IMR300 – Lecture 6

International marketing research

IMR: FOCUS GROUP• Women in the Middle East do not have as much

freedom as women in the Western world.• In some Asian countries, the moderator must take

special interest in introductions if the discussion is to be truly open and candid.

• The French have been proven to resist innovations of any kind.

• The Japanese hesitate to criticize new product ideas.• There is a very strong group mentality in Asian

culture while most Americans tend to be individualistic

IMR: FOCUS GROUP

• Timeframe: A good estimate would be to calculate the time required for the research in the United States and double it for Europe. It would be longer for Asia.

• Structure: In most of other countries, focus group panels consist of four to six people, versus eight to ten in the United States. The focus group interviews themselves last for almost four hours.

IMR: FOCUS GROUP

• Approach: Foreign moderators are not as structured and as authoritative as U.S moderators.

• This can result in long periods of silence and digression. This is because foreign moderators feel it necessary to allow the group to settle down and establish trust to build up the necessary comfort.

IMR: PERSONAL INTERVIEW

• really into depth (when the respondent says something interesting)

• but costly and can be extremely vulnerable to interviewer bias.

IMR: PERSONAL INTERVIEW• Tend to be the dominant mode of data collection

outside the United States and Canada

• Lower wage costs imply that personal procedures are cheaper than in the United States.

• In Latin countries, and particularly in the Middle East, interviewers are regarded with considerable suspicion.

IMR: PERSONAL INTERVIEW

• In Latin countries, where tax evasion is more prevalent, interviewers are often suspected of being tax inspectors.

• In the Middle East, where interviewers are invariably male, interviews with housewives often have to be conducted in the evenings when husbands are at home

Equivalence Issues in Primary Data Collection

1. Construct equivalence

• the function of the product or service that is being researched and not the method used in collecting the information

• Bicycle: USA – recreational, China - transportation

2. Measurement equivalence

• relates to establishing equivalence in terms of procedures used to measure concepts or attitudes.

1. Calibration

2. Translation

3. Metric

Measurement equivalence

1. Calibration Equivalence

– monetary units– measures of weight, distance and volume – perceptual cues like color, shape or form

Measurement equivalence

2. Translation Equivalence

The research instrument has to be translated such that respondents in all countries involved in the study understand it.

Measurement equivalence

3. Metric Equivalence

• The scoring equivalence

• The scalar equivalence

3. Sampling equivalence

• Japanese tend to take a neutral point, so it is wise to avoid a scale with a neutral point in order to obtain useful information.

• Latin Americans and Italians tend to exaggerate their response

• Americans do not typically go into details with open-ended question.

• Factors such as this should be kept in mind while designing the scales for measurement

Data

• Primary source of data

• Secondary source of data

Problems of secondary data

1. Availability of data– Can’t assess to data, language barriers

2. Reliability of data– Less developed countries – prone to be

optimistic– Industrialized countries – overestimated

Problems of secondary data

3. Comparability of data

– Data out of date– Super market: a variety of meanings around

the world

• Japan: 2 or 3 story structure, sells a variety of products

Validating secondary data

• Who collected the data?

• Would there be any reason for purposely misrepresenting the facts?

• For what purposes the data collected?

• How where the data collected?

Problems of gathering primary data

1. Ability to communicate opinions

– Never had experience – unable to express accurate feelings or provide any reasonable information

– Children – mothers (breast-fed babies adapted to solid food more quickly than bottle-fed babies)

Problems of gathering primary data

2. Willingness to respond– Cultural differences – Suitability of personal gender-based inquiries– Some countries – husbands control spending

– should be interviewed for many consumer goods

– French Canadian women don’t like to be questioned

Problems of gathering primary data

3. Sampling in field surveys

– The lack of adequate demographic data

– McDonalds – South Africa – survey conducted in suburbs, 76% is black

Problems of gathering primary data

– Random sample errors• No officially recognized census of

population• No other listings that can serve as sampling

frames• Incomplete out of date telephone

directories• No accurate maps of population centers

Problems of gathering primary data

4. Language and comprehension

– Differences in idioms, difficulty of exact translation

– Kissing: • affection in the West, • alien to many Eastern countries, • taboo in some

Problems of gathering primary data

4. Language and comprehension

– Low literacy: written questionnaires are useless

– Dialects, different languages

Translation tactics

1. Back translation:

a questionnaire is translated from one language to another, and then a second party translates it back into the original

– Australian soft drink company: “Baby, it’s cold inside”

– Hong Kong: “Small mosquito, on the inside it is very cold”

Translation tactics

2. Parallel translation: two translators are used for the back translation

3. Decentering: an English version is translated into French, and then translated back to English by different translator

Problems in analyzing and interpreting research information

• The meanings of words

• The consumer’s attitude toward a product

• The interviewer’s attitude

• The interviewer’s situation can distort research findings

The talents of foreign market researcher

• High degree of cultural understanding of the market

• A creative talent for adapting research methods

• A skeptical attitude in handling both primary and secondary data

Marketing and economic development

Marketing and economic development

• Economic growth affects the attitudes toward foreign business activity

– Demand for goods– Distribution system– The entire marketing process

Walt Rostow: Degree of economic development

1. The traditional society: absence of modern sciences and technology

2. The preconditions for takeoff: advances of modern sciences are becoming to be applied in agriculture and production

3. The takeoff: rapid expansion4. The drive to maturity: produce anything it

chooses to produce5. The age of high mass consumption:

significant amounts of discretionary income

NIC – Newly Industrialized Countries

Newly industrialized countries

Bottom Of the Pyramid Markets (BOPMs)

• In economics, the bottom of the pyramid is the largest, but poorest socio-economic group

Bottom Of the Pyramid Markets (BOPMs)

• 4 billion people across the globe with annual income less than 1200$

• Not by national borders, but pockets of poverty across countries

• Mostly in LDC, LLDC

BEM

• Big Emerging Markets

• Large share of world output

• Half the world’s population

• 25% of the industrialized world’s GDP today

Common traits of BEMs

The Advanced Emerging markets

• Brazil  

• Hungary  

• Mexico  

• Poland  

• South Africa  

• Taiwan

The Secondary Emerging markets

• reasonable market infrastructures and significant size

• Chile  • China  • Colombia• Czech Republic  • Egypt India• Indonesia • Malaysia • Morocco  

• Pakistan  • Peru  • Philippines  • Russia  • Thailand  • Turkey  • UAE

Developing countries that are neither part of the LLDC nor of NIC

Strategic implications for Marketing

Trends in international marketing

Recent trends in international marketing

Successful economic union requirement

Patterns of multinational cooperation

Economic integration

Strategic implication for marketing

• Assess to greatly enlarged markets

• Reduced or abolished country-by-country tariff barriers and restrictions

• Strong competition

• Intensified regulation of business

Strategic implication for marketing

• Opportunities: large mass markets

• Market barriers: benefit from protectionist measures

• Reciprocity