Unit 6:Crictical Approaches to Creative Media Products.

Quantitative research data is any data that is in numerical form such as statistics, percentages, etc. The researcher analyzes the data with the help of statistics. The person who is researching is hoping the numbers will yield a fair result that can be generalized to some larger population. Qualitative research, on the other hand, asks broad questions and collects word data from people who take part. Quantitative research includes large samples, representative of a relevant population and provides data on attitudes, awareness and behaviors. Quantitative research usually consists of graphs, questionnaires and data Statistical analysis gives us a good reason to believe that the findings are accurate. Here’s the most common techniques used:

Face-to-Face Interviews

Trained research interviewers will ask a set list of questions to a prearranged sample of respondents. Interviews

could take place in a variety of locations and last anywhere between five to 60 minutes. This allows visual

materials, such as lists or pictures, to be shown.

Telephone Interviews

These are similar to Face-to-Face Interviews, although it can be time saving and efficient . Responses are often

captured using CATI - Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing.

Self-completion Questionnaires

This method is time saving, normal used with a large quantity of people. This can include postal surveys or leaflets.

They work well for some projects but can be unreliable about getting your results back in time

On-line Surveys

Low-cost and fast, this method has proven to be very popular. Usually distributed through email or website pop ups.

Qualitative Research on the other hand asks broader questions and unstructured answers that provides the 'why' and not the 'how'. It is set up in focus groups targeting a certain demographic within a relaxed environment usually to benefit the interviewees. This can make the auidience feel more comfptable with answering the questions, going into more detail.A disadvantage to this method of research is that your results are not defined and can be messy and time consuming to analyze manually.

Socio-economic groupings are broken into 6 groups, going from A to E. Group A consists of higher earning members of the public, for example Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other highly salaried professionals. Band B consists of Middle management, teachers, many 'creative’s' e.g. graphic designers etc. Band C is divided into 2 groups, C1 being Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc and C2 is for the Skilled workers. Group D is for the ‘Blue collars’ this referring to Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers. And finally band E is for the unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers.

This way of differentiating people is fairly accurate although there are some grey areas do to many of the groups sharing some skills.

Audience research is a way of finding out information about your audience; this can be directly from them. Audience preferences and size are the two main things points. One reason is to find out what the audience actually think about the product, whether it is suitable. The other way is to actually find out more about the audience, this will lead to the company knowing how to target them.

Audience research can affect the way the way the company advertises their product. Knowing who to target and how, will help them succeed in selling the product. The company will be able to change their adverts in order to fit the target audience. Researching into your audience will mean you won’t waste time trying to sell a product the wrong way.

There are a number of ways of doing this and some methods can be quite detailed but the classifications in a very simple system, devised by ad agency Young and Rubicam illustrate how this works.:

Succeeds: People who are successful and self-confident. They tend not to buy aspirational products and follow they own ideas of what is a good product.

ATop management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and

other highly salaried professionals

BMiddle management, teachers, many 'creative’s'

e.g. graphic designers etc.

C1Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses,

specialist clerical staff etc.

C2 Skilled workers, tradespersons (white collar)

DSemi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue

collar)

E Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers

Reformers: Creative, caring, altruistic, not brand conscious.

Aspirers: People who want to "get on".

Mainstreamers: The largest segment, conformists who buy "safe", big brand products.

A few examples from other systems show how else the classifications can work:

Strivers: status oriented people who seek money, approval and social status. Obvious buyers of "aspirational" goods.

Explorers: seek novelty and want to try new things. They are likely to be early adopters of completely new products.

Constrained: they are the resigned and struggling poor.

Physcographics

Psychographic variables have been a popular segmentation variable, particularly in consumer marketing of fast moving goods. In psychographic segmentation, buyers are grouped according to variables such as Social Class, Lifestyle, or Personality. Marketers infer or research differences in the approaches of buyers to their products based some elements of these factors. One of the biggest problems with any type of segmentation is in the application. You wind up with all this good data and customers in very interesting buckets, but then what?

This can be especially true with psychographic segmentation because it is difficult to classify prospects (or existing customers) into the buckets so you don't know how to

approach them.

Geodemography is a branch of market research that assigns the attributes of small areas – usually neighbourhoods – to the consumers who live within them and, based on this assignment, divides the consumer marketplace into meaningful segments that are locatable and reachable.

The divdes can include average household income, location, occupation, age of the household name and how many cars have been owned.

Demographics

This type of data is widely used in public opinion polling and marketing. Demographics can also be used to identify the study of quantifiable subsets within a given population which characterize that population at a specific point in time.

I believe the most effective research for my product would be to do Quantitative research, this is because it is fast and reliable, and as I’m doing a Dig pack it covers a wide audience in a detailed manor. Online surveys best suits me as it is fast and cheap, you can also distribute it to a lot of people, whether by email or pop-ups. The down fall to this is unreliable feedback, people can opt out or take a long time to get round to doing it.