Problem Definition/Identification of the Marketing Research Problem

A research should be business-like in stating the problem. A marketing problem arises generally when an organization fails to meet one or some of its marketing objectives.

Problem definition is the first and one of the most important stages in the research process, because it defines exactly what the project is about and as such influences how the subsequent stages are conducted, and ultimately the success of the project itself.

The organization sponsoring the research, whether it intends to use in-house researchers or an agency, needs to define precisely what the problem is and how that translates into research objectives. This may also lead to the identification of other concerns or problems that need to be included in the project. For example, if the fundamental problem has been defined as ‘people are not buying our product; the organization may feel that it should not only explore people’s attitudes to the product itself, but also look at how they rate the product on other aspects of the marketing mix in comparison with the competition.

We shall consider a firm suddenly experiencing falling demand (sales) for its popular brand of product. We assume that the sales objective for the brand is one million naira/units per annum. At present sales level, the manager believes he cannot meet the target for the year. Care should be taken not to confuse problems with symptoms. The problem here is not falling sales. This is simply an indication of the problem. It will be wrong therefore to define the problem as what can be done to halt falling sales objective – achieving a given sales volume or put differently reversing falling sales to rising sales. To locate the problem in this instance, we must seek to discover why sales are falling. What eventually comes to be the cause of falling sales will be problem of the research.

The possible causes of falling sales can be traced to changes in the marketing environment, actions of competitors and weakness in the firms marketing strategy (Craven and Lamb, 1986). Pinpointing the problem for a given research situation will require extensive appraisal of all these three areas. This however can be expensive and time consuming. The manager here will be expected to do an exploratory research to help him eliminate some possible causes and identify the most likely ones. An exploratory research into this falling sales situation, may reveal that environmental changes and actions of competitors are not the likely causes.

Approaches Employed in Addressing a Research Problem

A researcher should be business-like in stating the problem. The problem can be stated as a relationship between two or more variables. The problem can be stated in question form or as a declarative statement.


It is however a safe, simple and economical way to state the problem of the study in interrogative form. It should be stated in such a way as to imply the possibility of empirical testing. By empirical testing here, we mean the use of observation, facts and processed data to test the validity or otherwise of the statement. In summary, they three approaches suggested above for making problem statement in marketing research are:

Relational Approach

This approach opines that the problem be stated as a relationship between two or more variables (product/service). A variable is defined as a concept of reality, which takes different values over time and space.

For example, in conceptualizing, the problem of a firm’s profitability designated Y, we use price of product, P, as one of the concept of profitability. P (Price) can take different values over time. A concept taking different values overtime is one way of saying that it varies over time, or changes over a period of time.

Price (P) is capable of changing over time. The firms factory building (B) also contributes to the firms profitability but because of its nature it is assumed to be a constant in the calculation of the firms profitability or it is “held constant” in the profitability equation.

We may therefore, through the process of conceptualizing profitability, identify the following concepts or variables of profitability. Y = profit, P = price, S = Sales, C= Cost (of production) and B = Building (a constant).

 Interrogative Approach

The researcher may also render market research problem in a question form. Research questions are like statement of the problem and hypothesis except for the relationship between variables. Research questions are not supposed to be too wide. They should be narrow enough to be answered and proved right or wrong statistically. Research problem in marketing are presented in questions form to direct the researchers efforts towards the provision of answers to such questions in a soft and exploratory studies.

Empirical Testing Approach (Hypothesis)

A scientific problem statement is a testable statement. It implies the possibility of empirical testing. This approach is a tentative knowledge claim or a conjectural proposition which is subject to empirical confirmation or rejection. Hypothesis should be generated from the statement of the research problem. Research hypothesis must be specific and clear. For example:

“E- marketing technique is better off compared to personal selling: This research problem could be tested through responses gathered from the field presented empirically thus;
Alternative hypothesis (Hi); e- marketing technique is better compared to personal selling.
hypothesis (Ho); e- marketing technique is not better off compared to personal selling.

 Theoretical Approach

A theory is defined as a statement of invariant relationship among the variables of a problem, which has the property of explaining and predicting the behaviour or nature of the research problem. We may also define a theory as an analytical framework based on fundamental statements or axioms that are assumed to be true.