Marketing Research

April – 2002
60 Marks
Note:
(1) Both Section 1 and Section 11 are compulsory.
(2) All questions in Section 1 are compulsory.
(3) Section 11 attempt any three questions.

Section — I
(1) Explain briefly the following: (10)

(a) Census survey and Sample survey.

(b) Probability sampling v/s Non-probability sampling.
(c) Focus Group Discussion.
(d) Two Sources of Secondary External and Internal Data.
(e) Omnibus Panel

(2) Case Study:

Transitional Housing, Inc. (THI), is a local nonprofit organization located in Madison,

Wisconsin. THI provides assistance to homeless and very low-income individuals
and families in finding emergency shelter, food, employment, transitional housing
and affordable apartment housing. These services are provided through four basic
THI programs. See exhibit below for details:
(a) The Drop-In Shelter: An emergency drop—in shelter for men located at
Grace Church.
(b) The Hospitality House: A day shelter for homeless and very low income
men and women.
(c) The Transitional Housing Program: Provides transitional living
arrangements for families and single men for six months or more depending
on the needs of the individual/family and the unit.
(d) The Housing Opportunity Program: Helps families in obtaining a lease.

As part of its planning, the board of directors of THI was interested in

determining ways to improve the organization’s services. Their original thought was
to conduct a survey of organization’s paid staff, volunteers, and guests (the
homeless staying at THI or using its facilities or services), to determine which
programs of THI they found particularly useful, which should be revised, and what
other programs or services might be of more assistance to guests.
However, the analysis of THI’s internal statistics and other published data
indicated the need for THI to narrow its focus. Specifically, internal information
indicated the number of agencies serving the male homeless population was
decreasing. Moreover, THI was currently the only Madison shelter that served the
male homeless population, and this community appeared to be undeserved.

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 Marketing Research
April – 2002
60 Marks

In fact, the number of homeless men staying at THI’s Drop—In Shelter had increased
89 percent, from 60% three years ago to 1,146 the past year. This was partly due to
the closing of other Madison male shelters in the last three years. Finally, the THI
shelter was filled beyond its capacity of 66 men per night. During the winter,
there were frequently more than 90 men staying at the Drop-In Shelter on any given
night, with many of them sleeping on the hallway floor.

Given this information, the board of directors decided to use the organization’s limited
resources to focus first on the Drop—In Shelter. More specifically, the board asked for
an evaluation of THl’s current facilities and the services for the homeless as well as a
determination of what future services and facilities it should try to provide.
(5)
(a) What is the research problem?
(5)
(b) How should the research be structured?
(5)
(c) What kind of research design would be appropriate for this purpose?
(d) What information would you collect for this research problem? (5)

Section — II
(3) What are the different types of research designs? Give on example of each (10)
research design.

(4) “For a research problem, one has the option of collecting data from various
sources as each data source has positive and negative points”. Comment. (10)

(5) What are the scales of measurement? Bring out clearly the differences in the (10)
scales of measurement.

(6) Highlight the essential steps in designing a questionnaire. (10)

(7) Write Short Notes on any two:
(a) Semantic Differential Scale.
(10)
(b) Stratified Sampling.
(c) Observation Method.
(d) Tools of Bivariate Analysis.

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Marketing Research
 Marketing Research
April – 2003 60 Marks

Note:
(1) Both Section 1 and Section 11 are compulsory.
(2) All questions in Section 1 are compulsory.
(3) Section 11 attempt any three questions.

Section — I
(1) Explain briefly the concepts: (10)

(a) Qualitative and Quantitative Research.

(b) Hypothesis.
(c) Ratio Scale.
(d) Quota sampling.
(e) Audits and its types.

(20)
(2) Case Study: BHARAT TELEPHONES

Madhavi is management trainee with Bharat Telephones. She was looking at the
questionnaire she had formulated for the value added services which were to be
provided by Bharat Telephones. The questionnaire is as follows:
(i) How many long distance calls do you make per week?
0-3, 3-5, 5-10, more than 10.
(ii) What is your income?
10000-15000, 15000-20000, 20000-30000.
(iii) How much money do you spend on your telephone bill?
Less than 800, 1000-1500,1500-2000, above 2000.
(iv) Have you shopped in a telephone store? Yes/No
(v) Do you own your telephone? Yes/No
(vi) Are you aware of special discount rates for long distance calls? Yes/No
(vii) Do they influence when you make long distance call? Yes/No
(viii) If your telephone rates increased, would you cut back on
telephones purchased or usage? Yes/No
(ix) Do you plan to install more lines in future? Yes/No
(x) Do you have any sp. phones like car phones, call waiting, phone for deaf,
picture phone, wireless phone, push button?

(a) She was wondering how would the respondents react to the mail questionnaire.
(b) Examine the subjects that are brought up in the questionnaire and their
sequence. How would you alter it to make it more result oriented?
(c) When this questionnaire comes back, what problems do you foresee to
understand the responses and tabulate them?
(d) Which other methods of the questionnaire do you suggest? Justify your answer.

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 Marketing Research
April – 2003
60 Marks

Section — II
(3) What are the important guidelines to present the findings of a research (10)
effectively?
(10)
(4) What are Panels? Explain Consumer panels: benefits and limitation.

(5) Explain the application of following in marketing research: (10)

(a) Bayesian tree
(b) T-test
(c) Regression
(d) ANOVA
(e) Correlation.

(6) What is Experimentation and Experimental Design? What are the factors affecting (10)
the experimental design?

(7) What is sampling and explain the following with examples:

(10)
(a) Systematic sampling - advantages and disadvantages.
(b) Convenience sampling — advantages and disadvantages.

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Marketing Research
 Marketing Research
April – 2004
60 Marks
Note:
(1) Both Section 1 and Section 11 are compulsory.
(2) All questions in Section 1 are compulsory.
(3) Section 11 attempt any three questions.

Section — I
(1) Explain briefly the following: (10)

(a) Test Marketing

(b) Non-probabilitic sampling methods.
(c) Time series methods
(d) Thurstone scale
(e) Word association.

(20)
(2) Case Study:

Jatin Khanna, owner of a company having chain of restaurants catering to business

segment in North India wants to start one in South Mumbai. Before starting, in
addition to location, viability, he wants to conduct a market research of the
executives/employees of various corporates, in the South Mumbai area to know
about their eating habits, preferences, entertaining lifestyle, etc.

You have been hired to conduct the marketing research to get the following
answers:
(a) What is the marketing problem?
(b) Given the profile of the target market, what should be your structure of research
design?
(c) Draw a sequence of questions you would use in getting the information relevant
to the problem.
(d) What could be the secondary source of information for the research study?

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 Marketing Research
April – 2004
60 Marks

Section — II
(10)
(3) Define Marketing Research and its scope. Explain the factors which limit the
acceptance of marketing research.

(4) What are the primary scales of attitude measurement? Illustrate. Distinguish (10)
between Semantic differential scale and liked scale with examples.

(5) Explain the concept of Focus Groups. What are its major applications in Marketing (10)
Research?

(6) Outline a report format to present the findings of a market research project clearly (10)
indicating the various steps in the report writing process.

(7) Write short notes on any two:

(10)
(a) Multi—Dimensional Scaling.
(b) Hypothesis Testing.
(c) Regression Analysis
(d) Central Tendency of Data.

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 Marketing Research
April – 2005 60 Marks

Note:
(1) Both Section 1 and Section 11 are compulsory.
(2) All questions in Section 1 are compulsory.
(3) Section 11 attempt any three questions.

Section — I
(1) Define: (10)

(a) Multi stage Sampling.

(b) Non-structured, Disguised Questioning.
(c) Sentence Completion Tests.
(d) Sampling Error.
(e) Semantic Differential Scale.

(20)
(2) Case Study:

Ice cream giant of U.S. Blue Bells want to set up various soft cones vending
machines at various shopping malls and other shopping places. The USP of the ice
cream is that it is less sweet, low calories and yet very thick and creamy. They have
5 flavours i.e. Vanilla, dark cocoa, coffee, butterscotch and strawberry. They also
have unique real fruit flavours in orange, kiwi, black current and mixed fruit.

Before they launch the ice cream they need to know the taste preferences,
buyers’ behaviour towards their spending power and frequency of eating ice cream.
The ice cream is targeted to health conscious consumers.

(a) What is research process? Explain the research process for the above case.
(b) As a researcher which research design would you use? Justify your choice.
(c) Which scaling technique you would recommend for the measurement of the
data collected?
(d) Which technique you would use to test the “value for money” satisfaction?

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 Marketing Research
April – 2005
60 Marks

Section — II
(3) Discuss some of the major uses of marketing research in the context of (10)
globalization of Indian economy.

(4) Explain the concept of customer and dealer panels. What are its major (10)
applications in marketing research?

(5) Giving examples, explain the various questionnaire types which emerge in survey (10)
research.

(6) Define Likert scale. Outline a suitable Likert scale to examine the corporate image (10)
of foreign bank in terms of attributes such as location, number of branches, ATMs,
timings, service quality, behaviour of staff etc.

(7) Write short notes (any two):

(10)
(a) z-test and t-test.
(b) Decision support system.
(c) Multivariate technique.
(d) Hall test central location test.

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Marketing Research
 Marketing Research
April – 2006
60 Marks
Note:
(1) Both Section 1 and Section 11 are compulsory.
(2) All questions in Section 1 are compulsory.
(3) Section 11 attempt any three questions.

Section — I
(1) Explain Briefly The Following: (10)

(a) Extraneous variables.

(b) Interviewer errors.
(c) Socio-economic classification.
(d) Rank order scale.
(e) Corporate Research.

(2) Case Study:

Pradip Sinha CEO of Nextgen Media Ltd. was in midst of a major decision
exercise for launching ‘NextGen Morning - Star’ a new English daily.

He was looking at the recently released IRS press note on IRS 2006 data,
which stated, “Reach of mass media seems to have stagnated in the last three
years. Press reach has been hovering around at 24 per cent, TV at 55 per cent,
Radio at 21 per cent and Internet at 1.5 per cent at the All India level. In urban India,
Press and TV have actually declined in the last three years”.

Comparing reach of media of IRS 2006 R 1 with that of IRS 2005 R 1, Press
has grown by 5.7 per cent, TV by 7.2 per cent, C and S by13.5 per cent and Radio
has increased by 5.4 per cent. FM Radio has increased by 21 per cent and Cinema
by 21.5 per cent, Internet showing a modest growth of 6.8 per cent.

“The numbers clearly show that only Press has shown a marginal drop in
reach in the recent IRS round, while all other mediums have registered healthy
growth. However, if you compare the current Press reach with that of IRS 2005 R1,
there is a decent growth of 5.7 per cent. Thus, press reach has increased over the
period. To understand trends in mass media reach, Sinha looked at the combined
reach of ‘TV and Press’. It has consistently shown growth across the past three
rounds. Thus, the reach of mass media is increasing”.

As per the data, the combined reach of TV and Press has grown by 9.5 per
cent since IRS 2005. “The overall reach of mass media is on the rise, as one would
expect due to increasing literacy levels. The relative share of each medium may
vary depending on technology and market developments. For example, sudden
increase in the number of 24 hour news channels, free internet editions, level of

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 Marketing Research
April – 2006
60 Marks
promotions and so on. Even as IRS emphasises that media reach has increased in
the last year, a point to be noted is that mass media consumption is still stagnating.
Sinha also noted that there is a general decline or stagnancy in very large genres
and vehicles. The top five programmes on STAR Plus have gone down on their
TVRs by 10 per cent year over year.

With this data working on his mind Sinha called his VP-marketing Vinod
Gupta to help him make the major impending decision to go for a new next-
Generation news paper in Mumbai which will not only compete with the main stream
national dailies from Mumbai but also compete with the business dailies with a
exclusive supplement on money matters.

Gupta opined the need to be Niche player with focus marketing to the growing
middle class population with investment habits in the country. He also opined the
need to go for a thorough Market Research study to help them in this major
business decision.

You have been retained by Mr. Gupta to help Nextgen Media to help them
thro a Market Research on the marketing problem.

(1) What is the marketing problem here and what should be the Hypothesis? (5)

(2) Work out the secondary sources for this study. (5)

(3) What, will be your sample frame, sampling Unit and Sampling Technique —
(4)
justify your recommendation.

(4) Give six questions with appropriate scales that you would administer for
(6)
answers which would be critical to the marketing decision.

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 Marketing Research
April – 2006
60 Marks

Section — II
(3) What are the common situations when a company should undertake market (10)
research? Give examples.

(4) What is experimentation? Explain the Terms, ‘Experimental Stimuli’, ‘Test Group’, (10)
- ‘Control Group’ in context of experimentation.

(5) What are the major ‘scales’ — used in marketing research? How do you measure (10)
any attitude in marketing research? Give three examples.

(6) What are the general rules for designing a good questionnaire? (10)
(7) Write short notes on any two:
(a) Panel research.
(b) Conjoint Analysis.
(10)
(c) Determination of Sample Size.
(d) Secondary data sources.

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Question Bank from Management Paradise

All the Important Questions already get covered in the past board papers.
For more questions, refer to
http://www.managementparadise.com/forums/t1690-question-bank-sem-6-
2006-.html