Idaho Ideal Potatoes, Ltd., developed a new guacamole-flavored potato chip and wanted to ascertain the national sales potential for this unique product offering. However, the market researcher found the mail response rate to be extremely low (10 percent) and that many of the returned surveys had been completed incorrectly.
a. How might the company have collected the relevant data more effectively?
b. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using telephone surveys and focus groups for this kind of study? Due to stringent budget constraints, the marketing research director decided to limit the survey to residents of San Antonio, Texas.
c. What possible biases could be reflected in the survey results?
d. Idaho Ideal Potatoes, Ltd., has decided to offer their new potato chip simultaneously in foreign markets and wishes to survey potential sales demand for the product in the United Kingdom. How should the choice of survey method be altered to suit the company's research of foreign markets?