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MKC1 - Fundamentals of Marketing and Business Communication > Chapter 10 ("Gathering and Using Information: Marketing Research and Market Intelligence") quiz > Flashcards

Chapter 10 ("Gathering and Using Information: Marketing Research and Market Intelligence") quiz Flashcards

• A company who tracks how many visitors its Web site gets daily is analyzing

its intranet. a marketing information system. competitive intelligence. clickstream data.

clickstream data.

Clickstream data is data generated about the number of people who visit a Web site and its various pages, how long they dwell there, and what they buy or don’t buy.

• Making internal data accessible to employees and managers for information needed for decision-making can be accomplished through use of a(n)

industrial espionage system. corporate Web site. Intranet. clickstream data portal.

Intranet : A private, internal Web site accessible only to a firm’s employees.

• The process of accessing different databases to get the right data to the right places for decision-making in marketing is called

data mining

• What source of marketing intelligence would be best for finding specific industry activities and marketplace trends?

industry publications

• What term refers to gathering corporate information unethically or illegally?

industrial espionage(スパイ活動）

• How does marketing research differ from marketing intelligence?

Marketing intelligence focuses on a specific problem at a specific time whereas marketing research is gathered on an ongoing basis.

Marketing research focuses on a specific problem at a specific time whereas marketing intelligence is gathered on an ongoing basis.

Marketing intelligence is not part of a marketing information system but marketing research is.

Marketing research is not part of a marketing information system but marketing intelligence is.

There is no difference; the terms mean the same thing.

二番目のやつMarketing research focuses on a specific problem at a specific time whereas marketing intelligence is gathered on an ongoing basis.

• What is the first step in the marketing research process?

defining the problem

• At the beginning of the marketing research process, what should be put into writing by the researcher?

the research objective

• Which of the following statements is true concerning primary data versus secondary data in the marketing research process?

One should always look at the availability of secondary data before gathering primary data.

One needs to be more concerned with source credibility of primary data than for secondary data.

Primary data is less expensive to gather than is secondary data.

One should always look at the availability of primary data before gathering secondary data.

Gathering secondary data is more time-consuming than gathering primary data.

Finding secondary data pertinent to your research objective can save time and money.

Research designs fall into one of the following three categories:

projective, explanatory, and convenience validity, reliability, and surveys case studies, projective techniques, and surveys exploratory, descriptive, and causal probability, nonprobability, and convenience

exploratory, descriptive, and causal

• Which type of qualitative data is used to get respondents to reveal insights that might not be gathered through direct questioning?

projective techniques

Projective techniques are used to reveal information research respondents might not reveal by being asked directly. Asking a person to complete sentences such as the following is one technique:

People who buy Coach handbags __________.

(Will he or she reply with “are cool,” “are affluent,” or “are pretentious,” for example?)

• The answers to who, what, where, when, and how can often be found in what type of research design?

descriptive

• Take a look at the following survey item: Rate your satisfaction regarding the quality of Wendy’s hamburgers and fries: _____ I am highly satisfied with their quality. _____ I am somewhat satisfied with their quality. _____ I am neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their quality. _____ I am somewhat dissatisfied with their quality. _____ I am highly dissatisfied with their quality. Is there a problem with the wording?

Yes. This is a double-barreled item.

A survey question that is potentially confusing because it asks two questions in the same question.

. What is a sampling frame?

the time it takes to determine your sample the method in which your survey will be administered to respondents the time it takes to complete the survey by a respondent the validity of your research sample to your objective the list from which the sample is drawn

the list from which the sample is drawn

• What is the key advantage of administering a survey face-to-face?

It is less costly than mail or computer surveys. It allows more inclusion of longer, more complex questions. It makes the respondents feel more at ease. It is less labor intensive than mail or computer surveys. There are no advantages to administering a survey face-to-face.

It allows more inclusion of longer, more complex questions.

• When dealing with translation issues while conducting international marketing research, some firms use native speakers to translate the survey into the foreign language and then translate it again to the original language to reveal gaps in meaning. This process is called

back translation.

• A marketing firm is concerned that a recent research study had flaws and that the findings would not be the same if the study was conducted again. Their concern is with the study’s

reliability.

• Which section of the research report contains the margin of error of the study’s findings?

methodology

MKC1 - Fundamentals of Marketing and Business Communication (12 decks)

• Chapter 2 ("Strategic Planning")
• Chapter 2 ("Strategic Planning") quiz
• Chapter 1 ("What is Marketing")
• Chapter 1 ("What is Marketing") quiz
• Chapter 5 ("Market Segmenting, Targeting, and Positioning")
• Chapter 5 ("Market Segmenting, Targeting, and Positioning") quiz
• Chapter 10 ("Gathering and Using Information: Marketing Research and Market Intelligence")
• Chapter 10 ("Gathering and Using Information: Marketing Research and Market Intelligence") quiz
• Chapter 6 ("Creating Offerings")
• Chapter 7 ("Developing and Managing Offerings")
• Chapter 3 ("Consumer Behavior: How People Make Buying Decisions")
• Chapter 4 ("Business Buying Behavior")
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10.2 Steps in the Marketing Research Process

Learning objective.

• Describe the basic steps in the marketing research process and the purpose of each step.

The basic steps used to conduct marketing research are shown in Figure 10.6 “Steps in the Marketing Research Process” . Next, we discuss each step.

Figure 10.6 Steps in the Marketing Research Process

Step 1: Define the Problem (or Opportunity)

There’s a saying in marketing research that a problem half defined is a problem half solved. Defining the “problem” of the research sounds simple, doesn’t it? Suppose your product is tutoring other students in a subject you’re a whiz at. You have been tutoring for a while, and people have begun to realize you’re darned good at it. Then, suddenly, your business drops off. Or it explodes, and you can’t cope with the number of students you’re being asked help. If the business has exploded, should you try to expand your services? Perhaps you should subcontract with some other “whiz” students. You would send them students to be tutored, and they would give you a cut of their pay for each student you referred to them.

Both of these scenarios would be a problem for you, wouldn’t they? They are problems insofar as they cause you headaches. But are they really the problem? Or are they the symptoms of something bigger? For example, maybe your business has dropped off because your school is experiencing financial trouble and has lowered the number of scholarships given to incoming freshmen. Consequently, there are fewer total students on campus who need your services. Conversely, if you’re swamped with people who want you to tutor them, perhaps your school awarded more scholarships than usual, so there are a greater number of students who need your services. Alternately, perhaps you ran an ad in your school’s college newspaper, and that led to the influx of students wanting you to tutor them.

Businesses are in the same boat you are as a tutor. They take a look at symptoms and try to drill down to the potential causes. If you approach a marketing research company with either scenario—either too much or too little business—the firm will seek more information from you such as the following:

• In what semester(s) did your tutoring revenues fall (or rise)?
• In what subject areas did your tutoring revenues fall (or rise)?
• In what sales channels did revenues fall (or rise): Were there fewer (or more) referrals from professors or other students? Did the ad you ran result in fewer (or more) referrals this month than in the past months?
• Among what demographic groups did your revenues fall (or rise)—women or men, people with certain majors, or first-year, second-, third-, or fourth-year students?

The key is to look at all potential causes so as to narrow the parameters of the study to the information you actually need to make a good decision about how to fix your business if revenues have dropped or whether or not to expand it if your revenues have exploded.

The next task for the researcher is to put into writing the research objective. The research objective is the goal(s) the research is supposed to accomplish. The marketing research objective for your tutoring business might read as follows:

To survey college professors who teach 100- and 200-level math courses to determine why the number of students referred for tutoring dropped in the second semester.

This is admittedly a simple example designed to help you understand the basic concept. If you take a marketing research course, you will learn that research objectives get a lot more complicated than this. The following is an example:

“To gather information from a sample representative of the U.S. population among those who are ‘very likely’ to purchase an automobile within the next 6 months, which assesses preferences (measured on a 1–5 scale ranging from ‘very likely to buy’ to ‘not likely at all to buy’) for the model diesel at three different price levels. Such data would serve as input into a forecasting model that would forecast unit sales, by geographic regions of the country, for each combination of the model’s different prices and fuel configurations (Burns & Bush, 2010).”

Now do you understand why defining the problem is complicated and half the battle? Many a marketing research effort is doomed from the start because the problem was improperly defined. Coke’s ill-fated decision to change the formula of Coca-Cola in 1985 is a case in point: Pepsi had been creeping up on Coke in terms of market share over the years as well as running a successful promotional campaign called the “Pepsi Challenge,” in which consumers were encouraged to do a blind taste test to see if they agreed that Pepsi was better. Coke spent four years researching “the problem.” Indeed, people seemed to like the taste of Pepsi better in blind taste tests. Thus, the formula for Coke was changed. But the outcry among the public was so great that the new formula didn’t last long—a matter of months—before the old formula was reinstated. Some marketing experts believe Coke incorrectly defined the problem as “How can we beat Pepsi in taste tests?” instead of “How can we gain market share against Pepsi?” (Burns & Bush, 2010)

New Coke Is It! 1985

(click to see video)

This video documents the Coca-Cola Company’s ill-fated launch of New Coke in 1985.

1985 Pepsi Commercial—“They Changed My Coke”

This video shows how Pepsi tried to capitalize on the blunder.

Step 2: Design the Research

The next step in the marketing research process is to do a research design. The research design is your “plan of attack.” It outlines what data you are going to gather and from whom, how and when you will collect the data, and how you will analyze it once it’s been obtained. Let’s look at the data you’re going to gather first.

There are two basic types of data you can gather. The first is primary data. Primary data is information you collect yourself, using hands-on tools such as interviews or surveys, specifically for the research project you’re conducting. Secondary data is data that has already been collected by someone else, or data you have already collected for another purpose. Collecting primary data is more time consuming, work intensive, and expensive than collecting secondary data. Consequently, you should always try to collect secondary data first to solve your research problem, if you can. A great deal of research on a wide variety of topics already exists. If this research contains the answer to your question, there is no need for you to replicate it. Why reinvent the wheel?

Sources of Secondary Data

Your company’s internal records are a source of secondary data. So are any data you collect as part of your marketing intelligence gathering efforts. You can also purchase syndicated research. Syndicated research is primary data that marketing research firms collect on a regular basis and sell to other companies. J.D. Power & Associates is a provider of syndicated research. The company conducts independent, unbiased surveys of customer satisfaction, product quality, and buyer behavior for various industries. The company is best known for its research in the automobile sector. One of the best-known sellers of syndicated research is the Nielsen Company, which produces the Nielsen ratings. The Nielsen ratings measure the size of television, radio, and newspaper audiences in various markets. You have probably read or heard about TV shows that get the highest (Nielsen) ratings. (Arbitron does the same thing for radio ratings.) Nielsen, along with its main competitor, Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), also sells businesses scanner-based research . Scanner-based research is information collected by scanners at checkout stands in stores. Each week Nielsen and IRI collect information on the millions of purchases made at stores. The companies then compile the information and sell it to firms in various industries that subscribe to their services. The Nielsen Company has also recently teamed up with Facebook to collect marketing research information. Via Facebook, users will see surveys in some of the spaces in which they used to see online ads (Rappeport, Gelles, 2009).

By contrast, MarketResearch.com is an example of a marketing research aggregator. A marketing research aggregator is a marketing research company that doesn’t conduct its own research and sell it. Instead, it buys research reports from other marketing research companies and then sells the reports in their entirety or in pieces to other firms. Check out MarketResearch.com’s Web site. As you will see there are a huge number of studies in every category imaginable that you can buy for relatively small amounts of money.

Figure 10.7

Market research aggregators buy research reports from other marketing research companies and then resell them in part or in whole to other companies so they don’t have to gather primary data.

Source: http://www.marketresearch.com .

Your local library is a good place to gather free secondary data. It has searchable databases as well as handbooks, dictionaries, and books, some of which you can access online. Government agencies also collect and report information on demographics, economic and employment data, health information, and balance-of-trade statistics, among a lot of other information. The U.S. Census Bureau collects census data every ten years to gather information about who lives where. Basic demographic information about sex, age, race, and types of housing in which people live in each U.S. state, metropolitan area, and rural area is gathered so that population shifts can be tracked for various purposes, including determining the number of legislators each state should have in the U.S. House of Representatives. For the U.S. government, this is primary data. For marketing managers it is an important source of secondary data.

The Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan also conducts periodic surveys and publishes information about trends in the United States. One research study the center continually conducts is called the “Changing Lives of American Families” ( http://www.isr.umich.edu/home/news/research-update/2007-01.pdf ). This is important research data for marketing managers monitoring consumer trends in the marketplace. The World Bank and the United Nations are two international organizations that collect a great deal of information. Their Web sites contain many free research studies and data related to global markets. Table 10.1 “Examples of Primary Data Sources versus Secondary Data Sources” shows some examples of primary versus secondary data sources.

Table 10.1 Examples of Primary Data Sources versus Secondary Data Sources

Gauging the Quality of Secondary Data

When you are gathering secondary information, it’s always good to be a little skeptical of it. Sometimes studies are commissioned to produce the result a client wants to hear—or wants the public to hear. For example, throughout the twentieth century, numerous studies found that smoking was good for people’s health. The problem was the studies were commissioned by the tobacco industry. Web research can also pose certain hazards. There are many biased sites that try to fool people that they are providing good data. Often the data is favorable to the products they are trying to sell. Beware of product reviews as well. Unscrupulous sellers sometimes get online and create bogus ratings for products. See below for questions you can ask to help gauge the credibility of secondary information.

Gauging the Credibility of Secondary Data: Questions to Ask

• Who gathered this information?
• For what purpose?
• What does the person or organization that gathered the information have to gain by doing so?
• Was the information gathered and reported in a systematic manner?
• Is the source of the information accepted as an authority by other experts in the field?
• Does the article provide objective evidence to support the position presented?

Types of Research Design

Now let’s look specifically at the types of research designs that are utilized. By understanding different types of research designs, a researcher can solve a client’s problems more quickly and efficiently without jumping through more hoops than necessary. Research designs fall into one of the following three categories:

• Exploratory research design
• Descriptive research design
• Causal research design (experiments)

An exploratory research design is useful when you are initially investigating a problem but you haven’t defined it well enough to do an in-depth study of it. Perhaps via your regular market intelligence, you have spotted what appears to be a new opportunity in the marketplace. You would then do exploratory research to investigate it further and “get your feet wet,” as the saying goes. Exploratory research is less structured than other types of research, and secondary data is often utilized.

One form of exploratory research is qualitative research. Qualitative research is any form of research that includes gathering data that is not quantitative, and often involves exploring questions such as why as much as what or how much . Different forms, such as depth interviews and focus group interviews, are common in marketing research.

The depth interview —engaging in detailed, one-on-one, question-and-answer sessions with potential buyers—is an exploratory research technique. However, unlike surveys, the people being interviewed aren’t asked a series of standard questions. Instead the interviewer is armed with some general topics and asks questions that are open ended, meaning that they allow the interviewee to elaborate. “How did you feel about the product after you purchased it?” is an example of a question that might be asked. A depth interview also allows a researcher to ask logical follow-up questions such as “Can you tell me what you mean when you say you felt uncomfortable using the service?” or “Can you give me some examples?” to help dig further and shed additional light on the research problem. Depth interviews can be conducted in person or over the phone. The interviewer either takes notes or records the interview.

Focus groups and case studies are often utilized for exploratory research as well. A focus group is a group of potential buyers who are brought together to discuss a marketing research topic with one another. A moderator is used to focus the discussion, the sessions are recorded, and the main points of consensus are later summarized by the market researcher. Textbook publishers often gather groups of professors at educational conferences to participate in focus groups. However, focus groups can also be conducted on the telephone, in online chat rooms, or both, using meeting software like WebEx. The basic steps of conducting a focus group are outlined below.

The Basic Steps of Conducting a Focus Group

• Establish the objectives of the focus group. What is its purpose?
• Identify the people who will participate in the focus group. What makes them qualified to participate? How many of them will you need and what they will be paid?
• Obtain contact information for the participants and send out invitations (usually e-mails are most efficient).
• Develop a list of questions.
• Choose a facilitator.
• Choose a location in which to hold the focus group and the method by which it will be recorded.
• Conduct the focus group. If the focus group is not conducted electronically, include name tags for the participants, pens and notepads, any materials the participants need to see, and refreshments. Record participants’ responses.
• Summarize the notes from the focus group and write a report for management.

A case study looks at how another company solved the problem that’s being researched. Sometimes multiple cases, or companies, are used in a study. Case studies nonetheless have a mixed reputation. Some researchers believe it’s hard to generalize, or apply, the results of a case study to other companies. Nonetheless, collecting information about companies that encountered the same problems your firm is facing can give you a certain amount of insight about what direction you should take. In fact, one way to begin a research project is to carefully study a successful product or service.

Two other types of qualitative data used for exploratory research are ethnographies and projective techniques. In an ethnography , researchers interview, observe, and often videotape people while they work, live, shop, and play. The Walt Disney Company has recently begun using ethnographers to uncover the likes and dislikes of boys aged six to fourteen, a financially attractive market segment for Disney, but one in which the company has been losing market share. The ethnographers visit the homes of boys, observe the things they have in their rooms to get a sense of their hobbies, and accompany them and their mothers when they shop to see where they go, what the boys are interested in, and what they ultimately buy. (The children get seventy-five dollars out of the deal, incidentally.) (Barnes, 2009)

Projective techniques are used to reveal information research respondents might not reveal by being asked directly. Asking a person to complete sentences such as the following is one technique:

People who buy Coach handbags __________.

(Will he or she reply with “are cool,” “are affluent,” or “are pretentious,” for example?)

KFC’s grilled chicken is ______.

Or the person might be asked to finish a story that presents a certain scenario. Word associations are also used to discern people’s underlying attitudes toward goods and services. Using a word-association technique, a market researcher asks a person to say or write the first word that comes to his or her mind in response to another word. If the initial word is “fast food,” what word does the person associate it with or respond with? Is it “McDonald’s”? If many people reply that way, and you’re conducting research for Burger King, that could indicate Burger King has a problem. However, if the research is being conducted for Wendy’s, which recently began running an advertising campaign to the effect that Wendy’s offerings are “better than fast food,” it could indicate that the campaign is working.

Completing cartoons is yet another type of projective technique. It’s similar to finishing a sentence or story, only with the pictures. People are asked to look at a cartoon such as the one shown in Figure 10.8 “Example of a Cartoon-Completion Projective Technique” . One of the characters in the picture will have made a statement, and the person is asked to fill in the empty cartoon “bubble” with how they think the second character will respond.

Figure 10.8 Example of a Cartoon-Completion Projective Technique

In some cases, your research might end with exploratory research. Perhaps you have discovered your organization lacks the resources needed to produce the product. In other cases, you might decide you need more in-depth, quantitative research such as descriptive research or causal research, which are discussed next. Most marketing research professionals advise using both types of research, if it’s feasible. On the one hand, the qualitative-type research used in exploratory research is often considered too “lightweight.” Remember earlier in the chapter when we discussed telephone answering machines and the hit TV sitcom Seinfeld ? Both product ideas were initially rejected by focus groups. On the other hand, relying solely on quantitative information often results in market research that lacks ideas.

The Stone Wheel—What One Focus Group Said

Watch the video to see a funny spoof on the usefulness—or lack of usefulness—of focus groups.

Descriptive Research

Anything that can be observed and counted falls into the category of descriptive research design. A study using a descriptive research design involves gathering hard numbers, often via surveys, to describe or measure a phenomenon so as to answer the questions of who , what , where , when , and how . “On a scale of 1–5, how satisfied were you with your service?” is a question that illustrates the information a descriptive research design is supposed to capture.

Physiological measurements also fall into the category of descriptive design. Physiological measurements measure people’s involuntary physical responses to marketing stimuli, such as an advertisement. Elsewhere, we explained that researchers have gone so far as to scan the brains of consumers to see what they really think about products versus what they say about them. Eye tracking is another cutting-edge type of physiological measurement. It involves recording the movements of a person’s eyes when they look at some sort of stimulus, such as a banner ad or a Web page. The Walt Disney Company has a research facility in Austin, Texas, that it uses to take physical measurements of viewers when they see Disney programs and advertisements. The facility measures three types of responses: people’s heart rates, skin changes, and eye movements (eye tracking) (Spangler, 2009).

Figure 10.9

A woman shows off her headgear for an eye-tracking study. The gear’s not exactly a fashion statement but . . .

lawrencegs – Google Glass – CC BY 2.0.

A strictly descriptive research design instrument—a survey, for example—can tell you how satisfied your customers are. It can’t, however, tell you why. Nor can an eye-tracking study tell you why people’s eyes tend to dwell on certain types of banner ads—only that they do. To answer “why” questions an exploratory research design or causal research design is needed (Wagner, 2007).

Causal Research

Causal research design examines cause-and-effect relationships. Using a causal research design allows researchers to answer “what if” types of questions. In other words, if a firm changes X (say, a product’s price, design, placement, or advertising), what will happen to Y (say, sales or customer loyalty)? To conduct causal research, the researcher designs an experiment that “controls,” or holds constant, all of a product’s marketing elements except one (or using advanced techniques of research, a few elements can be studied at the same time). The one variable is changed, and the effect is then measured. Sometimes the experiments are conducted in a laboratory using a simulated setting designed to replicate the conditions buyers would experience. Or the experiments may be conducted in a virtual computer setting.

You might think setting up an experiment in a virtual world such as the online game Second Life would be a viable way to conduct controlled marketing research. Some companies have tried to use Second Life for this purpose, but the results have been somewhat mixed as to whether or not it is a good medium for marketing research. The German marketing research firm Komjuniti was one of the first “real-world” companies to set up an “island” in Second Life upon which it could conduct marketing research. However, with so many other attractive fantasy islands in which to play, the company found it difficult to get Second Life residents, or players, to voluntarily visit the island and stay long enough so meaningful research could be conducted. (Plus, the “residents,” or players, in Second Life have been known to protest corporations invading their world. When the German firm Komjuniti created an island in Second Life to conduct marketing research, the residents showed up waving signs and threatening to boycott the island.) (Wagner, 2007)

Why is being able to control the setting so important? Let’s say you are an American flag manufacturer and you are working with Walmart to conduct an experiment to see where in its stores American flags should be placed so as to increase their sales. Then the terrorist attacks of 9/11 occur. In the days afterward, sales skyrocketed—people bought flags no matter where they were displayed. Obviously, the terrorist attacks in the United States would have skewed the experiment’s data.

An experiment conducted in a natural setting such as a store is referred to as a field experiment . Companies sometimes do field experiments either because it is more convenient or because they want to see if buyers will behave the same way in the “real world” as in a laboratory or on a computer. The place the experiment is conducted or the demographic group of people the experiment is administered to is considered the test market . Before a large company rolls out a product to the entire marketplace, it will often place the offering in a test market to see how well it will be received. For example, to compete with MillerCoors’ sixty-four-calorie beer MGD 64, Anheuser-Busch recently began testing its Select 55 beer in certain cities around the country (McWilliams, 2009).

Figure 10.10

Select 55 beer: Coming soon to a test market near you? (If you’re on a diet, you have to hope so!)

Martine – Le champagne – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Many companies use experiments to test all of their marketing communications. For example, the online discount retailer O.co (formerly called Overstock.com) carefully tests all of its marketing offers and tracks the results of each one. One study the company conducted combined twenty-six different variables related to offers e-mailed to several thousand customers. The study resulted in a decision to send a group of e-mails to different segments. The company then tracked the results of the sales generated to see if they were in line with the earlier experiment it had conducted that led it to make the offer.

Step 3: Design the Data-Collection Forms

If the behavior of buyers is being formally observed, and a number of different researchers are conducting observations, the data obviously need to be recorded on a standardized data-collection form that’s either paper or electronic. Otherwise, the data collected will not be comparable. The items on the form could include a shopper’s sex; his or her approximate age; whether the person seemed hurried, moderately hurried, or unhurried; and whether or not he or she read the label on products, used coupons, and so forth.

The same is true when it comes to surveying people with questionnaires. Surveying people is one of the most commonly used techniques to collect quantitative data. Surveys are popular because they can be easily administered to large numbers of people fairly quickly. However, to produce the best results, the questionnaire for the survey needs to be carefully designed.

Questionnaire Design

Most questionnaires follow a similar format: They begin with an introduction describing what the study is for, followed by instructions for completing the questionnaire and, if necessary, returning it to the market researcher. The first few questions that appear on the questionnaire are usually basic, warm-up type of questions the respondent can readily answer, such as the respondent’s age, level of education, place of residence, and so forth. The warm-up questions are then followed by a logical progression of more detailed, in-depth questions that get to the heart of the question being researched. Lastly, the questionnaire wraps up with a statement that thanks the respondent for participating in the survey and information and explains when and how they will be paid for participating. To see some examples of questionnaires and how they are laid out, click on the following link: http://cas.uah.edu/wrenb/mkt343/Project/Sample%20Questionnaires.htm .

How the questions themselves are worded is extremely important. It’s human nature for respondents to want to provide the “correct” answers to the person administering the survey, so as to seem agreeable. Therefore, there is always a hazard that people will try to tell you what you want to hear on a survey. Consequently, care needs to be taken that the survey questions are written in an unbiased, neutral way. In other words, they shouldn’t lead a person taking the questionnaire to answer a question one way or another by virtue of the way you have worded it. The following is an example of a leading question.

Don’t you agree that teachers should be paid more ?

The questions also need to be clear and unambiguous. Consider the following question:

Which brand of toothpaste do you use ?

The question sounds clear enough, but is it really? What if the respondent recently switched brands? What if she uses Crest at home, but while away from home or traveling, she uses Colgate’s Wisp portable toothpaste-and-brush product? How will the respondent answer the question? Rewording the question as follows so it’s more specific will help make the question clearer:

Which brand of toothpaste have you used at home in the past six months? If you have used more than one brand, please list each of them 1 .

Sensitive questions have to be asked carefully. For example, asking a respondent, “Do you consider yourself a light, moderate, or heavy drinker?” can be tricky. Few people want to admit to being heavy drinkers. You can “soften” the question by including a range of answers, as the following example shows:

How many alcoholic beverages do you consume in a week ?

• __0–5 alcoholic beverages
• __5–10 alcoholic beverages
• __10–15 alcoholic beverages

Many people don’t like to answer questions about their income levels. Asking them to specify income ranges rather than divulge their actual incomes can help.

Other research question “don’ts” include using jargon and acronyms that could confuse people. “How often do you IM?” is an example. Also, don’t muddy the waters by asking two questions in the same question, something researchers refer to as a double-barreled question . “Do you think parents should spend more time with their children and/or their teachers?” is an example of a double-barreled question.

Open-ended questions , or questions that ask respondents to elaborate, can be included. However, they are harder to tabulate than closed-ended questions , or questions that limit a respondent’s answers. Multiple-choice and yes-and-no questions are examples of closed-ended questions.

Testing the Questionnaire

You have probably heard the phrase “garbage in, garbage out.” If the questions are bad, the information gathered will be bad, too. One way to make sure you don’t end up with garbage is to test the questionnaire before sending it out to find out if there are any problems with it. Is there enough space for people to elaborate on open-ended questions? Is the font readable? To test the questionnaire, marketing research professionals first administer it to a number of respondents face to face. This gives the respondents the chance to ask the researcher about questions or instructions that are unclear or don’t make sense to them. The researcher then administers the questionnaire to a small subset of respondents in the actual way the survey is going to be disseminated, whether it’s delivered via phone, in person, by mail, or online.

Getting people to participate and complete questionnaires can be difficult. If the questionnaire is too long or hard to read, many people won’t complete it. So, by all means, eliminate any questions that aren’t necessary. Of course, including some sort of monetary incentive for completing the survey can increase the number of completed questionnaires a market researcher will receive.

Step 4: Specify the Sample

Once you have created your questionnaire or other marketing study, how do you figure out who should participate in it? Obviously, you can’t survey or observe all potential buyers in the marketplace. Instead, you must choose a sample. A sample is a subset of potential buyers that are representative of your entire target market, or population being studied. Sometimes market researchers refer to the population as the universe to reflect the fact that it includes the entire target market, whether it consists of a million people, a hundred thousand, a few hundred, or a dozen. “All unmarried people over the age of eighteen who purchased Dirt Devil steam cleaners in the United States during 2011” is an example of a population that has been defined.

Obviously, the population has to be defined correctly. Otherwise, you will be studying the wrong group of people. Not defining the population correctly can result in flawed research, or sampling error. A sampling error is any type of marketing research mistake that results because a sample was utilized. One criticism of Internet surveys is that the people who take these surveys don’t really represent the overall population. On average, Internet survey takers tend to be more educated and tech savvy. Consequently, if they solely constitute your population, even if you screen them for certain criteria, the data you collect could end up being skewed.

The next step is to put together the sampling frame , which is the list from which the sample is drawn. The sampling frame can be put together using a directory, customer list, or membership roster (Wrenn et. al., 2007). Keep in mind that the sampling frame won’t perfectly match the population. Some people will be included on the list who shouldn’t be. Other people who should be included will be inadvertently omitted. It’s no different than if you were to conduct a survey of, say, 25 percent of your friends, using friends’ names you have in your cell phone. Most of your friends’ names are likely to be programmed into your phone, but not all of them. As a result, a certain degree of sampling error always occurs.

There are two main categories of samples in terms of how they are drawn: probability samples and nonprobability samples. A probability sample is one in which each would-be participant has a known and equal chance of being selected. The chance is known because the total number of people in the sampling frame is known. For example, if every other person from the sampling frame were chosen, each person would have a 50 percent chance of being selected.

A nonprobability sample is any type of sample that’s not drawn in a systematic way. So the chances of each would-be participant being selected can’t be known. A convenience sample is one type of nonprobability sample. It is a sample a researcher draws because it’s readily available and convenient to do so. Surveying people on the street as they pass by is an example of a convenience sample. The question is, are these people representative of the target market?

For example, suppose a grocery store needed to quickly conduct some research on shoppers to get ready for an upcoming promotion. Now suppose that the researcher assigned to the project showed up between the hours of 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. on a weekday and surveyed as many shoppers as possible. The problem is that the shoppers wouldn’t be representative of the store’s entire target market. What about commuters who stop at the store before and after work? Their views wouldn’t be represented. Neither would people who work the night shift or shop at odd hours. As a result, there would be a lot of room for sampling error in this study. For this reason, studies that use nonprobability samples aren’t considered as accurate as studies that use probability samples. Nonprobability samples are more often used in exploratory research.

Lastly, the size of the sample has an effect on the amount of sampling error. Larger samples generally produce more accurate results. The larger your sample is, the more data you will have, which will give you a more complete picture of what you’re studying. However, the more people surveyed or studied, the more costly the research becomes.

Statistics can be used to determine a sample’s optimal size. If you take a marketing research or statistics class, you will learn more about how to determine the optimal size.

Of course, if you hire a marketing research company, much of this work will be taken care of for you. Many marketing research companies, like ResearchNow, maintain panels of prescreened people they draw upon for samples. In addition, the marketing research firm will be responsible for collecting the data or contracting with a company that specializes in data collection. Data collection is discussed next.

Step 5: Collect the Data

As we have explained, primary marketing research data can be gathered in a number of ways. Surveys, taking physical measurements, and observing people are just three of the ways we discussed. If you’re observing customers as part of gathering the data, keep in mind that if shoppers are aware of the fact, it can have an effect on their behavior. For example, if a customer shopping for feminine hygiene products in a supermarket aisle realizes she is being watched, she could become embarrassed and leave the aisle, which would adversely affect your data. To get around problems such as these, some companies set up cameras or two-way mirrors to observe customers. Organizations also hire mystery shoppers to work around the problem. A mystery shopper is someone who is paid to shop at a firm’s establishment or one of its competitors to observe the level of service, cleanliness of the facility, and so forth, and report his or her findings to the firm.

Make Extra Money as a Mystery Shopper

Watch the YouTube video to get an idea of how mystery shopping works.

Survey data can be collected in many different ways and combinations of ways. The following are the basic methods used:

• Face-to-face (can be computer aided)
• Telephone (can be computer aided or completely automated)
• Mail and hand delivery
• E-mail and the Web

A face-to-face survey is, of course, administered by a person. The surveys are conducted in public places such as in shopping malls, on the street, or in people’s homes if they have agreed to it. In years past, it was common for researchers in the United States to knock on people’s doors to gather survey data. However, randomly collected door-to-door interviews are less common today, partly because people are afraid of crime and are reluctant to give information to strangers (McDaniel & Gates, 1998).

Nonetheless, “beating the streets” is still a legitimate way questionnaire data is collected. When the U.S. Census Bureau collects data on the nation’s population, it hand delivers questionnaires to rural households that do not have street-name and house-number addresses. And Census Bureau workers personally survey the homeless to collect information about their numbers. Face-to-face surveys are also commonly used in third world countries to collect information from people who cannot read or lack phones and computers.

A plus of face-to-face surveys is that they allow researchers to ask lengthier, more complex questions because the people being surveyed can see and read the questionnaires. The same is true when a computer is utilized. For example, the researcher might ask the respondent to look at a list of ten retail stores and rank the stores from best to worst. The same question wouldn’t work so well over the telephone because the person couldn’t see the list. The question would have to be rewritten. Another drawback with telephone surveys is that even though federal and state “do not call” laws generally don’t prohibit companies from gathering survey information over the phone, people often screen such calls using answering machines and caller ID.

Probably the biggest drawback of both surveys conducted face-to-face and administered over the phone by a person is that they are labor intensive and therefore costly. Mailing out questionnaires is costly, too, and the response rates can be rather low. Think about why that might be so: if you receive a questionnaire in the mail, it is easy to throw it in the trash; it’s harder to tell a market researcher who approaches you on the street that you don’t want to be interviewed.

By contrast, gathering survey data collected by a computer, either over the telephone or on the Internet, can be very cost-effective and in some cases free. SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang are two Web sites that will allow you to create online questionnaires, e-mail them to up to one hundred people for free, and view the responses in real time as they come in. For larger surveys, you have to pay a subscription price of a few hundred dollars. But that still can be extremely cost-effective. The two Web sites also have a host of other features such as online-survey templates you can use to create your questionnaire, a way to set up automatic reminders sent to people who haven’t yet completed their surveys, and tools you can use to create graphics to put in your final research report. To see how easy it is to put together a survey in SurveyMonkey, click on the following link: http://help.surveymonkey.com/app/tutorials/detail/a_id/423 .

Like a face-to-face survey, an Internet survey can enable you to show buyers different visuals such as ads, pictures, and videos of products and their packaging. Web surveys are also fast, which is a major plus. Whereas face-to-face and mailed surveys often take weeks to collect, you can conduct a Web survey in a matter of days or even hours. And, of course, because the information is electronically gathered it can be automatically tabulated. You can also potentially reach a broader geographic group than you could if you had to personally interview people. The Zoomerang Web site allows you to create surveys in forty different languages.

Another plus for Web and computer surveys (and electronic phone surveys) is that there is less room for human error because the surveys are administered electronically. For instance, there’s no risk that the interviewer will ask a question wrong or use a tone of voice that could mislead the respondents. Respondents are also likely to feel more comfortable inputting the information into a computer if a question is sensitive than they would divulging the information to another person face-to-face or over the phone. Given all of these advantages, it’s not surprising that the Internet is quickly becoming the top way to collect primary data. However, like mail surveys, surveys sent to people over the Internet are easy to ignore.

Lastly, before the data collection process begins, the surveyors and observers need to be trained to look for the same things, ask questions the same way, and so forth. If they are using rankings or rating scales, they need to be “on the same page,” so to speak, as to what constitutes a high ranking or a low ranking. As an analogy, you have probably had some teachers grade your college papers harder than others. The goal of training is to avoid a wide disparity between how different observers and interviewers record the data.

Figure 10.11

Training people so they know what constitutes different ratings when they are collecting data will improve the quality of the information gathered in a marketing research study.

Ricardo Rodriquez – Satisfaction survey – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

For example, if an observation form asks the observers to describe whether a shopper’s behavior is hurried, moderately hurried, or unhurried, they should be given an idea of what defines each rating. Does it depend on how much time the person spends in the store or in the individual aisles? How fast they walk? In other words, the criteria and ratings need to be spelled out.

Collecting International Marketing Research Data

Gathering marketing research data in foreign countries poses special challenges. However, that doesn’t stop firms from doing so. Marketing research companies are located all across the globe, in fact. Eight of the ten largest marketing research companies in the world are headquartered in the United States. However, five of these eight firms earn more of their revenues abroad than they do in the United States. There’s a reason for this: many U.S. markets were saturated, or tapped out, long ago in terms of the amount that they can grow. Coke is an example. As you learned earlier in the book, most of the Coca-Cola Company’s revenues are earned in markets abroad. To be sure, the United States is still a huge market when it comes to the revenues marketing research firms generate by conducting research in the country: in terms of their spending, American consumers fuel the world’s economic engine. Still, emerging countries with growing middle classes, such as China, India, and Brazil, are hot new markets companies want to tap.

What kind of challenges do firms face when trying to conduct marketing research abroad? As we explained, face-to-face surveys are commonly used in third world countries to collect information from people who cannot read or lack phones and computers. However, face-to-face surveys are also common in Europe, despite the fact that phones and computers are readily available. In-home surveys are also common in parts of Europe. By contrast, in some countries, including many Asian countries, it’s considered taboo or rude to try to gather information from strangers either face-to-face or over the phone. In many Muslim countries, women are forbidden to talk to strangers.

And how do you figure out whom to research in foreign countries? That in itself is a problem. In the United States, researchers often ask if they can talk to the heads of households to conduct marketing research. But in countries in which domestic servants or employees are common, the heads of households aren’t necessarily the principal shoppers; their domestic employees are (Malhotra).

Translating surveys is also an issue. Have you ever watched the TV comedians Jay Leno and David Letterman make fun of the English translations found on ethnic menus and products? Research tools such as surveys can suffer from the same problem. Hiring someone who is bilingual to translate a survey into another language can be a disaster if the person isn’t a native speaker of the language to which the survey is being translated.

One way companies try to deal with translation problems is by using back translation. When back translation is used, a native speaker translates the survey into the foreign language and then translates it back again to the original language to determine if there were gaps in meaning—that is, if anything was lost in translation. And it’s not just the language that’s an issue. If the research involves any visual images, they, too, could be a point of confusion. Certain colors, shapes, and symbols can have negative connotations in other countries. For example, the color white represents purity in many Western cultures, but in China, it is the color of death and mourning (Zouhali-Worrall, 2008). Also, look back at the cartoon-completion exercise in Figure 10.8 “Example of a Cartoon-Completion Projective Technique” . What would women in Muslim countries who aren’t allowed to converse with male sellers think of it? Chances are, the cartoon wouldn’t provide you with the information you’re seeking if Muslim women in some countries were asked to complete it.

One way marketing research companies are dealing with the complexities of global research is by merging with or acquiring marketing research companies abroad. The Nielsen Company is the largest marketing research company in the world. The firm operates in more than a hundred countries and employs more than forty thousand people. Many of its expansions have been the result of acquisitions and mergers.

Step 6: Analyze the Data

Step 6 involves analyzing the data to ensure it’s as accurate as possible. If the research is collected by hand using a pen and pencil, it’s entered into a computer. Or respondents might have already entered the information directly into a computer. For example, when Toyota goes to an event such as a car show, the automaker’s marketing personnel ask would-be buyers to complete questionnaires directly on computers. Companies are also beginning to experiment with software that can be used to collect data using mobile phones.

Once all the data is collected, the researchers begin the data cleaning , which is the process of removing data that have accidentally been duplicated (entered twice into the computer) or correcting data that have obviously been recorded wrong. A program such as Microsoft Excel or a statistical program such as Predictive Analytics Software (PASW, which was formerly known as SPSS) is then used to tabulate, or calculate, the basic results of the research, such as the total number of participants and how collectively they answered various questions. The programs can also be used to calculate averages, such as the average age of respondents, their average satisfaction, and so forth. The same can done for percentages, and other values you learned about, or will learn about, in a statistics course, such as the standard deviation, mean, and median for each question.

The information generated by the programs can be used to draw conclusions, such as what all customers might like or not like about an offering based on what the sample group liked or did not like. The information can also be used to spot differences among groups of people. For example, the research might show that people in one area of the country like the product better than people in another area. Trends to predict what might happen in the future can also be spotted.

If there are any open-ended questions respondents have elaborated upon—for example, “Explain why you like the current brand you use better than any other brand”—the answers to each are pasted together, one on top of another, so researchers can compare and summarize the information. As we have explained, qualitative information such as this can give you a fuller picture of the results of the research.

Part of analyzing the data is to see if it seems sound. Does the way in which the research was conducted seem sound? Was the sample size large enough? Are the conclusions that become apparent from it reasonable?

The two most commonly used criteria used to test the soundness of a study are (1) validity and (2) reliability. A study is valid if it actually tested what it was designed to test. For example, did the experiment you ran in Second Life test what it was designed to test? Did it reflect what could really happen in the real world? If not, the research isn’t valid. If you were to repeat the study, and get the same results (or nearly the same results), the research is said to be reliable . If you get a drastically different result if you repeat the study, it’s not reliable. The data collected, or at least some it, can also be compared to, or reconciled with, similar data from other sources either gathered by your firm or by another organization to see if the information seems on target.

Stage 7: Write the Research Report and Present Its Findings

If you end up becoming a marketing professional and conducting a research study after you graduate, hopefully you will do a great job putting the study together. You will have defined the problem correctly, chosen the right sample, collected the data accurately, analyzed it, and your findings will be sound. At that point, you will be required to write the research report and perhaps present it to an audience of decision makers. You will do so via a written report and, in some cases, a slide or PowerPoint presentation based on your written report.

The six basic elements of a research report are as follows.

• Title Page . The title page explains what the report is about, when it was conducted and by whom, and who requested it.
• Table of Contents . The table of contents outlines the major parts of the report, as well as any graphs and charts, and the page numbers on which they can be found.
• Executive Summary . The executive summary summarizes all the details in the report in a very quick way. Many people who receive the report—both executives and nonexecutives—won’t have time to read the entire report. Instead, they will rely on the executive summary to quickly get an idea of the study’s results and what to do about those results.

Methodology and Limitations . The methodology section of the report explains the technical details of how the research was designed and conducted. The section explains, for example, how the data was collected and by whom, the size of the sample, how it was chosen, and whom or what it consisted of (e.g., the number of women versus men or children versus adults). It also includes information about the statistical techniques used to analyze the data.

Every study has errors—sampling errors, interviewer errors, and so forth. The methodology section should explain these details, so decision makers can consider their overall impact. The margin of error is the overall tendency of the study to be off kilter—that is, how far it could have gone wrong in either direction. Remember how newscasters present the presidential polls before an election? They always say, “This candidate is ahead 48 to 44 percent, plus or minus 2 percent.” That “plus or minus” is the margin of error. The larger the margin of error is, the less likely the results of the study are accurate. The margin of error needs to be included in the methodology section.

• Findings . The findings section is a longer, fleshed-out version of the executive summary that goes into more detail about the statistics uncovered by the research that bolster the study’s findings. If you have related research or secondary data on hand that back up the findings, it can be included to help show the study did what it was designed to do.
• Recommendations . The recommendations section should outline the course of action you think should be taken based on the findings of the research and the purpose of the project. For example, if you conducted a global market research study to identify new locations for stores, make a recommendation for the locations (Mersdorf, 2009).

As we have said, these are the basic sections of a marketing research report. However, additional sections can be added as needed. For example, you might need to add a section on the competition and each firm’s market share. If you’re trying to decide on different supply chain options, you will need to include a section on that topic.

As you write the research report, keep your audience in mind. Don’t use technical jargon decision makers and other people reading the report won’t understand. If technical terms must be used, explain them. Also, proofread the document to ferret out any grammatical errors and typos, and ask a couple of other people to proofread behind you to catch any mistakes you might have missed. If your research report is riddled with errors, its credibility will be undermined, even if the findings and recommendations you make are extremely accurate.

Many research reports are presented via PowerPoint. If you’re asked to create a slideshow presentation from the report, don’t try to include every detail in the report on the slides. The information will be too long and tedious for people attending the presentation to read through. And if they do go to the trouble of reading all the information, they probably won’t be listening to the speaker who is making the presentation.

Instead of including all the information from the study in the slides, boil each section of the report down to key points and add some “talking points” only the presenter will see. After or during the presentation, you can give the attendees the longer, paper version of the report so they can read the details at a convenient time, if they choose to.

Key Takeaway

Step 1 in the marketing research process is to define the problem. Businesses take a look at what they believe are symptoms and try to drill down to the potential causes so as to precisely define the problem. The next task for the researcher is to put into writing the research objective, or goal, the research is supposed to accomplish. Step 2 in the process is to design the research. The research design is the “plan of attack.” It outlines what data you are going to gather, from whom, how, and when, and how you’re going to analyze it once it has been obtained. Step 3 is to design the data-collection forms, which need to be standardized so the information gathered on each is comparable. Surveys are a popular way to gather data because they can be easily administered to large numbers of people fairly quickly. However, to produce the best results, survey questionnaires need to be carefully designed and pretested before they are used. Step 4 is drawing the sample, or a subset of potential buyers who are representative of your entire target market. If the sample is not correctly selected, the research will be flawed. Step 5 is to actually collect the data, whether it’s collected by a person face-to-face, over the phone, or with the help of computers or the Internet. The data-collection process is often different in foreign countries. Step 6 is to analyze the data collected for any obvious errors, tabulate the data, and then draw conclusions from it based on the results. The last step in the process, Step 7, is writing the research report and presenting the findings to decision makers.

Review Questions

• Explain why it’s important to carefully define the problem or opportunity a marketing research study is designed to investigate.
• Describe the different types of problems that can occur when marketing research professionals develop questions for surveys.
• How does a probability sample differ from a nonprobability sample?
• What makes a marketing research study valid? What makes a marketing research study reliable?
• What sections should be included in a marketing research report? What is each section designed to do?

1 “Questionnaire Design,” QuickMBA , http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/research/qdesign (accessed December 14, 2009).

Barnes, B., “Disney Expert Uses Science to Draw Boy Viewers,” New York Times , April 15, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/arts/television/14boys.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 (accessed December 14, 2009).

Burns A. and Ronald Bush, Marketing Research , 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010), 85.

Malhotra, N., Marketing Research: An Applied Approach , 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), 764.

McDaniel, C. D. and Roger H. Gates, Marketing Research Essentials , 2nd ed. (Cincinnati: South-Western College Publishing, 1998), 61.

McWilliams, J., “A-B Puts Super-Low-Calorie Beer in Ring with Miller,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch , August 16, 2009, http://www.stltoday.com/business/next-matchup-light-weights-a-b-puts-super-low-calorie/article_47511bfe-18ca-5979-bdb9-0526c97d4edf.html (accessed April 13, 2012).

Mersdorf, S., “How to Organize Your Next Survey Report,” Cvent , August 24, 2009, http://survey.cvent.com/blog/cvent-survey/0/0/how-to-organize-your-next-survey-report (accessed December 14, 2009).

Rappeport A. and David Gelles, “Facebook to Form Alliance with Nielsen,” Financial Times , September 23, 2009, 16.

Spangler, T., “Disney Lab Tracks Feelings,” Multichannel News 30, no. 30 (August 3, 2009): 26.

Wagner, J., “Marketing in Second Life Doesn’t Work…Here Is Why!” GigaOM , April 4, 2007, http://gigaom.com/2007/04/04/3-reasons-why-marketing-in-second-life-doesnt-work (accessed December 14, 2009).

Wrenn, B., Robert E. Stevens, and David L. Loudon, Marketing Research: Text and Cases , 2nd ed. (Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 2007), 180.

Zouhali-Worrall, M., “Found in Translation: Avoiding Multilingual Gaffes,” CNNMoney.com , July 14, 2008, http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/07/smallbusiness/language_translation.fsb/index.htm (accessed December 14, 2009).

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193 Practice Quiz Chapter 10

Check your understanding.

Answer the question(s) below to see how well you understand the topics covered in the previous section. This short quiz does  not  count toward your grade in the class, and you can retake it an unlimited number of times.

Use this quiz to check your understanding and decide whether to (1) study the previous section further or (2) move on to the next section.

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Module 6: Marketing Information and Research

The marketing research process, learning objectives.

• Identify the steps of conducting a marketing research project

A Standard Approach to Research Inquiries

Marketing research is a useful and necessary tool for helping marketers and an organization’s executive leadership make wise decisions. Carrying out marketing research can involve highly specialized skills that go deeper than the information outlined in this module. However, it is important for any marketer to be familiar with the basic procedures and techniques of marketing research.

It is very likely that at some point a marketing professional will need to supervise an internal marketing research activity or to work with an outside marketing research firm to conduct a research project. Managers who understand the research function can do a better job of framing the problem and critically appraising the proposals made by research specialists. They are also in a better position to evaluate their findings and recommendations.

Periodically marketers themselves need to find solutions to marketing problems without the assistance of marketing research specialists inside or outside the company. If you are familiar with the basic procedures of marketing research, you can supervise and even conduct a reasonably satisfactory search for the information needed.

Step 1: Identify the Problem

The first step for any marketing research activity is to clearly identify and define the problem you are trying to solve. You start by stating the marketing or business problem you need to address and for which you need additional information to figure out a solution. Next, articulate the objectives for the research: What do you want to understand by the time the research project is completed? What specific information, guidance, or recommendations need to come out of the research in order to make it a worthwhile investment of the organization’s time and money?

It’s important to share the problem definition and research objectives with other team members to get their input and further refine your understanding of the problem and what is needed to solve it. At times, the problem you really need to solve is not the same problem that appears on the surface. Collaborating with other stakeholders helps refine your understanding of the problem, focus your thinking, and prioritize what you hope to learn from the research. Prioritizing your objectives is particularly helpful if you don’t have the time or resources to investigate everything you want.

To flesh out your understanding of the problem, it’s useful to begin brainstorming actual research questions you want to explore. What are the questions you need to answer in order to get to the research outcomes? What is the missing information that marketing research will help you find? The goal at this stage is to generate a set of preliminary, big-picture questions that will frame your research inquiry. You will revisit these research questions later in the process, but when you’re getting started, this exercise helps clarify the scope of the project, whom you need to talk to, what information may already be available, and where to look for the information you don’t yet have.

Applied Example: Marketing Research for Bookends

To illustrate the marketing research process, let’s return to Uncle Dan and his ailing bookstore, Bookends. You need a lot of information if you’re going to help Dan turn things around, so marketing research is a good idea. You begin by identifying the problem and then work to set down your research objectives and initial research questions:

Step 2: Develop a Research Plan

Once you have a problem definition, research objectives, and a preliminary set of research questions, the next step is to develop a research plan. Essential to this plan is identifying precisely what information you need to answer your questions and achieve your objectives. Do you need to understand customer opinions about something? Are you looking for a clearer picture of customer needs and related behaviors? Do you need sales, spending, or revenue data? Do you need information about competitors’ products, or insight about what will make prospective customers notice you? When do need the information, and what’s the time frame for getting it? What budget and resources are available?

Once you have clarified what kind of information you need and the timing and budget for your project, you can develop the research design. This details how you plan to collect and analyze the information you’re after. Some types of information are readily available through  secondary research and secondary data sources. Secondary research analyzes information that has already been collected for another purpose by a third party, such as a government agency, an industry association, or another company. Other types of information need to from talking directly to customers about your research questions. This is known as primary research , which collects primary data captured expressly for your research inquiry.   Marketing research projects may include secondary research, primary research, or both.

Depending on your objectives and budget, sometimes a small-scale project will be enough to get the insight and direction you need. At other times, in order to reach the level of certainty or detail required, you may need larger-scale research involving participation from hundreds or even thousands of individual consumers. The research plan lays out the information your project will capture—both primary and secondary data—and describes what you will do with it to get the answers you need. (Note: You’ll learn more about data collection methods and when to use them later in this module.)

Your data collection plan goes hand in hand with your analysis plan. Different types of analysis yield different types of results. The analysis plan should match the type of data you are collecting, as well as the outcomes your project is seeking and the resources at your disposal. Simpler research designs tend to require simpler analysis techniques. More complex research designs can yield powerful results, such as understanding causality and trade-offs in customer perceptions. However, these more sophisticated designs can require more time and money to execute effectively, both in terms of data collection and analytical expertise.

The research plan also specifies who will conduct the research activities, including data collection, analysis, interpretation, and reporting on results. At times a singlehanded marketing manager or research specialist runs the entire research project. At other times, a company may contract with a marketing research analyst or consulting firm to conduct the research. In this situation, the marketing manager provides supervisory oversight to ensure the research delivers on expectations.

Finally, the research plan indicates who will interpret the research findings and how the findings will be reported. This part of the research plan should consider the internal audience(s) for the research and what reporting format will be most helpful. Often, senior executives are primary stakeholders, and they’re anxious for marketing research to inform and validate their choices. When this is the case, getting their buy-in on the research plan is recommended to make sure that they are comfortable with the approach and receptive to the potential findings.

Applied Example: A Bookends Research Plan

You talk over the results of your problem identification work with Dan. He thinks you’re on the right track and wants to know what’s next. You explain that the next step is to put together a detailed plan for getting answers to the research questions.

Dan is enthusiastic, but he’s also short on money. You realize that such a financial constraint will limit what’s possible, but with Dan’s help you can do something worthwhile. Below is the research plan you sketch out:

Step 3: Conduct the Research

Conducting research can be a fun and exciting part of the marketing research process. After struggling with the gaps in your knowledge of market dynamics—which led you to embark on a marketing research project in the first place—now things are about to change. Conducting research begins to generate information that helps answer your urgent marketing questions.

Typically data collection begins by reviewing any existing research and data that provide some information or insight about the problem. As a rule, this is secondary research. Prior research projects, internal data analyses, industry reports, customer-satisfaction survey results, and other information sources may be worthwhile to review. Even though these resources may not answer your research questions fully, they may further illuminate the problem you are trying to solve. Secondary research and data sources are nearly always cheaper than capturing new information on your own. Your marketing research project should benefit from prior work wherever possible.

After getting everything you can from secondary research, it’s time to shift attention to primary research, if this is part of your research plan. Primary research involves asking questions and then listening to and/or observing the behavior of the target audience you are studying. In order to generate reliable, accurate results, it is important to use proper scientific methods for primary research data collection and analysis. This includes identifying the right individuals and number of people to talk to, using carefully worded surveys or interview scripts, and capturing data accurately.

Without proper techniques, you may inadvertently get bad data or discover bias in the responses that distorts the results and points you in the wrong direction. The module on Marketing Research Techniques discusses these issues in further detail, since the procedures for getting reliable data vary by research method.

Applied Example: Getting the Data on Bookends

Dan is on board with the research plan, and he’s excited to dig into the project. You start with secondary data, getting a dump of Dan’s sales data from the past two years, along with related information: customer name, zip code, frequency of purchase, gender, date of purchase, and discounts/promotions (if any).

You visit the U.S. Census Bureau Web site to download demographic data about your metro area. The data show all zip codes in the area, along with population size, gender breakdown, age ranges, income, and education levels.

The next part of the project is customer-survey data. You work with Dan to put together a short survey about customer attitudes toward Bookends, how often and why they come, where else they spend money on books and entertainment, and why they go other places besides Bookends. Dan comes up with the great idea of offering a 5 percent discount coupon to anyone who completes the survey. Although it eats into his profits, this scheme gets more people to complete the survey and buy books, so it’s worth it.

For a couple of days, you and Dan take turns doing “man on the street” interviews (you interview the guy in the red hat, for instance). You find people who say they’ve never been to Bookends and ask them a few questions about why they haven’t visited the store, where else they buy books and other entertainment, and what might get them interested in visiting Bookends sometime. This is all a lot of work, but for a zero-budget project, it’s coming together pretty well.

Step 4: Analyze and Report Findings

Analyzing the data obtained in a market survey involves transforming the primary and/or secondary data into useful information and insights that answer the research questions. This information is condensed into a format to be used by managers—usually a presentation or detailed report.

Analysis starts with formatting, cleaning, and editing the data to make sure that it’s suitable for whatever analytical techniques are being used. Next, data are tabulated to show what’s happening: What do customers actually think? What’s happening with purchasing or other behaviors? How do revenue figures actually add up? Whatever the research questions, the analysis takes source data and applies analytical techniques to provide a clearer picture of what’s going on. This process may involve simple or sophisticated techniques, depending on the research outcomes required. Common analytical techniques include regression analysis to determine correlations between factors; conjoint analysis to determine trade-offs and priorities; predictive modeling to anticipate patterns and causality; and analysis of unstructured data such as Internet search terms or social media posts to provide context and meaning around what people say and do.

Good analysis is important because the interpretation of research data—the “so what?” factor—depends on it. The analysis combs through data to paint a picture of what’s going on. The interpretation goes further to explain what the research data mean and make recommendations about what managers need to know and do based on the research results. For example, what is the short list of key findings and takeaways that managers should remember from the research? What are the market segments you’ve identified, and which ones should you target?  What are the primary reasons your customers choose your competitor’s product over yours, and what does this mean for future improvements to your product?

Individuals with a good working knowledge of the business should be involved in interpreting the data because they are in the best position to identify significant insights and make recommendations from the research findings. Marketing research reports incorporate both analysis and interpretation of data to address the project objectives.

The final report for a marketing research project may be in written form or slide-presentation format, depending on organizational culture and management preferences. Often a slide presentation is the preferred format for initially sharing research results with internal stakeholders. Particularly for large, complex projects, a written report may be a better format for discussing detailed findings and nuances in the data, which managers can study and reference in the future.

Applied Example: Analysis and Insights for Bookends

Getting the data was a bit of a hassle, but now you’ve got it, and you’re excited to see what it reveals. Your statistician cousin, Marina, turns out to be a whiz with both the sales data and the census data. She identified several demographic profiles in the metro area that looked a lot like lifestyle segments. Then she mapped Bookends’ sales data into those segments to show who is and isn’t visiting Bookends. After matching customer-survey data to the sales data, she broke down the segments further based on their spending levels and reasons they visit Bookends.

Gradually a clearer picture of Bookends’ customers is beginning to emerge: who they are, why they come, why they don’t come, and what role Bookends plays in their lives. Right away, a couple of higher-priority segments—based on their spending levels, proximity, and loyalty to Bookends—stand out. You and your uncle are definitely seeing some possibilities for making the bookstore a more prominent part of their lives. You capture these insights as “recommendations to be considered” while you evaluate the right marketing mix for each of the new segments you’d like to focus on.

Step 5: Take Action

Once the report is complete, the presentation is delivered, and the recommendations are made, the marketing research project is over, right? Wrong.

What comes next is arguably the most important step of all: taking action based on your research results.

If your project has done a good job interpreting the findings and translating them into recommendations for the marketing team and other areas of the business, this step may seem relatively straightforward. When the research results validate a path the organization is already on, the “take action” step can galvanize the team to move further and faster in that same direction.

Things are not so simple when the research results indicate a new direction or a significant shift is advisable. In these cases, it’s worthwhile to spend time helping managers understand the research, explain why it is wise to shift course, and explain how the business will benefit from the new path. As with any important business decision, managers must think deeply about the new approach and carefully map strategies, tactics, and available resources to plan effectively. By making the results available and accessible to managers and their execution teams, the marketing research project can serve as an ongoing guide and touchstone to help the organization plan, execute, and adjust course as it works toward desired goals and outcomes.

It is worth mentioning that many marketing research projects are never translated into management action. Sometimes this is because the report is too technical and difficult to understand. In other cases, the research conclusions fail to provide useful insights or solutions to the problem, or the report writer fails to offer specific suggestions for translating the research findings into management strategy. These pitfalls can be avoided by paying due attention to the research objectives throughout the project and allocating sufficient time and resources to do a good job interpreting research results for those who will need to act on them.

Applied Example: Bookends’ New Customer Campaign

Your research findings and recommendations identified three segments for Bookends to focus on. Based on the demographics, lifestyle, and spending patterns found during your marketing research, you’re able to name them: 1) Bored Empty-Nesters, 2) Busy Families, and 3) Hipster Wannabes. Dan has a decent-sized clientele across all three groups, and they are pretty good spenders when they come in. But until now he hasn’t done much to purposely attract any of them.

With newly identified segments in focus, you and Dan begin brainstorming about a marketing mix to target each group. What types of books and other products would appeal to each one? What activities or events would bring them into the store? Are there promotions or particular messages that would induce them to buy at Bookends instead of Amazon or another bookseller? How will Dan reach and communicate with each group? And what can you do to bring more new customers into the store within these target groups?

Even though Bookends is a real-life project with serious consequences for your uncle Dan, it’s also a fun laboratory where you can test out some of the principles you’re learning in your marketing class. You’re figuring out quickly what it’s like to be a marketer.

Well done, rookie!

Check Your Understanding

Answer the question(s) below to see how well you understand the topics covered in this outcome. This short quiz does  not  count toward your grade in the class, and you can retake it an unlimited number of times.

Use this quiz to check your understanding and decide whether to (1) study the previous section further or (2) move on to the next section.

• Revision and Adaptation. Authored by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Chapter 3: Marketing Research: An Aid to Decision Making, from Introducing Marketing. Authored by : John Burnett. Provided by : Global Text. Located at : http://solr.bccampus.ca:8001/bcc/file/ddbe3343-9796-4801-a0cb-7af7b02e3191/1/Core%20Concepts%20of%20Marketing.pdf . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Urban life (Version 2.0). Authored by : Ian D. Keating. Located at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/ian-arlett/19313315520/ . License : CC BY: Attribution

Principles of Marketing

(26 reviews)

Copyright Year: 2015

ISBN 13: 9781946135193

Publisher: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing

Language: English

Formats Available

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Learn more about reviews.

Reviewed by Monisha Gupta, Assistant Professor, Marshall University on 1/2/23

The author of the book has shared that this is an adaptation of a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA). The book has 16 clearly defined chapters, each chapter raises a specific aspect of marketing and... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The author of the book has shared that this is an adaptation of a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA). The book has 16 clearly defined chapters, each chapter raises a specific aspect of marketing and concludes by raising discussion questions and activities. The textbook covers most of the marketing topics that should be included in an introductory course. However, given that the book is dated it is missing some emerging and emergent topics in marketing such as global marketing, data analytics, digital marketing, and the use of social media tools, to name a few. The author has at the outset clarified that the book does not follow the tenets of the 4 Ps of marketing. However, substituting terms such as products or services with terms like “offerings “requires a much deeper understanding of consumer needs, wants, or behavior. This might require a higher level of understanding which might not be in line with the student profile who opts for this course. The author has restructured the traditional 4Ps of the marketing mix and introduces that marketing is composed of four activities centered on customer value: creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging value. Also, the suggested activities created for each chapter are outside the scope of the chapter’s content. For instance, page 24, after Chapter 1 suggests activities such as “ Explain how the marketing goals, strategies, and markets for the nonprofit differ from a for-profit organization” or “Evaluate personal value equation”. These concepts have not been discussed in chapter 1 and are tackled later in the book by the author. These activities might not need more discussion and clarification before students can actively contribute to the solutions. Overall, the book covers most foundation-level content, but the choice of the author’s distinctive terminology might be a concern for students. Moreso, when they progress from this course to advanced levels of marketing and have trouble aligning the core concepts and keywords.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

Not an issue, the content is accurate and provides reference sources.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The OTL textbook is well documented and breaks up the content into smaller and comprehensive blocks of information. If relevance is measured based on the traditional acceptance and present outlook it might fall a little short. The book lacks this by disregarding some key changes in the marketplace such as the pandemic and its impact on consumption cycles, and the emergence of a large service industry. This has reshaped the consumer’s and marketers’ choices of development processes, channel partners, pricing strategies, promotional methodologies, use of social media tools, etc. These aspects need to be addressed in more detail with recent examples for students to appreciate the relevance.

Clarity rating: 5

The author has outlined the content in great detail, making it easy to read and understand the textbook. Easy conversational language and links, for example, appeal to students who can find a great deal on the electronic medium.

Consistency rating: 5

The chapters in the textbook are organized in the same consistent manner in the entire book. This is helpful for the readers and instructors to follow a format.

Modularity rating: 4

The text is easily and readily divided into smaller reading sections that can be assigned. This lends itself to assigning modules by chapters and units within the chapters.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

I have been teaching this course for the past 4 years and have found that explaining what a marketing plan is and then studying the various stages helps the students appreciate the various phases in this process. This textbook has taken a completely different approach by explaining the marketing plan at the end. While the topics are the same the structure impacts the flow and, in my opinion, the ability to hold the student’s interest. I suggest moving Chapter 16 to Chapter 3 followed by Chapter 5.

Interface rating: 3

The textbook was last updated in 2010, making all images, figures, tables, and video clips mildly outdated. The power of audio-visual aids is very powerful, and the quality is becoming better and better. To keep the students engaged the author might like to consider using technology for simulations, video assignments, etc., these can be useful for the students.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I found no grammatical errors, the content is well-written and easily understandable. The language used is conversational and something the students should find easy to navigate.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

Global and international marketing are the mainstays for today, these aspects have not been addressed in the textbook. It warrants at least a chapter on world cultures, the emergence of MNCs, and geo-demographics relevance. It is important to acknowledge that demographic profiling needs to incorporate cultural diversity. The textbook has all US-based industry examples and consumer responses, ignoring the diverse consumer profile even within the US.

Overall, it is a great attempt to provide such detailed material for the students. Given that it was uploaded in 2010 the book needs to be updated to include more current and global marketing aspects. The textbook was created for an entry-level course in marketing. I enjoy the way the author shares the various career options available for marketing majors. However, the student profile who takes this course includes students who major in finance, and journalism. PR, management, etc. It would be relevant for them to see how these skills are transferable and useful in other work fields. The suggested activities need to be more application based and limited to the content of the preceding chapter. More global and culturally applicable examples need to be included.

Reviewed by Rich Metzger, Adjunct Professor, Massachusetts Bay Community College on 11/24/22

The OTL textbook covers the basic principles necessary to form a marketing foundation. The content should be updated to reflex the Pandemic and Post-Pandemic marketing environment. I felt some topics needed more discussion, and explanation, such... read more

The OTL textbook covers the basic principles necessary to form a marketing foundation. The content should be updated to reflex the Pandemic and Post-Pandemic marketing environment. I felt some topics needed more discussion, and explanation, such as a breakdown by age and characteristics of the population.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The OTL textbook is relevant and is a good guide to basic marketing principles but could be better. I prefer the OTL textbook to include recent marketing techniques and strategies used in today’s difficult business environment. This ranges from the advent of the non-store or virtual retailing, broken supply chains, damaged distribution channels, inflation, digital marketing, content streaming, and social media, just to mention a few new topics.

I found the OTL textbook easy to read and understand. Good comprehension level and in the use of examples, figures, and images to illustrate or compliment the text.

The OTL textbook’s material is laid out in a logical sequence, culminating with the last chapter dedicated to the Marketing Plan.

Modularity rating: 5

Chapters progress in a logical manner, allowing the reader to digest the material and prepare for the next chapter.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

The organization, structure, and flow of the material are fine, but my concern is the lack of an index and a single depository for key terms and chapter highlights.

Interface rating: 4

The images, figures, tables, and video clips need to be revisited for relevancy. The use of these visual aids helps the reader better understand the topics being discussed.

The content is well written, very limited if any grammatical issues. To make the textbook more relevant, consider using socially accepted pronouns, which in turn would elevate the textbook to today’s sociality expectations.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

A chapter on world cultures and the different business nuances and practices (ethics) would be beneficial to a student learning about marketing.

As this is my first experience dealing with OER, I wanted to be fair and open to the possibilities presented by this new resource. For comparison purposes, I used my adopted textbook vs the OTL textbook. My goal is to decide if I could adopt the OTL textbook. Similarly, the adopted textbook and the OTL textbook are for a 100-level course. Both textbooks offer entry-level content, relevant material, easy to read and comprehend, more than enough chapters to fill a semester, Contents, Chapter titles, Learning Objectives, topics, images, figures, examples, video clips, Discussion/Review Questions, Activities, and both textbooks offer a test bank. The OTL textbook has Key Takeaways for each topic presented in a chapter, and the adopted textbook has a section in the back of the textbook titled Chapter Review, which contains Learning Objectives and Key Terms. Differences, the adopted textbook has a price point, an OTL textbook lacks an Index, and the adopted textbook offers PowerPoint Slides, Instructor’s manual, Rubrics, and Case Studies. I was unable to find an Instructor’s Resources section for the OTL textbook, but the OTL textbook provides students with financial relief. I believe I could adopt this textbook with a minimal number of self-adjustments.

Reviewed by Victoria Shaw, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Anderson University on 3/11/22

The book does a good job of highlighting basic marketing principles. However, I do find it lacks the basics of e-commerce (just basic industry terms like SEO), global marketing principles (especially B2C), and using tools like PEST analysis for... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

The book does a good job of highlighting basic marketing principles. However, I do find it lacks the basics of e-commerce (just basic industry terms like SEO), global marketing principles (especially B2C), and using tools like PEST analysis for external assessment. I think the chapters on B2B behavior and Sales while good, may not be the most value-add for the students in class.

No glaring errors at first glance.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

Imagery is very dated. The chapters use the four basic P's, though the latest books tend to introduce up to eight.

Overall, seemed clear and comprehensive. I think the book would have benefitted from multiple, additional visuals to clarify complex topics.

Consistency rating: 4

Seemed consistent across chapters

I liked the way the topics were broken into micro concepts - makes it easy to assign the portions I find most relevant and supplement when needed.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Structure was logical and sequential.

A bit text heavy at times but errors.

No grammatical errors on first read.

I think the author missed the opportunity to bring marketing to a more global context.

This is a great principles textbook overall. My only complaint is because of some omitted or abbreviated topics, an instructor may have to supplement a bit more in order to ensure the curriculum is up to industry standards. But in a larger class where schedules only allow for selected topics to be covered, this would be a very good start.

Reviewed by Amy Strunk, Lecturer, James Madison University on 11/29/21

Basic marketing concepts are covered with sufficient depth, but newer concepts are missing (like digital marketing). read more

Basic marketing concepts are covered with sufficient depth, but newer concepts are missing (like digital marketing).

Some of the information is dated: for example, most would agree that we are not in the relationship era of marketing, but the textbook states that we are in an undefined era (which would have been true 10 years ago).

The book uses “creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging value” as elements of the marketing mix/strategy rather than the 4 P’s, and actively argues against the 4 P terminology, which is controversial.

The book also uses "offerings" instead of "product". The authors argue for it effectively, but I don't know anyone in the marketing world who uses that term in the real world.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 2

References are dated: - Foursquare (college-age students in 2021 will have no idea what this is) - Some images are out of date (retrieved in 2008) - Mission statements on p. 27 are outdated and reference links are broken. - References to iPod in the time of iPhones

These references will continue to grow stale.

The content is pretty straight forward. Definitions are clear.

The book is consistent in its own frameworks/terminology (stubbornly so).

Modularity rating: 3

Some of the longer sections could benefit from headings and subheadings.

I would recommend that market research come before the "Creating Offerings" section since that process is so integral to product (or "offering") development.

Interface is sufficient.

Some small issues, for example, using the term “Droid” smartphones on page 6—should be Android.

I did not notice any concerted effort to include diverse backgrounds in this text.

Marketing is changing rapidly thanks to technology, and this book is too outdated to address issues like data privacy and hyper-targeting.

Reviewed by Matthew Lunde, Assistant Professor, Pittsburg State University on 6/4/21

the textbooks is very thorough in covering all the topis needed in a principles of marketing class. It even adds a chapter that is not in many other textbooks: "The Marketing Plan." However, my only criticism is that it does not touch on a huge... read more

the textbooks is very thorough in covering all the topis needed in a principles of marketing class. It even adds a chapter that is not in many other textbooks: "The Marketing Plan." However, my only criticism is that it does not touch on a huge topic area nowadays in marketing: sustainability (sustainable marketing and sustainable competitive advantage).

The content is objective, thorough, and accurate. It uses statistics and example businesses and situations effectively to help teach younger college students the fundamentals of marketing.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The content is up-to-date as best as it can be. Whenever any textbook uses statistics, years, numbers, and other figures, it can date the textbook; however, the content is written in a way that it will last for multiple years to come.

Clarity rating: 4

There is some jargon, but the jargon used is needed to help teach the fundamentals of marketing to new students.

It is great how all the terms in the chapters are easy to find and to read because each term is bold.

Yes, the book is broken down into manageable sections for a younger college student to read and interpret effectively and efficiently.

Yes. This textbook is laid out very well. However, one thing I would add in the chapter titles would be "retailing."

Good! Nothing to add here!

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

The book is written well, free of grammatical errors. However, I see "he or she" is used. Nowadays, for inclusivity, the right pronoun to use would be "they."

However, I see "he or she" is used. Nowadays, for inclusivity, the right pronoun to use would be "they."

Reviewed by Felix Flores, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Metropolitan State University of Denver on 4/17/21, updated 5/26/21

The textbook sufficiently covers areas and ideas of subjects and is easy to navigate. I would find it useful to include and discussed an example of an actual marketing plan. read more

The textbook sufficiently covers areas and ideas of subjects and is easy to navigate. I would find it useful to include and discussed an example of an actual marketing plan.

The textbook's content is mostly accurate, error-free, and unbiased.

Some of the links and examples may be dated but contribute to the chapter's main ideas. There are, however, some links that do not work or could be replaced with newer examples. I would recommend reviewing all of the provided links.

The textbook is written in a clear manner.

The textbook is mostly consistent in terms of terminology and framework.

The textbook is easily divisible into smaller reading sections that can be assigned at different points within the course.

The topics are presented in a logical, clear fashion.

Interface rating: 5

The text is free of interface issues or navigation problems.

There may be a small room for improvement in terms of grammar.

I believe the textbook is mostly culturally relevant.

I believe that you can effectively teach a Principles of Marketing class with this textbook, on its own, and especially in combination with other OER textbooks/resources. It will require, however, checking all of the links and updating some examples.

Reviewed by Diane Edmondson, Adjunct Professor, Trine University on 4/16/21

Overall, this textbook covers a majority of the marketing topics that should be covered in a Principles of Marketing class. Since the book is somewhat dated, there is limited coverage on both digital marketing and social media as well as marketing... read more

Overall, this textbook covers a majority of the marketing topics that should be covered in a Principles of Marketing class. Since the book is somewhat dated, there is limited coverage on both digital marketing and social media as well as marketing analytics. These two topic areas have revolutionized the marketing field. However, this marketing textbook contains all of the other key marketing concepts such as the 4 P's of marketing, strategic marketing, target market strategies, consumer and business buying behavior, and how to craft a marketing plan.

Overall, this textbook is accurate and error-free. It does not appear to be biased in any way.

Overall, this textbook is still highly relevant. It is missing some more detailed information related to digital marketing, social media, and marketing analytics as these have drastically changed the marketing field over the past decade; however, the content covered is still relevant to both business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets.

One of the best things about this book is that it is easy to read. The text is written in a way that students should not have a difficult time understanding the concepts being covered. There are multiple examples given for each major topic to help students better understand the material. Terminology is defined to aid understanding.

Overall, a consistent framework is used throughout this textbook. The flow and chapter ordering of the textbook makes natural sense with how it would be taught in the classroom.

The text is made up of 16 chapters; however, each of the chapters is then broken up into multiple subsections. This allows the text to be easily and readily divided into smaller reading sections, based on the desire of the instructor and/or reader.

The chapter layout of this textbook is similar to many other Principles of Marketing textbooks. Topics are presented in a logical and clear manner, which aids readability and understanding.

Overall, the images, charts, tables, and figures were clearly displayed without any distortion. There are a few navigation links that no longer function; however, these are minimal in number.

The Principles of Marketing textbook appears to be free of grammatical errors.

There are a variety of diverse examples throughout the text. None of these should be viewed as culturally insensitive or offensive in any way.

Overall, this textbook is well written and covers most of the major marketing topics. The few topics not covered are primarily because these became dominant marketing elements after this textbook was published originally.

Reviewed by Ricardo McCoy, Adjunct Professor, Trine University on 3/3/21

I have been facilitating marketing, analytics, sales, and consumer behavior classes since 2009 and this textbook does a good job of covering all of the marketing mix. Most important, the content is updated and relevant. The layout is... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

I have been facilitating marketing, analytics, sales, and consumer behavior classes since 2009 and this textbook does a good job of covering all of the marketing mix. Most important, the content is updated and relevant. The layout is user-friendly and easy to read.

Based on similar marketing text books I have read, this textbook is accurate and contains content that someone who is unfamiliar with marketing concepts will easily understand. The use of examples throughout the textbook is a good way to help a beginner to marketing understand the subject matter.

I like how this book understands how marketing has changed and explains variables in the environment that is effecting this change. This can be seen in Chapter 1 concerning some of these changes:

Ethic and Social Responsibility Sustainability Service-dominant logic Metrics A Global Environment

It is good to see that the textbook is up-to-date and recognizes that marketing must adapt to these changes. Some of the marketing textbooks I read in the past do not recognize these changes.

Overall, the information throughout the chapters was easy to understand. I like how examples were used throughout each chapter. My only recommendation is to add more illustrations consistently throughout the textbook. Based on my experience, most students like to see illustrations (visualize). I think this helps him or her to understand the subject matter.

Overall, the content throughout the textbook is consistent. However, I notice that some of the chapters have more illustrations than other chapters. I think that using more illustrations (and examples) would make the chapters more user-friendly.

P.S. Links to additional resources would also be a good addition.

The sequence throughout the textbook “flows” from section to section. I like the synergy from chapter to chapter. This helps the student to understand how various factors of marketing work together.

I like how Chapter 1 gives a brief description of marketing while summarizing what will be discussed in the preceding chapters. I also like the “key takeaways” at the end of each chapter. The "review questions" are brief, yet add to what was discussed throughout the chapter. This is good to see.

The overall functionality of the textbook is good. The font size and white space makes the content easy to read. I like the use of color throughout the textbook. For example, the use of green for the “Key Takeaway” and blue for the “Review Questions”.

Although it is difficult to check all the content, I did not see any typos or “wordy” sentences. I like how the content “talks to” rather than “talks at” the student.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

This is a difficult question to answer because I did not see anything that was insensitive or offensive. Ideally, the content would continue to embrace diversity and inclusion. This is important because we live in a global economy.

I think that Chapter 5 (“Marketing Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning”) should be followed by Chapter 10 (“Gathering and Using Information: Market Research and Market Intelligence”). Both of these chapters are closely related. To properly perform segmentation and targeting, you must understand analytics / gathering information. I was also looking to see slightly more insights on digital analytics in Chapter 10.

Reviewed by Markus Biegel, Adjunct Faculty, California State University, Dominguez Hills on 8/12/20

I compared it to the McGraw Hill book that I have been using for the past 4 years and the topics (Chapters Topics and Sub-Topics) are pretty identical just in a slightly different order. When looking into how in-depth the book goes, it is not... read more

I compared it to the McGraw Hill book that I have been using for the past 4 years and the topics (Chapters Topics and Sub-Topics) are pretty identical just in a slightly different order. When looking into how in-depth the book goes, it is not quite as comprehensive as the McGraw Hill book. However, it is easy to read.

Marketing always is a bit subjective. I think the book does a great job covering all the important topics as unbiased as possible.

This is a basic marketing course focused on teaching students the fundamentals, the book does a good job at that. Given the current COVID situation, a lot of things have changed in business but not the fundamental theories and practices of the profession. Because of that the relevance of the book is current in my opinion.

The text has a logical flow. There is certainly room for improvement from a formatting standpoint. I think it makes it easier for students to learn key terms and key concepts when they are highlighted on the sidebar (similar as in many mainstream textbooks).

Certainly consistent and comprehensive in all the key terms that this book should cover for Principles of Marketing.

The text is very easy to read. There is good spacing in between the paragraphs and graphics/images help further give the mind a reading break. I also think it is great that links are included to videos, this helps students get a "reading break" which is essential when cramming in a few chapters to study for an exam.

Very well organized text. I just wish the key terms and key concepts were featured separately in an almost duplicate fashion on the side of the main text. I think students are used to using these highlighted areas to study for exams.

Didn't notice any problems with the interface. Could have perhaps used better images here and there but overall does the job.

I am not an English professor and this is my second language but I did not notice any grammatical errors. I am sure there are some, including mistyped words but every book I have used had a few of those.

One of the key concepts in Principles of Marketing is target marketing which certainly can be interpreted as offensive to some people. However, I think the book does a great job at explaining the concept. Again, marketing leans into being somewhat controversial based on the subject matter and business practice.

Can't beat a free book. Seems like a great resource to use for students.

Reviewed by Kirti Celly, Professor, California State University, Dominguez Hills on 8/10/20

Principles begins with a question to spark curiosity for the novice student of marketing. Organized into 16 chapters, it takes a traditional strategic planning, consumer and buyer behavior, research and 4Ps approach that addresses all major areas... read more

Principles begins with a question to spark curiosity for the novice student of marketing. Organized into 16 chapters, it takes a traditional strategic planning, consumer and buyer behavior, research and 4Ps approach that addresses all major areas and ideas in a core marketing class. Given the importance of ethical decision making, it needs to add/bolster content on ethics in marketing and add an index/glossary.

Accurate content with image sources and references. I have not tested all these links.

Since the focus is core content, it is written in a nuts and bolts manner and will stay perennial. Consistent with the conditions of use, the text’s simplicity allows for it to be modified easily.

Written professionally and in simple sentences, this makes for accessible, adequate and easy to understand content. Marketing concepts are defined simply and succinctly throughout.

The key take-aways and review questions after each section of a chapter are supplemented by end of chapter discussion questions and activities throughout. This fits nicely with Bloom’s learning taxonomy.

This is a key feature of this book and one most appreciated by my students.

Another key feature of this book, and one appreciated by my students.

Other than a few formatting and pagination issues, nothing to note. Any links I used worked. For the manner in which I use this book as basic material for my classes, not having an excess of photos and images in the body actually works well. Having URLs for case examples also facilitates easy revision and adaptation for various local and regional teaching and learning contexts.

Simple, easy to read, accessible. I did not notice any grammatical errors.

This is less about this book than about the way in which most business textbooks are written. It is in no way offensive; in fact, its style and variety of examples promotes inclusion and it is adaptable to alternate cultural contexts through a shift in frame to include broader contexts.

Our students appreciate having an accessible zero cost course materials course with adds ons from me, the press, and other OER, and low cost or no cost AV materials and marketing math. Thank you.

Reviewed by Sheryl Spann, Marketing Instructor, Oregon State University on 7/28/20

The textbook begins with the question “What is Marketing?” to assist students new to the field of marketing to understand the real definition of marketing versus their perceived ideas of marketing. This is a great place to start as many students... read more

The textbook begins with the question “What is Marketing?” to assist students new to the field of marketing to understand the real definition of marketing versus their perceived ideas of marketing. This is a great place to start as many students either believe that marketing is strictly sales or do not have a full concept of the many aspects of what encompasses marketing. The text covers most of the key areas of marketing such as consumer behavior, market segmentation and target marketing and the principals relating to product, pricing, placement and promotion. Marketing research, new product development and marketing communications is also covered at a basic level. However, based on my experience in the classroom, a few suggestions are in order. I would add three additional chapters on international marketing, market expansion strategies and ethics and social responsibility. The chapter on professional selling could be removed or covered within chapter one as a portion of the explanation on the aspects of marketing. Lastly, I would add more current marketing articles, one-page cases and small group discussion questions to each chapter. For marketing majors, I would add an appendix at the back of the book discussing the various career opportunities in marketing.

The book content is accurate with terminology and marketing concepts accessible for a university level student. The textbook also cites sources for most of the provided information.

In addition to the textbook content for teaching marketing principals, there are many real-world examples offered to improve student understanding. Although most offer longevity, there is a need to augment current examples with more recent examples including company or product examples representing cultural diversity.

The text is easy to read with a combination of informal and professional language for appropriate student learning and understanding.

The text is internally consistent and provides actual examples of the principals covered as well as review questions to ensure student comprehension. This approach is inline with other “Principals of Marketing” textbooks.

The course material is listed in modular fashion to easily transfer to canvas. However, since “Principals of Marketing” is usually the first marketing course for majors and the only course for this topic for non-majors, I would place the chapter on “Strategic Planning” right before the last chapter on “The Marketing Plan”. As indicated in the “comprehensiveness” section of my comments, I also believe that a few topical chapters such as “International Marketing” should be added to the book to improve its overview of the topic.

In general, the topics are presented and organized in an effective format. The text starts with overarching definitions and concepts and then moves toward providing more details on each topic. I believe that the “Strategic Planning” chapter should be moved to the end of the book before “The Marketing Plan” to ensure that students have the foundation needed to better understand this topic plus use its strategic perspective in the development of a marketing plan.

There did not appear to be any interface issues for this book. All video and web page links also worked well.

The text did not have any grammatical errors.

Although cultural examples were included and relevant, additional cultural diversity elements would improve the book. Also, it is important to include examples that are more current to provide better student discussions of this important marketing topic.

Overall, this textbook is a suitable option for an entry level college course on “Marketing Principals”. Adding chapters on “International Marketing”, “Market Expansion Strategies” and “Ethics & Social Responsibility” as well as updating some of the chapter business examples, case studies and discussion questions would be very helpful plus keep this book “current”. Lastly, including a greater overview of the marketing aspects of cultural diversity plus marketing career options would cause this book to stand out among textbook options for this topic.

Reviewed by Zahra Tohidinia, Assistant Professor, Framingham State University on 6/12/20

The text offers a very good review of key marketing principles and provides a comprehensive introduction to the main concept. I would suggest combining the textbook with relevant current marketing articles and cases. read more

The text offers a very good review of key marketing principles and provides a comprehensive introduction to the main concept. I would suggest combining the textbook with relevant current marketing articles and cases.

The content is accurate and the textbook cites sources for most of the provided information.

The content is relevant to marketing. There are a solid number of examples throughout the book. The content related to digital marketing/social media could be expanded, but overall the content is relevant and robust.

The text is easy to read and provides a good balance of informal and professional language.

The structure of the text is consistent and the book gives example-based explanations of the main concepts. There are review questions at the end of each section as well as discussions and activities at the end of each chapter.

The text is easy to navigate. The book is divided into smaller segments. A hyperlinked (clickable) table of contents makes it really easy to move between different chapters and their corresponding sub-segments.

The topics are presented and organized in an effective format. The text starts with overarching definitions and concepts and then moves toward providing more details on each topic.

The links to the videos that I clicked on worked and each opened a new tab. As mentioned before, the hyperlinks make it very easy to navigate between different sections. In some cases, the image headings were separated from the actual image because of page breaks which can be revised in later editions.

The consumer behavior chapter does a good job with embedding cultural variables into the discussion. This could have been integrated more effectively in the other chapters; especially the chapters involving marketing research and intelligence, as well as market segmentation and positioning

This book covers the main concepts of marketing very effectively. This textbook combined with current articles and relevant cases could serve as a comprehensive set of materials for introductory marketing courses at the undergraduate level.

Reviewed by Christian Gilde, Business Faculty, University of Montana - Western on 1/31/20

The textbook has enough depth and addresses all the major parts of the marketing discourse, such as the environment, marketing strategy, consumer behavior and segmentation, and marketing research, as well as the product, place, price, and... read more

The textbook has enough depth and addresses all the major parts of the marketing discourse, such as the environment, marketing strategy, consumer behavior and segmentation, and marketing research, as well as the product, place, price, and promotion variables.

The explanations, terminology, and concepts in the text are accessible and accurate.

The textbook contains applicable examples of marketing that will help the audience learn and appreciate the marketing realm. Most pieces and examples in the book have longevity. A few applications might need to be updated to make the text more timely.

The text is accessible and will help guide the students through the different dimensions of marketing.

The given text follows a certain presentation canon in terms of marketing terminology, concepts, and applications that can be found in textbooks of similar nature.

Many textbooks in marketing follow a certain modular pattern. This same pattern can be found in this text, with each chapter being split into sections for which particular assignments and experiential learning activities are designed.

As far as the organization and structure of this work are concerned, the marketing text is in line with a good number of other principles texts. The structure, flow, and positioning of the different marketing topics within the individual chapters is logical, with the objectives in the beginning and a re-visitation of the key points and review questions at the end.

The functionality of the text seemed to be working. Web links, images, and figures allow for easy direction-finding.

A few minor grammatical and structural errors can be found in the text.

The cultural illustrations are relevant, to a certain extent. However, it might be useful to update some of these items.

The material in this text is suitable for a basic marketing course. Overall, I would recommend using this text for entry level marketing students.

Reviewed by Kelly Atkins, Associate Professor, East Tennessee State University on 10/21/19

The text contains the expected chapter topics related to Principles of Marketing. In my opinion, there is too much information about Professional Selling (Chapter 13) for the topic of the text. In my opinion, Chapter 11 should include a... read more

The text contains the expected chapter topics related to Principles of Marketing. In my opinion, there is too much information about Professional Selling (Chapter 13) for the topic of the text. In my opinion, Chapter 11 should include a discussion of the basic Communications Model as well as some more modern communications models.

The text content appears to be accurate, error-free and unbiased. In my thorough review, I found nothing to the contrary.

The text contains many relevant, current examples of marketing concepts as well as some images of marketing examples and nice video clips of marketing examples. Some examples in Chapter 2 are from 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009. These 10+ year old examples are too old to be relevant to students who are only 20 years old. I like the application of marketing concepts to the world of business and to personal branding.

The “voice” of the text is conversational yet professional. The terms used throughout the text seem to be in alignment with other Principles of Marketing textbooks I have used previously.

The text seems to be internally consistent. I saw nothing to indicate otherwise.

The text is organized effectively in most ways, but I have a recommendation. Chapter 3 should be divided into more sections. There are too many learning objectives and key takeaways for section 3.1.

There are significant organization problems in Chapters 4,8 & 13. Each of these chapters is out of order. For example, Chapter 4 is presented in the following sections: 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, then 4.1, 4.2, 4.3. The same is true of Chapters 8 & 13.

The way the pages are presented with extra lines on many pages, with figure titles on different pages than the actual figure, or with figure numbers on a different page than the figure itself. See Figures 1.3 and 1.4 in Chapter 1 as examples.

I did not notice any grammar problems in the text (and I typically find lots of grammar problems when I am editing).

In my opinion, he text is culturally sensitive.

• I really like the “key takeaways” and “review questions” at the end of the sections instead of a summary at the end of the chapter. • I would add key terms at the end of each section because the terms and definitions seem to get lost within the chapters. • The “activities” at the end of the chapter are unique and creative. I would use these ideas for my classes.

Reviewed by Donald Chang, Professor, Metropolitan State University of Denver on 4/29/19

The textbook provides basic coverage of main concepts found in most principles of marketing. Overall, the discussion throughout the book tends to be less comprehensive. In some areas, the author glossed over without providing sufficient details.... read more

The textbook provides basic coverage of main concepts found in most principles of marketing. Overall, the discussion throughout the book tends to be less comprehensive. In some areas, the author glossed over without providing sufficient details. To introduce basic concepts, it might be sufficient. For deeper understanding and analysis, it will require additional reading and research by readers. For example, in the very beginning, the author claimed "... about 1950 to 1990, businesses operated in the marketing era" without providing supporting materials to bolster the claim. The discussion also skipped a commonly known period when emphasis on selling was prevalent, skipping from product concept to marketing concepts, while ignoring the discussion on social responsibility in the 80s.

Accuracy is not a major issue for this book. Most contents are explained adequately for concept delivery.

Most basic concepts in marketing, e.g., product life cycle, buying process, pricing strategies, are mostly time free, thus, stay relevant regardless of changes in the marketplace. Examples used are apparently out of date, e.g., iPad. Many of the examples are prior to 2010 so that examples need to be updated to be relevant to today's students. Most basic content is consistent with other textbooks, just on a shallow side.

For marketing, the key strategic decisions are in segmentation, targeting, positioning, and differentiation. It would be probably more appropriate to place strategic planning close to the chapter on segmentation, targeting, and positioning. With so much content in marketing to cover, a standing-alone chapter on professional selling is uncalled for. After all, personal selling is only one of the element of promotion and most companies prefer to train their own sales force, thus very company/product specific, not something could be covered effectively in a principles of marketing textbook. It also incorrectly over-inflates the role of sales in marketing curriculum. Most students, business and non-business, do not see professional selling as their career aspiration either, if they have the choice.

There is an obvious omission in international marketing. The author's claim that global coverage is built in throughout the textbook cannot be observed. Without having a devoted chapter in international marketing, some basic concepts in international management are not presented. The same is for sustainability, ethics, and social responsibility. The author seemed to understand their importance, but not important enough to have their own sections. On the other hand, the author had no issue in having a chapter in professional selling without clear justification for its inclusion. These are obviously the author's own selection bias and personal preferences, not necessarily what students ought to learn from the course.

The writing is good for average college students. It is mostly easy to follow.

The book used "offerings" when referring to products and services consistently throughout the book. Each chapter is presented with discussion questions, activities, key takeaway, review questions with consistent structure and writing style.

The book is organized in a module-like manner, with most materials being free-standing, allowing a section to be borrowed for another marketing course as needed. As the writing is on the succinct side, there is rarely a long writing blocks without division.

While the book is structured well overall, the placement of strategic planning in the very beginning (Chapter 2) is probably off. Students need to know about the subject more before jumping into strategic planning. Other than chapter placement, the overall organization is adequate.

There are no known serious interface issues that are present. Graphs, charts, pictures are clear and easy to see and follow. A few enhancements to market the headings and sub-headings could be added to better break up sections. As examples, "Video Clip" on page 272, 273 could be better presented. The headings are easily overlooked as presented. At times, the reader might not be aware that the topic has shifted to a new one.

The book is grammatical correct overall.

There are no obvious concerns of being culturally insensitive or offensive.

The book is a possible alternative for average high school and college students if the goal is to learn the very fundamental concepts in marketing. For students who look for deeper understanding, this is not the right book for them as much discussion is on the shallow side. The author's own opinions can be found throughout the book without adequate supporting materials. Therefore, it is subject to the author's self selection bias. For marketing major students, I would expect students to learn more than what are presented in this book.

Reviewed by Nicole Lytle, Faculty Lecturer, LaGuardia Community College on 4/24/19

This resources covers all the relevant topics traditionally covered and necessary for an introduction-level course. The material is presented in comprehensive way. read more

This resources covers all the relevant topics traditionally covered and necessary for an introduction-level course. The material is presented in comprehensive way.

I found the text to be accurate, and in line with current marketing practices and pedagogical materials.

The resource is current, but some examples are a bit dated. The instructor using this resource should check all links and examples before assigning.

The resource is clear and easy to understand.

The terminology and framework are consistent with current concepts and expectations of an introductory level course.

The text is well organized; it also lends itself to skipping around and changing the order of the material as the instructor sees fit.

Topics presented are in a logical manner - learning objectives, terms, examples/diagrams, key takeaways, and review questions.

The interface is clear and easy to navigate - clicking images isolates them, which is a good tool for some visual learners.

No grammatical errors were found.

The resources is not culturally offensive, but it also misses the mark for cultural inclusion.

Reviewed by Duane Bernard, Lecturer, Gettysburg College on 3/12/19

The text book covers all of the typical topics for this level of marketing. If there is any criticism it is that some topics are covered very sparsely. For example, the topic of subliminal messaging is given a few sentences. While it is not... read more

The text book covers all of the typical topics for this level of marketing. If there is any criticism it is that some topics are covered very sparsely. For example, the topic of subliminal messaging is given a few sentences. While it is not necessary to cover this in detail, the explanation provided may not be enough for students to understand what it is. I even had a student that commented on the lack of substance in some areas.

I did not come across any areas that were not accurate. It is written well.

The examples are somewhat dated. While it is perfectly fine to present historical examples, the "new" examples need to be updated. In addition, some of the links are broken.

I have not seen any issues with the understandability of the text. I have also not had any negative comments from students.

The text is consistent with its terminology.

The text is easily separated into subunits. I do not use it as a standalone assignment for reading, as I also have many cases and simulations. I have only directly assigned certain sections for homework. This works well.

The book follows the usual formatting and organization of most of these textbooks.

The only issue I have encountered is some broken links that refer to videos. I have not encountered any other issues.

Grammatical errors have not been found.

I have not detect any offensive content. I have not seen a lot that would be inclusive of other backgrounds.

This book is great as a supplement to other course materials such as cases and lecture. I believe its limitation is that it could go into more depth in many sections.

Reviewed by Lori Rumreich, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Marian University on 3/5/19

This book provides comprehensive coverage of marketing principles equivalent to other textbooks. There is very nice coverage of supply chain and logistics beyond many other principles books. The marketing plan section at the end is very useful.... read more

This book provides comprehensive coverage of marketing principles equivalent to other textbooks. There is very nice coverage of supply chain and logistics beyond many other principles books. The marketing plan section at the end is very useful. Overall there is a lot of content to choose from in this text that makes it easy to select what is needed. A searchable pdf in the downloaded format makes it easy to find content.

The content is accurate and unbiased. Some content may be out of date but with the rapid change happening in much of marketing, especially digital/social, that is to be expected.

The rapid pace of change in marketing, especially digital marketing/social media and media in general make it difficult for textbooks to stay up to date. Updates to these sections should be easy to make. The majority of the text is up-to-date and relevant. The use of review questions and key takeaways for sections are very helpful and reinforce learning of each concept.

This text provides practical and real world examples that are interesting and relevant. Writing style is clear and accessible. The use of pictures and the use of color for highlighting tables, charts, special sections, etc. add to the clarity and readability.

There is a consistent style throughout the text. Clear objectives are at the start of each section, key takeaways and review questions are at the end of each section. This creates a very consistent style that is easy to follow and should help with learning.

It would be nice to provide sub units or groups of chapters within a theme or section of marketing but this is not a requirement. Chapters can be easily divided where needed.

I would prefer that market research to be closer to the front of book. Market research is a first step in understanding customer needs, product features, markets, segments, promotion and ad concepts, etc. It seems out of place near the end of the text. Otherwise, the organization is logical and clear.

The searchable pdf version is very easy to navigate and use. The links to videos and other external content are accessible. All content appears clear and free from distortion. Having multiple formats, pdf, kindle, etc., available is a plus for this text.

The text contains no grammatical errors.

The text appears to be culturally relevant. There is good diversity in the photos shown in the text.

Reviewed by Rosemary Prince, Teaching Faculty III, Florida State University on 12/6/18

The concepts covered in Principles of Marketing - 2015 are appropriate for an introductory level course. The discussion of the 4 Ps as creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging provides an interesting perspective. An index and glossary... read more

The concepts covered in Principles of Marketing - 2015 are appropriate for an introductory level course. The discussion of the 4 Ps as creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging provides an interesting perspective. An index and glossary are not included which would be beneficial.

The concepts, definitions and strategies are accurate and unbiased.

The general principles addressed are relevant. Examples should be updated and some links are no longer available. As noted in the learning objectives Social Media keeps changing and the text needs to be updated. Additionally, e-marketing should be expanded given the changes since 2010. The reference information provided with websites resources and examples and framework of the textbook allows for updating with more recent clips, research, templates, etc.

The text is very clear and terminology is easy to understand.

The framework is consistent with the concepts presented in an introductory level marketing text.

The text is presented in units within each chapter that can be separated and or combined with other units for specific learning assignments or extracted to supplement learning.

The topics in the text are presented in logical order for an introductory marketing text. The layout of the textbook including learning objectives, sequencing, terminology, key takeaways, questions and activities is well organized.

Downloading the text as a PDF, the images and charts were clearly visible. The navigation was straightforward and easy. The links to videos were accessible; however, some were no longer available.

Minor grammar errors were noted.

Updating the video examples would provide a more inclusive text.

Reviewed by Melodi Guilbault, Senior University Lecturer, NJIT on 5/21/18

The book covers all content generally covered in a Principles of or Introduction to Marketing course. The issue is that the content is old. The content is based on a text written in 2010. For example, there are only a few short paragraphs on... read more

The book covers all content generally covered in a Principles of or Introduction to Marketing course. The issue is that the content is old. The content is based on a text written in 2010. For example, there are only a few short paragraphs on social media. There is a clear Table of Contents but I did not see an index or glossary.

The content appears to be accurate. I did not note any errors or any bias. But the content is dated.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 1

The content is dated. The content is adapted from a text written in 2010. There have been significant changes since 2010. Although there are a few more recent links most of the links are from before 2010.

The text is easy to read. Students should find the writing easy to follow. Terminology has been clearly explained.

The way the chapters are organized is consistent throughout the text.

The text is easily and readily divisible into smaller reading sections that can be assigned. This is generally done by chapters and units within the chapters.

The topics are presented in the same order as many Principles of or Introduction to Marketing texts.

I could not get any of the videos to open. Other than that I was able to easily navigate through the chapters. The hyperlinks took me to the appropriate text but it would be helpful to have a return button.

The text did not appear to contain any grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 2

I did not note any direct effort to be inclusive in the examples provided.

I like the use of the alternative to the 4Ps. I find the 4Ps to be a dated paradigm and it was refreshing to see a different approach.

Reviewed by David C Taylor, Assistant Pofessor, University of Houston on 3/27/18

A very good comprehensive introduction for marketing. Also would serve as a great refresher text for upper-level marketing courses. read more

A very good comprehensive introduction for marketing. Also would serve as a great refresher text for upper-level marketing courses.

The text is very general, but provides accurate descriptions and overviews of concepts and marketing theory.

We could see more on e-marketing or the evolution of social media over traditional advertising. That said, as a primer on the subject of marketing, this is a great tool in lieu of students having to make a purchase.

Clear, easy to read and understand.

Consistency is strong and consistent across chapters.

I don't think molecularity is practical with an general overview text, unless you wanted to utilize some of the chapters as refreshers in broader topic on marketing.

organized consistently and flow is as with other marketing texts

I did not experience any difficulties

No major grammar issues were identified.

Again, a good primer, or refresh for an upper-level marketing course.

Reviewed by Mary Tripp, Business Faculty, St. Paul College on 2/1/18

The textbook covers the material found in the majority of introductory marketing textbooks. The topics covered are appropriate and the scope meets the basic needs of a principles of marketing course. A searchable index would add to the... read more

The textbook covers the material found in the majority of introductory marketing textbooks. The topics covered are appropriate and the scope meets the basic needs of a principles of marketing course. A searchable index would add to the usefulness of this textbook. A table of content exists but unfortunately no subject index or glossary is provided.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

Overall the accuracy of information, based on the publication date, is acceptable. The textbook is listed as published in 2015 on the Open Textbook Library site. However, the internal publication date is 2010. The internal date seems accurate based on the examples and citations used throughout the textbook. The books examples are all about 10 years old. In the world of marketing, that is a problem. The textbook has some grammatical and spelling errors but nothing that would prevent usage.

The textbook is listed as published in 2015 on the Open Textbook Library site. However, the internal publication date is 2010. The internal date seems accurate based on the examples and citations used throughout the textbook. The books examples are all about 10 years old. In the world of marketing, that is a problem. The subjects of pricing, product, and distribution would be easy to update in the text and/or provide supplements in the classroom. However, the promotion related chapters are very out of date in today's tech driven e-marketing and social media marketing world. If this book had been available in 2009 as an open resource, I would have used it. In 2018, it is unlikely that I would use this resource.

The clarity of the book is great. It is written in a straight forward manner that students would easily understand. The minor grammatical and spelling issues do not hinder the reader.

The consistency of the book meets expectations in regards to terminology and framework.

Each chapter has between 3-8 subsections that allows the material to be easily read by students.

The flow of the chapters is a positive element of the textbook. The organization of the book follows the same structure as many of the principles of marketing textbooks. The table of contents could be restructured to group chapters into subunits for greater student comprehension but it is a small detail.

The interface of the book demonstrated no problems other than the links to videos did not work.

The book contained minor grammatical errors but at a level that the average student would not notice.

Cultural Relevance rating: 1

The cultural relevance of the textbook needs attention. There are not many examples/photos that demonstrate a variety of races, ethnicity, or backgrounds.

1. The cover page and the initial first pages are dull and uninspiring. 2. Overall the textbook is visually dull and students would find the lack of visual interest to be a negative. 3. The examples and references are all at least 10 years old. 4. The text contains only three pages on social media. Not nearly sufficient in today's social media driven environment. 5. The textbook lacks examples of nonprofit organization.

Reviewed by Kristin Hagan, Associate Professor, Northern Virginia Community College on 6/20/17

This text includes all of the major learning objectives covered in an introduction to marketing class. The main topics include the definition of marketing, strategic planning, consumer behavior, the 4 Ps, offerings, marketing channels, selling,... read more

This text includes all of the major learning objectives covered in an introduction to marketing class. The main topics include the definition of marketing, strategic planning, consumer behavior, the 4 Ps, offerings, marketing channels, selling, and overview of a marketing plan. The Table of Contents is easy to access; it serves as a helpful search function. The text is missing a glossary of terms; adding one could be beneficial to readers.

Definitions, principles, and concepts presented in the text are correct. In accordance with marketing principles, the facts presented in the text are true to point. The material was presented in an unbiased way and was primarily free of any grammatical errors.

The examples used in the text are up-to-date and relevant. The large number of real world examples given help the reader understand the learning objectives being presented. Revising these examples and other pertinent information in the text would not be an impossible task.

The layout and formatting of the material is clear and concise. The content of the book uses a lot of extended sentences that could be shortened to help the reader better understand the material. The terms and jargon used is relevant and up-to-date.

The text is extremely consistent in its terminology and framework. Its layout is consistent which makes each new chapter and section easily recognizable. Each chapter has review questions and key summery section which reiterates key points and acts as checkpoint for student.

The layout of the text is very modular. Each chapter is broken down into a minimum of three sections which makes the information very learner-friendly. Each section has a defined learning objective and review material at the end of the section.

The text is organized in a logical way where concepts taught at the beginning of the book are built upon later. The information presented flows well throughout the text. The Table of Contents is extremely beneficial and makes key topics easy to locate in the text.

I did not notice that the text featured any interface issues such as navigational problems, unclear images, or other distortions that would confuse the reader. The images and figures presented in the text are clearly visible to the reader. All images and figures can be enlarged if the viewer clicks on the displayed image.

There were few grammatical errors in the text.

This text presents real life examples relevant to mainstream culture and business in America. Depending on the audience, more culturally diverse examples may be more suiting. The text does a fairly good job of using conational business examples however, some of the images of people could be diversified.

The audio clips located throughout the online text are a nice edition that students reading a traditional textbook can not experience.

Reviewed by Oksana Grybovych, Associate professor, University of Northern Iowa on 12/5/16

The text would greatly benefit from a table of contents, glossary, and an index. Otherwise, most content areas are discussed rather thoroughly - even though, as the previous reviewer mentioned, the text is lacking in its application towards... read more

The text would greatly benefit from a table of contents, glossary, and an index. Otherwise, most content areas are discussed rather thoroughly - even though, as the previous reviewer mentioned, the text is lacking in its application towards services and experiences marketing. Speaking of the latter, there is no discussion of marketing experiences as offerings even though this approach is very common these days.

This text seems to target the North American audience, and readers from elsewhere might not readily relate to the examples provided. The authors could also incorporate more examples from a nonprofit sector.

Most chapters are very relevant to the current marketing practices. However, the authors could consider including or expanding more on the subjects of sustainability (e.g. social corporate sustainability) as well as experience marketing.

Key concepts are well defined, but the structure and formatting of the text are somewhat confusing.

The text is structured around the framework that is outlined by the authors in chapter 1.

There are 16 chapters in the text, each of them is broken up into sections. Such structure makes it very manageable for the instructor to use the text in a typical North American semester.

Some of the chapters could be moved around to allow for a better flow of the contents.

The authors could consider moving all references to the end, as well as including a table of contents that the students could navigate (click on the headings), glossary, and an index.

Very few spelling/grammar errors.

It appears that this text is mainly designed for North American white audience, hence is lacking in its cultural relevance.

Overall this is a very good introductory text, I was happy to see the authors incorporate many important topics that are frequently omitted in other texts. At the same time, a few more important topics could be added, the formatting/ structure of the text revised, and more culturally relevant content added.

Reviewed by Chris Blocker, Assistant Professor, Colorado State University on 1/7/16

Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond is a very comprehensive text, which addresses the full gamut of topics that an instructor might want to cover. It also offers nice integration of some topics that might normally be neglected, e.g.,... read more

Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond is a very comprehensive text, which addresses the full gamut of topics that an instructor might want to cover. It also offers nice integration of some topics that might normally be neglected, e.g., satisfaction metrics, account planning, and other topics.

Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond articulates the core principles of marketing with accuracy and precision. There is a tight linkage (typically through use of web links) to established definitions (e.g., AMA) and conceptual frameworks (e.g., Product and Market Entry strategies) that have come to reflect the established body of marketing knowledge.

Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond contains relevant and up-to-date themes based upon emerging paradigms (e.g., Service Dominant Logic) that are synthesized across the chapters.

One of the strengths of Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond, which relates to its comprehensiveness, is the clarity offered for all the concepts presented. Key concepts are well-defined and presented in a plain language that is readily accessible to a wide audience.

Although, no unifying framework is offered to connect the chapters, there is an underlying common conceptual core offered within the Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond

Another key strength of Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond is the modularity. Chapters are broken up numerically and into "bite-size" chunks such that instructors would have an easy time assigning aspects of a chapter to modules.

Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond follows the common flow of the vast majority of Principles texts by beginning with the organization and high-level strategies, then digging into consumer/buyer behavior, and finally, unpacking the marketing mix.

Navigation is easy for Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond; however, some issues with fonts and size of text within images rendered some distractions

Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond is well written and in an accessible style.

Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond is not offensive in any way and does offer quite a few diverse examples. However, there is a heavy reliance on North American company examples, such that individuals in other cultures might have difficulty with some.

Principles of Marketing by Tanner & Raymond does a really nice job of offering a comprehensive and relevant marketing text that can easily be modularized by instructors. The authors have effectively integrated up-to-date examples that students will find interesting as well as integrated media (e.g., audio clips) and real life profiles (profiling an analytics manager at BNSF) to produce an engaging text.

Reviewed by Marina Jaffey, Instructor & Program Leader Marketing, Camosun College on 10/9/13

This American Principles of Marketing text covers all the key areas & ideas normally included in a first year College/University Introduction to Marketing course. There are 16 chapters in the text and most key topic areas are discussed... read more

This American Principles of Marketing text covers all the key areas & ideas normally included in a first year College/University Introduction to Marketing course. There are 16 chapters in the text and most key topic areas are discussed relatively thoroughly, with the following exceptions: 1. Pricing 2. Retailing and Distribution as it relates to services Rather than structuring the text around the 4Ps or traditional Marketing Mix, the authors follow the premise that marketing is composed of four activities centered on customer value: creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging value. The text does not include a Table of Contents, Contents in Brief, or Glossary and/or Index.

Marketing concepts are defined/explained/discussed accurately. All the examples are American, so not as relevant for Canadian students. Similarly, the Environmental Scan and ethical/legal segments are all based on American trends and laws/business practices. In general, the examples tend to focus on large corporations. More examples from medium/small businesses, as well as not-for-profits, would help to provide a broader perspective for students. Based on the scale below: content is accurate, but has a very American bias.

The content is up-to-date, with the exception of: 1. The three chapters on marketing communications. Marketing communications has been and is continuing to change rapidly, and as a result, it is difficult for text books to remain current. Having said this, I believe that it would be relatively easy to make regular updates to the marketing communications chapters. 2. Although the Distribution chapter is up-to-date, it is lacking in its coverage of distribution as it relates to services, as well as retailing. 3. Perhaps most importantly for Canadian students, is the fact that all the examples and all sections that relate to legislation/business practices in the current text are American. It would be more time consuming to up date the text to reflect the Canadian marketing environment.

Clarity rating: 3

Concepts are explained clearly in the body of the text. Ideas to increase retention are: 1. Include more visuals. The current charts/graphs are small and difficult to read. Many of the figures lack sufficient detail. Visuals serve to summarize concepts at-a-glance and help students to understand/recall a concept. 2. Provide a variety of examples to illustrate concepts. 3. Make better use of formatting to ensure students can see quickly key concepts and definitions on a page, for instance, make better use of headings & subheadings and include key concept definitions in the margins of the page. 4. In addition to the summaries at the end of each section within a chapter, include a final end of chapter summary.

Yes, the text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework. The text presents the marketing mix in terms of four activities or components of marketing: creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging value.

There are 16 chapters in the text which corresponds nicely with a typically 14 week semester. The order of the chapters in the text is as follows: Ch. 1 - What is Marketing? Ch. 2 - Strategic Planning Ch. 3 - Consumer Behaviour Ch. 4 - Business Buying Behaviour Ch. 5 - Market Segmenting, Targeting, & Positioning Ch. 6 - Creating Offerings Ch. 7 - Developing & Managing Offerings Ch. 8 - Using Marketing Channels to Create Value for Customers Ch. 9 - Using Supply Chains to Create Value for Customers Ch. 10 - Gathering and Using Information: Marketing Research & Market Intelligence Ch. 11 - Advertising, IMC, and the Changing Media Landscape Ch. 12 - Public Relations & Sales Promotions Ch. 13 - Professional Selling Ch. 14 - Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Empowerment Ch. 15 - Price Ch. 16 - The Marketing Plan It would be easy and straight forward for an instructor to change the order that these topics are covered in a semester, should he/she wish to do that.

Two changes I recommend are: 1. Put ch. 15 - Price right after ch. 7 - Developing & Managing Offerings. Pricing is a very important marketing concept, and it makes most sense to discuss how to price products/services/offerings right after they are covered in the text. 2. Move ch. 10 - Marketing Research to right after ch. 2 - Strategic Planning. Ch. 2 covers environmental scanning, so it is important for students to learn how to research trends and find information required for planning. Otherwise, the order of the chapters is fine.

Interface rating: 2

I have been working with a print version of the text. A suggestion to make navigation through the print version easier would be to include a Table of Contents, Contents in Brief, and Index/Glossary at the end. Images/charts are small and difficult to read in the print version. Many subheadings sit alone at the bottom of a page. Need to format so that a subheading appears with some or all of the body copy. Also, some chapters begin on the same page that the previous chapter ends. It would be better to start a new chapter on a new page. In several instances, whole pages were simply lists of sources. It is important to cite sources, however it would be better to include these lists of sources at the end of a chapter, rather than in the middle of a chapter.

There are relatively few grammatical or spelling errors. Please see complete list of errors in attached document.

Although the text is not culturally offensive in any way, I believe there could be more examples that reflect a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. The text mentions that there is a profile of a marketing professional at the beginning of each chapter - this is not the case (no profiles are included). Including profiles of marketing professionals from a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds would be one way of addressing this weaknesses. It would also be appropriate to profile different types of organizations to illustrate marketing concepts/business practices amongst different cultural groups. As mentioned earlier, this is an American text so all examples are American.

Overall this text covers all the key topic areas relevant to a first year college/university overview marketing course. Most topics are covered in an appropriate amount of depth, with a few exceptions including pricing and services marketing. Learning Objectives are included at the start of each segment within a chapter, but not at the start of a chapter. Learning Objectives are all at the lowest two levels of Bloom's Taxonomy - Knowledge (i.e. Describe...) and Comprehension (i.e. Understand...) http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learning/exams/blooms-taxonomy.html The Review Questions and Key Takeaways which appear at the end of each segment within a chapter and the Discussion Questions and Activities at the end of each chapter are generally good and provide students with ways to test understanding and apply relevant concepts. This is an American text, so an instructor would need to provide his/her students with a variety of Canadian examples, as well as Canadian content related to environmental scanning and business practices. All Introduction to Marketing texts offered by publishers provide extensive support materials for instructors and students. I'm not aware of any support materials that come with this text. There are formatting issues which have been mentioned earlier in this review, that would need to be addressed. This review originated in the BC Open Textbook Collection and is licensed under CC BY-ND.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: What is Marketing?
• Chapter 2: Strategic Planning
• Chapter 3: Consumer Behavior: How People Make Buying Decisions
• Chapter 4: Business Buying Behavior
• Chapter 5: Market Segmenting, Targeting, and Positioning
• Chapter 6: Creating Offerings
• Chapter 7: Developing and Managing Offerings
• Chapter 8: Using Marketing Channels to Create Value for Customers
• Chapter 9: Using Supply Chains to Create Value for Customers
• Chapter 10: Gathering and Using Information: Marketing Research and Market Intelligence
• Chapter 11: Integrated Marketing Communications and the Changing Media Landscape
• Chapter 12: Public Relations, Social Media, and Sponsorships
• Chapter 13: Professional Selling
• Chapter 14: Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Empowerment
• Chapter 15: Price, the Only Revenue Generator
• Chapter 16: The Marketing Plan

Ancillary Material

About the book.

Principles of Marketing teaches the experience and process of actually doing marketing – not just the vocabulary. It carries five dominant themes throughout in order to expose students to marketing in today's environment:

Service dominant logic — This textbook employs the term "offering" instead of the more traditional First "P" — product. That is because consumers don't sacrifice value when alternating between a product and a service. They are evaluating the entire experience, whether they interact with a product, a service, or a combination. So the fundamental focus is providing value throughout the value chain, whether that value chain encompasses a product, service, or both.

Sustainability — Increasingly, companies are interested in the impact they are having on their local community as well as the overall environment. This is often referred to as the "triple bottom line" of financial, social, and environment performance.

Ethics and social responsibility — Following on the sustainability notion is the broader importance of ethics and social responsibility in creating successful organizations. The authors make consistent references to ethical situations throughout chapter coverage, and end of chapter material in most chapters will encompass ethical situations.

Global coverage — the authors deliberately entitled Chapter 1 "What is Marketing?" Whether it is today's price of gasoline, the current U.S. presidential race, or Midwestern U.S. farming, almost every industry and company needs strong global awareness. And today's marketing professionals must understand the world in which they and their companies operate.

Metrics — Firms today have the potential to gather more information than ever before about their current and potential customers. That information gathering can be costly, but it can also be very revealing. With the potential to capture so much more detail about micro transactions, firms should now be more able to answer "well, what this marketing strategy really worth it?" And "what is the marketing ROI?" And finally, "what is this customer or set of customers worth to us over their lifetime?"

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The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Financial Well-Being: A Comprehensive Analysis

1. introduction.

In recent years, the proliferation of social media platforms has revolutionized the way individuals interact, communicate, and consume information. With billions of users worldwide, social media has emerged as a powerful tool for businesses to reach and engage with their target audiences. One prominent aspect of this engagement is social media marketing, which encompasses various strategies aimed at promoting products, services, and brands to a diverse online audience.

The significance of social media marketing lies in its ability to facilitate direct and personalized interactions between businesses and consumers, thereby influencing consumer attitudes, preferences, and behaviours. Through targeted advertisements, influencer collaborations, and engaging content, businesses leverage social media platforms to enhance brand visibility, attract new customers, and drive sales.

However, alongside its myriad benefits, social media marketing raises questions about its potential impact on individuals' financial well-being. As users spend increasing amounts of time on social media platforms, they are exposed to a constant stream of marketing content, ranging from sponsored posts to product endorsements. This pervasive exposure prompts inquiries into how social media marketing activities may shape consumers' financial behaviours, attitudes, and outcomes.

The research problem addressed in this study revolves around understanding the relationship between social media marketing and financial well-being. Specifically, the study aims to explore the extent to which exposure to social media marketing influences individuals' financial decisions, habits, and outcomes, by examining this relationship, the research seeks to elucidate the mechanisms through which social media marketing may impact financial behaviours, both positively and negatively.

1.2 The Objectives of This Research Are Twofold

To examine the influence of exposure to social media marketing content on individuals' financial behaviours, including spending habits, saving practices, and investment decisions.

To identify factors that moderate or mediate the relationship between social media marketing and financial well-being, such as demographic characteristics, psychological factors, and financial literacy levels.

The rationale for studying the relationship between social media marketing and financial well-being stems from its relevance to both academic scholarship and real-world implications. As social media continues to shape consumer behaviour and economic trends, understanding its influence on financial decision-making is crucial for consumers, businesses, policymakers, and researchers alike, by shedding light on this relationship, the research aims to inform strategies for promoting financial literacy, consumer protection, and responsible marketing practices in the digital age.

2. Literature Review

2.1 overview of existing literature.

The literature on social media marketing and financial well-being encompasses a diverse range of studies exploring the various dimensions of this relationship. Scholars have investigated how individuals' exposure to social media platforms influences their financial behaviours, attitudes, and outcomes. For instance, Smith et al. (2019) conducted a comprehensive review of existing literature and highlighted the significant impact of social media marketing on consumer purchasing decisions and brand perceptions.

Moreover, research by Johnson and Wang (2020) delved into the psychological mechanisms underlying the influence of social media content on financial decision-making, emphasizing the role of social comparison and peer influence. Additionally, studies such as Chen et al. (2018) have examined the effects of targeted advertising strategies on consumer financial behaviours, revealing insights into the effectiveness of personalized marketing approaches.

Complete Chapter List

15.1 Knowledge Check

15.2 knowledge check, 15.3 knowledge check, 15.4 knowledge check, 15.5 knowledge check, 15.6 knowledge check.

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Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction

• Authors: Dr. Maria Gomez Albrecht, Dr. Mark Green, Linda Hoffman
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Principles of Marketing
• Publication date: Jan 25, 2023
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/chapter-15

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