Consider the following scenario.

From January 2020 as CoViD-19 began to spread around the world, it became apparent that it may affect many businesses. For this week's mini-task, consider the context of Endota Spas, the Health & Wellness Spa brand (https://endotaspa.com.au/). The brand leads in health and wellness spas and operates over 100 locations across Australia.

Due to the CoViD-19 crisis, health and wellness spas inevitably will be among the first businesses facing complete lockdown. Indeed, the spa brand was forced to shut down many of its locations, especially in Victoria due to Stage-4 restrictions. The management team decided to commission a small-scale project to better understand how they can combat such challenges and what measures/innovations they can implement to retain their customer base.

To solve this problem, they have hired you as the Marketing Research Analyst. The marketing manager at Endota Spas, Ms. Alana Adkins, has the following Management Decision Problem (MDP) -

"What services can we offer to retain our customer base?"

For this mini-task, you should do the following:

1. Clearly formulate the Marketing Research Problem (MRP) from the above MDP.

Briefly explain your rationale. Your MRP should at least specify 2 components. (2

Points)

2. For these 2 components, create a analytical model and formulate 3 research questions (RQs). There should be at least 1 comparative and 1 relational RQ. (4 Points)

Next, you decide to design a pilot exploratory study to understand more about the industry.

3. For this part, you should first research on the Health & Wellness Spa industry in Australia (Hint: You will find industry reports in IBISWorld. This is part of Monash's student research facilities available at https://guides.lib.monash.edu/subject- databases/buseco. Search for a Specialized Industry Report from 2020 on "Health & Wellness Spas in Australia" in IBISWorld). Share 3 insights on Endota spa's

1 of 2 Department of Marketing

performance within this industry. (Hint: Try to align your insights with your chosen

RQs. Remember to add the report as part of your references!). (6 points)

1. To get more up-to-date information, search for recent Google search trends (https://trends.google.com.au/) for Endota Spas for the past 6 months. Compare their performance with their closest competitor "Peninsula Hot Springs". Share the corresponding Google Trends graph. Briefly describe the pattern you observe in the
2. graph.
3. (Hint: For this part, go to https://trends.google.com.au/ and search for "Endota", and then compare to "Peninsula Hot Springs". You can also customize the date range and locations for your search terms). (4 points)
4. Summarize key takeaways from your exploratory study based on secondary data. What advice would you give to Ms. Adkins? (2 points)

Next, based on your insights, Ms. Adkins wants to design a "20% off" coupon on the Endota Spas website. This coupon will be applicable to all the Spa facilities (and not other product purchases). However, they wish to know the causal impact of such a coupon on customer sales before launching the promotion. As the lead Marketing Research Analyst, you are asked to design an experiment with 200 individuals to test whether the use of the coupon improves sales.

6. Consider the following check-list questions while designing the study (12 points)-

1. Who are the subjects in this study? Who will be your respondents? (1 point)
2. What is the dependent variable in this study? How are you going to measure it?
3. (1 point)
4. What is the treatment condition(s) - i.e. what is your independent variable? How are you planning to operationalise it? (2 points)
5. What experimental research design will be used? Describe the design and represent in mathematical symbols. (2 points)
6. What confounding/extraneous variables should be controlled? (2 points)
7. How will the subjects be assigned to conditions/groups? How many subjects will
8. be in each group? This question pertains to the operationalization of the
9. experiment on the Endota spa website. Be as specific as possible. (2 points)
10. Briefly comment on the internal and external validity of the design used. (2
11. points)