Managing The Commercial Communications Process (Week 26)
Kopparberg Fieldwork
Kopparberg Core Positioning & Personality
Initially, Black Sheep wanted to
research into Kopparberg’s core positioning and personality and the main key
words that are associated with the brand (these are shown in the image to the
left). This allowed us to gain an insight into the brand’s roots, heritage and
what the cider brand is truly about and how they hope to get their brand across
in the public eye. It also helped our agency brainstorm a wider variety of
ideas on potential campaign plans for the cider brand during Summer 2013 and
how it hopes to relate to the company’s “buzz words”. This was analysed further
via secondary research on Tumblr (as explained later).
Target Audience
You need to know exactly (or
as exact as you can possibly make it) who your customers are when identifying
the target market of a new business or concept idea. “It's called demographics. It's part of the research
you need to do before going into business. It may not go well if you have no
idea who you are going to be talking to about your service or product.
Geographic, demographic and psychographic are the three main ways you can find
your target market. Once you know who it is you're going after then you can begin to design
a plan around how you will market to them so they can see you, begin to learn
who you are and get to liking you so they come and buy from you. If you try to blanket everyone with one marketing
message you'll lose over half of your audience simply because it doesn't apply
to them. Target who you are after and you
will know how to reach them easier and find that you won't have to invest so
much into your marketing to get the results you want. You'll be more focused, more effective in your
marketing strategies and be able to get a greater return on your marketing investment”
(entrepreneur.com, 2009). An outline of Black Sheep Marketing and Arena Media’s
key target audience for a Kopparberg Cider Summer campaign for 2013 is as
follows;
- Males
- Aged 23-34
- Outgoing Personalities
- Ambitious/Professional Careers
- More likely to be Single
- More likely to spend their money on appearance. “They want to look good”
- They don’t care about brand.
- They do care about price.
Exploratory Research
Any business wanting to conduct market research needs to
define precisely what the mission is and how that translates into research
objectives. This may lead to identifying other concerns or problems that need
to be included in this research that Kopparberg did not think of firstly.
Black Sheep originally recommended that exploratory research
should embarked on in order to collect preliminary data to help understand the
consumer mind and their thoughts on potential creative ideas for Kopparberg’s
Summer 2013 campaign. Before undertaking Arena Media’s proposal, Black Sheep
suggest this investigation may be needed to develop “initial ideas or insights
and to provide direction for the future” (Wilson, 2012, p.34).
According to Wright & Crimp, (p.4, 2000) “Exploratory
research can be used to clarify any problem areas in the research process.” Exploratory research is often undertaken in
order to collect preliminary data to help understand, structure and refine the
direction of the research.
After evaluating this method, Black Sheep feel it is
important to continue using this format to help Arena Media eliminate some of
the possibilities or filling some basic gaps in understanding how Kopparberg’s
current and potential consumers respond, whilst expressing their opinion on the
brand and presented ideas for a Summer campaign.
Black Sheep Marketing will conduct an exploratory focus
group that will act as ‘pilot testing’ to prepare for quantitative research.
Conducting these focus groups will hopefully guide Black Sheep Marketing and
Arena Media into the right direction on what to focus on in the later
quantitative stage, whilst reducing the research costing significantly, as we
are reducing the risk of researching unnecessary or less important information.
Exploratory Research includes:
- Secondary Research (Newspapers, Trade Journals, Published Reports, Internal Records, Directories, Books, Government Statistics, Articles etc.)
- Primary Research (Surveys, Questionnaires, Focus Groups, In-Depth Interviews etc.)
- Quantitative & Qualitative Data
Next, Black Sheep Marketing will conduct primary research
(including quantitative and qualitative data, as explained later) as part of
the marketing research process. Although primary research can sometimes be a
time-consuming process, data collection can be exactly tailored to Kopparberg’s
key goals and objectives. To meet the research brief and set objectives, Black
Sheep will conduct the following primary methods;
- Initial face-to-face focus group (Qual.) – One group of 21-26 males (“LADs”)
- An online questionnaire using Smart Survey (Quant.)
- Final face-to-face focus group (Qual.) – One group of 27-34 males
Watch this space as these primary methods will be discussed further and more in-depth next week on how this exploratory research was conducted and the results and analysis of this.
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Qualitative
Research
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Qualitative Research involves the collection of data
which is easily open to interpretation. For example, “people’s opinions where
there is no intention of establishing statistical validity” (Brassington
& Pettitt, 2007, p.145). “This type of research is especially useful for
investigating motivation, attitudes, beliefs and intentions rather than
probability-based samples”. Qualitative data will be generated from Black
Sheep Marketing’s two focus groups, as explained above. Results can “reflect
the complexity that underlies consumer decision-making and identifying how
and why consumers act in the way they do”. This can help Kopparberg to gain
an insight into consumer behaviour, attitudes and opinions. It also allows
the interviewer to obtain “deeper and more penetrating insights into topics
than would be the with a questionnaire” (Wilson, 2012, p.103)
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Quantitative
Research
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On the other hand,
Quantitative Research will also be conducted. This involves the collection of
information was is easily quantifiable and not open to the same level of
interpretation as qualitative research. It can include audience figures,
market share/size, demographic information, opinions on past campaigns and
marketing material etc. According to Brassington & Pettitt (p.145, 2007),
the success of quantitative research depends in part on “establishing a
sample that is large enough to allow Kopparberg, Arena Media and Black Sheep
Marketing to be confident that the final results can be generalised to apply
to the wider population. It may then be possible to specify that ‘45% of the
market think that... whereas 29% believe...’ for example”. As a result,
quantitative research will be generated from Black Sheep’s online questionnaire
which aims to reach at least 100 respondents. Overall, gathering quantitative
data is more structured than qualitative and analysis of the findings will
tend to be more statistical in nature and will be undertaken with the help of
online website; Smart Survey (Wilson, 2007, p.131). As a result, the results
from Black Sheep’s questionnaire will be much easier to analyse and will be
presented using charts/tables etc.
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In
conclusion, one of the first requirements in preparing the research plan for
Marlow FM is to clearly identify what data is needed and establish how they are
to be collected. Black Sheep Marketing have previously collected secondary
research and will proceed to conduct primary research (as explained previously)
which will include both qualitative and quantitative findings. Both Qualitative and Quantitative
Research will be used to obtain an initial understanding of:
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Consumer perceptions of
Kopparberg and the cider market
What time of the week/day do
consumers prefer to drink cider? What type of environment do they enjoy to
drink cider in? Why? What is the type of activity (and with who) that surrounds
the drinking process (e.g. festivals, beer garden, bar, only on special occasions
etc.)?
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Dimensions which differentiate
brands
Does the target
demographic truly not care about what brand of cider they drink? What is the
impact of brand association (in relation to Kopparberg and other competitors)
on this target market?
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The decision-making process
Does price impact the target
demographics’ decision and how much so? Does an effective campaign influence
the decision-making process? Does a particular cider brand influence the
decision-making process?
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Consumer usage patterns and behaviour
What improvements would the
target audience most likely to want to see from Kopparberg (if any)? How often
do consumers consume cider in the Summer months between June and September (on
average)? Do they drink to be social, enjoyment or both?
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Consumer engagement and reaction
to previous and potential campaigns
How has previous Kopparberg
campaigns influenced the target market and their decision-making process? How
have previous competitors campaigns impacted consumers? Has this swayed their
decision-making process when drinking cider?
Black
Sheep Marketing have conducted two focus groups and an online questionnaire to
gain an understanding into some these areas. Overall, exploratory research will
assist in determining whether to undertake further research and will also help
to “define the objectives, information targets and sample for a programme of
more extensive research” (Wilson, 2012, p.104).
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