Sandy Sultan has just received a job for one of the top accounting firms in her town. The firm is expanding into business consulting and she has been hired as the firms marketing researcher. A cosmetic company client has hired the firm to help deal with its competitive situation. One of the partners comes in and tells Sandy that the project calls for developing a questionnaire that evaluates the importance of thirty different cosmetic brands, have respondents rate each of the thirty brands on five core values of the cosmetic company, and then have respondents assess each of the major competitors based on the availability of the thirty brands. In addition, the partner is certain that the best sampling approach is a mail survey to reach the Gen Z, Millennials, Gen Y, and Baby Boomers target population. After the meeting Sandy goes back to her office feeling depressed. Sandy believes that this questionnaire will induce respondent fatigue because it will be far too long. Furthermore, sending a mail survey to these four diverging age groups might lead to a very low response rate. Can she really go through with this project?

1. Should Sandy do exactly what the partner suggests or risk losing the business for the firm and perhaps her job by suggesting a different approach?

2. What might be an alternative approach?

3. How many questionnaire items would be needed if Sandy moved forward as suggested?

4. What different types of surveys could be created to target each different age group?