Introduction
Every marketing executive must
understand the necessity and values of test marketing. The problem is when the
product is partly ready it is introduced to the market and the marketers does
not know when the test market is in order. Compounding this difficulty is that
the goals of test marketing are sometimes unclear and that the information,
once gathered, is often improperly used. The biases involved can encompass both
favorable and unfavorable assessments—manifest involuntarily without an individual’s
awareness or intentional control.
Unconscious biases in the workplace
can hinder diversity, recruiting, and retention efforts and can shape an
organization’s culture in detrimental ways. It can also hinder talent and
performance reviews. As researcher Hayley Roberts wrote, More than 85 percent
of all Americans consider themselves to be unprejudiced. This means that if a
research is conducted on these people majority of them will hold some degree of
implicit racial bias.
An effective marketing planning
process is central to conventional prescriptions for the implementation of
marketing.
A thesis done by (Flintermann, 2014) on the quality of market research was
selected to discuss further about this topic. This thesis focuses on the case
of Marketline Advantage and the quality of its market research reports
published about the automotive industry.
Importance of identifying bias in
test market
According to EMC (‘Digital
Universe’ report from 2014), the quantity of data is going to see a tenfold
increase between 2013 and 2020. Therefore most of the decisions will be made
considering the insights supported by adequate data, analytics, research
methods and techniques.
However it is important to remember
that decisions are mostly not necessarily guaranteed to be successful just
because they are based on data. These data can be sometimes misinterpreted or
miscalculated. This leads the final outcome of the analysis to be taken as true
and the decisions based on that turnout to have been incorrect.
The main reason for these biased
wrong decisions are because of the interference in the outcomes of research by
predetermined ideas, prejudice or influence in a certain direction. Not only
data but the people who are analyzing the data can also be biased when taking
the sample or analyzing the results.
Research Methodology
In the thesis in order to find an
answer to the quality of the market research, a secondary research was
conducted through access to the market research which was under investigation. These
reports were easily accessible, time saving and free of cost. Besides
Marketline Advantage data, secondary data from sources such as government
agencies or associations are used. They even collected their own data by
conducting interviews with managers with the research reports on focus.
Data Analysis
In order to develop a better
understanding on the reliability/validity of Marketline Advantage research
reports, it is compared to other companies such as KPMG, the ACEA, OICA and
Statista Inc. When the companies were compared, the process of preparation,
data collection and analysis are not clearly presented by the Marketline
Advantage. The quality check data, data is coded or transformed how it is dealt
with missing data are unclear.
Result analysis of the specification of the data collection and
analysis
The reports of KPMG reports provide
all the information, about the data used and in-depth interviews to whom it was
conducted. Even though they KPMG published a transparency report in which it is
described how the quality of the data used and reports published is controlled,
information on how it is dealt with missing data is not presented by KPMG on
the research reports.
On the other hand ACEA, OICA and Statista
Inc. does not provide any information on the research type, how data is
transformed and coded, quality is controlled or missing data is handled. Therefore
with the information provided by the companies there may be an issue with the
reliability as it cannot be confirmed how the findings and interpretations were
derived.
Besides presenting the individual
degree of reliability and validity per indicator and company, the traffic light
rating system is used to effectively visualize the differences between
Marketline Advantage and the companies compared to it. The colors used have the
following meaning: red = potential issue with reliability/validity, yellow =
could /could not be an issue with reliability/validity, green = no potential
issue with reliability/validity.
Results analysis of the specification about potential changes in
procedures
After analyzing the specifications
about potential changes in procedures, the collection or assembly methods are
not to be found in the market research report. Like Marketline Advantage,
neither KPMG (2011a), the OICA (2014), the ACEA (2014) nor Statista Inc.
(2014b) provide information on potential changes in methods, sources or
definitions used from one report to another. These lack of miss communication
of information about potential changes can be an issue with reliability.
According to the
given table below all the companies reliability and validity rate are at low.
Conclusion
Identifying the bias is a difficult
task to do. But the research conducted shows that one loses control over how
data was generated and collected, data is already modified and poor
documentation exists. These leads to an issue with reliability and credibility
of the analyzed market research. Therefore the outcomes of the research and
analysis are influenced by bias. Data collection and analyzing is a shared
responsibility of everyone directly involved (including the marketer and the
analysist) to reach a verdict to the bias. The researchers should always rely
on the correct facts.
References
Flintermann, B. (2014). The quality of market
research reports (The case of Marketline Advantage and the automobile
industry). The case of Marketline Advantage and the automobile industry,
3-35.
