Experiments In Marketing

This is a book targeting actors in the field of marketing academic researchers, practitioners, market analysts, teachers and students with an interest in how customers are influenced by marketing. The main argument is that the experiment constitutes a powerful method for revealing the influence of various marketing activities. Basically, an experiment means that individuals are randomly allocated to groups, which receive different treatments, followed by a comparison of the groups reactions after the treatments. To conduct experiments along these lines, however, involves several choices and challenges, and the ambition with this book is to offer guidelines to experimenters who wish to come to terms with influence-related issues in a marketing context.

This book gives students, practitioners, and managers a set of practical and valuable tools for designing and analyzing experiments, emphasizing applications in marketing and service operations such as website design, direct mail campaigns, and in-store tests.

The chapter starts with a positioning of this dissertation in the marketing discipline. It then provides a comparison of the two most popular methods for studying consumer preferences/choices, namely conjoint analysis and discrete choice experiments. Chapter 1 continues with a description of the context of discrete choice experiments. Subsequently, the research problems and the objectives ofthis dissertation are discussed. The chapter concludes with an outline of the organization of this dissertation. 1. 1 Positioning of the Dissertation During this century, increasing globalization and technological progress has forced companies to undergo rapid and dramatic changes-for some a threat, for others it offers new opportunities. Companies have to survive in a Darwinian marketplace where the principle of natural selection applies. Marketplace success goes to those companies that are able to produce marketable value, Le. , products and services that others are willing to purchase (Kotler 1997). Every company must be engaged in new-product development to create the new products customers want because competitors will do their best to supply them. Besides offering competitive advantages, new products usually lead to sales growth and stability. As household incomes increase and consumers become more selective, fmns need to know how consumers respond to different features and appeals. Successful products and services begin with a thorough understanding of consumer needs and wants. Stated otherwise, companies need to know about consumer preferences to manufacture tailor-made products, consumers are willing to buy.

The chapter starts with a positioning of this dissertation in the marketing discipline. It then provides a comparison of the two most popular methods for studying consumer preferences/choices, namely conjoint analysis and discrete choice experiments. Chapter 1 continues with a description of the context of discrete choice experiments. Subsequently, the research problems and the objectives ofthis dissertation are discussed. The chapter concludes with an outline of the organization of this dissertation. 1. 1 Positioning of the Dissertation During this century, increasing globalization and technological progress has forced companies to undergo rapid and dramatic changes-for some a threat, for others it offers new opportunities. Companies have to survive in a Darwinian marketplace where the principle of natural selection applies. Marketplace success goes to those companies that are able to produce marketable value, Le. , products and services that others are willing to purchase (Kotler 1997). Every company must be engaged in new-product development to create the new products customers want because competitors will do their best to supply them. Besides offering competitive advantages, new products usually lead to sales growth and stability. As household incomes increase and consumers become more selective, fmns need to know how consumers respond to different features and appeals. Successful products and services begin with a thorough understanding of consumer needs and wants. Stated otherwise, companies need to know about consumer preferences to manufacture tailor-made products, consumers are willing to buy.

Excerpt from Notes on Marketing Experimentation The successful conduct of marketing operations requires good information about market behavior. Such information comes from many sources--from historical sales data, personal experiences, surveys, and various special studies. We shall here take up a specialized but valuable method of learning about the market, namely, experimentation. Principally, we shall consider experiments involving the active intervention in the market by a company to measure the effect on sales of variables under the company*s control. For example, quantities such as advertising, price, salesman's calls, packaging, and display might be varied to estimate their effect on sales. Presumably, once the sales effect is estimated, appropriate calculations will convert this into an effect on profit or other relevant measure of effectiveness. Although the discussion will focus on sales experiments, most of the principles discussed apply to any response variable. The term, experiment, will be used to imply a controlled comparison of alternatives. In other words, two or more experimental treatments are applied in a situation where the experimenter is able to decide which experimental units receive the treatment. Thus, an experiment might compare promotions A and B by using them in different sets of cities. The experimenter decides which city receives which treatment (probably doing this by a random process). A more passive approach is to analyze historical data in which marketing variables have varied in the normal course of company operations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In this handbook, internationally renowned scholars outline the current state-of-the-art of quantitative and qualitative market research. They discuss focal approaches to market research and guide students and practitioners in their real-life applications. Aspects covered include topics on data-related issues, methods, and applications. Data-related topics comprise chapters on experimental design, survey research methods, international market research, panel data fusion, and endogeneity. Method-oriented chapters look at a wide variety of data analysis methods relevant for market research, including chapters on regression, structural equation modeling (SEM), conjoint analysis, and text analysis. Application chapters focus on specific topics relevant for market research such as customer satisfaction, customer retention modeling, return on marketing, and return on price promotions. Each chapter is written by an expert in the field. The presentation of the material seeks to improve the intuitive and technical understanding of the methods covered.

A thorough presentation of the use, types, and applications of experiments in marketing research. The presentation shows that experiment research can benefit marketing research immensely. As a consequent, the information collected throught an experiment can be invaluable to assist marketing decision makers. This book will therefore be of value to marketing researchers and students of marketing research, and will also be of value to marketing practitioners and general managers in business and non-business organizations. This book explains that the primary reason that experiments are valuable to assist decision making involves the concept of causality—a relationship in which a change in one variable causes a change in another variable (i.e., cause-and-effect relationship). Three criteria required to properly conduct an experiment that allows inferences about cause-and-effect relationships with reasonable certainty are: (1) evidence of association, (2) appropriate timing, and (3) elimination of alternative explanations.