Measurement and Marketing The Boston Ale Theater

In this scenario regarding marketing questionnaires at the Boston Ale Theater, marketing director Betty Lucas has shown poor judgment in the authorship of her questionnaire, the choice of venue of the marketing questionnaire, and methodology of her information-gathering strategy. All of these factors in combination are sure to result in improperly measured and skewed statistical results.

While the intern in question may be quite competent, this is no guarantee that this individual has a sense of what type of questions will give clues as to the audience the Boston Ale Theater desires and is likely to attract. The intern might simply ask generic questions about age and gender, rather than include other, equally important questions that are more pertinent to the focus of what the public wishes to see.

More importantly, the gender and age break down for the single show being surveyed may not provide a representative measurement sampling for the theater...

A Friday as opposed to a Saturday night may attract a different, but still loyal audience. For example, Friday night might be a popular 'date night,' and thus might be more balanced between men and women 50/50, even if more women, in general, see shows at the Boston Ale during its Wednesday showings, and Saturday and Sunday showings. The show's location in the yearly calendar might even affect the demographic measurement of the questionnaire results. Shows that take place around exam finals in the college-student dominated area of Boston might draw a lower proportion of students, on a given night, even if younger people make up a substantial percentage of the audience on most weekends.
The show that is being profiled may not be typical of most of the shows that the theater puts on, and thus draw an uncharacteristic crowd or demographic balance. Even if the Boston Ale hosts mainly dramatic plays, simply to put on a musical will draw a very different audience than might be…