After brainstorming, two enterprising college students have come up with what they think is the perfect personal protection app. One of these entrepreneurs, an engineering major, has designed a cell phone case attachment with a sprayer nozzle. With the Alert! Squirt app, the user can point the cell phone at an attacker and press “9” to discharge pepper spray. Not only is the pepper spray instantly debilitating if it touches a sensitive area such as the eyes, but it also has a very noxious smell. Three successive presses of “9” autosends a 911 call, and the app notifies the 911 operator of the sender’s location via GPS locator.

The second student, a marketing major, thinks the ideal target market for Alert! Squirt is college women. He points out that on any given night on campus—and especially in the college’s parking lots—female college students can be seen walking while using their cell phones or with their cell phones in their hands. The marketing student believes that college women who are worried about personal safety will be eager to buy the Alert! Squirt app and cell phone cover attachment that holds the pepper spray feature, as their cell phones are always in the “ready” state.

These two college students are, of course, working in a “bare bones” situation because they have tuition, living expenses, and all the other college student financial obligations to consider. However, their concept won the campuswide “best budding idea” contest, and they have $1,000 to devote to marketing. The marketing major consults with his marketing research professor, who recommends that they conduct a survey of women enrolled in their college. Recognizing the meager budget, he suggests using the American Marketing Association (AMA) student chapter for personal interview data collection in a survey as a means of holding costs down. Personal interviews are necessary because the Alert! Squirt app must be demonstrated and tested by respondents.

Although the enterprising entrepreneurs are excited about the survey, they are skeptical of the ability of students to execute this research. The professor offers to facilitate a meeting with them and the marketing research projects director of the student AMA chapter. He informs the AMA student chapter president of the opportunity and suggests that the marketing research projects director draft a list of the quality control safeguards that would be used in the Alert! Squirt personal interview survey, utilizing 10 AMA student chapter interviewers (five teams) located at high traffic locations on campus.

1. Take the role of the marketing research projects director. Draft all the interviewer controls you believe are necessary to ensure data collection comparable in quality to that gathered by a professional interviewing company.

2. The AMA student chapter president calls the marketing research projects director and says, “I’m concerned about the questionnaire’s length. It will take over 20 minutes for the typical respondent to complete it. Isn’t that length going to cause problems?” Again, take the role of the marketing research projects director. Indicate what nonresponse problems might result from the questionnaire’s length and recommend ways to counter each of these problems.