Research and Questionnaire Analysis

Henry Buckham & Jonah Adshead

Summary of audience research

A total of 26 individuals took part in our survey, and out of them, 6 described themselves as vegetarian whereas the remaining 20 said they were not vegetarian. The most popular reason for not being a vegetarian was that the individual enjoyed eating meat and believed that it created variety and balance in a diet, with other reasons being that they found vegetarian food boring or lacking in variety. The most popular reason for people being vegetarian was that they did not enjoy eating dead animals, or simply did not like the taste of meat. There were also a few answers that stated they chose vegetarianism because they were opposed to the treatment of the animals that are being slaughtered daily. All 6 of the vegetarian respondents identified themselves as lacto-ovo. Of the 26 people who answered, 10 were male and 16 were female, making up 38.46% and 61.54% respectively. The most common age of the respondents was 17, followed by 18 and 16. 9 respondents chose a contemporary style, whereas 16 respondents preferred a modern style to the recipe card. Green was the most common colour that people identified with vegetarianism, followed by brown, where respondents described it’s symbolism as an earthy colour. This is backed up by the fact that a lot of my research into the Vegetarian Society and vegetarians found that green and brown were the most common colours thanks to their significance with nature and the Earth. A majority of people (21) preferred simple instructions on a recipe card. The most popular course chosen was main course with 14 respondents, followed by dessert (8) and finally starter (4).

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Audience Age

• What does this tell you about your research and your audience?This shows that a huge proportion of our audience, around 81% are in the age bracket 15-18 and about 92% are 24 or under. This means that we have gained information from a very young audience and so our research will mainly reflect their views. The low mean age of our respondents is probably due to the fact that we asked our friends who are mainly the same age as us to fill in questionnaires and used Facebook and other social media sites usually used by younger people to get more respondents.

• How can you use this to make your product appeal to this audience?This means that we can target a slightly younger audience if we wish to as the information we have gained is almost exclusively from under 25 year olds and so designing a recipe card around this will suit them the best.

• What does this tell you about your research and your audience?This tells us that out of our respondents 10 are male and 16 are female. This means that 38% of our answers are from a male audience and 62% are from a female one giving our answers quite a heavy female bias.

• How can you use this to make your product appeal to this audience?We can use this information to make our product appeal to females as many of the answers given are from females themselves.

• What does this tell you about your research and your audience?This tells us that from the 6 vegetarians who completed our questionnaire only 1 was male and 5 were female. This shows us that a much larger amount of females are vegetarians. In other research a 1992 study in America concluded that of the 12.4 million people in the US who call themselves vegetarian 68% are female and 32% are male. Over the world there seems to be around a 70%-30% split between male and female vegetarians.

• How can you use this to make your product appeal to this audience?We can use this information to target and attract the already larger female vegetarian audience of target the male niche audience to try and increase its size.

Male Female

Question:

• What does this tell you about your research and your audience?This graph tells me that out of the 6 vegetarians who took the survey, all of them identified as lacto-ovo, meaning that

they eat both eggs and dairy. This shows that lacto-ovo is more prevalent in society than lacto and vegans and usually because the other two include people who do not eat eggs or dairy for health reasons, it shows that I am dealing with a healthy respondent base.

• How can you use this to make your product appeal to this audience?Using this information I will tailor the recipes shown on my recipe cards to majorly target lacto-ovo vegetarians as

they are the majority. This does not mean I will exclude lacto and vegans because this graph is not representative of all vegetarians. The final result from this is that I will include more recipes that use eggs or dairy products.

Further analysis

Coupled with the fact that many of the respondents are young and in their late teens, it can be assumed that our pool of respondents are healthy thanks to their diets as usually, lacto vegetarians or vegans do not eat meat for health reasons. It can also be interpreted that the respondents are either non-religious or do not let their religion dictate their diet, as many vegans and lacto vegetarians eat like this because of their religious beliefs.

Question:

• What does this tell you about your research and your audience?This graph shows that while not all 26 respondents identified as vegetarian, a lot of them have still tried vegetarian recipes in

the past, showing that they are open to the idea. This means that I have a potential audience of non-vegetarians for my recipe cards.

The graph on the right displays only male respondents, showing that there is only a minority that has used vegetarian recipes. This is most likely due to that males spend less time in the kitchen and thanks to the preconception that vegetarians meals take longer to prepare, most probably opt for instant food or something that requires less effort.

• How can you use this to make your product appeal to this audience?Using this information I can now market my product to a potential non-vegetarian audience as this graph shows that some have

tried vegetarian recipes in the past. To do this I could try and make the products look much more appealing, with emphasis on sweet ingredients like sugar and confectionary on dessert recipes, which may entice non-vegetarians who may be put off by an overemphasis of fruit and veg as ingredients.

Normal

Male Respondents

Question:

• What does this tell you about your research and your audience?A majority of respondents preferring simple, short instructions to long detailed sentences indicates that most

people would like recipe cards to be short and to the point, highlighting important figures like measurements and keeping procedures brief to make the recipe easier to follow. On the other hand however, 5 people do prefer longer and detailed sentences, which means that there is a group of people who would like to see the recipe cards take a traditional and more mature approach.

• How can you use this to make your product appeal to this audience?By using this information I can make my product appeal to the biggest audience by having the instructions short,

simple and to the point. However, I can also appeal to the base that prefers longer sentences by either including a few alongside simple instructions, or increasing the length of the instructions to a point where both parties can be satisfied.

Normal Male Respondents

Further analysis

The graph on the right is filtered to only display results from male respondents. I can see here that there is an overwhelming majority in favour of simple instructions, as opposed to just 1 respondent who was in favour of detailed sentences in place of simple instructions. This may be because males tend to spend less time cooking than females, and as such would prefer something that is quick and easy read, instead of a long, detailed essay-like recipe.

• What does this tell you about your research and your audience?This tells us that the majority of out respondents want a modern style to the recipe cards with 16 of the 25 choosing this option (one person skipped this question). Out of the 6 vegetarians who completed our questionnaire 3 preferred contemporary and 3 modern so there is a 50-50 spit in opinion between them. When refined to only find answers from males, 9 liked modern while only 1 liked contemporary. When only answers from females were found 8 of them liked contemporary and only 7 liked modern.

• How can you use this to make your product appeal to this audience?Because almost twice the amount of people opted for modern rather than contemporary style it would make sense to design our recipe card with a modernistic style. Because there is an even split in opinions within the vegetarians it may not matter so much if targeting them what style to go for. If we decide to try and draw in non-vegetarians to eating vegetarian meals then a modern style may be a good style to use as it is preferred overall. Females preferred contemporary overall so if targeting them this would be the best style to go for. If targeting both genders however modern would be better, especially as only one more female liked contemporary than modern styles.

Vegetarians

Male

Question:

• What does this tell you about your research and your audience?The results shown here provide me with the info that the main course is the most popular part of a meal

with 14 voters, with dessert coming in second with 8 and starter in third with 4. When filtered to just vegetarians, 4 chose main course, and 2 chose dessert. Starter was not chosen by any vegetarian respondents. This shows me people’s tastes, helps me to narrow my choices down and can help me when choosing recipes to put on my recipe cards.

• How can you use this to make your product appeal to this audience?Using this information I can choose what recipes I will be including on my recipe cards as here people have

told me what there favourite course is. Since the main course is the most popular I will mainly include them, but also a few desserts thanks to its second place in the poll.

VegetariansNormal

Conclusions

From what we have learned, the majority of vegetarians (from the small pool we got answers from) are female, in their late teens and preferred a contemporary design over a modern one. Detailed and long instructions were also popular, with simple instructions being more popular with males as well as the modern styles. However, our results are not representative of every vegetarian in the UK, and we do not have any data from a vegetarian in another part of the world which means that there may be differing tastes that we are not aware of. But nevertheless, our recipe cards will be targeting females mainly, following a contemporary theme mixed in with some modern elements (as this was also a popular choice and we do not wish to alienate any other bases) have simple but detailed instructions and have the recipes concentrated around main courses and desserts, as these were the most popular choices from the poll. We will also try to use some imagery that does not completely rely on fruit and vegetables, as to not alienate the demographic that has not used a vegetarian recipe before.As the majority of the respondents were around their late teens (16, 17, 18 and 19) we will be using a high class yet youthful style that allows our biggest audience to relate. However, we will not be using any blatant young audience aspects so that any older consumers that wish to try our recipes do not feel uncomfortable with a kiddie-style recipe.