Market Research Market Research 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is 'price sensitivity measurement' (Van Westendorp) used for in market research?
- Determining optimal ad spend levels
- Finding the acceptable price range for a product from the consumer's perspective (Correct answer)
- Measuring how price changes affect stock values
- Comparing competitor pricing strategies
Correct answer: Finding the acceptable price range for a product from the consumer's perspective
The Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter asks four questions about price perceptions to identify an acceptable price range and optimal price point.
Question 2: What is the key risk of using only social media listening as a market research method?
- It is too expensive for most organizations
- It only captures opinions from active social media users, not the full population (Correct answer)
- It requires special government licenses
- Results cannot be analyzed quickly
Correct answer: It only captures opinions from active social media users, not the full population
Social media listening samples are self-selected and skewed toward active users, meaning results may not represent the broader target market.
Question 3: Which research method would best reveal the unconscious or subconscious motivations behind consumer decisions?
- Online surveys
- Projective techniques (e.g., word association, sentence completion) (Correct answer)
- Sales data analysis
- Competitive benchmarking
Correct answer: Projective techniques (e.g., word association, sentence completion)
Projective techniques bypass conscious defenses by asking respondents to respond to ambiguous stimuli, revealing underlying motivations and feelings.
Question 4: What is a 'test market' in market research?
- An online platform for testing survey questions
- A limited geographic area where a product is launched before a full rollout (Correct answer)
- A database of historical product test results
- A controlled laboratory setting for sensory testing
Correct answer: A limited geographic area where a product is launched before a full rollout
A test market is a real but limited market (often a city or region) used to evaluate a product's performance before committing to a national or global launch.
Question 5: What does 'incidence rate' mean in the context of market research recruiting?
- The frequency of survey errors in a dataset
- The proportion of the general population that qualifies for a specific study (Correct answer)
- The rate at which respondents abandon online surveys
- The number of new research studies launched per quarter
Correct answer: The proportion of the general population that qualifies for a specific study
Incidence rate is the percentage of people in a general sample who meet the screener criteria for a study, directly affecting recruitment cost and time.
Question 6: In perceptual mapping, what do the axes typically represent?
- Time periods being compared
- Key attributes or dimensions consumers use to evaluate brands (Correct answer)
- Revenue and market share data
- Geographic regions of the market
Correct answer: Key attributes or dimensions consumers use to evaluate brands
Perceptual maps plot brands in a two-dimensional space where axes represent key consumer evaluation dimensions, revealing competitive positioning.
Question 7: A researcher conducts 30 in-depth interviews and finds that the last 5 interviews reveal no new themes. This is called:
- Sample saturation / theoretical saturation (Correct answer)
- Diminishing returns bias
- Over-sampling error
- Ceiling effect
Correct answer: Sample saturation / theoretical saturation
Theoretical (or data) saturation occurs when additional data collection yields no new themes or insights, signaling that the sample size is sufficient.
