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Summary:
Rich is one of the largest bakery chains in the world. And it is the Pioneers in introducing the
frozen bakery food. It wants to create appeal to the wide tastes to its narrow market and for
this it measures the consumers attitudes towards its Barbeque product that will help to nudge
the consumers in that direction. The major figure in the companys marketing campaign for the
Richs southern Barbeques new product Ruby taylne Dodge, a fictitious waitress at Pork-O-
Rama, had to develop a tangy product as the taste of Barbeque varies from country to country.
They select Ruby as they believe that she will able to give the authenticity of the product quality
as she is a real life Barbeque waitress. They also think that she will able to reach all customers
with her southern accent and down-home sincerity which is very important.
This case deals with measurement and scaling issues. We must select a method to measure
attitudes toward the product category and the specific brand. In addition, we must decide on a
measurement method to measure preference among a number of brands in the product
category. We may attack issues such as validity and reliability of the measures.
About RICH:
Rich Products Corporation (also known as Rich's) is a privately held, multinational food
products corporation headquartered in Buffalo, New York. The company was founded in 1945
by Robert E. Rich, Sr., after his development of a non-dairy whipped topping based on soybean
oil.
[1]
Since then, the company has expanded its non-dairy frozen food offerings, and also
supplies products to retailers, in-store bakeries, and foodservice providers.



Richs offers a diverse body of products, including: toppings and icings; sweet goods; finished
desserts; appetizers; bread and rolls; pizza products; Italian specialties; barbecue; and shrimp
and seafood.

In addition to the Richs brand, the company sells products under a number of
other brands it has acquired, such as SeaPak; Farm Rich; French Meadow, Casa Di Bertacchi;
Byrons Barbecue; Carvel, f'real and Jon Donaire.


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Richs employs 9,200 associates worldwide, with manufacturing facilities in
Brazil, Canada, India, China, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, United
Kingdom and the United States. The company sells more than 2,000 products in 112
countries. Rich's currently ranks number 164 on Forbes list of America's Largest Private
Companies.

1. What measurement and scaling issues should be considered when developing a
study to measure consumers attitudes toward barbecue in general and, specifically,
Richs Southern Barbeque?

Ans.: We think, Rating should be considered when developing a study to measure consumers
attitude toward barbecue in general and specifically Richs southern Barbeque because a
measurement task that requires respondents to estimate the magnitude of a characteristic or
quality that a brand, store, orobject possesses. Before knowing more about Rating we should
know about attitude.

Attitude:
An attitude is as an enduring disposition to consistently respond in a given manner to various
aspects of the world composed of affective, cognitive, and behavioral components. One way to
understand an attitude is to break it down into its components. The affective component refers
to an individuals general feelings or emotions toward an object. Statements such as I really
like the Richs Southern Barbeque Product reflect an emotional character of attitudes.The
cognitive component represents an individuals knowledge about attributes and their
consequences. One person might feel happy about the purchase of Richs Southern Barbeque
knows that the waitress is the vivid persona in New York. A persons attitudinal feelings are
driven directly by his/her beliefs or cognitions. The behavioral component of an attitude
reflects a predisposition to action by reflecting an individuals intentions. She intends to eat
there every Thursday.

Measuring Consumers Attitude:
Most managers hold the intuitive belief that changing consumers or employees attitudes
toward their company or their companys products or services is a major goal. Because
modifying attitudes plays a pervasive role in developing strategies to address these goals, the
measurement of attitudes is an important task.

Rating:
Rating asks the respondent to estimate the magnitude or the extent to which some
characteristic exists. It represents quantitative score results. The rating task involves marking a
response indicating ones position using one or more attitudinal or cognitive scales.

Perhaps the most common practice in business research is using rating scales to measure
attitudes. This section discusses many rating scales designed to enable respondents to report

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the intensity of their attitudes toward barbecue in general and specifically Richs southern
Barbeque

Simple Attitude Scales:
In its most basic form, attitude scaling requires that an individual agree or disagree with a
statement or respond to a single question. For example, an individual might indicate whether
he or she agree or disagree Richs BBQ is of the extreme quality. This type of self-rating scale
merely classifies respondents into one of two categories, thus having only the properties of a
nominal scale. Despite the disadvantages, simple attitude scaling may be used when
questionnaires are extremely long, when respondents have little education. The purpose of an
attitude scale is to find an individuals position on the continuum. However, simple scales do
not allow for fine distinctions between attitudes.

Several other scales have been developed for making more precise measurements. They are-

Category Scales:
The simplest rating scale contains only two response categories: agree/disagree. Expanding the
Response categories provide the respondent with more flexibility in the rating task. Even more
Information is provided if the categories are ordered according to a particular descriptive or
evaluative dimension. Consider the following question:

What do you think about the quality of the Richs Southern Barbeque in the southeast?
o Very good o Fairly good o Neither good
nor bad
o Not very good o Not good at all

This category scale is a more sensitive measure than a scale that has only two response
categories. By having more choices for a respondent, the potential exists to provide more
information.Often do you disagree with your spouse about how much to spend on vacation?

Likert Scale
A method that is simple to administer and therefore extremely popular is business researchers
adaptationof the method of summated ratings, developed by RensisLikert.With the Likert scale,
respondentsindicate their attitudes by checking how strongly they agree or disagree with
carefully constructedstatements, ranging from very positive to very negative attitudes toward
some object. Individualsgenerally choose from approximately five response alternatives
strongly agree, agree, uncertain, disagree,and strongly disagreealthough the number of
alternatives may range from three to nine. Inthe following example, from a study of food-
shopping behavior, there are five alternatives:

In buying food from Richs southern Barbeque for my family price is no object.
o Strongly
Disagree
o Disagree o Uncertain o Agree o Strongly
Agree
1 2 3 4 5

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Researchers assign scores, or weights, to each possible response. In this example, numerical
scores of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are assigned to each level of agreement, respectively. The numerical
scores, shown in parentheses, may not be printed on the questionnaire or computer screen.
Strong agreement indicates the most favorable attitude on the statement, and a numerical
score of 5 is assigned to this response.

Numerical Scales:
A numerical scale simply provides numbers rather than a semantic space or verbal descriptions
to identify response options or categories (response positions). For example, a scale using five
a response position is called a five-point numerical scale. A six-point scale has six positions and
aseven-point scale seven positions, and so on. Consider the following numerical scale:

Now that youve had your food for about one year from Richs Southern Barbeque, please tell
us howsatisfied by getting this service.



Extremely Dissatisfied Extremely Satisfied

Constant-Sum Scale:
A constant-sum scale requires respondents to divide a fixed number of points among several
attributes corresponding to their relative importance or weight. Suppose, Richs Southern
Barbeque wishes to determine the importance of the attributes of Quality,Taste ,Price ,Service
to organizations that use its service in business-to-business settings. Respondents might be
asked to divide a constant sum of 100 points to indicate the relative importance of those
attributes:

Divide 100 points among the following characteristics of launching a frozen BBQ product in the
Southeast where barbeque is a delicacy.

Criteria Point
Quality 50
Taste 20
Price 20
Service 10
Total 100

The constant-sum scale works best with respondents who have high educational levels.

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Graphic Rating Scale:
A graphic rating scale presents respondents with a graphic continuum. The respondents are
allowed to choose any point on the continuum to indicate their attitude.

Please evaluate each attribute in terms of how important it is to you by placing an X at the
position on the horizontal line that most reflects your feelings.
Quality of food Not important X Very important
Price Not important X Very Important
Taste Not important X Very Important

It shows a traditional graphic scale, ranging from one extreme position to the opposite position.

Happy face Scale:
Research to investigate childrens attitudes has used happy-face scales .TheChildren are asked
to indicate which face shows how they feel about behavior, taste or some other concept.
Research with the happy-face scale indicates that children tend to choose the faces at the ends
of the scale. Although this may be because childrens attitudes fluctuate more widely than
adults or because they have stronger feelings both positively and negatively, the tendency to
select the extremes is a disadvantage of the scale.








Graphic Rating Scale with Picture Response Categories Stressing Visual Communication

Summary of Advantages and Disadvantages of Rating Scale:

Rating scale Subject must Advantages Disadvantages
Catagory Scale indicate a response
category
flexible, easy to respond
to
items may be
ambiguous with few
categories
Likert Scale evaluate statements
on a scale of
agreement
easiest scale to construct hard to judge what a
single score means
Constant Sum
Scale
divide a constant sum
among response
alternatives
approximates an interval
measure
difficult for
respondents with low
education levels
Graphic Scale choose a point on a
continuum
visual impact, unlimited
scale points
no standard answers

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Graphic Scale
with Picture
Response
Catagories
choose a visual
picture
visual impact, easy for
poor readers
hard to attach a
verbal explanation to
response


2 . Assume Richs wanted to test peoples preference for its barbecue versus the
other leading brands (of which there are five). What would you recommend to
measure these preferences?

Ans.: For measuring something we have to use scaling technique. Scaling is the process
of measuring or ordering entities with respect to quantitative attributes or traits. For example,
a scaling technique might involve estimating individuals' levels of extraversion, or the perceived
quality of products. Scaling has 2 types:

1. Comparative scaling
2. Non comparative scaling

As Rich wanted to measure its preference with other brands, so here we have to use a
comparative scaling method for measurement.

A comparative scale is an ordinal scale that can also be referred to as a non metric scale.
Respondents evaluate two or more objects at one time and objects are directly compared with
one another as part of the measuring process. There are various types of comparative scaling
technique which are given below:

i. Paired comparison scale
ii. Rasch model scale
iii. Rank ordering scale
iv. Bogardus social distance scale
v. Q-Sort scale
vi. Guttman scale
vii. Constant sum scale
viii. Magnitude estimation scale

For conducting this answer we will rank ordering scale as it seems the most suitable ones:

In a Rank ordering scale Respondents are presented with several objects simultaneously and
asked to order or rank them according to some criterion. The measure of 'order' can include
such as preference, importance, liking, effectiveness and so on. It is possible that the
respondent may dislike the brand ranked 1 in an absolute sense. Furthermore, rank order
scaling also results in ordinal data.



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Example
Please write a letter next to the four evening activities below to show your preference.
Use A for your most preferred activity, B for the next preferred, then C for the next and
then D for the least preferred.

Ranking
Staying in and watching television
Going bowling
Going out for a meal
Going to a bar with a friend

In this case, Rich can make a questionnaire to measure their test preference to its customer. In
that questionnaire customer should rank the various brands of toothpaste in order of their
preference in taste. For defining taste, they can consider some of the following factors:
Spicy
Tangy
Smoked
Grilled
Begin by picking out the one brand that customer like most and assign it a number 1. Then find
the second most preferred-brand and assign it a number 2. Continue this procedure until they
have ranked all the brands of food products in order of preference. The least preferred brand
should be assigned a rank of 5. No two brands should receive the same rank number. The
criteria of preference are entirely up to them. There is no right or wrong answer.
A model questionnaire is given below:
Brand Ranking
1 2 3 4 5
Rich Products Corp.
Kellogg Co.
Kraft Food Inc.
Nestle
ConAgra Foods Inc.

From the result of this sample questionnaire they can analyze their position and test preference
in customers mind.


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3. What measurement and scaling issues should be considered when developing a
study to measure the effectiveness of Ruby as a character spokesperson for Richs
Southern Barbeque?

Ans.: Ruby Taylene Dodge is the major marketing figure in RICHS marketing campaign for its
new product. She works as a waitress in Port-O-Rama. RICH make her as their major marketing
figure for following reasons:

1. She has a good southern accent; as RICH is promoting their barbecue in southern zone,
it would help them.
2. As per their research result, she is supposed to give the product authenticity without
trying to compete with barbecue restaurants or stands
3. It is said that people believe more on the credibility of seller rather than buyer. Ruby is
trustworthy because she is based on real life barbeque waitress who knows how to feed
the product much better than the barbeque eating public.

Besides this, Ruby has also a negative point. As she works on a different shop, she wants to save
her career there though she has a great affection for RICHS barbeque. Thats why she wears a
disguise and warns viewers, Just please dont tell them Ruby sent you.

So at this point for measuring the effectiveness of Ruby we should use non comparative or
rating technique.

In non-comparative scale each item is scaled independently of the others. Each object is scaled
independently of the others in the stimulus set. The resulting data are generally assumed to be
interval or ratio scaled. Non comparative and rating scales are quite similar in nature. There are
different types of non-comparative scale and they are:
1. Continuous rating scale
2. Category scale
3. Likert scale
4. Numerical scale
5. Semantic differential scale
6. Staple Scale
In this study we find likert scale is the most suitable one.
Likert scale is a scale where respondents are asked to indicate the amount of agreement or
disagreement (from strongly agree to strongly disagree) on a five- to nine-point scale. The same
format is used for multiple questions. This categorical scaling procedure can easily be extended
to a magnitude estimation procedure that uses the full scale of numbers rather than verbal
categories.
For measuring Rubys effectiveness, we can rely on the following factors:

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Renowned personality;
Regional accent;
Public interpretation;
Knowledge about the product;
Working dedication

Questionnaire
This is a sample questionnaire for measuring Rubys effectiveness. Mark that point in which you agree
with the statement.
1. Ruby is a renowned personality in southern zone.
o Strongly
Disagree
o Disagree o Uncertain o Agree o Strongly
Agree
1 2 3 4 5

2. She has a pretty good accent in southern language.
o Strongly
Disagree
o Disagree o Uncertain o Agree o Strongly
Agree
1 2 3 4 5

3. Ruby can easily interact with customer with her charming personality.
o Strongly
Disagree
o Disagree o Uncertain o Agree o Strongly
Agree
1 2 3 4 5

4. She has a vast knowledge about the product which can impress customer.
o Strongly
Disagree
o Disagree o Uncertain o Agree o Strongly
Agree
1 2 3 4 5

5. Her dedication towards her work is unquestionable.
o Strongly
Disagree
o Disagree o Uncertain o Agree o Strongly
Agree
1 2 3 4 5

From the result of the above questionnaire we can find the result of Rubys effectiveness as a major
marketing figure for Richs product. Respondent will feel easy to answer this question.