Solving a hypothetical management problem of Samsung 3D TV through a quantitative research method of an online lexical semantic analysis.

1. MARKETING
RESEARCH DESIGN
Group 4:
Barbara Dewulf
Marion Lallemand
Antoine Marquand
Duke Assam
Axel Van Hulle
Andreas Withaeckx

2. Content
Introduction
...........................................................................................................
3
1.
Why
did
we
choose
Samsung
3D
TVs?
.................................................................................................
3
2.
Managerial
Problem
.....................................................................................................................................
5
I.
The
research
method
..........................................................................................
6
1.
Step
1:
Attribute
selection
.........................................................................................................................
6
2.
Step
2:
Data
collection
format
.................................................................................................................
6
3.
Step
3:
Scale-­‐check
.......................................................................................................................................
7
4.
Step
4:
Comparison
between
LG
and
Samsung
................................................................................
8
5.
About
the
data
collection
method
..........................................................................................................
9
II.
Our
results
.......................................................................................................
10
A
short
conclusion
...........................................................................................................................................
12
III.
Advantages
and
disadvantages
of
the
research
method
..................................
13
1.
Advantages
.....................................................................................................................................................
13
2.
Disadvantages
...............................................................................................................................................
13
3.
General
remarks
..........................................................................................................................................
14
IV.
Value
of
the
research
method
.........................................................................
15
Why
is
our
method
useful
to
tackle
our
management
problem?
................................................
15
V.
Method
upgraded
............................................................................................
17
1.
Step
1:
Attribute
Selection
......................................................................................................................
17
2.
Step
2:
Data
collection
format
...............................................................................................................
18
3.
Step
3:
Scale
re-­‐check
................................................................................................................................
18
4.
Step
4:
Comparison
between
LG
and
Samsung
..............................................................................
18
5.
Usefulness
of
the
method
........................................................................................................................
19
Conclusion
...........................................................................................................
20
References
...........................................................................................................
21
2

3. Introduction
First of all, we will discuss the choice of our topic, and why we decided to investigate
the sector of the 3D TVs. Then we will detail our managerial problem.
1. Why did we choose Samsung 3D TVs?
To begin with, the sector of 3D TVs is an innovative and growing market; the main
brands are investing a lot of money in order to capitalize on this opportunity. Market
tracker Display Search said that global TV sales shrank 8 percent in the first quarter
of 2012, while the market for 3D TVs grew by a whopping 245 percent. This
translates in more than 7 million 3D TVs sold around the world between January and
March 2012. However, looking at the data more carefully, we immediately noticed the
difficult situation of Samsung in this market. Indeed, as Tristan Van Overbroek
(Marketing Manager Consumer Electronics) explained during the Samsung Forum in
Prague the 2nd of December 2011, Samsung will stop the marketing spending on 3D
TV in Europe. He also said that the consumer was not interested in 3D TV. He
specified that they would continue to offer the functionality on high-end devices, but
as a ‘commodity’. This statement reflects the troubles faced by Samsung on the 3D
TV market, and that is why we decided to investigate the reasons of this disillusion.
Secondly, we were interested in the direct worldwide confrontation on the advertising
field between Samsung and LG. Indeed, both brands decided to use the results of
survey as an advertisement tool, comparing the opinion of consumers.
This war between the main brands focuses most of the time on one aspect of the 3D
TV. This element is the glasses. From the beginning, Samsung bets on the
expensive active 3D glasses, whereas LG is using the passive 3D glasses. As an
illustration, you can see on the next page one of the comparative advertising
campaign realized in the US by LG “There is no other 3D like our 3D. Just ask Sony
and Samsung”. Considering this fierce competition between Samsung and LG, we
decided to take a closer look at the brand LG on the 3D TV market.
3

4. Thirdly, we investigated the evolution of the sales on this market, focusing on
Samsung and LG. We noticed quickly that the evolution of the sales was in favour of
LG. As we can see below, Samsung and LG held a combined 41% share of the
global 3D market, but the market share of Samsung is decreasing, while LG doubles
its market share1.
Market
Share
on
the
3D
TV
market
LG
Electronics
Samsung
Electronics
34%
25%
16%
8%
2011
2012
In this confrontation between the brands Samsung and LG, the real questions are:
What do the consumers prefer, and what are the reasons for the ‘failure’ of the 3D
TV for Samsung? We tried to translate these interrogations into a concrete
managerial problem for Samsung.
1
Market tracker Display Search – April 2012
4

5. 2. Managerial Problem
Considering our findings, we decided to orientate our managerial problem on the
perception of the product by the consumers. We wanted to know which features of
the 3D TV the customers valorised. In the mean time, we needed to compare two
brands in order to have a perspective in our evaluation. Viewing the fierce
competition between LG and Samsung, we decided to investigate both Samsung and
LG for our research.
Taking into consideration all this information, we came up with the following
managerial problem: Which perception do people have on the different
attributes of the Samsung 3D TV products?
In order to answer to this general managerial problem, we divided our question into
two sub questions:
1. What are the relevant attributes for the customer considering buying a 3D TV?
2. Why do they value LG 3D TV better than the Samsung ones?
With this general managerial problem, we are conscious to operate a general
approach of the situation, but it is necessary to have this global overview in order to
perceive the main difficulties faced by the two brands in that market.
5

6. I.
The
research
method
In this part, we will describe our research method in four different steps and then we
will justify our data collection method.
1. Step 1: Attribute selection
First of all, we decided to list the relevant attributes perceived by the consumers
of 3D TVs. It consists in a first global analysis of the comments of consumers on
forums, consumer reviewing websites and shopping websites. We needed to answer
to this question: what are the main categories of attributes discussed on these
websites? The goal is to have a range of relevant attributes sufficiently commented
on by the consumers. Moreover, these attributes have to be relevant for the two
brands discussed.
After this initial Internet research, our group realized a pooling. We decided to keep
the attributes that we had in common. We also limited the number of attributes,
because too many attributes can be confusing for the data collection. Moreover, we
had to select attributes that were not overlapping.
As you can see below, we selected fourteen attributes for the next step of our
research method.
Attribute 1 Attribute 2 Attribute 3 Attribute 4 Attribute 5 Attribute 6 Attribute 7
Name of
Video Image 3D TV Sound Design and
the Price Connectivity
quality quality Glasses quality Appearance
attribute
Attribute 8 Attribute 9 Attribute 10 Attribute 11 Attribute 12 Attribute 13 Attribute 14
Name of
Technical Remote Energy Viewing Menu,
the Calibration 3D Quality
support control consumption angles Features
attribute
2. Step 2: Data collection format
After the selection of the attributes, we can start to the collection data. We gathered
comments from forums, consumer reviewing websites and shopping websites.
For the data to be collected correctly, we implemented different methods in order to
avoid collecting the same comments twice and to lower the subjectivity.
6

7. First of all, we decided to make a list of all the 3D TVs of Samsung and LG. Then, we
assigned a specific model of 3D TV for Samsung and another specific model of 3D
TV to each member of the group. As you can see below, this repartition erases all
risk of duplicate in the comments collected.
Products Samsung & LG
Samsung Names LG Names
E8000GSXZF Antoine LG LW5590 Antoine
ES7000SXZF Marion LG LW579S Marion
UN46D8000 Andreas LG LW659S Andreas
UN55D7000 Barbara LG LK950 Barbara
D8000YSXZF Duke LG LW5400 Duke
D7000LSXZF Axel LG LW980S Axel
After this repartition within the group, the collection of the data could start. We
amassed comments on different websites into a database; every comment collected
is linked to an attribute in our file. Then, we associated each comment describing an
attribute to a point on that scale:
Very positive – Positive – Neutral – Negative - Very Negative
The advantage of a five-point rating scale is that it allows a deeper analysis. The
other benefit is that we can reduce it, from a 5-point rating scale to a 3-point rating
scale (merging of very positive with positive and very negative with negative).
3. Step 3: Scale-­‐‑check
In order to reduce the subjectivity in our marketing research, we designed this third
step. It consists of a double rating of the comments collected. The goal is to test
the reliability of our method. In this phase, another member of the group does the
second rating. As you can see below, we distributed the rows carefully to each team
member, because this double rating has to be done by another person.
7

8. This stage allows us to calculate the percentage of match between the position
on the scale attributed the first time and the position on the scale attributed the
second time, for the same comment. As you can see below, we organized our
database in order to have all the information in the same file. The columns gather the
different attributes, and the group of four rows ‘Scale, Scale-check, Quotation,
Source’ is used for each comment. We can specify that one comment can describe
different attributes, that is why you can see below different attributes discussed for
one comment. Besides, each comment is directly readable in our database, just like
the source of the comment.
As you will find in the file ‘Percentage Match LG’, we used formulas with Excel in
order to calculate the percentage of match between the first scale and the scale-
check. As a result, we can say that our first analysis on the scale is confirmed by the
scale-check for 77% (LG) and 82% (Samsung) of the comments. These results prove
that the objectivity of our method is rather high, because in most of the cases the
position in the first scale is confirmed by the scale-check.
4. Step 4: Comparison between LG and Samsung
The last stage of our marketing research consists of the comparison between LG
and Samsung according to the comments collected. This comparison can be
organized in two scopes.
First, we can base a comparison on the number of reactions about each attribute.
Thus, we can understand how the consumer value each attributes of the TVs. The
consumers perceive the most commented features as being highly relevant; these
attributes are crucial for the shoppers. The manufacturers have to pay attention to
these aspects.
Then, we can examine the attitude of the consumers toward the attributes, and the
position on the scale of each attributes. This stage allows us to acquire an
8

9. understanding of the judgement of the consumers for each attribute. The position on
the scale for each characteristic can be compared between both brands. This first
global approach is interesting in order to determine which attributes are essential in
the mind of the consumers. These two dimensions will be developed in the next part
of the paper.
As you will find in the file ‘LG - Position on the scale per attributes’, we used formulas
with Excel in order to calculate the distribution on the scale for each attribute.
5. About the data collection method
To summarize, we can say that the data was collected from consumer reviewing
websites, forums and shopping websites regarding a set of attributes of various 3D
TV products of LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics. Then, a five level-score
was given to each attribute, based on the comments collected. A new team member
performed the re-check in order to avoid bias. This marketing research allows us to
find out what attributes are relevant when buying a 3D TV and how well both
manufacturers score on these domains. Last but not least, the descriptive analysis
performed is essential in order to identify problem areas as well as success areas.
9

10. II.
Our
results
In this part of the paper, we’ll take a closer look at the results we found using our
method.
Firstly, we counted the number of comments on each attribute; the ones with the
most comments are the most relevant to 3D TV users.
49
Samsung
-­‐
Number
of
comments
per
attribute
47
LG
-­‐
Number
of
comments
per
attribute
27
26
21
20
19
19
17
14
11
11
11
11
12
12
10
7
8
Image quality is the first one that stands out. We see that both LG and Samsung
record a positive score. On Image quality, LG received a total of 77 per cent positive
comments, compared to the 92 per cent for Samsung.
Samsung
-­‐
Image
quality
LG
-­‐
Image
quality
Negative
Negative
8%
Very
Very
15%
positive
positive
Neutral
28%
8%
31%
Positive
Positive
61%
49%
A second attribute important to the consumers is the price. The graphs show a very
negative position for Samsung, 36 per cent of the Samsung TV owners would not
spend their money again on a Samsung 3D TV. This could already be a first answer
as to why LG TVs are doing better.
Samsung
-­‐
Price
LG
-­‐
Price
Negative
Very
5%
positive
Neutral
Negative
15%
25%
36%
Positive
55%
Positive
Neutral
55%
9%
10

11. The quality of the Samsung TV is remarkable, the comments on Sound Quality point
this out. Again, regarding both pie charts, we see that LG had a low score of 26%
positive comments and Samsung a total of 83% positive and very positive
comments. (Graphs are in attachment)
Due to a lack of comments on 3D glasses and technical support, we could not make
a statistically correct chart, but these two attributes are definitely important for our
managerial problem.
Firstly, customers were not satisfied with the Samsung helpdesk at all. They
complained about the TV showing problems from the moment the warranty expired.
Secondly, the 3D glasses that come with both TV’s are very different. Unfortunately,
due to the lack of comments we could not make a statistically relevant chart, but we
learned that the technology used for the glasses is very different from one another.
This could also be a good explanation as to why some TV buyers prefer LG.
The last attribute we found interesting is the 3D quality, which is probably the most
important feature on this TV. The graph of LG’s 3D evaluation shows us that they
only got 5% negative comments, compared to a 50% negative rate of Samsung. Can
Samsung improve on this?
Samsung
-­‐
3D
Quality
LG
-­‐
3D
Quality
Negative
Very
5%
positive
Positive
25%
Negative
28%
50%
Very
Positive
25%
positive
67%
Customers are really positive about the ratio price/quality of LG. It is a main incentive
to buy a LG 3D TV. Indeed, their prices are lower than Samsung. Its is explained by
their different strategic choice. Samsung decided to be positioned on the market of
active 3D TV, with expensive glasses and a more sophisticated technology. LG is on
the market of the passive 3D, with basic glasses.
11

12. A short conclusion
Why do customers value LG 3D TVs better than the Samsung ones?
⇒ Costumers think Samsung 3D TV’s are quite expensive while LG is
considered much cheaper
⇒ Majority of customers think 3D quality for Samsung is poor and LG seems to
have a good 3D quality
⇒ Passive 3D glasses preferred over active 3D glasses?
⇒ But, sound and image quality is more commented on and considered better
with Samsung than with LG
12

13. III.
Advantages
and
disadvantages
of
the
research
method
Like every research method, our method has its strong and weak points.
1. Advantages
Firstly, we did our research on relevant sites and with relevant people. These are
people that will actually buy the product because of reasons that really matter for
costumers. When a professional reviewer is all fond of a certain aspect of a product
and therefore gives the product a good review, it could be the case that this certain
aspect is actually not at all important for the everyday-user of the product.
We therefore managed to see what really matters for costumers when buying a
product.
Also, the comments are rather easy to track for most products and the sites from
which we got the comments, make a database that is available for everyone.
Moreover, our method is extremely cheap and requires no money whatsoever if you
keep it basic like we did.
Furthermore, because of our double-check of the comment rating, bias is low.
Besides, the method is easy to reproduce. We just had to make one Excel-file
containing all the right information (columns = all the different attributes we thought
were important for a costumer, rows = scale, scale-check, the comment itself and the
source) and we could go and look for all the different comments.
2. Disadvantages
First of all, it could be the case that there are not enough comments available for the
product. Shopping websites such as Amazon.com should give us enough costumer-
reviews, but less-known products and certain types of products (for example food)
could be less reviewed and therefore comments will be harder to find.
Besides, we selected the comments ourselves, if a comment seemed to be too
complicated or unclear, we just skipped that comment and went on to the next one.
Moreover, the websites we selected to get the comments from could attract the same
type of costumers so it could be the case that we were not able to get a general
perception of the product because we focussed on one specific group of costumers.
13

14. Furthermore, since we used a five-point rating scale (very negative-negative-neutral-
positive-very positive), we made a rather rough analysis of the comments.
Additionally, people on the Internet have the bad habit to shout. A rather anonymous
place like the Internet tends to attract people with strong opinions, whether they are
positive or negative.
Finally, our method is rather time intensive. Although it is quite easy to set it up a
second time, it takes a lot of time to gather all the comments and give them a grade
of perception.
3. General remarks
⇒ This method is only applicable for a very specific type of product. Unfortunately
for Kellog’s, cornflakes will not be discussed on forums, but luxury items (cars,
high tech devices) will be. This does not necessarily mean that the method is
flawed; it is rather a result of the characteristics of the products we wish to
investigate.
⇒ To make our research more powerful, we must find a way to process comments
more quickly. The aid of a specially designed computer program using word
recognition might help us achieve this.
⇒ To make the method more representative, we should use all the comments
(except for the ‘shout comments’) on a particular forum because our method may
have caused the results to be not as representative as we would have liked.
Simply choosing 20 comments out of 200 on a forum is not the right way. The
users might talk about the same topic for 50 comments, and then switch the
subject. If you choose 20 comments about this subject, you reach a false
conclusion because the comments you picked were not representative for the
total of 200.
14

15. IV.
Value
of
the
research
method
Why is our method useful to tackle our management problem?
First of all, we need to remind ourselves of the management problem: ‘Which
perception do people have on the different attributes of the Samsung 3D TV
products?’
In order to answer this question precisely and objectively we decided to open our
research to different types of forums, consumer reviewing websites, or shopping
websites, in order to have a representative sample of the Internet population.
Besides, the specialized websites would not have been a good indicator for our
research, because they regroup only a fraction of the population giving their opinions
about very technical aspects of the TVs, which are not the main issues for most of
the consumers. As you can see below2, consumers are looking for information on
different type of websites.
Our method is useful to tackle the managerial problem because of various reasons.
Undeniably, nowadays, with the growing complexity of high tech products we can
notice that more and more virtual “meeting places” about high-tech goods and
consequently about 3D TVs are created on Internet and that more and more users
consult them. Consumers give their opinion about their last purchase, they complain
or value their product, and they explain their point of view. All this data is available for
free and easy to access.
2
Lightspeed Research – April 13th 2011
15

16. Furthermore, the 3D TV market is a new market with new products. It means that
consumers need a lot of information and advices about this new type of items they
have never bought before. As it is an investment for most of the consumers, the need
for good advice is high in order not to be disappointed after the purchase.
Besides, it is recognized that the first place where consumers look for information
about whether to purchase a product or not is mostly on Internet’s forums or
shopping sites (Amazon), as you can see on the chart below3.
Last but not least, we can obviously demonstrate the relevance of the data we
collected thanks to a main reason. Indeed, by collecting our data on forums websites
or shopping websites we try to figure out what are the consumer’s opinions. In fact,
this is what is essential in our research method because we do not rely on
professional’s opinions, which can be biased by the brand’s strategy. By searching
the real consumer’s opinion we can easily notice what are the advantages and the
disadvantages of the brands in the mind of consumers.
This is an important step because it is directly linked to the purchasing behavior of
the customers.
3
Lightspeed Research – April 13th 2011
16

17. V.
Method
upgraded
One of the main shortcomings of our method was the lack of input for various
variables. One way to solve this issue could have been to score every missing
observation as ‘neutral’. This would be based on the assumption that if a reviewer did
not say anything about a particular attribute of interest, then he/she had nothing
positive or negative to say about it. On the other hand, this could be seen as a
biased approach to tackle the problem since the same sampled reviewers might
have something positive or negative to say if asked what were their opinions with
respect to the attributes they did not mention.
At this we point, we will try to design a new methodology that can enforce the strong
points of our method and can handle its flaws.
1. Step 1: Attribute Selection
The first step will be to list the relevant attributes of the 3D TV as perceived by the
customers:
Attribute 1 Attribute 2 Attribute 3 Attribute 4 Attribute 5 Attribute 6 Attribute 7
Name of
Video Image 3D TV Sound Design and
the Price Connectivity
quality quality Glasses quality Appearance
attribute
Attribute 8 Attribute 9 Attribute 10 Attribute 11 Attribute 12 Attribute 13 Attribute 14
Name of
Technical Remote Energy Viewing Menu,
the Calibration 3D Quality
support control consumption angles Features
attribute
Another interesting thing to do in this case is to include another set of variables
relating age group, educational level, and family size. This allows us to capture extra
useful information. For instance: if someone from a large household says something
positive or negative about a product, everyone else in the household will be inclined
to feel the same way about the product. Educational level can give us an idea of
whether people talk of bad quality because they cannot manipulate their remote
control or adjust screen settings. Age group can also give us an idea about who are
actually complaining, which age group complains about what feature and why. We
believe that with such information, Samsung can not only reposition itself in the 3D
17

18. TV market, but also through certain amends in its product quality, regain high market
share.
2. Step 2: Data collection format
Data should be collected from a sample of about 5 - 8 review websites per product
type with extraction of about 30 – 40 observations per review site. The review
websites should be selected based on different regions, types of forums ranging from
expert to basic consumers so as to capture information from a broader perspective.
As seen on some review sites, it would be interesting for Samsung to make the
review sites themselves so that based on the TV attributes selected reviewers can
make comments based on pro’s and con’s for each attribute. In this way, reviewers
can at least say something about the different attributes of the product and we can
end up with a complete table of input.
3. Step 3: Scale re-­‐‑check
In other to avoid discrepancies or bias in awarding a scale for each comment, a 3-
likeart scale will be preferred over a 5-likeart scale as used in the original analysis.
This will help in reducing scoring bias. After data has been collected, a double check
is conducted and scored such that the new score is compared to the old score and
the level of variance between the two can be checked.
On the other hand, after conducting the data collection as indicated in our original
method, we automatically get an overview of which attributes are most important for
each product. It is also possible to clearly see amongst the most important variables,
which makes the product most liked and most disliked.
4. Step 4: Comparison between LG and Samsung
⇒ First comparison: number of positive/negative about each attribute of 3D TV of
LG and Samsung.
⇒ Second comparison: attitude toward the attributes, position on the scale for each
attributes
⇒ Comparison of difference in means for 3D TV attributes in age group, family size
and educational level.
18

19. Using these results, Samsung can be able to conduct a SWOT analysis based on the
information it will have not only about itself but also about its main competitor. This is
relevant because the method is very cheap and efficient. After identifying the key
drivers of 3D TV, the company can be able to regain a share of the market. I believe
that if the marketing manager has this kind of information, he would not want to quit
the market.
5. Usefulness of the method
The advantage here is that it possible to get free feedback from professionals and
customers in a very quick manner and follow-up can be performed to see if new
trends of customers perception towards not only the Samsung 3D TV, but also the
evolving trend of competitors.
Although with this method, there’s no guarantee that the opinion of the reviewer is a
true reflection of the actual user experience. Above all, the method is totally free and
time is not wasted. Findings have shown that customers value negative reviews
more than positive ones for ‘experience’ products meanwhile positive reviews have
been found to have more impact for ‘search’ products.
19

20. Conclusion
In conclusion, it is fair to say that our method has allowed us to identify Samsung’s
most important shortcomings in comparison with LG, and consequently solve the
managerial problem. Although our results may not be entirely statistically correct, we
have indicated how the method could be improved on in the case of a potential new
research. Our paper shows that even with a limited amount of resources, anyone
with sufficient time can obtain this kind of important information from the Web, thanks
to the power of the Internet. Lastly: if companies such as Samsung were to create
and control forums themselves and thus gather information in an organized manner,
they would be able to draw more accurate, more correct, more powerful conclusions.
20

21. References
• Market tracker Display Search – April 2012
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/05/21/2012052100945.html
• File ‘Percentage Match LG’ - enclosed
• File ‘LG - Position on the scale per attributes’ - enclosed
• Lightspeed Research – April 13th 2011
http://www.lightspeedresearch.com/press-releases/consumers-rely-on-online-
reviews-and-price-comparisons-to-make-purchase-decisions/
21