Inquiring Minds Want to Know Answers 1 & 2

Case Assignment 1

Kirk Williams

Liberty University

Case Assignment 1

Penton Media is a business magazine publishing company that has reason to believe that its advertisements are generating less revenue for the advertising companies. In order to conduct this research and see if these hypothetical beliefs are true, they surveyed readers and also gathered information based on how many readers inquired about the ads in the magazines. This research was used to determine how effective their print advertising has now become and will also help them determine which type of advertising they should focus on more in the future. In order to find this information, Penton Media needed to build a management-research question hierarchy. This question hierarchy was used to identify the problem that they were currently having and then figure out the means by which they would solve the issue. A potential question hierarchy has been proposed below.

Management-Research Question Hierarchy

Problem Identified: Fewer responses are being made through our print advertising in the magazines we publish.

Means of Research:

1. Gather information based on the usage of the index-sized response cards located with the advertisements in the magazines.

2. Compare this information based on the number of response cards collected from five years ago.

a. If there is no decrease, then there is no issue pertaining to the effectiveness of print ads in Penton Media magazines.

b. If there is a decrease, sort out the reasons why this might be so. Some potential reasons could be:

i. Fewer subscribers to the magazines.

ii. More options for customers to respond to the advertisement through the company’s website.

iii. More options for customers to respond to the advertisement through email.

1. Along with this option, people’s habits may be shifting away from ordinary mail and may be shifting more towards the internet.

iv....