require an appointment to shop at their store) - **[Distribution Positioning ]** - Unique sales techniques -- becoming known for your distribution methods - Example - AVON -- over 3 million local distributors who use a catalogue to take orders from friends and family and then earn a commission from each item they sell - **[Service Positioning ]** - Convenience stores open for 24 hours -- positions itself by providing service that no other store does **Lesson 4 - Packaging** - **Packaging and labeling considerations** - What are the main reasons for packaging? - **Protect and Preserve** - Materials available include glass, paper, plastic, cardboard and Styrene foam - e.g. airtight containers to preserve freshness and prevent spoilage, large packages to deter (shoplifting) theft, packaging peanuts to prevent breaking, etc - **Convenience** - Makes the product easier to use (ie, instructions on the package) - Makes the product easier to transport/display - e.g. toothpaste in cardboard boxes, so they can be stacked on shelves, squeezable ketchup containers. - **Safety** - Ensure that the product is safe for use - e.g. sealed medicine/food containers, child proof, package also provides a place for labelling (product use instructions, warnings and safety information, etc.). - **Promotion** - Silent salesperson" - Must stand out against competitors **Lesson 5 - Pricing** - **Variable and fixed costs** - [Fixed costs -] Expenses that stay the same regardless of how much is produced or sold. (e.g. Rent, phone bill, insurance, etc.) - [Variable Costs] - Expenses that change depending on the level of production or sales. (e.g. raw materials, employee wages, sales commissions, shipping costs, production costs etc.) - **Break-even analysis** - The determination of the number of units that a business must sell to cover its costs. - To calculate it, you need to know [fixed costs], [variable costs] and [gross profit]. - **Break-even point** - The point where your costs are the same as your revenue, so you are neither losing nor making money. - Break-even point = fixed costs ¸ gross profit (unit) 1. **Laws - Price fixing** -- Price fixing is when a group of competitors get together to agree on a set (fixed) price. This means all the competitors will sell for the same agreed price. Common examples include gas prices, retailers, and construction supply businesses. **Price discrimination: **Price discrimination is another illegal tactic to drive the competition out of business by setting the price of a product below the cost. Another variant of price discrimination would be charging some consumers or businesses lower prices for the same products or services. 2. **The competition's pricing** - Forces sellers of the same or similar products to remain close to one another in product pricing. Cannot price your product too high or else you will lose customers. Affected by Internet.... access to information is readily available 3. **Product positioning** - Pricing based on how you want to position your product or service. Premium pricing -- want consumers to think that your product is of high status/premium quality. Discount pricing -- lower the selling price to attract customers. 4. **Consumer demand** - How much are consumers willing to pay? Always easier to reduce prices, very hard to increase prices. Price Sensitivity: When demand is strongly tied to the price and will fluctuate as the price changes. When prices go up, demand drops 5. **Marketing Boards** - Promote their commodities. Provide marketing info to producer-members. Fund production and marketing research Some pay for promotional activities and campaigns 6. **Product Costs** - The cost of making or manufacturing a product or providing a service will of course affect the price, as businesses always strive to make a profit and will not charge a price below cost. 1. **Market Skimming -** Setting an initially [high price] for a product or service before competitors enter the market - Company makes a lot quickly so they can cover their costs quickly - before competition enters the market. - Competitors benefit from all the work done by the originating company (product development, marketing/consumer awareness, creating distribution networks, etc.) 2. **Penetration Pricing -** Setting the initial high price of a product [low] to attract customers. Prices are raised later, once customers are committed. - Floods the market quickly, making it difficult for competitors to gain market share. - Creates high consumer demand so the company quickly recoups costs. - Consumer demand must be very accurately estimated in order to ensure costs are covered. - The company must be able to meet the demand. This is especially difficult for new companies who don't have the \$\$\$ to produce a lot without established orders. 3. **Competitive Pricing -** Setting the initial high price of a product [at the same or about the same price] as the competition. - Allows a new product to compete with established products - Consumers may be reluctant to switch or try products they don't know **Pricing policies** **Leader pricing** - purpose is to generate traffic in the store and encourage shoppers to purchase other products - Customers believe that because some products are priced well... then all products will be priced well **Loss Leader Pricing** - A very aggressive pricing strategy where a store prices its goods below the cost to acquire them in order to generate sales of other, profitable goods. **Price Lining** - selling different products at different price points to cater to customers who are looking for different levels of quality, convenience, and value Example: Apple -- different models for products **Everyday low price (EDLP)** - guarantee the consumer that the price they pay in the store is the lowest price available Example: Walmart **Super sizing** - adding a low cost to a product to increase its selling price and profitability Example: McDonald's, upgrading from a medium to a large costs very little for the company but they can earn higher revenue from consumers **Combo / Bundle pricing** - offers the consumer a deal on one part of the sale, but business makes a large profit on the other parts it requires the consumer to buy **Interest-Free Pricing** - Offers no or low interest on the life of the contract if the payments are met. **Psychological pricing** - tries to use knowledge of typical consumer behavior to forecast acceptable pricing - Odd-even pricing \$2.99 or \$100 - Odd numbers convey bargain! - Even numbers convey quality **Multiple Unit pricing** Example: 4 chocolate bars in a pkg - You think you're getting a bargain - Increases sales volume **Discount Pricing** - Selling products at a reduced price - Cash - 2% off if you pay bill early OR coupon on box - Get more in terms of quantity - If the Bay buys 10,000 Diesel t-shirts, they'll get them cheaper - Seasonal discounts - Christmas cards and off-season vacations - Promotional discounts and allowances - Rebates and trade-in old merchandise - **Tariffs --** taxes levied by governments on imported goods. - These taxes are used to protect domestic businesses from imported products. - If you are exporting a product you need to be aware if tariffs will be placed on your product as that will increase the price you need to charge - **Transportation costs** - The further the distance that needs to be travelled, the higher the transportation costs will be. - This is why the US and Canada are such strong trading partners.... the distance between the two nations is very close - Generally, shipping can be fast and expensive or slow and inexpensive - **Currency values** - Must be mindful of exchange rates. - Canadian business price their goods for foreign markets in Canadian dollars and then the foreign businesses adjust the price to match their own currency. **[Unit 3 Review]** - **Pros and Cons of the types of Media:** - **AIDA - ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE AND ACTION** - Your ad should catch the potential consumer's attention, create an interest in the product or service, increase desire for the product or service, and encourage the customer to buy the product or service. - **Sales Promotion** - **"**Sales promotion consists of all the non-personal activities that marketers use to try and increase sales over a specific period of time." - Usually involves discounting price or adding a reward for purchase of goods or services. - EX. contest and sweepstakes, coupons, rebates, premiums, samples, special sales, point of purchase displays and co promotions. - **Motivational appeals of Ads.** 1. [Biological] -- need for health and security. Examples: Health foods, home security, pharmaceutical brands, automobiles 2. [Emotional] -- focus on consumer's feelings, love for children, feelings of romance or pride. Examples: Downey fabric softener, Perfume, Canadian Armed Forces, climate change 3. [Rational] -- Consumer reasoning; stresses convenience, cost savings, warranties, logical reason to buy. Examples: Honda for mileage, Minute Rice, Guaranteed Trials 4. [Social] -- focus on social pressures influencing consumer behaviour, including body shape, appropriate behaviour, social acceptance. Examples: Acne face wash, Axe deodorant - **Celebrity Endorsements** (Article Reading) - Endorsements are an example of brand preference ads - Celebrities that back up and certify a product will help to convince customers to buy that product - "Celebrity brand endorsement\... Is it a goldmine or a minefield? It can be both. Aligning brands with legends can be immensely valuable in terms of brand-building -provided that the personalities remain closely aligned to the brand values. Behaviour, performance and reputation, are critical." - the reality is that celebrities can - and do - play a role in building brands. Making the right choices in terms of personality, values, associated emotions and code of conduct is critical. The wrong choice could be terminal. - **What is distribution?** - Place and distribution are terms used to describe marketing activities that enable products to get from the producer to the customer. - These are the paths of ownership that products follow as they pass from the producer or manufacturer to the end consumer. - Place marketing decisions are critical to the success of a product or service. - Place decisions include when, where, and how products get from the producer to the consumer. **Channels of distribution:** - **Direct vs indirect distribution** - Indirect distribution, on the other hand, involves several intermediaries taking possession of the goods, adding markup, and then reselling them to the end consumer. There are different forms of intermediaries. - **Specialty channels of distribution:** - Any indirect channel of distribution that does not involve a retail store. - Ex: Vending machines, internet, catalogues, TV shopping channels, streaming, telemarketing - **Different parts of the supply chain process**. - A distribution channel is like a chain, linking a system of organizations, people, activities, resources, and information together, all for the purpose to supply a product or service. For this reason, a distribution channel is often referred to as **supply chain** - **Components of Physical distribution:** - Products are the items to be transported. - Channel members are the businesses or organizations in the supply chain process. - Transportation companies provide the logistics in moving your products from producers to the end consumers. - Warehouses are where your products are stored to be available to sell to consumers when ready. - **Pros and Cons of the different Transportation methods:** **-Railroad (Train)** Large amounts of bulky products (e.g. coal, lumber, livestock) slow service **-Trucking** Economical, can carry a wide range of goods, trucks can pickup from railroad and waterways, can also be used as a major means of transport **-Pipelines** Used for liquids and gases (eg. crude oil, natural gas), cheaper than rail and road transportation **-Boat (Ship) Transport** Good for bulky raw materials e.g. (coal, grain, sugar, cotton, wheat , rice, iron ore), very slow **-Air Transport** Fast, carry lightweight, perishables, good to reach isolated areas, expensive - **Overstock**: When you have more stock than you can sell in a reasonable period of time - **Out-of-Stock:** Running out of inventory means you lose sales and customers may get angry costing you future sales - **Shrinkage:** Inventory that is lost due to: Breakage/Damage, theft - **Turnover:** The number of times a business sells its inventory in one year. Shows how fast inventory is moving - **Logistics:** The process of designing and managing a *[supply chain.]* All the activities involved in getting goods and services from the original source to the ultimate consumer - **Terms of Sale** - In this part of the process the buyer and the supplier negotiate the conditions for the sale or purchase. Conditions can include discounts, transportation, delivery, and payment dues. - **Purchase Order** - After the terms of sale are determined, a purchase order (PO) is created. A purchase order is a document authorizing the purchase and delivery of products at specific prices and times. A purchase order functions as an official sales contract, a legally binding agreement with signatures of all parties involved in the sale. - **Order Processing** - Once a purchase order is created, it will start getting processed. Order processing means receiving and filling orders. - **What is Marketing Research?** - To sell to customers, you need to know and understand their needs and wants, and the best way to do that is through **marketing research.** - understand the size of the market - understand market trends - be able to perform accurate sales forecasting - evaluate the success of marketing strategies and promotions - **Examples of Primary Data collection:** - DATA MINING - Determines the relationships between personal information and purchasing behaviour for specific consumers -- looking for a connection - SURVEYS - Carefully planned, used to gather data -- by phone, internet, by mail, in person - OBSERVATION - Collecting information by recording the actions of the consumer, without interacting with them - FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWS - A small group of people brought together to discuss a particular product - **Quantitative vs Qualitative** - **Quantitative Data (Hard Data) -** As the term suggests, quantitative data is information that you can calculate in terms of numbers, percentage and so on. For example, based on the data collected, 60% of children ages 6-10 drink milk at least four times a week. Quantitative data tells you how much, but it doesn't tell you why, when, and how. - **Qualitative data (Soft Data):** Unlike quantitative data, qualitative data provides marketers with a lot more details about products and services, including why, when, and how. For example, based on consumer interview a business can find out why consumers tend to purchase certain items of others - What are internal information sources? - What is Secondary Data? - **Hard vs Soft Data** HARD DATA: Information based on **supportable facts** that can be **demonstrated** to be true (Example: There are 535,000 people living in Hamilton (quantitative)) - **Consumer Research Dimensions:** **Awareness, Attitude & Usage Studies ( AAU )** Measures consumers awareness of products, their attitudes of their products, and their usage of those products - **Consumer attitudes:** - Can help determine the consumers' opinions regarding the brand's strength ( AKA brand equity) and their weaknesses **Consumer segmentation analysis** - Used to group potential customers into target markets based on shared demographic, geographic, or psychographic characteristics - Recall that we learned about this during Unit 1 - This allows companies to divide the market into groups of customers who tend to have similar viewpoints **Market dimension analysis** - Researches the main issues concerning the product that influence a particular consumer segment - For Barq's Root Beer, they identified bold taste, fun, and unpredictable image as the main issues that have an effect on the target market's decision to purchase root beer **Product research** - Examines each detail of the product or service and analyzes its potential impact on the market - Looks at things like colour, package, flavour, size, texture, scent, design, sound - Researchers then gather feedback to determine consumer wants **Media research** - Attempts to segment consumers based on which media they use to get information, including: - Which newspapers, magazines, television programs, radio stations, modes of transportation and internet sites do consumers use? **Consumer tracking devices** - Determine when consumers shop, where they shop, what they buy and their behaviour while shopping - Sensors on shopping carts, infrared light beams, bar-code scanners, smart-coupon machines, etc gather this info without the consumer knowing **Motivation research** - Is psychological research into the buying behaviour of consumers. It looks at both the emotional and rational motives that influence people - Ex: in one study researches presented people with three cups of coffee and each was exactly the same. - One cup was red, the other was green, and the third was brown. - People voted that the coffee in the red cup tasted the best....As a result, the company was able to design their packaging with the incorporation of red colours **Consumer satisfaction studies** - Researchers use customer feedback cards, follow up interviews, web sites, and suggestion boxes to measure the level of consumer satisfaction - Ex: on receipts...please complete this customer survey **Advertising research** - Provides info on how to effectively convey a product message to potential consumers - Advertising concepts are often tested in focus groups before a large media buy