Classification of Marketing Research

Product Research

Pricing Research

Motivation Research

Sales Research

Advertising Research

Product Research
Component of market research whereby the characteristic of a good or service, that will satisfy a recognized need or want, are identified. Developing and designing great products are keys to success in business. Anything less than an excellent product strategy can be destructive to a firm. Top companies' focus on few products and concentrate on maintaining a high level of quality for those products to maximize the potential for success. For instance Honda's focus is engines. Virtually all of Honda's sales e.g. autos, motorcycles, generators, lawn mowers, are based on its excellent engine technology. Likewise, Intel's focus is on computer chips, while Microsoft's is on PC software. However, most products have a limited and even predictable life cycle and companies must be constantly looking for new products to design, develop and take to market. Good operations managers insist upon strong communication between customer, product, processes, and suppliers that results in a high success rate for their new products. One product strategy is to build particular competence in customizing goods or services. This approach allows the customer to choose product variations while reinforcing the organization's strength.

Dell Computers, for example, has built a huge market by delivering computers with the exact hardware and software desires by the end user. And Dell does it fast - it understands that speed to market is imperative to gain a competitive edge. Many service firms also refer their offerings as products. So while the term products may often refer to tangible goods, it also refers to offerings by service organizations. An effective product strategy links product decisions with investment, market share, product life cycle, and breadth of the product line.

The objective of the product decision is to develop and implement a product strategy that meets the demands of the market place with a competitive advantage.
Goods and services selection is very important. How management selects those?

Marketers see product research as the first stage in Product Life Cycle Management. Product research is a business and engineering term which describes the complete process of bringing a new product to market. There are two parallel aspects to this process: 1. Product engineering. 2. Marketing analysis. 3

Many organizations have product research methodologies that provide a standard framework for planning and managing development efforts. If your organization doesn't have one, you should consider using something like this one. There are several stages in the product research process: Idea Generation The ideas for new products obtained from customers, R&D department, competitors, focus groups, employees, or trade shows. The formal idea generating techniques include attribute listing, forced relationships, brainstorming, morphological analysis, problem analysis and early, rapid prototyping. Idea Screening This involves eliminating unsound concepts. One must ask three questions: 1. Will the target market benefit from the product ? 2. Is it technically feasible to manufacture the product? 3. Will the product be profitable ? Concept Development and Testing This step includes developing the marketing and engineering details: 1. Who is the target market ? 2. What benefits will the product provide ? 3. How will consumers react to the product ? 4. How will the product be produced ? 5. What will it cost to produce it ? One should also test the concept by asking a sample of prospective customers what they think of the idea.
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Pricing Research
Pricing research has been proven to be highly valuable in helping many companies determine when the price is right. And when the price is right, profit soars. Virtually all pricing research designs fall into one of essentially three types: monadic measurement, comparative measurement, and declarative measurement. Monadic Measurement- Each respondent reacts to one, and only one, price point. Comparative Measurement- Each respondent reacts to two or more price points Declarative Measurement- Each respondent volunteers a maximum (or acceptable)price. Pricing research will help you understand what your customers are willing to pay up front, and you can make more profit table design decisions.
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Monadic measurement is, however, a statistical luxury. It requires a larger sample and thus, a larger budget. And where the universe of decisionmakers is relatively small, monadic designs are, frankly, not an option, even where money is no object. Because monadic samples tend to be smaller, the result is an increase in the sampling error around our estimates and reduction in statistical reliability. In fact, monadic designs can produce what look like irrational price curves because of slight response variations across groups that are attributable to sampling error. In monadic designs, each respondent is exposed to one, and only one, price point for any given product. In comparative designs, each respondent is asked to react to two or more prices. And in declarative designs, each respondent is asked (for one or more than one product) to volunteer his or her own price --one that is maximum and/or reasonable, acceptable, etc. Note that comparative testing is not to be confused with a design that asks customers to choose between Product A at one price and Product B at another. The following are the price testing techniques to cater to the specific needs.

Gabor Granger Customers are asked if they would buy a product at a particular price. The respondents are exposed to the price in a randomized manner and are again asked if they would buy or not. The technique helps understand the price elasticity for the product by working out what levels of demand would be expected at each price 6 point price .

Sensitivity Monitor (PSM)This technique helps one identify the acceptable range of prices in the minds of the consumer and determine whether the price is set too low (creating suspicion about quality) or too high (offering poor value for money). Conjoint Analysis Conjoint Analysis is a technique that allows one to understand how people make trade-offs between different products and services and the values they place on different features. By understanding precisely how people make decisions and what they value in a product or service, one can work out the optimum level of features (including price) and services that balance value to the customer against cost to the company. Brand Price Trade-Off (BPTO) BPTO is a variation of the Conjoint Technique, where several brands are shown at once and the customer chooses the preferred option. The BPTO determines the impact of price increases and decreases on the sales of the brand. It is also capable of providing the response to competitors' changes in price and provides an analysis of gains and losses. The BPTO technique also helps in understanding how much premium a brand can charge.
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Motivation Research
Motivational research is a type of marketing research that attempts to explain why consumers behave as they do. The application of the knowledge and techniques of the social sciences, especially psychology and sociology, to understanding consumer attitudes and behavior: used as a guide in advertising and marketing. Motivational research seeks to discover and comprehend what consumers do not fully understand about themselves. Implicitly, motivational research assumes the existence of underlying or unconscious motives that influence consumer behavior. Motivational research attempts to identify forces and influences that consumers may not be aware of (e.g., cultural factors, sociological forces). Typically, these unconscious motives (or beyond-awareness reasons) are intertwined with and complicated by conscious motives, cultural biases, economic variables, and fashion trends (broadly defined). Motivational research attempts to sift through all of these influences and factors to unravel the mystery of consumer behavior as it relates to a specific product or service, so that the marketer better understands the target audience and how to influence that audience. Motivational research is most valuable when powerful underlying motives are suspected of exerting influence upon consumer behavior. Products and services that relate, or might relate, to attraction of the opposite sex, to personal adornment, to status or self-esteem, to power, to death, to fears, or to social taboos are all 8 likely candidates for motivational research.

For example, why do women tend to increase their expenditures on clothing and personal adornment products as they approach the age of 50 to 55? The reasons relate to the loss of youths beauty and the loss of fertility, and to related fears of losing their husbands' love. It is also a time of life when discretionary incomes are rising (the children are leaving the nest).
Other motives are at work as well (women are complicated creatures), but a standard marketing research survey would never reveal these motives, because most women are not really aware of why their interest in expensive adornments increases at this particular point in their lives. Even benign, or low-involvement, product categories can often benefit from the insights provided by motivational research. Typically, in low-involvement product categories, perception variables and cultural influences are most important. Our culture is a system of rules and regulations that simplify and optimize our existence.

Cultural rules govern how we squeeze a tube of toothpaste, how we open packages, how we use a bath towel, who does what work, etc. Most of us are relatively unaware of these cultural rules. Understanding how these cultural rules influence a particular product can be extremely valuable information for the marketer.
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The three major motivational research techniques are observation, focus groups, and depth interviews. Observation can be a fruitful method of deriving hypotheses about human motives. Anthropologists have pioneered the development of this technique. All of us are familiar with anthropologists living with the natives to understand their behavior. This same systematic observation can produce equally insightful results about consumer behavior. Observation can be accomplished in-person or sometimes through the convenience of video. Usually, personal observation is simply too expensive, and most consumers dont want an anthropologist living in their household for a month or two. It is easier to observe consumers in buying situations than in their homes, and here the observation can be in-person or by video cameras. Generally, video cameras are less intrusive than an in-person observer. Finding a representative set of cooperative stores, however, is not an easy task, and the installation and maintenance of video cameras is not without its difficulties. In-store observers can be used as well, so long as they have some cover that makes their presence less obvious. But, observation by video or human eye cannot answer every question. Generally, observation must be supplemented by focus groups or depth interviews to fully understand why consumers are doing what they do. .
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The Focus Group The focus group in the hands of a skilled moderator can be a valuable motivational research technique. To reach its full motivational potential, the group interview must be largely nondirective in style, and the group must achieve spontaneous interaction. It is the mutual reinforcement within the group (the group excitement and spontaneity) that produces the revelations and behaviors that reveal underlying motives. A focus group discussion dominated by the moderator will rarely produce any motivational insights. A focus group actively led by the moderator with much direct questioning of respondents will seldom yield motivational understanding. But the focus group is a legitimate motivational technique. The Depth Interview The heart and soul of motivational research is the depth interview, a lengthy (one to two hours), one-on-one, personal interview, conducted directly by the motivational researcher. Much of the power of the depth interview is dependent upon the insight, sensitivity, and skill of the motivational researcher. The interviewing task cannot be delegated to traditional marketing research interviewerswho have no training in motivational techniques
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Advertising Research
This type of research allows companies and advertising agencies to evaluate many advertising creative concepts at different stages before production in order to identify a winning concept and prevent the investment of many man-hours and production resources in ineffective advertisements. This kind of research can also be used at the early stages of Web site development when the concept of the graphic design for the home page is emerging.

Benefits of Advertising Research

Asses an ads ability to create awareness, generate leads, and increase conversion Measure how effective different ads are at drawing attention, build brand image, elicit emotion, communicate a message, etc. Pinpoint weak elements within an ad and how to improve its performance Identify elements that can be part of an integrated ad campaign using different media Provide a framework for the creative/design team, allowing them to create effective ads Allow to explore different creative concepts before production Indicate which creative elements and content appeal to different target segments
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Need for Advertising Research The role of research in advertising can be seen in various stages of advertising planning. First what should be the objectives of advertising. Research would enable the company to be clear in its objectives of advertising. Second advertising research should be used for developing a strategy for marketing the product in question. The selection of the target audience can be facilitated by advertising research. Another aspect where research can be useful is the selection of message that an advertisement should carry and through what media it should be conveyed. Research has to concern itself with the evaluation of advertising in order to find out whether the expenditure on advertising has been justified or not.

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We combine qualitative and quantitative research methods to capture brand awareness, advertising awareness, brand recognition, slogan recognition, brand image, unaided and aided message recall, brand purchase behavior, media usage, and the impact of design and graphic elements when appropriate. When several creative concepts are tested we can identify not only the most preferred ad, but also the one with the greatest potential to capture the audiences attention in a crowded media environment. It is called an ads shock value.

An advertising research study dealing with Santoor a brand of toilet soap was done by Ravi Menon and Ashotosh Sinha. Simulated Test Marketing (STM) methods were used to choose between two alternative advertising . Santoor was launched in 1986. In early 1989 a relaunch of the brand was being contemplated.
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The advertising agency Ulka came up with two alternative appeals for advertising:
Young Skin: to have youthful skin. Three alternative ads the were developed for the young skin concept. Of the three alternative ads for young skin, one ad(i.e. bookshop) was found most appealing.

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Sales Research
Analysis of actual sales results. Sales research enables a company to identify the areas where its sales performance has been good or mediocre, customers who have bought in bulk, products with high and low sales volume etc. A systematic comprehensive periodic sales analysis will be helpful to a company to reinforce its sales effort where it is most needed.

Sales Research by Product

Sales Research by Customers Sales Research by size of Order

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Future of Market Research in India

The market research industry is 35 years old and its turnover is about Rs 325 crore. In the last few years, the market has been growing at about 10%. However, with the liberalization of more industry sectors, this growth rate will accelerate. Market research in India has been focused more on fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and consumer behavior. There has been growth beyond the traditional FMCG research (though it still accounts for the big chunk of research expenditure). In my view, outside of the traditional packaged-goods business, the most significant growth area for the market research industry in India in the last few years is the media measurement business. Next would be auto, telecom and healthcare sectors that have started spending much more on market research in recent times. The durable industry is also increasing spend. Lastly, customer satisfaction in all industry sectors is a growing segment for market research.
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India is falling behind is in the area of use of technology for data collection. That is because most of the technologies used for data collection in the advanced world today are internet and telephone based. With low internet penetration and teledensity we have no choice but to continue to do face-to-face interviewing along with paper and pencil method of data collection. The market research in India is having a bright prospect because of the competition among the marketers and manufacturers. There are a lot of companies coming in India to establish a business because of the huge potential in Indian market due to its consumption theory. So there are more requirements of Healthcare Research Services in India in coming days. But the future of the market research could restrict on the databases and social media. Most of the companies are today demanding for the databases of the target customers so that they directly approach them. Growth rate of Smart phones and Tablets Smart phones and Tablets will be used in greater proportion than desktop devices by consumers in 2013.
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Direct consumer communications and advertising via mobile devices will continue to grow rapidly and will often utilize social media and location-based services. High-margin revenue generation will occur in this segment of the marketing industry because of huge demand upon consumer engagement, and for market research. Growth rate in market research industry in India - Quantitative Research in India and Secondary Research Services in India can witness a growth rate of more than 12% in 2013, irrespective of global recession.

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