Blog 6 - Method of Research

In this task I will be explain the importance’s to conduct research before I start planning a new advertising campaign. I will be explaining what it is meant by, Primary research, and Secondary, quantitative research and qualitative research.  Also I will explain why business needs to conduct research what stages of audience research are. In the process I will have to talk about market research and why advertising business conduct production research.  At the end I have to write my own question for Kwiki and I have to interview a least one person to gain qualitative audience research.

Primary Research

A primary research is a document or physical object, which was written or created during the time under study. Primary research is new data carried out to answer specific issues or question or is information which the user has found themselves for example Sainsbury could run a survey which could go on for days to find out how many people buy fruit, it primary research because they are doing it themselves. 

There are many types of primary research for example observation. This means watching people and how they behaviour. For example watching how they behaviour in a supermarket. The advantages of this is that it is accurate because first-hand how people. The disadvantage of this would be it would be time consuming watching people behaviour and it would cost a lot to the business.

The next method is surveys. A survey is a way of asking the public how they think of a particular product or service. This can be done face to face, letters, emails and phones. Surveys can give limited information especially it’s done over the post. However an advantage is that you can find lots of relevant information when done face to face.

The next method is experiments. This involves the business changing something about their products. For example Cadburys changes their normal plane chocolate and add in new flavours. This is because the business wanted to see if customers would watch their adverts. The business tasted it by shipping it to a certain store, to see if customers would buy it. The advantage of experiments would be that, it creates a wider audience, adds new taste to the products, and brings in customers. The disadvantage would be that customers could not like it, west of money and time for the business.

Second research

A secondary research interprets and analyses primary sources. Secondary research is information other people have created which in most cases will be from the internet or off another company or is information previously researched for other purpose and publicly available which is the same thing as is said before. Also secondary information includes published research reports in a library or surveys from the Internet.

The first method would EPOS (Electronic Point of Sales). The EPOS record sales made through scanning barcodes. Also it records stock coming in to the business. For example Boots records the number of sales made in a given period. One advantage of EPOS is that it allows the business to identify what is selling well so the business can order more of these products. The disadvantage of EPOS is that that all sales are recorded electronically, so there is risk of a data crash.

Quantitative

Quantitative data deals with numbers and data that can be measured like, temperature, height, area, speed, weight, volume, time, Length, humidity, ages, cost, members, sound levels, etc. The advantage of this is that you can have a relatively large sample – a large quantity of data. The disadvantage is that it is hard to design a questionnaire that finds out exactly what you want.

Qualitative

Qualitative research is that information is in provides depth and detail: looks deeper than analysing ranks and counts by recording attitudes, feelings and behaviours. Also looks at Colours, textures, smells, tastes, appearance, beauty, etc. 

A focus group is a group of customer brought in to the business, for developers to ask, discuss and observe their behaviour around their new or old adverts. For example Nike would bring in loyal customers to discuss their new products in the adverts, and observe their attitude to the advert, ask them how they feel about it. The advantage of the focus group is that first hand data is gathered.  Specific business customer’s opinion is obtained. The disadvantage of this is that it is time consuming, because they have to find customers that are willing to participate. Employees then of the business would have to spend time asking questions about the product, which the information has to be brought together and analysed.

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Advertising agency’s will conduct audience research because they want to know how the audience feel about the advert, so if they are not happy with it the research that the business does will help the audience because the advertising business will not make that same type of advert again. The most common method of audience research for advertising agencies is surveys, this is because Surveys can give limited information especially it’s done over the post. Also surveys can find lots of relevant information when done face to face. But advertising agency do this because they want to know what their target audience want to see, so they but the product.

There are 5 stages of audience, Target audience, plan, research, analyse, apply. So Target audience is a business market viewer. Plan is the aim and objective, which a business tries’ to achieve. This is an important part of the stage because it allows the business to understand what they have to do next, rather of them thinking or remembering a good idea and forgetting it. Also allows them to ask them self-questions like, who are they? Or what they uses the product for? Research is the information a business try’s to get by using different types of methods. Analyse is when a business observers the research that they get from their scours.

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• ·      Advertising company’s conduct research to get information about their audience reactions of their adverts, what their competitors are adverts views are and how the advertising market has changed so they can apply that change to the way the business runs.

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• ·      Advertising business do product research because the audience research goes well and the market analysis is favourable a media company might decide to launch a new product in that market.