Case

Brianna is a research analyst for a regional clothing retailer. The MIS $($Marketing Information System$)$ suggests that for the past few months, sales of men's clothing have been in steady decline. Sales of women's clothes, however, have been growing. The company is concerned about the decline in men's sales, and asks Brianna to figure out what is going on$.$ She reviews all sales reports for the past $8$ quarters and formulates a problem definition. It states that the company is experiencing a sales decline with men and wants to develop a strategy for reversing the decline and growing sales again.

She next begins informal conversations with male shoppers who still frequent the store. In addition, she e$-$mails shoppers who have not been to the store in $120$ days or more and asks them to write her about "why we haven't seen you in a while." The men she talks to in the stores say they are as loyal as ever. However, the men she receives e$-$mails from write that they believe the selection at Brianna's stores are too expensive. This surprises Brianna, because her stores strive very hard to price their offerings competitively. To make sure consumers know, the company promotes its low prices extensively in newspaper ads.

Based on this informal research, she writes formal research objectives. They are as follows: $1)$ What perceptions or issues have led to a decline in sales to men over the past year? and $2)$ What can be done to reverse the decline and improve sales to men? Brianna recruits current and former male shoppers for focus groups. She finds that current shoppers love the low prices at her stores. Former shoppers, when shown the newspaper retail ads, are surprised and agree that the stores have low prices. When Brianna asks them why they were unaware of the low prices, the former shoppers inevitably report that they never see the ads. Current shoppers report that they see the ads all the time.

Brianna does a formal survey to see if the focus group results are valid. She finds that male newspaper readership in the communities served by her stores is off by more than $40\%$ from two years ago. Conversely, female readership is steady. Because the stores only advertise in the newspapers, Brianna believes she has identified the source of the sales decline among men. She prepares a report for the retailer and suggests diversifying the company's advertising to include media that are more likely to reach men in the target market.

Match the company's data and research activity to the correct method for obtaining data.