Chapter 6

Strategic Research
The Research Process (1 of 2)
Strategic research means:
• Actively seeking reliable information to make an important
decision.
• Recognizing that you need more information.
• Gathering enough objective information and insight to
make an honest comparison between choices.
• Making a decision and then re-evaluating your choice.

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Figure 6.1: The Research Process

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The Research Process (2 of 2)
• Brand strategy begins with consumer research -- the
tools of listening.
• It can help us effectively segment and target markets by
better understanding:
– consumer attitudes
– motivations
– perceptions
– behaviors
• Research findings lead to analysis and insights into why
people think and behave as they do.
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Why do we Need Research? (1 of 3)
• Agencies and clients use research to make strategic
decisions.
• Specialized firms and departments uncover and
disseminate secondary research data that others have
already collected.
• They also conduct primary research to ask questions and
collect data of their own.

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Figure 6.2: The Use of Research in
Marketing Communication Planning

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Why do we Need Research? (2 of 3)
How research is used in marketing communication planning:
1. Market information
2. Consumer insight
3. Brand information
4. Media research
5. Message development
6. Evaluation research

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Why do we Need Research? (3 of 3)
• Marketing research includes:
– surveys
– in-depth interviews
– observational methods
– focus groups
– other methods
……to use in developing a marketing plan and ultimately, a
brand communication plan.

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Market Information (1 of 5)
• Marketing information includes consumer perceptions of
the brand, product category, and competitors’ brands.
• Brand information assesses the brand’s marketplace role
and performance—leader, follower, or challenger.

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Market Information (2 of 5)
How do we gather information about a brand and the
marketplace? We look at:
• The brand experience
• Competitive analysis
• Marketing communication audit
• Content analysis

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Market Information (3 of 5)
The brand experience
• Brand research is the first step.
• Learn where the brand has been in the past in terms of the
market, its customers, and competitors.
• Elicit the corporate point of view regarding the brand’s
position within the company.
• Research the brand’s relationships with its customers.

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Market Information (4 of 5)
Competitive analysis
• Consider the brand’s direct and indirect competitors, and
how the brand is positioned relative to competitors.

Marketing communication audit

• Collect every possible piece of advertising and other
marketing communication for the brand and its
competitors.

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Market Information (5 of 5)
Content analysis
• A more formal and systematic tabulation of competitors’
approaches, ads, and strategies.
• Provides clues about how competitors are thinking and
suggests ways to develop new and more effective
campaigns.
• Planners try to determine what mental territories or
positions competitors claim and which are still available.

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Consumer Insight
• Effective marketing communication rests on truly
understanding the consumer.
• The creative team and media planners need to know as
much as they can about the people they’re trying to reach.
• Researchers try to uncover the whys of the buys, but also
reasons people don’t want to try or buy a product.

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Consumer Insight
• Collecting feedback: Can be obtained from customers as
a part of interactive customer contact.
• Monitoring buzz and tracking behavior: The Internet
has made it easy to track comments about a brand.
• Neuromarketing: Uses technical equipment to scan the
brain as it processes information and makes decisions.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqm4tG2U-NU

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Media Research
• Media planners, account planners decide which media
formats will accomplish the objectives.
• Media research gathers information about possible media
and marketing communication tools to use.
• Researchers then match that information to what is known
about the target audience.

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Message Development and Diagnostics (1 of 2)
Writers and art directors often conduct their own informal
research. They may:
• visit stores.
• talk to salespeople.
• watch buyers.
• look at client’s past advertising.
• Look at competitors’ past advertising.

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Message Development and Diagnostics (2 of 2)
• Planners, account managers, and the creative team
conduct their own informal and formal research.
• Concept testing is used during the creative process to
evaluate the relative power of various creative ideas.
• Semiotic analysis takes apart the signs and symbols in a
message to uncover layers and types of meanings.

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Evaluation
• Evaluates an ad for effectiveness after it has been
developed and produced.
• Can be done before and after it runs as part of a
campaign.
• Pretesting is research on an execution in its finished
stages but before it appears in the media.

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Evaluation
• Evaluative research, also called copytesting, is done
during and after a campaign.
• After an ad or campaign has run, posttesting research
helps determine overall effectiveness in reaching
objectives.
• Many IMC tools can also be assessed over time as they
run: coupons redeemed, contest or sweepstakes entries,
etc.

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Design the Study (1 of 4)
• Secondary research is background research using
available published information.
• Covers everything one can find on the product, company,
industry, and competition: sales reports, annual reports,
etc.
• Called “secondary” because it has been collected and
published by someone else.

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Design the Study (2 of 4)
Secondary research
• Government Organizations provide statistics that can
greatly enhance advertising and marketing decisions.
• The US Census Bureau provides a wealth of information
about the US population and economy.
• Other government agencies generate reports that help
advertisers make better decisions.

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Design the Study (3 of 4)
Secondary research
• Trade associations: Many industries support these
groups, whose members all work in the same field.
• These organizations gather and distribute information of
interest to association members.
• Secondary research suppliers: Specialized suppliers
gather and organize that information around specific topic
areas for other interested parties.

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Design the Study (4 of 4)
Secondary research
• Secondary information on the Internet: company
websites can reveal:
– history and philosophy of doing business
– product line
– company leadership
• Blog and social media sites can tell you a lot about
people’s reactions to brands and products.

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Basic Research Designs (1 of 5)
Quantitative research design
• Quantitative research delivers numerical data such as:
– numbers of users and purchases.
– their attitudes and knowledge.
– their exposure to ads.
– other market-related information.
• Characteristics include large sample sizes and random
sampling.

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Figure 6.3:
MRI Page

This MRI report breaks down

the 18 to 34 age market into
four market segments based
on size of household and age
of children, if any, and
describes their television
viewing patterns.

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Basic Research Designs (2 of 5)
Qualitative research design
• Explores underlying reasons for consumer behavior.
• Tools include:
– Observation
– ethnographic studies
– in-depth interviews
– case studies

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Basic Research Designs (3 of 5)
Qualitative research design
Used to probe such questions as:
• What type of features do customers want?
• What are the motivations that lead product purchase?
• What do our customers think about our advertising?
• How do consumers relate to the brand?
• What are their emotional links to the brand?

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Basic Research Designs (4 of 5)
Qualitative research design
• Often used early in the process of developing advertising
plans, message, and strategy.
• Exploratory in nature and designed for generating insights,
as well as questions and hypotheses for more research.

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Basic Research Designs (5 of 5)
Experimental research design
• Experimental research scientifically tests hypotheses by
comparing message treatments and how people respond.
• Used to test advertising appeals and executions in:
– product features
– design
– price
– various creative ideas

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Quantitative Methods (1 of 3)
Survey Research
• A quantitative method using structured interviews to ask a
large number of people the same set of questions.
• For accuracy, researchers select a random sample to
represent the entire group, or population.
• Can be conducted in person, by phone, by mail, or online

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Surveys: The In-Person Interview

Interviews are a common survey method. They may be done in person,

over the phone, or online using Skype or Facetime.
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Surveys: The In-Phone Interview

Phone surveys are commonly used. Often they come from commercial
call centers where many people hired by a research company staff a
bank of phones.
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Quantitative Methods (2 of 3)
Sampling and Data Collection
• People interviewed are a representative sample of the
larger group, a subset of the population that is
representative of the entire population.
• Random sampling allows researchers to make valid use
of statistical analyses on the data and generalize their
findings.

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Quantitative Methods (3 of 3)
Online survey research
• Online surveys now make up half of the $3.3 billion spent
on market research.
• Tens of thousands of requests can be sent out via email in
a matter of seconds.
• It’s much less expensive because the data are all captured
by computer rather than live interviewers.

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Rebranding Begins with Research

A rebranding campaign for Billings, Montana began with a broad survey

of people involved in the business of supporting the city. For online
surveys to work, they need to be supported by an invitation to participate
that showcases the easy-to-use message.

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Qualitative Methods (1 of 8)
In-depth interviews
• A qualitative method using one-on-one interviews asking
open-ended questions.
• Interviews are more flexible and unstructured.
• Smaller sample sizes mean that results cannot be
generalized to the population.

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In-Depth Interviews: Talking One-on-One

In-depth interviews are conducted one-on-one with open-ended

questions that permit the interviewee to give thoughtful responses.

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Focus Groups can Lead to Consumer Insights

Focus groups are conducted around a conference table with a

researcher serving as the moderator working from a list of prepared
discussion questions.
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Qualitative Methods (2 of 8)
Focus Groups
• A small group of users or potential users gathers to
discuss a product, brand, or marketing communication.
• The friendship focus group takes place in a comfortable
setting where the host has recruited the participants.
• Online focus groups are sometimes considered to be
crowdsourcing, a form of digital brainstorming.

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Qualitative Methods (3 of 8)
Customer suggestions and feedback
• Dialogue creates new ways to listen to customers.
• Customers’ responses, or feedback, are gathered primarily
through research.
• Today, feedback is achieved by monitoring new and
interactive forms of marketing communication.

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Qualitative Methods (4 of 8)
Panels
• An expert panel gathers experts from various fields into a
focus group setting.
• This research tool can stimulate new ways of looking at a
brand, product, or customer pattern.
• A consumer research panel is a group of carefully
selected people interested in a topic or product category.

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Qualitative Methods (5 of 8)
Observation research
• Observation researchers study the actual behavior of
consumers in settings where they live, work, shop, and
play.
• It is closer and more personal than most other types of
research.
• Researchers use video, audio, and disposable cameras to
record consumers’ behavior in a range of settings.

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Qualitative Methods (6 of 8)
Ethnographic research
• Involves the researcher in living the lives of the people
studied.
• Observers immerse themselves in a culture to study the
meanings, language, interaction, and behavior of people.
• The idea is that people’s behavior tells you more than you
can ever get in an interview or focus group.

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Qualitative Methods (7 of 8)
Diaries
• Consumers are asked to record their activities through the
use of diaries.
• Diaries are valuable in media research because they tell
planners exactly what programs and ads consumers
watched.
• Diaries can also lead to a helpful reconstruction of a typical
day in the life of a consumer.

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Qualitative Methods (8 of 8)
Other qualitative methods

• Word association • Story elicitation

• Fill in the blanks • Artifact creation
• Sentence completion • Photo elicitation
• Purpose-driven games • Photo sorts
• Theater techniques • Metaphors
• Sculpting and movement
techniques

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Research Leads to a Fresh Approach for
Evian

This metaphoric ad equating Evian

sparkling water with a mermaid
tries to add a touch of originality,
as well as meaning, to the Evian
brand image.

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How do you Choose a Research Method?
• Validity means the research actually measures what it
says it measures.
• Reliability means you can run the same test again and get
the same answer.
• Quantitative methods are more useful for gathering data.
• Qualitative methods are better at uncovering reasons and
motives.

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Analyze Data and Report Findings
• All types of data require findings to be summarized so they
can be interpreted and implemented.
• A valid quantitative study can be allow researchers to
generalize the findings to the larger population of interest.
• Qualitative studies produce data in the form of
observations, verbal reports, and even images or collages.

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Online Research Trends
Sampling challenges
• With new media and the Internet, research experts must
find ways to locate samples that are representative.
Global issues
• The challenge is how to arrive at an intended message
without cultural distortions or insensitivities.
IMC research challenges
• IMC planning requires research into many stakeholder
groups and contact points.

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Looking Ahead
• Research and analysis that lead to insight into consumer
thinking and behavior lead to brand communication plans
and strategic decisions, which will be the topic of Chapter 8.
• The research findings also lead to message strategies,
which we introduce in Part 3, and media strategies, which
will follow in Part 4.

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It’s a Wrap (1 of 2)
“Lean Cuisine Weighs In to
Support What Really Matters
to Its Customers”

• Turning around a sales decline and giving a brand a fresh

and meaningful connection to customers is difficult and
risky.
• The #WeighThis videos were an instant and viral success,
contributing to a 33% increase. in positive brand
perception
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It’s a Wrap (2 of 2)
“Lean Cuisine Weighs In to
Support What Really Matters
to Its Customers”

• Today, Lean Cuisine is no longer perceived as a lonely,

single woman’s quick-fix dinner, but an advocate for
female empowerment, health, and wellness.
• Clearly, listening to consumers pays off. #WeighThis
connected with its customers in a meaningful way.

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