Discussion questions:
A large international rental car company decides to develop a customer retention program. The program's goal is to motivate its heavy users to continue being loyal to the company by offering them appropriate incentives. Create a marketing research plan to help the company design the retention program. Specifically, you need to identify:
1. Why this program is important.
2. The type of information the company needs to design the retention program.
3. Where to get this information.
Question 2. A pharmaceutical manufacturer followed sales representatives in the field to observe some 150 interactions between sales reps and physicians and support staff. They watched sales reps approach the doctors, how they got around their gatekeepers, how they delivered their brands' messages, and so forth. These observations led to improvements in training new reps.
In what category of research would this study fall? Provide advantages and disadvantages of this category of research. What would be the next step in the marketing research process?
Question 3. You are in charge of all marketing activities in North America for the Italian luxury sports car manufacturer Maserati. Maserati has just introduced a new model that will be competing directly against well-known luxury sports cars such as Porsche, Ferrari, Jaguar, and BMW. How would you position the new Maserati model? How would you establish and support this positioning strategy?
Note: Although Maserati equals competitors' performance and design, it is a small company and has less money than competitors for promotion.