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166 CHAPTER 4 LINEAR PROGRAMMING APPLICATIONS

NOTES AND COMMENTS

1 The media selection model required subjective 2 The media selection model presented in this
evaluations of the exposure quality for the media section uses exposure quality as the objective
alternatives. Marketing managers may have function and places a constraint on the number of
substantial data concerning exposure quality, but customers reached. An alternative formulation of
the final coefficients used in the objective function this problem would be to use the number of
may also include considerations based primarily customers reached as the objective function and
on managerial judgement. Judgement is an add a constraint indicating the minimum total
acceptable way of obtaining input for a linear exposure quality required for the media plan.
programming model.

Marketing Research
An organization conducts marketing research to learn about consumer character-
istics, attitudes and preferences. Marketing research firms that specialize in provid-
ing such information often do the actual research for client organizations. Typical
services offered by a marketing research firm include designing the study, conduct-
ing market surveys, analyzing the data collected and providing summary reports and
recommendations for the client. In the research design phase, targets or quotas may
be established for the number and types of respondents to be surveyed. The market-
ing research firm’s objective is to conduct the survey so as to meet the client’s needs
at a minimum cost.
Market Survey International (MSI), specializes in evaluating consumer reac-
tion to new products, services and advertising campaigns. The company has
been approached by a government housing agency which is reviewing its stra-
tegic priorities. As part of this review, the agency is keen to obtain the views of
citizens and has commissioned MSI to undertake some structured market
research. MSI will conduct a total of 1000 personal interviews with a number
of households across the country. To try to ensure a representative cross-
section of respondents, interviews will take place during the day and also in
the evenings. The agency has also provided further details of the interviews it
requires:

1 Interview at least 400 households with children.
2 Interview at least 400 households without children.
3 The total number of households interviewed during the evening must
be at least as great as the number of households interviewed during the
day.
4 At least 40 per cent of the interviews for households with children must be
conducted during the evening.
5 At least 60 per cent of the interviews for households without children must be
conducted during the evening.
Because the interviews for households with children take additional interviewer time
and because evening interviewers are paid more than daytime interviewers, the cost
varies with the type of interview. Based on previous research studies, estimates of
the interview costs are as follows:

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