CASE- The Toy Industry to Fight back Red Invasion

After having been swamped by a virtual Chinese invasion Indian Toymakers have begun to realize that they must fight back to regain the domestic market they lost to the dragon kingdom. Even in the export market Indias toy exports at around Rs 1.3 billion($29.2 million) were however far cry from the Chinese dominance globally. They realize that on account of tough competition from China, complete recovery would take quite some time, say upto three years . This is because the Chinese challenge was so strong that at one time it led to panic and closure of Indian Toy factories. No doubt there is an ambitious programme to promote the toy industry. There is a joint project amounting to $2.2 million by National Programme of Development of Toy Industry, the Toy association of India. This of course has been helpful to some extent in improving the quality and design of toys. However there is an increasing realization among the toy manufacturers that while production is being taken care of by the above mentioned joint project, some effective steps need to be taken care in marketing the toys. For this it is necessary to have detailed information from consumers. Since the Indian toy manufacturers are scattered all over the country and are mostly operating on a small scale, they think that the best course is to approach the Toy association of India to undertake a detailed survey to collect the desired information. The toy association of India has agreed with this suggestion and is now negotiating with a couple of marketing research agencies to submit a research proposal. Q- Assuming yourself as a senior manager of a marketing research agency, prepare a research proposal for consideration of the Toy association of India. Your proposal should specify the type of information to be collected, sample design and sample size to be used and the extent of challenge from imported toys. The main emphasis should be to revive and enlarge the domestic market as also to capture greater share in 1 the

Case- Himachal Soft Drinks Company Himachal Soft Drinks is a leading soft drinks manufacturing company which is based in Mumbai and has established a good image in the country for its products. It manufactures soft drinks in a variety of flavours such as orange , pineapple and mango. However the company has noticed that during the past several months its competitive position has declined. To restore its supremacy the company feels that perhaps a promotional campaign especially during the summer season may be helpful. Such a campaign would cost Rs 40 lakh and as it is a sizeable amount the company is concerned about whether it should incur such a huge expenditure, particularly as it has limited experience to ascertain the success of such efforts. Himachal Soft drinks company feels that if consumer reaction is extremely favorable (over a 10 % percent increase in market share), it stands to gain an additional profit of Rs 60 lakh, if it is favorable(5 to 10%increase in market share), the additional profit is expected to be Rs 40 lakh and if it is unfavourable (market share remains more or less changed) it stands to lose Rs 40 lakh, indicating the cost of the promotional campaign. The companys marketing manager gives the following estimates of the likelihood of these occurences: S1- probability of extremely favourable consumer reaction = .3 S2-probability of favourable consumer reaction = .4 S3-probability of unfavorable consumer reaction =.3
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The company wants to assign a marketing research study to an outside agency. The study would cost Rs 150000 and include field studies to gauge consumer attitudes toward the advertisements. In addition some lab copy tests would be done to assess the attention getting power. The company has approached a marketing research firm, which has given the following associations between its assessments of an advertisement effectiveness through research and its ultimate success: Consumer Reaction Past Experience Extremely favorable Favorable Unfavorable Strongly positive .6 .3 .1 Moderately positive .4 .5 .1 Slightly positive 0.0 .2 .8 Q- Should the company launch a special promotional campaign without the research or should the proposed research be conducted? You should construct a payoff table of the promotion decision option without the research. Draw a suitable tree diagram showing the total decision including the research options. Determine the value of perfect research information as also the value of research information.
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Research Process
The marketing research process involves a number of interrelated activities which overlap and do not follow a particular sequence. The steps in research process are as follows1. Formulating the research problem 2. Choice of research design 3. Determining sources of data 4. Designing data collection forms 5. Determining sampling design and sampling size 6. Organizing and conducting the field survey

7. Processing and Analyzing the collected data

RESEARCH DESIGN
A research design is the basic plan that guides the data collection and analysis phases of the research project. It is the framework that specifies the type of information to be collected, the sources of data, and the data collection procedure. A good design will make sure that the information gathered is consistent with the study objectives and the data are collected by accurate and economical procedures. The objectives of the research project logically determines the characteristics desired in the research design.
Exploratory research is appropriate when the research objectives include (1)identifying problems or opportunities (2)developing a more precise formulation of vaguely identified problem (3) Gaining perspective regarding breadth of variables operating in a situation. (4) Establishing priorities regarding the potential significance of various problems (5) Gaining management and researcher perspective concerning the character of the problem situation.(6) Identifying and formulating alternative courses of action and (7) Gathering information on the problems associated with doing conclusive research. Conclusive research is designed to provide information for the evaluation of alternative courses of action. It can be sub classified into Descriptive research and causal research. Descriptive research is used vastly. Most studies of this nature rely on interrogation of respondents and data available from secondary data sources. 5

Descriptive research is appropriate when the research objectives include 1. Portraying the characteristics of marketing phenomena and determining the frequency of occurrence 2. Determining the degree to which marketing variables are associated and 3. Making predictions regarding the occurrence of marketing phenomena. Consumer profile studies are conducted by firms like General motors and P & G to describe the characteristics of the users of a product. Descriptive studies determine buyer perceptions of product characteristics and audience profiles for media such as television and magazines. Descriptive research often involves determining the degree to which marketing variables are associated. For example a company may study the degree of association between sales of a product and such buyer characteristics as age and income. Descriptive research makes use of a cross sectional research design. The survey design is useful in describing the characteristics of consumers and determining the frequency of marketing phenomena. The evidence provided by descriptive research can be very useful when combined with the decision makers implicit model of how the marketing system functions to the specific area.
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Causal Research- The decision making process calls for assumptions regarding the cause and effect relationships present in the marketing system. And causal research is designed to gather evidence regarding these relationships. It requires a planned and structured design that will not only minimize systematic error and maximize reliability. This is appropriate to understand which variables are the cause of what is being predicted- here the focus on understanding the reasons things happen. The main sources of data for causal research are 1. interrogating respondents through surveys 2. Conducting experiments.

Performance Monitoring Research- Provides information regarding the monitoring the marketing system. The purpose of this research is to signal the presence of potential problems or opportunities. The objectives of performance monitoring research are to monitor and report changes. The data sources appropriate for performance monitoring research include 1. interrogation of respondents 2. secondary data 3. observation
Continuous performance monitoring typically requires a longitudinal research design.
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Case
A marketing manager wishes to test the hypothesis that the reason for the decline in share of market for the firms aspirin-free analgesic product is due to the consumers misperception that the product contains aspirin. This hypothesis was developed from several exploratory group interviews with former users of the firms product. Descriptive research was conducted to test this hypothesis and an extensive survey of several hundred former and potential consumers supported it. The marketing manager combined this descriptive evidence with a personal causal model of how the analgesic market functions to reach a decision on a course of action. The decision was to develop an advertising campaign stressing the products absence of aspirin and the benefits associated with a non aspirin product. The strategy was to correct the market misperception about the presence of aspirin in the product and to reposition the product in the growing aspirin free segment of analgesic market. The result was a substantial increase in the product share of market.
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