MGP 249: Marketing Research (Working Professional Program)

Course Information

• Meetings: Saturday 9:00 am -12 noon, September 28 to December 7, 2002. Important schedule note: NO CLASS on Saturday, November 30 (Thanksgiving weekend). A class period has been included in the schedule for December 7.
• Location: OCM 2. [Final exam time slot: December 14]
• Text: Aaker, Kumar, and Day (AKD), Marketing Research, Seventh Edition, Wiley (packaged with SPSS Student Edition Version 10).
• Packet: There will be no course packet for this course.

Instructor Information

• Name: Prof. David S. Bunch
• Email: dsbunch@ucdavis.edu
• Office: 145 AOB IV
• Office hours: TBA
• Phone: 530-752-2248

Official UCD Catalog Course Description:

Teaches how to design, implement, and evaluate proposals on the gathering of critical marketing information. This includes size of market, demographic makeup, market share of competitors, product attributes, size of market segments, pricing, advertising, sales force, and sales forecasting. Skills to be taught include how to access syndicated research such as Nielson surveys, how to recruit and moderate focus groups, design of questionnaires, random sampling theory, multivariate statistical analysis, conjoint analysis, design of experiments. 249

Comments for Winter 2002 Course

The above description is generally accurate, although we would add the following comments: The emphasis in the course will be on using concepts and methods of marketing research to support managerial decision making. A major goal is for students to internalize key concepts in "the marketing research process" which emphasizes the important link between information gathering (which can take on a life of its own) and the underlying purpose (i.e., making good decisions). Due to time constraints, much more emphasis will be placed on primary research (focus groups and surveys) and analysis than on secondary research sources (e.g., Nielson data).

Course Approaches

One aspect of this course is that students will form groups, and each student group will specify a business problem to study that will require both a focus group and a survey. (The typical problem is usually based on launching a new product or service, but others are possible as long as there is a good "fit" with the requirement for a focus group followed by a survey.) Four "milestone" written assignments will be turned in for the team project. In addition, there will be an in-class workshop on the SPSS statistical package, and at least one written assignment on data analysis. [NOTE: I am still deciding on how to handle quizzes. I am considering methods to administer "on-line quizzes."]

Course Topics and Schedule

Course topics will generally follow the outline of the textbook, and incorporate the items included in the course description given above. A more detailed schedule will be posted later. The general order of topics is:

1. Introduction/Role of Marketing Research/Marketing research process.
2. Qualitative research (emphasis on Focus Groups)
3. A quantitative framework for modeling consumer behavior.
4. Research design of survey research (question and questionnaires, sampling).
5. Web-based surveys.
6. Statistical analysis of survey data.
7. Conjoint analysis and discrete choice models (time permitting).