Select a brand of a relatively high-involvement product/service category. – Assume that you are hired by the brand manager to investigate consumers’ buying and consumption behaviors for the
product as well as strengths and weaknesses of the brand relative to one or two key competing brands. In order to do so, you have decided to utilize the research framework provided by the Fishbein
attitude model (see Ch.7 of the textbook).
Conduct brief interviews with a few consumers to generate a list of key attributes that consumers use in evaluating alternative brands in this product/service category. Then design a questionnaire
to measure, among other things, (a) consumers’ overall attitudes toward your brand and the competing brand(s), (b) perceived importance of each of the selected attributes, and (c) evaluations of
your brand and the competing brand(s) with respect to each of the attributes. (Obviously, there will be other types of data, e.g., demographics, product purchase and usage data, you may need to
collect depending upon your specific research objectives.) Select a sample of about 70 users of the product/service category. Your investigation should focus on the following research objectives:
1. Investigate purchasing and consumption behaviors of consumers for the product category your brand belongs to
2. What are the brand’s strengths and weaknesses based on a comparison of the brand to the selected competing brand(s) with respect to the brand evaluation ratings on each individual attribute?
3. How do (a) the attribute importance ratings and (b) the attribute evaluation ratings for your brand differ between your brand users and users of the competing brand(s) (or those who prefer your
brand and those who prefer the competing brands)?
4. What are the key attributes that determine consumers’ overall preference toward each brand?
5. How do the heavy users of the product differ from the light users on their preference toward your brand and the competing brand(s), perceived importance of the selected product attributes, and
evaluations of your brand on the selected attributes?