Other Factors to Consider in Planning Market Research

Following my post on the Hawthorne effect, I wanted to use this journal post as a forum to reveal some of my findings on other factors that can influence market research - namely the placebo effect and convenience samples.

Placebo Effect

Most often discussed in a medical context, the placebo effect refers to the phenomenon where a procedure or treatment appears to produce a result that is expected only because the recipient of the treatment believes it is working. More casually, a placebo is referred to as a “sugar pill” implying that the treatment is not designed to provide any actual medical benefit. Only recently have researchers begun to link the placebo effect to marketing research.  In 2005, researchers Shiv, Carmon, and Ariely   first described consumers who subconsciously draw a link between the price of a product and its quality as acting in a “placebo-like manner”. This led to other research teams exploring for the presence of placebo effects in all aspects of marketing research.

                The research team of Irmak, Block, and Fitzsimons tested this hypothesis (existence of the placebo effect in marketing research) by conducting an energy drink study. The key to this study was the use of motivation, namely providing the participants with information about the energy drink before they consumed it. The content of the information provided was mostly about the purported benefits of the energy drink. The researchers referred to this conveyance of information as “motivation”. The motivation (marketing materials) was provided to participants in varying degrees. Some participants drank the actual energy drink, some a placebo energy drink, and some a glass of water as the control. The participants were then given a series of unrelated tasks in the 30 minutes following consumption of the drink to allow for absorption and then individual surveys and blood pressure tests were conducted. What researchers found was that the placebo energy drink was capable of raising blood pressure and arousal levels as the authentic energy drink if participants were exposed to the marketing information at high levels. Conversely, if participants received the marketing information at low levels the consumption of the placebo drink and even the authentic energy drink itself produced the same effect as the control participants (those who drank the water). Based on this study, and those similar to it, researchers concluded that while exposing potential consumers to marketing is an apparent conscious process it is capable of producing significant unconscious responses.

Resources:

Block, Lauren G, Gavin Fitzsimons, and Caglar Irmak, “The Placebo Effect in Marketing: Sometimes You Just Have to Want It to Work”, American Marketing Association, 2005.

“Placebo Effect”, Wikipedia.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo_effect_(disambiguation), (accessed January 11, 2012).

Convenience Sampling

Convenience sampling in marketing research refers to the selection of participants (e.g., respondents for a survey) who just happen to be readily available at the time. Examples of convenience sampling are polling random “people on the street” or mailing a survey or questionnaire to respondents without qualifying them first. Convenience sampling is considered a non-probability sampling technique. As with other techniques of this nature (e.g., judgmental sampling, random sampling) sample size is important if the desire is to reduce margin of error and increase confidence level from a statistical standpoint.

Resource:

Mora, Michael, “Sample Size Matters, Relevant Insights, February 16, 2011 (accessed January 8, 2012) www.relevantinsights.com/tag/convenience-sample