Part 3 of Assessment
This part asks you to propose and design a research instrument that would help you identify in greater detail the behaviour of the consumers that buy your particular product category.
For this section you might think back to assessment two and to the evaluation of a number of theories. Was there anything in the behaviour of YOUR customer group that was not very well explained by one of your chosen theories that might be worth further investigation?
For example,you might have looked at theories of perception and at explanations why we might filter the constant stream of sensory inputs. Although useful in general, the theories probably do not tell us what information customers of particular product/ service categories might pay more or less attention to, and what sort of information might not be processed further. I could therefore propose and design a piece of research that would aim to find out what information the customers do and do not pay attention to and what information might be considered superfluous or uncomfortable and hence would probably be ignored. I could find this out using an experiment, exposing customers/ users to information and measuring their recall. By breaking customers down into segments, such experiments might shed light on the behaviour of different customer groups.
Your proposal should tell us:
a) What exactly you want to find out about the behaviour of your consumers (your research aim)
b) What sort of questions will you need to ask to gain the further insight that you seek
c) Who would be the best sources of information and who would therefore have to be included in your research? Why would these respondents be best? What information might they have for you?
d) How could such individuals be selected and approached?
e) What would be the best way to find out the information form consumers? Observation? Questionnaires? Interviews? By trying to ‘walk through’ the customers’ experience or journey? Focus groups? Please justify your recommendation.
f) What difficulties might you encounter in trying to obtain the information you are seeking and what are your contingency plans?
g) What timescale might be realistic? Please provide a rough outline.
A suggested structure for this work: you might try to answer the above points, together with a clear introduction outlining the purpose of this work and a summary or conclusion.
you may wish to refer back to your own assignments as well as texts on research methods and marketing research. You may like to start with Judith Bell’s book, Doing Your Research Project.
