Market Research

For my market research, which played the biggest role in my decision making process on what method and type of promotion strategy to introduce, as well as its design and the way I did it. I have firstly carried out both secondary and primary types of market research.

For my secondary research I was looking at different promotional methods and strategies used by various businesses as well as the ones used by Apple, which I initially chose to design my promotional strategy for. I have also conducted secondary research to find out whether those promotional methods, that I’m going to introduce, are likely to be effective. I’ve looked at the demand for different flights, tried to find out whether people watch TV and movies in the airplane, and what percentage of them read in-flight magazines, as well as the number of the potential audience that my promotional methods would be targeting. For my secondary research I have also looked at the adverts used by other companies including some of the Apple competitors’, and their layouts.

For my primary research, I have conducted 25 questionnaires to find out how often people fly, whether or not they use headphones on the airplane, read and buy from in-flight magazines, the type and length of flights, what brands they recognise most, the types of promotions they like and whether they would be prepared to rent the new Apple headphones. In addition to this, I have carried out closed Focus Group discussions with 6 people, where I have given them out various examples of adverts and asked them some detailed targeted questions about the various types of promotion, what they liked about them, and what they liked about the adverts that I’ve given them out in terms of its design, use of colour, objects and people, layout, context, use of language, aesthetics, message, fitness for purpose, communication, strengths and weaknesses associated with each particular type of promotion. I believe that this information has helped to analyse and identify current trends in promotion, and particularly what people currently like and want to see from an advert. I also believe, that this information has effectively helped me to decide whether or not to introduce a particular method or type of promotion for Apple and whether it would be appropriate for its new noise-cancelling headphones.

However, although my secondary and primary types of research were relatively good and useful for my decision making process in what type of promotional method to choose, there are still a number of limitations and inaccuracies, which could have affected my overall decision. Firstly, there were only 25 people involved in my questionnaire and it was non-random, (a sampling method I used was Quota) which means the audience wasn’t targeted specifically in accordance to their age, gender, interests and income bracket. The data that has been obtained, was to a certain degree bias, because it mainly involved asking students and didn’t involve asking the elderly age groups of the population. The questionnaire has been carried out in the Bromsgrove area in the UK only, which means that if e.g. this questionnaire was divided and carried out in all of the UK cities, taking, dividing into people into equal groups according to their gender and income bracket, as well as taking into the account those people who don’t fly or in any way use air transport. In addition to this, it would also make my data more accurate, if I have had divided those people who use air transport into several equal groups, according to the airlines that they use. However, the extent to which I was able to carry out such research was very limited, because I’m a boarder-pupil at school, which doesn’t give me enough time and doesn’t allow me to go to the other cities and towns in the UK to carry out a more accurate and sophisticated market research. So, in terms of time that would have to be sacrificed for such research, I do not believe, that it would be very cost-effective.

Also, there could have been additional research carried out about the promotional strategies used by other Apple’ competitors, as this would also help to consider whether an option of advertising on the airplane was the best one to choose, and whether there were any other better alternative promotional strategies or methods that could have been used. Furthermore, I could have ordered a special report on the current trends in the headphones and noise-cancelling headphones markets in 2008/2009, for which I would have to pay a relatively high price, because these sources of information are available for free access. However, although it would lead to the certain costs, it could be beneficial for me in the long-term, because this data would be more accurate, carried out by specialists in different countries, using complex sampling and research techniques.

When recording my data, I have used excel tables, specially designed to record my results, as well as mathematical formulas to workout the mean and average for certain results, in order to obtain the most realistic figures. The quantitative data has been used to make accurate decisions on the particular type of promotion, estimate all potential costs and benefits associated with a particular form of promotion, and compare to the other alternative methods.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-26