Reference no: EM132303821
William Rosenberg opened the first Dunkin Donuts in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1950. Residents flocked to his store each morning for the coffee and fresh doughnuts. Rosenberg started franchising the Dunkin’ Donuts name and the chain grew rapidly throughout the Midwest and Southeast. By the early 1990s, however, Dunkin’ was losing breakfast sales to morning sandwiches at McDonald’s and Burger King. Starbucks and other high-end cafes began sprouting up, bringing more competition. Sales slid as the company clung to its strategy of selling sugary doughnuts by the dozen. In the mid-90s, however, Dunkin shifted its focus from doughnuts to coffee in the hope that promoting a more frequently consumed item would drive store traffic. The coffee push worked doughnuts make up a mere 17 % of sales. Dunkin’ sells 2.7 million cups of coffee a day, nearly one billion cups a year. And, Dunkin’ sales have surged 40 % during the past four years. Based on this recent success, Dunkin’ now has ambitious plans to expand into a national coffee powerhouse, on a par with Starbucks, the nation’s largest coffee chain. Over the next few years, Dunkin’ plans to remake its more than 5,400 US shops in 34 states and grow to double that number by 2020. But Dunkin’ is not Starbucks. In fact, it does not want to be. To succeed, Dunkin must have its own clear vision of just which customers it wants to serve (target segment) and how (value proposition). Dunkin’ gut feeling is that Dunkin’ and Starbucks target very different customers, who want very different things from their favorite coffee shops. Starbucks is strongly positioned as a sort of highbrow third place – outside of home and office – featuring couches, eclectic music, wireless internet access, and art splashed walls. Dunkin’ has decidedly lowbrow, everyman kind of positioning. With its makeover, Dunkin plans to move upscale – a bit but not too far – to reposition itself as a quick but appealing alternative to specialty coffee shops and fast-food chains. Yes, Dunkin’ built itself on serving simple fare to working-class customers. Inching upscale without alienating that base will prove tricky. Newly appointed Dunkin’ CMO, Tony Weisman, wants to conduct a marketing research study. They currently do not know which steps to take to come up with a clear understanding of which direction they should take. This is why approached you.
1. Dunkin’ will be conducting a marketing research project and they are asking you
(a) What are the steps of a typical marketing research project? (customize the steps for the Dunkin’ case)
(b) Please discuss why it is essential to start the research process with the right question formulation.
(c) What is the primary research question in this Dunkin’ case? What does Dunkin’ want to know? Please provide an elaborate answer.
2. You told the marketing director of Dunkin’, Mr. Weisman, that before any primary data collection process takes place, secondary research needs to be conducted for a Dunkin situation analysis. He asks with wonder ,
(i) what is secondary research? What does it consist of?
(ii) what are the pros and cons of doing secondary data research? [please explain with a table]
(iii) why situation analysis needs to be the first step in the process, how would it help with the Dunkin’ marketing research?
3. After explaining what situation analysis and secondary research is and why it needs to be done as the first step, you told Mr. Weisman that it is time to conduct qualitative (exploratory) research. He asks you again
(i) what is qualitative (exploratory) research and why do you propose to engage with this research process as the second step? [please make it specific to the Dunkin case]
(ii) how does the result of the exploratory research process help with the Dunkin’ case?
4. It is time to conduct the qualitative (exploratory) research. Though there are many different qualitative (exploratory) research methods (e.g., focus groups, ethnographic research, in-depth interviews), you told him that best approach in the current case is conducting in-depth interviews to get the preliminary insights
(a) Mr. Weisman asks you: Why do we need to conduct in-depth interviews? Why is it important?
(b) He then asks you “is it really crucial who we conduct the interviews with? Or, in other words, why the sampling quality matters?”
(c) He, later, asks “then, who should we conduct the in-depth interviews with? Can you please provide the characteristics of a good interviewee for our specific case?”
(d) After your explanation on in-depth interviews, he asks you to provide him with 5 in-depth interview questions that you would ask the participants in the Dunkin’ study.
5. As a next step, you discuss with Mr. Weisman how to analyze in-depth interviews. Please provide him with steps and a brief explanation on each step in how to analyze the interviews
6. As a next step, you discuss the quantitative (descriptive and causal) research process with Mr. Weisman. He asks you
(i) What is the main reason we conduct quantitative (descriptive and causal) research
(ii) And, how does it relate to the qualitative (exploratory) research
(iii) What kind of causal/descriptive research design would be the best fit for the Dunkin case? Please be through with your answer.
(iv) What kind of respondents will make the highest quality of the sample in the Dunkin case? Please be through with your answer.
7. Imagine that you want to know the average income business school graduates in the US make during their first year after school. You will never be able to know the true average (unless you're able to measure several thousands of graduates). What you can do is select a representative sample and measure hundreds of people and calculate the average income. The average income among these people is probably not exactly equal to the true average but, if you did a good job (use a representative sample of the population) it should be close enough. The difference between the true average (average income all US business school graduates had during their first year) and its estimation through your sample (average income of people in your sample) is called what type of error? Please elaborate.
8. Local coffee store is interested in determining the demographic and psychographic characteristics of people who shop at their store versus those of people who shop at Starbucks. They also want to know what their brand perception is relative to the competition. They would like to have the information in three weeks and are working on a limited budget.
(a) Which survey method(s) would you recommend? Why?
(b) Based on your answer in (a) what type(s) of sampling and measurement error may arise from the survey method you chose? Why?
Bonus question: I know we have known each other for only a few weeks but so far what do you think about our MKT H220 workshops? Please provide your insights/comments/ suggestions on
(1) The quality of the delivery of the material and discussions in the workshops? (clarity, pace, examples, etc.)
(2) The openness and encouragement in workshop discussions?
(3) The amount of class work [in and outside of the workshop]?
(4) The quality of communication (e.g., emails, Blackboard posts, reminders)?
(5) Doing a real-time client project with EBF?
(6) The quality of learning in workshops and in the overall course?
(7) The teamwork for the EBF project [are you happy with your team? What would make you happier?]