Jeff Sons Trading Company Case Study

1. Definition of the central problem. 

Jeff Sons Trading Company (JST) is trying to decide if they should open up an amusement park in Karachi, Pakistan. They are hiring a Marketing Research Company, AGT, Inc. to perform a survey to determine if there is a demand for and recreational facility and what type of facility would attract the most visitors. The central problem is figuring out the most successful method in getting the population to participate in the survey conducted to determine the need.

1. Selection of alternatives

AGT, Inc. will need to be creative in order to successfully conduct a survey in Karachi because the culture is unique and the communication technology is much more dated as Pakistan is a third world country. The following are methods in which the survey may be conducted:

• Telephone cold calling
• E-mail
• Standard mailers
• Newspaper flyers
• Mall Intercept
• Door-to-Door interviews
• Grocery surveys
• Targeted mail survey

1. Analysis of the alternatives. 

• Telephone cold calling - As mentioned in the case study there are minimal telephones in the city most of them belonging to government offices or business; 200,000 phones for the city of 6 million people (.03 people). By conducting a telephone survey AGT would be segmenting a certain group and will not get an accurate representation of the city as whole.
• E-mail – According to The International Telecommunications Union (Geneva) in 2010 10% of Pakistanis use the Internet; although this figure is much higher than those who have access to the telephone it is still a rather limited number of people.
• Standard mailers- This would be the cheapest way to conduct the survey unfortunately the mail system in Pakistan is unreliable and inefficient, there will be no way of knowing how many actually are received or if the correct number of those returned were delivered.
• Newspaper flyers- “The average number of circulations is 50,000 to 200,000 per day.” By placing the questionnaire in the newspaper, there is certainty in it being received as the paper is purchased. After completing and returning the questionnaire there is a gift for participating in the survey, this is a good incentive for viewers to respond. As newspapers are not a necessity, it is likely that the 90% living below the poverty line do not invest in buying the newspaper. The newspaper is viewed as a luxury good in Pakistan. This will ensure that the respondents AGT is targeting will be reached.
• Mall Intercept – Although this would work in the US, it probably won’t be successful in Karachi because it is not acceptable for males to approach females in public. It is also unlikely that females to converse in public, therefore the majority of respondents would be males, leading to lack of representation of women.
• Door-to-Door Interviews - Conducting the survey will be local business students, mostly females this will ensure that females respondents will feel comfortable in participating. Through Door-to- Door surveys AGT will be able to target areas they might fit the demographic of the desired respondent characteristics.
• Grocery Surveys – By giving a questionnaire with a grocery receipt and offering a coupon/incentive for respondents to fill out and return the questionnaire AGT is likely to reach a variety of people and receive a high return rate. AGT will likely reach both females and males respondents since the approach in noninvasive.
• Targeted mail survey – by selecting the people who will receive the survey and delivering them through another method other than the postal service, AGT has a greater probability of receiving a response.

1. Recommendation of a solution to the case.

In the textbook the case study suggests that AGT will administer the survey through three different methods: Newspaper flyers, Door-to-Door Interviews, and Targeted Mail Surveys. If I were to be in charge of determining how the survey would be conducted I would probably replace the Door-to-Door Interviews with the Grocery Store questionnaires. It seems to me that the Door-to-Door Interviews are the most aggressive and for a country that isn’t familiar with the concept of surveys to begin with, the likeliness of a person opening up to a stranger at their door doesn’t seem feasible. Personally, when people are knocking at my door I usually try to avoid them because I think they are trying to sell me something. By handing out the questionnaires with receipts at the local grocery/retailers it is likely that consumers would take the survey as it is being handed by the local cashier. The likelihood of the questionnaire being returned is also great because they are offered a coupon for filling it out and they will probably return to the store relatively soon. This incentive offers a better solution as opposed to the newspaper flyer that rewards respondents with a small gift. The “small gift” offers no choice to the participant and there those who won’t even receive the gift due to the faulty postal service.