Case Study: Texas Red Soft Drinks

1. Is the test market approach the best way to tackle this problem, all things considered? Are there other viable options and, if so, what are the options?

Test market approach can be said as a better way to tackle this problem but it cannot be said as a best approach. There are always some better alternatives to any marketing strategy which can go an additional mile for any company. In this scenario, the Texas Red needs to focus on the marketing approach devised by the second group which believes in enhancing awareness and image of the brand with a focus on its long history in Texas. This strategy can help the company the tackle the problem and to maximize its profit and sales.

If other viable options are discussed, the company can use some other test market approaches instead of a traditional approach. For this reason, company can use the alternative of rolling rollout by following a pretest. Texas Red can launch its products in a certain region rather than launching it in two to three cities of Texas. This thing would help the company to get better results to tackle this issue (McDaniel & Gates, 2013).

2. Which of the experimental designs discussed in the chapter would be most feasible for this project? Why that design?

For this project, a true experimental design would be most feasible and that can give best possible results. The true design should be used for this project because it would involve using an experimental group and a control groups where the test units will be randomly assigned and the results will remove any extraneous variables. Additionally, the Texas Red would be able to record the exact attitude of consumers about its products (Malhotra, 2008).

3. How many markets should be used for the test? What should be the characteristics of these markets?

Company should focus only one regional market for the test instead of targeting different markets. Running a rolling rollout test strategy would help the company to minimize the test costs and it would give results which company can use to understand the consumer behavior about its products. Instead, if company uses different markets for this purpose, the traditional approach might not help company to get what it is looking for and it is not feasible with the limited marketing budget of Texas Red.

4. What sort of evidence, from the test, would definitively break the deadlock between the two groups with different visions as the company?

The evidences that would break the deadlock between the two groups with different visions in the company include the ratio of sales, profit generation and market share. As the Texas Red is planning to run the price oriented campaign in one market and image oriented campaign in other, the results of these campaigns will break the deadlock between these groups. Whichever campaign will perform better in terms of sales, will generate more revenue and will help the Texas Red to hold larger market share, that campaign would be considered better as compared to the other one.

As a result, the deadlock would be broken and the better campaign can be used by company on a larger scale and in different markets.

Bibliography

Malhotra, N. (2008). Marketing research: An applied orientation. Pearson Education India.

McDaniel, C., & Gates, R. (2013). Primary data collection: experimentation and test markets. In Marketing Research Essentials (8th Edition ed., pp. 188-205). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.