Definition
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 address 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.
Marketing Research Terms
A balloon test (or cartoon test) is a projective interviewing technique in which respondents are presented with a cartoon strip in which there is a blank balloon above the heads of one or more of the characters. Respondents are asked to write inside the balloons what they believe the characters are saying.
A comparative rating scale is one that requires subjects to make their ratings as a series of relative judgments or comparisons rather than as independent assessments.
Completely randomized design is an experimental design in which the experimental treatments are assigned to the test units completely at random.
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Conjoint analysis is a statistical technique in which respondents’ utilities or valuations of attributes are inferred from the preferences they express for various combinations of these attributes.
A driver is causally antecedent to the variable of interest. Drivers can be under the control of the marketers, indirectly influenced by marketing decisions, or due to external factors. For example, advertising might be a driver of brand preference either directly or indirectly. Note: KPI driver refers to a driver of key performance indicators.
Factor analysis is a body of statistical techniques concerned with the study of interrelationships among a set of variables, none of which is given the special status of a criterion variable. This technique allows researchers to investigate concepts that are not easily measured directly by collapsing a large number of variables into a few interpretable underlying factors.
Garbology is the study of consumer behavior and preferences for foods and other goods by examining disposed items found in trash and garbage containers.
A graphic rating scale is one in which individuals indicate their ratings of an attribute by placing a check at the appropriate point on a line that runs from one extreme of the attribute to the other.
A mail questionnaire is administered by mail to designated respondents under an accompanying cover letter and is returned, by mail, by the respondent to the research organization.
A manipulation check is a measurement that is taken in an experiment to make sure that subjects accurately perceived the actual changes in the treatment variable.
An observation is a method of data collection in which the situation of interest is watched and the relevant facts, actions, or behaviors recorded. An observation error is a nonsampling mistake that arises because inaccurate information is secured from the sample elements or because errors are introduced in the processing of the data or in reporting the findings.
An omnibus panel is a sample of respondents who are measured repeatedly over time but on variables that change from measurement to measurement.
A respondent is a person in a survey who is asked for information using either written or verbal questioning, typically employing a questionnaire to guide the questioning.
A subject is a person from whom information is secured in a marketing research study, either by questioning or by observing him or her in some way.
A true panel is a sample of respondents who are measured repeatedly over time with respect to the same variables.
See Also
Delphi Technique
Research interviews
References
- American Marketing Association, About AMA: Definition of Marketing.
- American Marketing Association, AMA Dictionary.