All Nutrition (A): Focus Group Research for Market Segmentation

Cesar and Marco Esposito and Francisco Caceres, co-founders of the 14-year-old Chilean-based nutritional supplement company All Nutrition/Nutraline, were seeking to improve their strategic planning for new marketing initiatives. To inform that process, they needed to deepen their understanding of consumer attitudes and behaviors and form market segments. Case A describes the design, implementation, and analysis of the information gathered from the first stage of this research in the form of focus groups—and asks students to determine what kind of quantitative research would further deepen their understanding of who their customers were, how to segment them, and how to work with each of the segments. Case B describes the design and implementation of a market research survey, and includes a sample of the survey that was disseminated, as well as an accompanying excel spreadsheet with survey responses. At the conclusion of the B case students are asked to analyze the results of the survey and consider what survey questions should be used to form segments; how the data gathered from the quantitative research relates to the findings of the focus groups; and which segments the company should target as management formulates a plan for the company’s future marketing initiatives. This case includes a dataset for students to analyze.