Scenario 5-4 Erica Cicarelli Is an Advertising Sales Representative for BOB, a BOB

Scenario 5-4
Erica Cicarelli is an advertising sales representative for BOB, a radio station that has a play list limited to recordings from the 1980s. Cicarelli believes the listener ratings of her station provided by a marketing research company are inaccurate. BOB is ranked ninth in the city. Cicarelli believes her station is more likely ranked at least fifth and possibly higher with young professional listeners. Listener rankings determine the rates Cicarelli can charge for advertising time. Cicarelli decided her station needed to conduct its own ratings study to determine the size of the audience and a profile of current listeners. First, Cicarelli reviewed all data from the current ratings providers to see if she could find any trends in listenership. Next, she completed a background investigation of her station, competitive stations, and the market to determine what the ratings problem may be.
Cicarelli then prepared a questionnaire for current and potential listeners. The questionnaire contained a long list of yes/no questions on whether the respondent listens to a specific station. The data were collected via telephone with 1,000 radio listeners using random-digit dialing. Cicarelli chose telephone interviewing because previous research has shown that nearly 100 percent of radio listeners have telephones, and it is faster than mail surveys.
-Refer to the scenario. Cicarelli's initial background study of her company, competitors, and market represents which step in the marketing research decision process?

A) defining the marketing problem
B) planning the research design
C) specifying the sampling procedures
D) collecting the data