Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/e

8. Improving Decisions
   with Marketing
   Information

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

Improving Decisions with Marketing Information 237

purchase of a product—or the answer to a specific question—like “How interested

are you in this new product?” See Exhibit 8-4.

Marketing managers for Mars—the company that makes Snickers candy bars—used

the experimental method to help solve a problem. They wanted to know if making

their candy bar bigger would increase sales enough to offset the higher cost. To decide,

they conducted a marketing experiment in which the company carefully varied the size

of candy bars sold in differentmarkets. Otherwise, the marketing mix stayed the same.

Then researchers tracked sales in each market area to see the effect of the different

sizes. They saw a big difference immediately: The added sales more than offset the cost

of a bigger candy bar.

A firm’s own data on customers’

past purchases, if properly

analyzed, can be an important

source of information for

evaluating new opportunities.

Exhibit 8-4 Illustration of Experimental Method in Comparing Effectiveness of Two Ads

Groups of people

are similar except

for the ad they see

Average product interest rating by group

Difference in

response between

the two groups

Conclusion:

Ad #2

causes

people to

have more

product

interest

Representative

group of

customers

Mean for group who

saw Ad #1 
 3.2

Half of the

people see

Ad #1

Half of the

people see

Ad #2

Mean for group who

saw Ad #2 
 4.6

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