Marketing Research

Harvard Business School

9-592-013
August 29, 1991

Marketing Research1
What Is Marketing Research?
Marketing research is an essential part of marketing management. It is the process by which
marketing information is collected and analyzed. An integral part of the marketing process, it is
undertaken when a firm assesses the situation it faces before marketing strategy is formulated.
Ahost of terms are used to describe aspects of marketing research. Some of these are:
environmental scanning, environmental monitoring, scanning systems, marketing intelligence, and
situation assessment. However, whereas marketing research is necessarily a systematic activity,
marketing intelligence, scanning or situation assessment may not necessarily be so.
Marketing research requiresresources, both time and money, so it should only be used when
(i) the marketing decision can be put off until the research process is complete, and (ii) the stakes are
high enough to warrant expenditure of the necessary funds. Thus marketing research is something
you do only when you have the time and the likely benefits outweigh the costs.
Marketing research can be either an ongoing activity or itcan involve gathering information
regarding a specific decision at hand. Although not restricted to new products, marketing research
plays an important role in decisions such as new product introductions to determine answers to such
questions as: What is the forecasted demand for this product? Which advertising copy is better?
What prices will the consumer be willing to pay?
Marketingresearch2 includes the collection of information about customers, channels,
competitors, or marketing partners to understand marketing phenomena and/or predict future
behavior. Some common objectives of marketing research include forecasting, customer analysis and
segmentation, understanding consumer choice, and testing levels of the marketing mix. Marketing
research may be qualitative orquantitative.

1Thanks to Professor Bruce Buchanan for comments on this note. This note synthesizes materials found in the

following notes: (1) “Marketing Situation Assessment,” by Fareena Sultan and Thomas J. Kosnik, HBS note no.
590-006; (2) “Marketing Research, An Overview of Methods,” by Robert J. Dolan, HBS note No. 585-039; and (3)
“Research Methods in Marketing: Survey Research,” by Robert J.Dolan, HBS note No. 582-055. Sections in this
note that use material abridged from the above notes are marked [1], [2] and [3], respectively.
2This section is abridged from [1]. For a more extensive overview of marketing research methods, see [2].
Professor Fareena Sultan prepared this note as the basis for class discussion.
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Marketing Research

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Qualitative research is most frequently used at the exploratory stage of situation
assessment as part of a hypothesis-building process. Open-ended questions are
asked, with lots of interaction among the people asking and answering the
questions, in an effort to better understand and develop hypotheses aboutcustomers, channels, and competitors behaviors. A widely used qualitative
research approach is a focus group, a loosely structured discussion among a small
group of people. A common focus group application is a discussion led by a
moderator involving six to ten customers to determine what they might be
looking for in a new product.

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Quantitative research is often used at the confirmatory...