Tracy Greenwood and Joshua Harris, co-owners of Pinnacle Research, had not been in business long when they were contacted by Delish Donuts to conduct a marketing research study. Delish had two very successful stores in the city of Barton, with their signature product being the Delish Donut. Now Delish was considering expanding to the nearby city of Melvue and opening more branches. Prior to committing funds for new stores, Delish wanted to test if its product offerings would be successful in Melvue. In addition to competing with Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Crème, could Delish compete with the popular independent store Bonway Donuts?
Tracy and Josh took on the project. Tracy’s role was to investigate the competitive landscape. First, Tracy wanted to determine why Bonway Donuts was so popular in the city of Melvue. Tracy thought it was important to understand what product offerings were the best sellers at Bonway Donuts.
Tracy knew that Bonway would not talk to her if they knew that Delish was a client. Then Tracy had an idea: she would disguise herself as a university student.
Tracy called the owner of Bonway and said that she was a university student and that she needed to learn information about Bonway for a class project. Bonway’s owner said that she was always happy to help students. Tracy asked

her a number of questions about Bonway Donut’s business, including the following: What types of consumers frequent your store? What are your most popular products? What have you learned about pricing donuts? What advertising campaigns have worked for you? What new products do you plan to introduce in the future?
Meanwhile, Josh’s role was to investigate consumer attitudes and behaviors. Josh developed a telephone survey and called people in Melvue randomly to take the survey.
Not many people answered the phone; if they did, many hung up when Josh asked them to take a survey. Josh began quickly telling the people who answered the phone that if they would answer questions about donuts for just five minutes they would have an opportunity to win an iPad. Josh’s survey actually took 15 minutes, but once people began taking the survey, they usually would not hang up on Josh before the survey was completed.
At the end of the call, Josh asked the respondents to provide their email and postal addresses if they wanted to enter the lottery for the iPad. In fact, Josh saw no need to increase his clients’ expenses by purchasing an iPad to give away as an incentive; he did not plan to give an iPad to anybody. However, Josh planned to give his client a list of the respondents’ contact information and let the client know which of these customers would be most likely to patronize Delish Donuts based on their answers to his questions. A list of the email addresses of potential customers would provide extra value for the client.
1. Do you think Tracy’s actions are ethical? Explain.
2. Do you think Josh’s actions are ethical? Explain.
3. Consult the Insights Association’s Code of Standards and Ethics for Marketing Research and Analytics. Are these standards in line with your judgement of the morality of Tracy and Josh’s actions? Explain.
4. Do you think that Delish will be pleased with the methods by which Pinnacle Research obtained findings to address their questions? Why or why not?

Transcribed Image Text:

Marcin Jucha/Shutterstock What price are customers willing to pay for donuts?