Reference no: EM132304557
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 workeddoughnuts 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?