Semester Project Teams & Human Subjects Training Reminders

If you have any requests to make regarding team members for the semester project, you need to send me an email no later than 12 noon on Monday, January 31st.  I will not be able to honor any requests made after this deadline.  Remember, if you ask to not be placed in a group with someone, I will absolutely honor that request.  I will consider requests made regarding others you would like the work with and do my best to accommodate them -- no guarantees, though, as it is possible that individuals may receive multiple requests.

Also, please do not forget (if you have not already done so) to turn in your proof that you have successfully completed your Human Subjects Training -- you must turn this in (printed copy only) no later than the beginning of class on Tuesday, February 1st.  Instructions for completing this training can be found on page 5 of the course syllabus.  Anyone who does not turn in their proof of completing the training by the beginning of class on Tuesday, will (1) not be able to begin work on the project, (2) receive a 10 point deduction on the final project grade, and (3) may be fired by their group immediately and forced to work on the project alone.

1st Quiz

Your first quiz has been posted to WebCT.  It will be available from 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 20th until 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, January 25th.  This quiz covers the introductory material -- chapter 1 and the selected pages from chapter 3.

If you have not taken a quiz on WebCT before, simply go to WebCT and choose the MKTG 446 course (for All Sections). Select Assessments and you will see the link for the Marketing Research Introduction quiz. Please be sure to save each answer before submitting the quiz. After the quiz deadline, I will release your quiz score and the correct answers to those who took the quiz so you may have them for exam studying purposes.

Your First Assignment: Privacy Concerns when Conducting Marketing Research

Observational research has become much more mainstream as companies often learn more by watching what customers do than what they say.  However, this type of research also raises ethical questions about consumer privacy.  Please read the article In Bid to Sway Sales, Cameras Track Shoppers from the NY Times.  Do these observational techniques raise ethical questions for you as a marketer?  Post your thoughts about this to the blog no later than the beginning of class on Tuesday, January 25th. -- be sure to review the instructions for posting comments to the blog under the Welcome post -- don't forget to include your name; otherwise I cannot give you credit. 

How Domino's Pizza Used Marketing Research to Remake their Pizza

Domino's Pizza used Marketing Research to find out what consumers really thought about their pizza. The feedback was used to help create a new pizza. This YouTube video shows some of the research findings and how they were used to alter the pizza recipe.




After creating the new pizza recipe, they went back to some who participated in their research to conduct a taste test of the new product as you can see in this YouTube video.

Welcome to MKTG 446!

Welcome to the Spring 2011 Marketing Research (MKTG 446) course.  I look forward to working with you this semester.

This course blog will serve as the venue for posting class materials, assignments and pertinent information/announcements.  I also hope that you will contribute to online discussions or comment on blog postings.

To post a comment, you need to do the following:

• Beneath the post, you will see the word comments underlined. Click on this.
• You will see a screen that shows Post a Comment
• Type your comment in the box.
• In the Comment As drop box, choose Name/URL.
• You will see an Edit Profile box appear. Type your name (first and last) in the Name cell (otherwise I won't be able to give you credit). In the URL cell you can type the URL to your web site if you have one -- if not, you can always use http://www.radford.edu/.  Click Continue.
• Click the Post Comment button. You will be asked to type a word to ensure you are not a site that is trying to spam the blog -- once you do this, you are done.