Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation

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“This could be more of a challenge than we previously
thought,” Melissa Marcello told her business associate, Julie
Litzenberger. After nodding in agreement, Litzenberger put
down her cup of coffee at the Vienna, Virginia, Starbucks
coffee shop near her firm’s headquarters.
Both Marcello and Litzenberger were far along their
career paths as researchers in the winter of 2008 when
they met at Starbucks, Marcello was CEO of research
agency Pursuant, Inc. (www.pursuantresearch.com), and
Litzenberger led the public relations division at marketing
communications agency Sage Communications (www.
sagecommunications.com). Both were based in the
Washington, D.C., area,
Litzenberger took the last bite of her cinnamon scone
before sipping her latte. She nodded again to Marcello across
the table for two before answering. “Research studies that are
the most successful in moving the needle are the studies
where the research firm uses scientific and credible methods,
poses the light questions, and provides the client company
with the insights needed to sufficiently reduce risk in decision
making,” Litzenberger said. “In short, improving decision
making is what effective marketing research is about.”
Over the years, Marcello and Litzenberger had witnessed
prospective client companies voicing resistance to pursuing
marketing research. Skeptics of professional marketing
research sometimes would say that they “already knew
enough about customers to make decisions.” Other times,
skeptics would assail the sampling methods of studies in an
attempt to dismiss the results. And in other instances,
skeptics would merely claim that finding the answers to such
questions about customers would be too expensive to obtain.
In sum, professionally done marketing research was presented as being impractical.
Marcello and Litzenberger were attempting to overcome
a challenge in client development. Specifically, they were
attempting to obtain evidence to confront skeptics of professionally done marketing research without compromising the
privacy of previous clients witb whom they had worked. It
7RO
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was inappropriate for them to share the results of previous
studies with anyone other than the clients who had contracted
them for those custom marketing research studies.
While considering dozens of ideas over the past three
weeks of project development brainstorming sessions,
Marcello and Litzenberger were now focused on one
project for demonstrating the usefulness of marketing
research to prospective clients. The research question was:
“What still needs to be known about the viewers and voters
for contestants of the popular TV show American Idol’i”
American Idol (www.arnericanidol.com) is an annual
televised singing competition, which began its first season in
2002. The program has always sought to discover the best
young singer in the United States. Each year, a series of
nationwide auditions are followed by a series of telecasts
featuring the singers who advance (0 the next week’s show
based on public voting. Throughout the show’s history, three
judges have critiqued the singing of surviving contestants
each week: record producer and bass player Randy Jackson,
pop singer and dancer Paula Abdul, and the blunt-speaking
music executive Simon Cowell. Good-guy Ryan Seacrest
has hosted the show each year. Singer-songwriter and record
producer Kara DioGuard was added as the fourth judge in
the eight season.
In the spring of 2008, American Idol had reached an
all-time peak, garnering as many as 28 million viewers for a
single episode. Despite the sizable audience-e-composed of
people from different demographics, from tweens to senior
citizens-no third party had conducted a research study to
gain more insight into who the viewers actually were or their
motivations for voting for American Idol contestants.
“Are we kidding ourselves?” Marcello challenged
Litzenberger. “Who would care about a study investigating
American Idol viewers?”
“How about the sponsors of the show?” Litzenberger
quickly countered. “Pepsi-Cola passed on sponsoring the
show during its development, but Coca-Cola decided to
take a risk and invested $10 million to become a sponsor in
~Book: Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation, Sixth Edition. No part of any book may be reproduced or
~m by any means without the publisher’s prior written permission. Use (other than pursuant to the qualified fair
use privilege) in violation of the law or these Terms of Service is prohibited. Violators will be prosecutedto the full extent of the law.
American Idol’s first season. That’s a lot of cola and that
was a lot of risk to take in the volatile world of broadcast
television !”
“You’re right,” Marcello said. “I later read in USA Today
that Kelly Clarkson might have been voted the first American
Idol, but Coke was the real winner. So maybe Pepsi was the
real loser. Coke and Ford now spend tens of millions each
year not only to be sponsors, but also to have tie-in promotions, such a~ you might find at cokemusic.com,”
“But just how durable is the show’s concept?”
Litzenberger asked after finishing her latte. “What if we
find that voters are mostly pre-teen girls? What if we find
that adults don’t vote for the contestants or adults don’t
have confidence in the judge’s opinions?”
“The news media should find such answers more delicious than that slice of pumpkin bread I am spying in that
glass case over there by the cash register,” Marcello said.
“Journalists will almost always cover what they regard as
relevant and quantifiable trends in popular culture.”
Litzenberger leaned forward. “So how do you propose
that we do such a study?”
“We’ve devoted hours to this question at my firm for
better than a week. Here’s our best thinking on it as of
today;’ Marcello said. “We could place about six questions
on Opinion Research Corporation’s CARAVAN (www.
opinionresearch.com) national omnibus telephone survey to
find out more about who. among adults 18 or older living in
the United States, watched and voted in the 2009 season of
American Idol. Such an omnibus survey could be done by
telephone during three days in April 2009.”
“OK, but what about sampling?” Litzenberger said.
“You know we might get attacked on this. It could be really
expensive, too. Can we afford it?”
“If we do it this way, we can afford it,” Marcello said. “It
will run about $1,000 per question. We’ll have the Opinion
Research Corporation ask our questions along with those of
other sponsoring companies to a randomly selected national
sample of 1,045 adults comprised about evenly of men and
women. With a total sample size of more than 1,000, we will
be able to say with 95 percent certainty that the results
would be accurate to within +/-3.0 percent. This exceeds
acceptable standards for a survey about media preferences.”
“So if only 10 percent of our sample reported voting
for American Idol contestants, we would be able to say
with 95 percent confidence that the actual percentage of
the adult population who voted was somewhere between
7 and 13 percent?” Litzenberger asked.
“You’ve got it,” Marcello affirmed, “Of course, it couJd be
a lower or a much higher percentage. Nobody really knows
now. Anybody who says otherwise is merely speculating.”
Silence now overcame these two researchers as they
reflected on the future courses of action they could take. They
could drop the whole idea of demonstrating the usefulness of
marketing research. They could pursue this American Idol
study. If so, what questions should be asked to respondents
and why. Should they continue to consider other ideas for
such a study and pursue it later? What should they do? Why?
CASE 2 • COMPREHENSIVE CRITICAL THINKING CASES 781
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Marcello and Litzenberger felt it was important to conduct
this study because _
(State the relevant background information used to justify
their work.)
2. TIle main purpose of Marcello and Litzenberger’s study was
(State as accurately as possible the purpose for doing the study.)
3. The key questions Marcello and Litzenberger are addressing
are _
(Identify the key questions in the minds of the case’s
protagonists.)
4. The methods used to answer their key questions were
(Describe the general approach used and include details that
assist in evaluating the quality of the results; for example,
sample size, etc.).
5. The most important information in this article is
(Identify the facts, observations, and/or data Marcello
and Litzenberger are using to support their conclusions. Be
quantitative.)
6. The results call be put into context by comparing them to
(Place the quantitative results into an easily understood
context by expressing as percentages or by comparing them
to an intuitively understood value; for example, twice the
size of a football field.)
7. The main inferences/conclusions in [his article are
(Identify the key conclusions the case protagonists present in
the article.)
8. If we take this line of reasoning seriously, the implications
~e .
(What consequences are likely to follow if people take
Marcello and Litzenberger’s reasoning seriously”)
Technical Questions
9. What steps of the six-step marketing research process are
evident in this case?
10. What is the role of marketing research in marketing decision
making suggested by this case?
11. Define the management decision problem confronting Melissa
Marcello and Julie Litzenberger and a corresponding marketing
research problem and show the linkages between the two.
n. If Marcello Rod Litzenberger decide to conduct this study, what
research design should they adopt? Relate the different phases
of the research design to specific aspects of the marketing
research problem.
13. What kind of secondary and syndicated data would be helpful
in addressing the questions raised by Marcello and
Litzenberger? What is the role played by such data?
1.4. Discuss the role of qualitative research in gaining a better
understanding of why people watch American Idol.
15. Is the telephone survey the most appropriate method in this
case? If not, which survey method would you recommend?
16. Why did Marcello and Litzenberger not consider doing an
experiment? What aspects of American Idol viewers should
be researched by conducting an experiment?
17. Discuss the role of measurement and scaling in assessing the
audience response 10 American Idol.
.1 ..• 1· •• Book: Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation, Sixth Edition. No part of any book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form by any means without the publisher’s prior written permission. Use (other than pursuant to the qualified fair
use privilege) in violation ofthe law or these Terms of Service is prohibited. Violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
782 CASE 2 • COMPREHENSIVE CRITICAL THINKING CASES
18. Critically evaluate the wording of the following question:
“Who is your favorite American Idol?”
19. Describe the sampling process employed by Opinion
Research Corporation’s CARAVAN. (Hint: Visit www.
opinionresearch.com.)
20. Is the sample size appropriate? Wby or why nOI?
21. If you were the supervisor in charge of the CARAVAN telephone interviewers, what challenges would you face?
22. As part of the management team at Fox that produces
American Idol. how would you evaluate the report produced
by Marcello and Litzenberger? How will the proposed study
help you make decisions about the show?
Reference
1. Adapted from Melissa Marcello and Julie Litzenberger,
“Fascinating Findings” Quirk’s Marketing Research Review,
21(3) (March 2007): 58-62.
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