Blog 6– Methods of Research

Why it is important to conduct research before you start planning a new advertising campaign?

 It’s very important to conduct a research before you do any new project because, you would want to have all the information you need, and know exactly what you have and what you need, and what you are going to be doing.

Types of researches

Audience research is the type of research all companies do to find out about their audience. This  divided into 4 categories, the first one being Descriptive research, the name says it all, this is used so people know who they are advertising to, it describes the audience and their characteristics, like for example their age, gender or even where they live.

The second type of research is Analytical research, this is when you think a little bit like your audience, when you put yourself in their situation, and you think about what motivates them, and try understand why, what and how, like for example why did the last product we advertised had more attention than this current one, and you probably will be able to see what you missed out.    

The third one is Predictive research, this is when you have to predict and think about the future, and ask yourself "what if" you will have to start thinking about a backup, because if something that you weren't aware of happens,, like for example you change the name of your company, how are you going to make it visible to all your audience, that you didn't disappear or the certain organization stopped, but instead just goes by a different name now.

This type of research is useful because, by using this you will be aware of whom your are doing the advert for, like for example if you didn't do this research and you were going to make an advert about cream for skin, but because you didn't know the age of your audience, you weren't able to successfully do it, because barriers such as what age model you are going to hire, appeared.

Another one could be knowing how your audience thinks, this would be a very important information because you are not the one buying the products, and your audience is so by knowing exactly what they want, is going to help you make the right type of advertisement that is going to answer all the questions they want to know. 

This type of research is done by following this stages:

1. Target audience: describe and define the target audience

2. Plan: plan your research

3. Research: collect the data

4. Analyse: what did you find out?

5. Apply: use the evidence in your own advert.

Market research is a type of research that companies usually do to, find out about costumer’s needs and preferences. 

This is used to make sure companies are successful, this is a type of research that companies do so they can know, who their competitors are, so they know who they are working against and what they have to be to better than the other company. Get to know the market, so they are aware of everything surrounding them, so nothings gets them by surprise. Or even just to know how to grow as a company. 

This type of research is useful for companies, because by doing this they will know how their audience feels about their product, like for example if they have a line of perfumes, that is mostly famous by its smell and bottle shape, and they decide that they want to change the shape of the bottle, but because they don't want to lose their audience they will do a research and find out if that would be a good idea, or not.

Production research is that most companies use when producing a new product, and it basically focuses on the production of the product. This is used to gather all material to allow companies that wants to make new products, do it successfully and smoothly. This is used when companies want to do know if they have everything necessary to develop their new product, like for example if they want to make an advert , they will have to be sure if they have right material and equipment's, and even make sure they have budged to hire make-up artists and actors. This is helpful because by doing this before actually doing the project, will help you succeed it, because you will be aware of what you can or cannot do. 

Primary research is the type of research used when companies want to do researches that needs to be completely new, or it hasn't been done before, this is usually done to find an answer to a specific question.  This could be done by doing a questionnaire, surveys, interviews or group research. By doing this you would be able to find the answer to your own question.

• An advantage for this would be because they are the one that made it, they were able to ask exactly what they wanted to know, and they would have more control. Like for example a company that produces a certain product, and they were thinking about making a new flavour for the product, but they didn't know what type of flavours to produce, therefore they would put on their website a survey of the different flavours they wanted to do and their audience would be able to choose it.

• A disadvantage would be that to a new research from scratch might take a lot of time, and cost more than if you were just getting one already done. This is because the time you using to do it, you would be using to do something else. So it can be a little time consuming.

An example of a primary research could be if a company wanted to know what they could do to improve their sell, they would ask their audience what they would like to be produced.

Another example for this would be if a university wanted to open a new club but they didn't know what types of clubs to open, so they would give every student a survey with the names of the clubs and they would choose. 

Secondary research is the type of research that has been done by someone else, this is when the information already exists, and this can be found in magazines, newspaper and others. 

• An advantage for this would be that it’s easy, because someone has already done the survey for you. 

• One disadvantage is that if you don’t know who created, it can be very difficult to know if it is accurate and honest. This is because secondary research cannot be checked therefore you won’t always know if it is biased and accurate.

An example for this would be if someone was writing a book about pets, would add to their article a research about something that someone done it before, like do cats actually have 9 lives, and they would add a research that person A did a few years back to prove the hypothesis. 

Quantitative research is the type of research that deals with money, and amounts of things. This is usually used when you want to collect data about something, and this is usually used in questioners.

• An advantage for this would be that it allows the person doing the research measure and analyse data.

• One disadvantage would that you can be specific in your questions, like for example if you do a survey you can only write "yes, no", while the persons answer might be in the middle like maybe.

An example for this would be someone wanted to know if there’s more than 25 people in persons A classroom, therefore they would ask "is there more than 25 people in your classroom" and the answer would have to be yes, or no. 

Qualitative research is the type of research you do to find out how people are feeling, this is to know each person’s opinions. This depends on the people thoughts and ideas. This can be done in surveys and interviews.

• An advantage for this would be that it’s easier to ask subsidiary questions, like yes and no.

• A disadvantage for this would be that the information gathered may be little, and doing this might be time consuming, and it might not always be accurate, because if you do not he questions to a decent amount of people it won’t represent everyone, but instead just the people you asked.

An example for his would be if you wanted to know the average of how many people from your town went to university, you couldn't go to a University and ask the teachers, instead just go to a place where you think the answers wont e biased.

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