Types of Research

Slide 1
This lecture covers the basic types of marketing research.
Slide 2
Marketing research can be divided into two types. The first type, basic research, is the type
of research that academicians do; for example, when I study consumers and write an article
for a professional journal. The second type, applied research, is the type of research
marketing consultants and corporate marketing research departments do. The goal of this
type of research is to help managers choose among viable alternative courses of action.
Slide 3
The goal of basic marketing research is to expand the limits of marketing knowledge. When I
conduct a study for publication in a professional journal, Im not interested in providing a
solution to a pragmatic problem thats currently facing a manager. Instead, Im interested in
trying to expand marketing knowledge, which ultimately may help managers with practical
problems.
Slide 4
Heres an example of basic research, or at least a basic research question: Do consumers
experience cognitive dissonance in low-involvement situations? Cognitive dissonance also is
referred to as post-purchase dissonance, which is an after-the-fact worry by consumers that
they should have purchased an alternative that might have provided a more satisfactory
solution. People have little ego involvement with low-involvement products like toothpaste
and soap. Low-involvement for consumers tends to be consumer specific. For example, I
might not be highly involved in purchasing a digital camera because my photography
aspirations are limited to snapshots of my children. In contrast, photography buffs may be
very involved with purchasing and operating such equipment. This basic question about
consumers and dissonance and involvement makes perfect sense to study if I want to
publish an article in the Journal of Consumer Research, a highly regarded scholarly journal.
Slide 5
As defined here, applied research is inspired by a real-life problem confronted by a real-life
manager who needs to make a real-life decision in a timely fashion.
Slide 6
A real-life applied research question that a fast-food-restaurant owner might confront: Should
I add pasta dinners to my menu? Given current competition in the fast food industry, pasta
might be a great idea. Alternatively, the current low carb craze and popularity of Atkins-type
diets suggestions otherwise. Another example: Should Procter and Gamble add home teeth
bleaching kits to its product line? Dentists currently supply such services during office visits.
Typically, such bleaching costs several hundred dollars and may take several hours. There
are competing home-based products, some supplied by dentists and others by competitors.
Had I been the Procter and Gamble product manager in charge of dental health products, I
might have wondered if it was a wise idea to introduce Crest White Strips, especially at the
originally suggested retail price of $44.00 per kit.
Slide 7
Whether were considering basic research or applied research, many of the same marketing
research methods can be applied. For surveys, experiments, secondary data, observation,
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or qualitative research, its never that some methods are appropriate to one type of research
but inappropriate for another type. The application of these methods strictly depends on the
problem at hand, rather than if its a basic research problem or an applied research problem.
Slide 8
In marketing research, as in other types of research, we talk about three basic types: (1)
exploratory research, which includes qualitative research, depth interviews, and
observations; (2) descriptive research, which predominantly is survey-based research; and
(3) causal research, which predominantly relies on experiments to establish cause-andeffect relationships. With exploratory research, were trying to understand the research
environment a bit better, with the goal of helping us design better descriptive studies. With
descriptive research, were trying to describe the environment; were merely examining
whether the characteristics of things or phenomena tend to be associated with one another;
for example, if males are more likely than females to purchase a certain product or if the
predominant purchaser of a certain product is younger or older. All three types of research
constitute separate and substantial topics in this course.
Slide 9
Exploratory research oftenbut not alwaysis preliminary to conclusive research.
Descriptive and causal research fall under the heading of conclusive research. Such
research is meant to provide managers with sufficient evidence for making more informed
decisions. Descriptive research is more survey based and causal research is more
experiment based. Descriptive research may rely on cross-sectional and longitudinal
designs.
Slide 10
Whether causal, descriptive, or exploratory research is conducted depends on the level of
uncertainty about the research environment. If youre very uncertain about the research
problem and research questions, or if youre unaware of the ways that your customers think
about your product or the language they use to describe it, then exploratory research can
help to reduce your uncertainty. Alternatively, if your research problem and research
questions already are well understood, then a survey of reasonable quality could be
designed and fielded. Once youve conducted enough descriptive research to get a good
sense for possible cause-and-effect relationships, then you might want to conduct an
experiment to test those relationships. For example, you might want to determine how much
your sales would increase if you increased your advertising budget by $1 million. The bottom
line: Whether you do exploratory research or more conclusive research depends on your
understanding of the research problem and related research questions.
Slide 11
Heres a cartoon that illustrates the kinds of questions managers have about research they
may order. When the managerthe guy with his feet on the deskasks the question Why
did our sales sag? he doesnt understand the possible causes; if so, then exploratory
research is warranted to help identify possible causes. If the managers research question is
How many people in town are aware that we sponsor a sports team? or Who are the
heavy user segments in his market? then research that describes the market is needed.
Well-conceived survey research should help to answer such questions. If the managers
question is about the possible efficacy of a new ad theme, then a cause-and-effect
relationship should be established through an experiment. Finally, if the manager is
interested in forecasting next years sales, then he needs predictive research. Predictive
research isnt one of the basic typeslike exploratory, descriptive, and causalbut it

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indicates a type of research problem experienced by managers. Hence, this cartoon

illustrates the different kinds of research questions that managers face.
Slide 12
Heres a figure to help you understand the different kinds of research approaches. There are
different types of problems that a manager might confront. In exploratory research, the
manager is basically unaware of the true nature of the problem. He or she might ask
questions about sales declining and be totally unaware of the cause, or ask questions about
possible consumer segments that might be interested in the purchase of a new product. If
the manager is aware of the problem, then descriptive research is a more sensible
approach. Some questions that lend themselves to descriptive research: Who tends to buy
our product? Who are our competitors? What features do buyers prefer in our product?
Finally, if the problem is clearly defined, then causal research is appropriate. The questions
you see here are Will buyers buy more of our product in a new package format? or Which
of two advertising campaigns are more effective? These types of research problems lend
themselves to experimental designs. We could test two alternative ad campaigns with
samples of different respondents to get some sense of which campaign might be more
effective.
Slide 13
Heres another exhibit to help you understand how research problems, which here is referred
to research purpose, relate to a set of research questions and ultimately a set of hypotheses
to be tested formally.
Slide 14
At this point, Ill talk a bit more in depth about the basic types of research: exploratory,
descriptive, and causal.
Slide 15
As this slide indicates, exploratory research is intended as initial research and is conducted
to clarify and define the nature of a marketing research problem. Exploratory research is not
intended to provide conclusive evidence upon which managers base their decisions. The
assumption of any researcher conducting exploratory research is that subsequent, more
conclusive evidence, will be provided by subsequent research. This is one of the major
problems managers have with focus groups. Focus groups are a type of exploratory
research that Ill discuss in more depth in subsequent lectures. Some managers who order
focus groups erroneously believe these groups provide some grand sense about consumers
thoughts and expectations, so they mistakenly fail to order the additional research thats
needed.
Slide 16
Here are two of the many types of exploratory research. Secondary or historical data is
considered a type of exploratory research. Given the growing prevalence of the internet, this
may be the dominant kind of research youre involved with during the next thirty to forty
years. Secondary data is previously collected data. For example, the U.S. Government, with
the Census, collects what we refer to as secondary data that might help you to make better
marketing decisions. Both the business literature targeted at academicians and the literature
targeted at practitioners may provide meaningful insight into the directions that managers
may choose to take their companies. Another type of exploratory research is called a pilot
study. As you might suspect, a pilot study is a small-scale study meant to give both
managers and researchers a better sense for a larger full study they might run subsequently.
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Slide 17
The name descriptive research is very indicative of this type of research. Descriptive
research is intended to describe the characteristics of a population or a phenomenon. A
population could be potential customers for your product. A phenomenon could be the
shifting economic reality, nationally or globally. The point of descriptive research is to provide
some, although not absolute, understanding about the nature of a problem.
Slide 18
Heres an example of what a marketing researcher might discover about the average Weight
Watchers customer. Doing a survey of Weight Watchers customers might indicate that the
typical customer is a woman whos roughly 40 years old, with a household income of roughly
$50,000, whos had at least some college education if not a college degree, and whos trying
to juggle the demands of children and a job. Knowing that Weight Watchers typical customer
had a profile like this one would help Weight Watchers managers to more effectively modify
and target their products to the group interested in purchasing their meals and services.
Slide 19
Heres another example of what a researcher might discover by doing a descriptive study. In
this case, its the mens fragrance market. If we were to look at secondary data, we might
discover this market is only 1/3 the size of the womens fragrance market. We assume by
1/3 the size here, were talking about dollar volume, but it may be unit sales. We would
discover that this market, although smaller than the womens market, is growing at a
significantly faster pace, so sales growth over time might suggest whether or not its
worthwhile to pursue this market. Perhaps the most interesting thing, from a marketing
perspective, is that women buy 80% of the fragrances intended for men. If we think in terms
of designing and targeting advertising, even if its for mens fragrances, wed want to target
women because theyre typically purchasers, but not the consumers, of mens fragrances.
Slide 20
As the name clearly implies, causal research is intended to identify cause-and-effect
relationships. If we do X, then will the result be Y? Thats what were trying to determine out
when were trying to establish the existence of a cause-and-effect relationship.
Slide 21
Its impossible to prove definitively that a cause-and-effect relationship exists because
alternative explanations for a phenomenon may be true. Even though we may try in an
experiment to control for all the external explanations, its impossible to do so. However, for
the purposes of understanding what we hope to establish, when were trying to provide
evidence of causality, the three conditions listed here are critical.
Condition #1: An appropriate causal ordering of events. Event A always must precede Event
B. If Event B ever precedes Event A, then Event A is not the only possible cause of Event B.
Thus, ordering is important.
Condition #2: Concomitant variation, which means when A and B always vary together.
When A goes up, then B goes up, and when A goes down, then B goes down, is an example
of direct variation. If A goes up when B goes down and vice versa, then theres an inverse
relationship between A and B.
Condition #3: Eliminate all alternatives and explanations for A seeming to cause B, as
opposed to C causing B, or D causing B. Well talk about this condition in the lecture on
experimentation later in the semester.
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Slide 22
In summary, how does exploratory research differ from conclusive (meaning descriptive and
causal) research? This table summarizes those differences fairly well. The objective of
exploratory research is to provide insights and understanding. The objective of conclusive
research is to test specific hypotheses and to examine specific relationships between or
among variables. The characteristic of exploratory research includes the information needed
is only loosely defined; hence, the research approach must be flexible and unstructured.
Such research entails small samples and makes no effort to draw representative samples
from the larger population of interest. Analysis via exploratory research tends to be
qualitative rather than quantitative. In other words, it tends to be in terms of words instead of
numbers. In contrast, the characteristics of descriptive or causal research are that the
information needed is better defined. The research process is far more formal and structured
because we know what questions we want answered. The samples we draw from are large
and we try to make those samples representative so we can project the results from our
sample to a larger population. The data analysis for conclusive research is quantitative; in
other words, it tends to be numbers oriented. As far as findings, results, and outcomes for
exploratory research, those are tentative. Were at the beginning of the research process
and were trying to get a handle on the research environment and the research problem,
whereas in conclusive research were hoping that the findings and results are more
definitive. The outcome for exploratory research is that more research is needed. The results
of exploratory research are to help support the design of conclusive research like a survey or
an experiment. We hope the outcome of conclusive research is that the finding can help a
decision maker make a more informed decision.
Slide 23
Finally, I want to differentiate longitudinal research from cross-sectional research.
Longitudinal research examines trends, changes, and shifts over time. For example, we
might want longitudinal research if were interested in monitoring the efficacy of a new ad
campaign to increase our sales. Research at a single point in time cant help in this case
because it cant provide a sense about whether the advertising was beginning to kick in and
increase sales. The only way to assess that is to take some measures of advertising
awareness and efficacy in period 1 and in period 2 and in period 3 and in period 4 to see if
the changes over time are acceptable given the expense of the advertising.
In contrast, cross-sectional research is designed to look at differences between groups at a
given point in time. Cross sectional research is thought of as a snapshot of research, where
as longitudinal research would be thought of as a movie. Think of it this wayA flip book
with a picture on each page and if you flip the pages it would simulate the character walking
across the scene. Longitudinal research is multiple snapshots and cross sectional research
is a single snapshot. In a cross sectional research, the goal is to compare groups. If Im
doing longitudinal research, the goal is to look for changes over time.
Slide 24
To recap the goals for this lecture, Id hoped to introduce you to three topics:

The two types of research, basic and applied;

The three types of research designs that pertain to basic or applied research,
exploratory (which often is qualitative research), descriptive (which often is surveybased research), and causal (which typically is experiment-based research); and

the differences between longitudinal and cross-sectional research, which can be

thought of as a snapshot versus a movie.
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