Methods of Research
It is very important to conduct research before planning an advertising campaign. This is because the planning team would need to understand what groups of people are being targeted such as, age and gender. They would also need to know what forms of adverts would positively effect the selected audience whether it is animation, documentary etc.
There are three different types of research:
Audience Research:
This type of research is where the advertising team research and identify what groups of audiences they are targeting. For example adverts would be targeted at specific groups of people at specific times like toys being advertised during a children's Tv show, this is because children would be their target audience. It is important to advertise at the right time where the target audience would be watching.
You would use this type of research when the advertising team wants to know exactly what group of people they are targeting such as children, teenagers, adults and they could be of any gender.
This type of research is useful as it lets the team know who the advert would relate to. For example an iPhone 6s advert would relate to teenagers and adults where as a little girl would like a doll from the film Frozen. The timing of adverts are also taken into account, for example a Dominos pizza advert would play at around 4:00 PM, this is because people are just getting home and they are thinking of what they want to eat.
Marketing Research:
This type of research is where the team looks at their competitors and compare their performance to the competitors performance. They also look at current trends to see what people want for example Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Promotions are used to sell products, for example a Star Wars themed Kelloggs limited edition cereal boxes would sell over another brand.
You would use this research when launch a new product or promotion. For example when planning a new product like a new flavour of Walkers crisps. Walkers would have to conduct research to identify what people want before going into production.
Production Research:
This is where you look at the way your competitors produce their products also looking at the components they would be using, this could be implemented to your product to improve it. you would also look at where your product is produced to keep costs low for you as well as the customer.
Primary Research:
Primary research is the data/information that you have conducted yourself and the research has never been done by anyone else before. An example of primary research would be a focus groups, a focus group is where you organise a group interview to get customers feedback on a product and what they would want from the product.
The disadvantages of primary research would be that it is time consuming. The adverting agency would only be able to research a small sample of people. This would not give the full picture of the opinion of all the target audience. As the primary research would not give the preference of all the people watching the agency would have to go onto doing secondary research to get a larger picture.
Secondary Research:
Secondary research is a research done by someone else for some other purpose and you have access to that research. An example of this would be a survey conducted by someone else about what flavour of crisps most people liked last year. Secondary research can be helpful as it saves time and money. The research is usually found on the internet.
Qualitative and Quantitive Research:
As example of quantitative research would be ‘ Do you like to visit Apple stores?’.
This type of research is where the team looks at their competitors and compare their performance to the competitors performance. They also look at current trends to see what people want for example Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Promotions are used to sell products, for example a Star Wars themed Kelloggs limited edition cereal boxes would sell over another brand.
You would use this research when launch a new product or promotion. For example when planning a new product like a new flavour of Walkers crisps. Walkers would have to conduct research to identify what people want before going into production.
Production Research:
This is where you look at the way your competitors produce their products also looking at the components they would be using, this could be implemented to your product to improve it. you would also look at where your product is produced to keep costs low for you as well as the customer.
Primary Research:
Primary research is the data/information that you have conducted yourself and the research has never been done by anyone else before. An example of primary research would be a focus groups, a focus group is where you organise a group interview to get customers feedback on a product and what they would want from the product.
The disadvantages of primary research would be that it is time consuming. The adverting agency would only be able to research a small sample of people. This would not give the full picture of the opinion of all the target audience. As the primary research would not give the preference of all the people watching the agency would have to go onto doing secondary research to get a larger picture.
Secondary Research:
Secondary research is a research done by someone else for some other purpose and you have access to that research. An example of this would be a survey conducted by someone else about what flavour of crisps most people liked last year. Secondary research can be helpful as it saves time and money. The research is usually found on the internet.
Qualitative and Quantitive Research:
Qualitative research usually involves ‘open questions’ for which the response need to be explained in a bit of detail, whereas quantitative research would involve ‘closed questions’.
An example of qualitative research would be ‘what additional service would you like to see in an Apple store?’.
As example of quantitative research would be ‘ Do you like to visit Apple stores?’.
