Marketing Research Text and Cases, 7/Ed.

In the 33 years since the first edition of this book was published, marketing research has grown tremendously. There has been a continued growth in the sophistication of the statistical methods used, focus group interviews and other relatively unstructured techniques have had a resurgence, psycho graphic methods in market segmentation studies have grown more popular, and simulated sales models are now being used in new product development work. On the other hand, personal interviews in the home, long the backbone of marketing research, are rapidly disappearing from the scene as more and more they are replaced by telephone and shopping center surveys.

With the greater interest in focus groups and other “subjective” research techniques, the attention given to probability sampling has declined. The computer continues to open up new possibilities in data collection, such as scanning purchases at retail stores, control of questionnaires and data entry in telephone surveys, and identification of viewing individuals in TV audience measurement. And, of course computers make feasible the ever more sophisticated analytical techniques being used.

In spite of these changes the basic character of the marketing research process has changed little-it was and will continue to be a series of interrelated steps, each of which anticipates those that follow. As a consequence the general organization of this edition is essentially unchanged from that found in the first edition. Nevertheless, some small organizational changes have been made since the last edition. There is one less chapter, as old Chapter 8 (“The Marketing Research Process”) has been combined with old Chapter 2 (“Scientific Method”). Old Chapter 7 (“Decision Trees”) has shortened and has become part of new Chapter 3. Old Chapter 5 (“Basic Methods of Data Collection”) has been moved back to become new Chapter 7, following the material on secondary data. These changes are the result of communications from teachers, indicating they prefer the new sequence.