Consumer Research

Learning Outcomes
• Highlight the steps in the consumer research process.
• Emphasize on setting specific research objectives as the
first step in the design of a consumer research project.
• Appreciate the purposes and types of secondary consumer
research that is available for making decisions or planning
future consumer research.
• Instill specific features and applications of different
research methods to be carried out in consumer research
studies.
• Follow how each element of the consumer research
process adds to the overall outcome of the research study.
 Steps in Consumer Research Process
• Developing Research Objectives
• Collecting & Evaluating Secondary Data
• Designing Primary Research & Collecting Primary Data
• Analyzing the Data
• Reporting Research Findings
 Developing Research Objectives
• Is it to segment the market for HD Television Sets?
• To find out consumer experiences about cellular phone?
• To determine what percentage of men use cologne?

For new idea’s for products extensions or concept for

promotional campaigns (positioning or re-positing of a
product) then Qualitative study is undertaken involving focus
groups & one to one depth interviews (consumer participants
to highly trained interviewer analyst who does analysis &
presents research report.
 If the purpose of the study is to find out how many target
consumers there in the population (what percentage
consumer) Who use a particular products how frequently
they use it (Usage Pattern) comes under Quantitative study
which provides information to derive strategic insights about
how to better market a particular product to the appropriate
consumer segment.
Examples:
• A jug of milk holds one gallon.
• A painting is 14 inches wide and 12 inches long.
• A baby weighs six pounds and five ounces.
• A bag of broccoli crowns weighs four pounds.
• A coffee mug holds 10 ounces.
• John is six feet tall.
 Purposes & Types of Secondary Consumer
Research for Decision Making or Planning Future
Consumer Research
• Secondary Data
(Existing information available for research purposes
& serves as a good starting point)

• Internal Secondary Data

(Conducted within the company)

• External Secondary Data

(Conducted for free or at a cost)
 Internal Secondary Data
• Previously collected in-house information gathered for sales
audit, customer service calls, Letter or inquiry, via warranty
cards from customers

• Internal Secondary Data is used to compute customer lifetime

value profiles involves resource needed to establish a
relationship with the customer, profits generated from
individual sales to each customer, the cost of handling
customers & their orders with expected duration of the
relationship
 External Secondary Data
• Newspapers
• Books
• Online Search Engines (ProQuest & Lexis Nexis to
assess New York Times & Wall Street Journal)
• Consumer Panels (Consumer paid for recording their
purchases &/ or media viewing habits in dairies that
are then combined with thousands of households
and analyzed by data providers along with
competitor’s brand
 Designing Primary Research
Specific features & Applications of Different
Research Methods in Consumer research
Qualitative Research
• Depth Interviews
• Focus Groups
• Projective Techniques

Quantitative Research
• Observational Research
• Experimentation
• Surveys
Qualitative Research
 Depth Interviews
• ‘’one -on-one’’ Interviews
• Length is generally 30mins to an hour
• Non Structured
• Respondents are encouraged to talk free about their
activities,attitudes,interests,in addition to the product
category or brand under study
• Such studies provide marketers with valuable ideas about the
product design or redesign & provide insights for positioning/
repositioning the product
• Depth interviews are preferred because of the greater
personal attention are more likely to reveal private thoughts
 Focus Groups
• Consists of 8 to 10 respondents meet with a analyst for a
group discussion ‘’focused’’ on a particular product or
product category according to research interest
• Two hours to complete & usually conducted 3 times in a day.
• Respondents are encouraged to discuss their interests,
attitudes, reactions, motives, lifestyle, feelings about the
product or product category, usage experience
• Focus groups are being preferred because it takes less time
overall to complete the study with having group discussions
generate a greater number of new ideas & insights
 Projective Techniques
• In qualitative marketing research, projective techniques
explore associations with brands, symbols, products,
advertising, and images.
• It explores people’s subconscious feelings, beliefs, and
desires.
• Respondents project their feelings and beliefs about other
people or objects. In doing so, they reveal feelings and beliefs
about themselves.
• With sensitive subjects, the technique works well.
Quantitative Research
 Observational Research
• In-depth understanding of the relationship between people &
products is by watching them in the process of buying and
using products ( In Stores, in malls, watching TV & home)
• By watching people, observational researchers gain a better
understanding of what product symbolize to a consumer and
give insight into the bond between people & products that is
the essence of brand loyalty
• It is widely used to understand the buying & consumption
process
 Experimentation
• Its major application is test marketing
• Conducted after conducting depth interviews, focus groups
and survey research because there is realization by the
marketing firm that it still needs to secure additional real-
world feedback for a new product, service or marketing
communications program before it commits to full time
marketing roll out
• Test marketing is about checking the actual response of
consumers to the marketing effort under actual marketing
conditions from which they can have an idea about the
response of the public as well over it
 Surveys
• Personal Interview Surveys
• Telephone Interview Surveys
• Mail Surveys
• Email Surveys
• Online Internet Based Surveys
 How Element of the consumer research process adds
to the overall outcome of the research study
• If a researcher is asked to develop a segmentation strategy
for coffee, he or she would be 1st collect secondary data. Then
together with marketing manager the researcher would
specify the parameters (i.e. define the sampling unit) of the
coffee market to be studied (e.g. instant, decaffeinated or
regular ground coffee drinkers)
• A Qualitative study then applied to gather ideas about the
consumer needs, motivation, perceptions, benefits sought &
attitude towards coffee drinking in general and towards
specific brands through focus groups in several areas of
various countries which will give us an idea about product
qualities & consumer preference
• Marketing manager then instruct the researcher to conduct
quantitative research to study in order to find the percentage
from the focus groups.
• After refining the questionnaire of the research design, a full
scale quantitative survey would be launch in order to project
the findings to the total population of coffee drinkers
• The analysis should cluster consumers into segments based
on relevant life-style characteristics and on attitudes,
perceptions & habits