Exam 8: Marketing Research, Decision Support Systems, and Sales Forecasting

Test-marketing a new product is expensive and communicates company plans to competitors prior to its full-scale introduction.

Which of the following is a probability sample?

Trade associations represent excellent sources of private data for particular industries, but these data are rarely made available to marketers.

Match each item to the statement or sentence listed below. a.marketing research b.exploratory research c.secondary data d.primary data e.sampling f.hypothesis g.nonprobability sample h.interpretative research i.focus group j.marketing decision support system k.sales forecast l.jury of executive opinion m.Delphi technique n.sales force composite o.trend analysis p.exponential smoothing q.marketing information system r.data mining s.mall intercept t.simple random sample u.cluster sample v.convenience sample w.controlled experiment -assigns weight to historical sales data, giving the greatest weight to the most recent data.

A hypothesis is a tentative explanation for some specific event involving the relationship among variables that carries clear implications for testing the relationship.

The mail survey remains the most common method for conducting primary marketing research outside North America.

The two largest sources of information are provided by Statistics Canada and Industry Canada.

Match each item to the statement or sentence listed below. a.marketing research b.exploratory research c.secondary data d.primary data e.sampling f.hypothesis g.nonprobability sample h.interpretative research i.focus group j.marketing decision support system k.sales forecast l.jury of executive opinion m.Delphi technique n.sales force composite o.trend analysis p.exponential smoothing q.marketing information system r.data mining s.mall intercept t.simple random sample u.cluster sample v.convenience sample w.controlled experiment -is a technique based on the combined sales estimates of the firm's sales force.

What kind of probability sample constructed so that randomly selected subsamples of different groups are represented in the total sample?

Primary data has the advantage of being timely and completely relevant to the research.

Industry Canada's mandate is to help Canadians and Canadian companies to grow in the competitive knowledge-based Canadian economy.

If the United Nations were to bring experts together to discuss the impact of technological change on less-developed countries, it could use the Delphi technique to forecast the magnitude of those changes.

Telephone interviews are fast, cheap, and have a high rate of response.

The first step in marketing research is to conduct exploratory research and then use the information to define the problem.

Focus groups are a particularly valuable tool for exploratory research, developing new product ideas, and preliminary testing of alternative marketing strategies.

Secondary data has the advantage of being more completely relevant to the research than primary data.

What is the basic characteristic of a probability sample?

Entertainment Research Group specializes in rating movie theaters using input from moviegoers. What type of research firm is this an example of?

Interpretative research focuses on understanding the meaning of a product or the consumption experience in a consumer's life.

Guitar Centre hypothesized that because of changing music trends, acoustic guitars would no longer be a best-selling item. This represents the first stage of the exploratory investigation process.