COURSE NUMBER: MBA261.1

 

COURSE TITLE: Marketing Research: Tools and Techniques for Data Collection and Analysis

 

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3.0

 

INSTRUCTOR: Leif Nelson

 

E-MAIL ADDRESS: leif_nelson@haas.berkeley.edu

 

PREREQUISITE(S): MBA206

 

CLASS FORMAT: A mixture of lectures and cases.

 

REQUIRED READINGS: A course reader. (A textbook is recommended). Also, we will use SPSS, the most commonly used statistical software in marketing research.

 

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Approximately 35% exams, 25% Class Participation, 40% Group Project

 

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

Marketing research is the process of asking and answering important questions about customers and competitors. As the complexity of problems facing managers increase, so does their need for information. It is a near certainty that whatever functional area you enter, and whatever industry, you will come in close contact with market research. The basic objective of this course is to help you conduct, purchase, and use research to make more effective business decisions. To the greatest extent possible, the class will use real-life examples to demonstrate marketing research methods, including: focus groups, survey design, observational research, data mining, experimental design, regression analysis, conjoint analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis, and others. The course will be taught from the point of view of helping you be both a producer and consumer of marketing research.

 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Leif Nelson is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Berkeley-Haas. He earned his doctorate in experimental psychology from Princeton, and has previously served on the faculty at New York University and the University of California, San Diego. His research has investigated topics including biases in sports gambling, the positive influence of television advertising, and the effectiveness of highly idiosyncratic pricing (e.g., pay-what-you-want). His work has appeared in a number of leading psychology and marketing journals and has been covered extensively in the media.