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Chapter 6
Strategic Research
CHAPTER CONTENT
CHAPTER KEY POINTS
1. What are the basic types of strategic research, and how they are used?
2. How do brand communicators use research?
3. What are the most common research methods used in advertising?
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
Strategic research is critical since all brand decisions, including those regarding brand
communications,should be driven by thoughtful and detailed consumer analyses and
insights. First and foremost, marketers and brand communicators must listen closely to
what consumers have to say to ensure that all marketing strategies and communication
efforts are responsive to and reflective of consumer wants and needs. For marketers,
research is the tool of listening. This chapter opens with an explanation of the different
categories of research used to uncover consumer insights. This is followed by a
discussion of how that research is used to develop messages, and then an exploration of
the most commonly used research methods. The chapter closes with a discussion of
research trends and key challenges facing marketing communication researchers.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
HOW DO YOU GET INSIGHTS INTO CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?
Knowing your customer listening is the first step in understanding consumers. Brand
strategy begins with consumer research – the tools of listening. Consumer research
investigates attitudes, motivations, perceptions, and behaviors. The research findings
then lead to analysis and insights, which are explanations for why people think and
behave as they do.
In-house researchers or independent research companies hired from outside of the
company usually handle a client’s research needs. The objective is always to answer
this question: “What do we need to know to make an informed decision?”
Listed below are various types of research used in planning advertising and marketing
communication strategies:
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Market research compiles information about the product, the product category,
and other details of the marketing situation that will impact on the development of
advertising strategy.
Consumer research is used to identify people who are in the market for the
product in terms of their characteristics, attitudes, interests, and motivations.
Brand communication research focuses on all elements of advertising,
including message development research, media planning research, evaluation,
and information about competitors’ advertising. IMC research is similar except it
is used to assemble information needed in planning the use of a variety of
marketing communication tools.
Strategic research uncovers critical information that becomes the basis for
strategic planning decisions for both marketing and marketing communications.
In brand communication, it covers all of the factors and steps that lead to the
creation of message strategies and media plans.
What Are the Basic Types of Research?
New advertising assignments always begin with some kind of informal or formal
background research into the marketing situation. This is called secondary research,
which we will compare with primary research, which is original research conducted by
the company or brand.
Secondary Research
Background research that uses available and published information about a topic is
called secondary research. When advertising people get new accounts or new
assignments, they start by reading everything they can find about the product,
company, industry, and competition. They are looking for important facts and key
insights. It’s called secondary because it is information that has been collected and
published by someone else.
A typical advertising campaign might be influenced, directly or indirectly, by
information from a variety of sources including in-house agencies and outside
research suppliers. Some of the more traditional sources of secondary information
are:
Government Organizations. Governments, through their various departments,
provide an astonishing array of statistics that can enhance advertising and
marketing decisions. Many of the statistics concerning a population’s size,
geographic distribution, age, income, occupation, education, and ethnicity come
from census records.
Trade Associations. Many industries support trade associations – professional
organizations whose members all work in the same field – that gather and
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distribute information of interest to association members. Examples include the
American Frozen Food Institute or the Game Manufacturers Council.
Secondary Research Suppliers. Because of the overwhelming amount of
information available through secondary research, specialized suppliers gather
and organize that information around specific topical areas for other interested
parties.
Secondary Information on the Internet. For any given company, you are bound to
find a website where you can learn about the company’s history and philosophy of
doing business, check out its complete product line, and discover who runs the
company. These sites offer credible information for account planners and others
involved in market research. Other sources of Internet information are blog sites
and chat rooms where you can learn about people’s reactions to brands and
products.
There are also many industry related sites for marketing that report on research,
essays, and best practices. They include:
BrandEra (www.brandera.com) offers information by product category.
MarketPerceptions (http://marketperceptions.com) represents a research
company that specializes in health care.
Forrester Research (www.forrester.com) provides industry research into
technology markets.
Greenbook.org (www.greenbook.org) is a worldwide directory of
marketing research focus group suppliers.
Cluetrain (www.cluetrain.com) publishes new ways to find and share
innovative marketing information and ideas.
Primary Research
Information that is collected for the first time from original sources is called primary
research. To obtain it, companies and their agencies do their own tracking and
monitoring of their customers’ behavior. An example of a company that took on its
own research is Perdue Farms and its classic “tough man” campaign, featured in
Exhibit 6.4. In another example of a company doing its own primary research, Toyota
undertook a huge two-year study of ultra-rich consumers in the United States to better
market its upscale Lexus brand.
Primary research suppliers (the firms that clients hire) specialize in interviewing,
observing, recording, and analyzing the behavior of those who purchase or influence
the purchase of a particular good or service. The primary research supplier industry is
extremely diverse.
Many advertising agencies subscribe to large-scale surveys conducted by the
Simmons Market Research Bureau or by Mediamark Research, Inc. These two
organizations survey large samples of American consumers and ask questions about
the consumption, possession, or use of a wide range of products, services, and media.
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These reports are intended primarily for use in media planning, but because these
surveys are so comprehensive they also can be mined for unique consumer
information, which makes them primary sources. See Figure 6.1 to get an idea of
what media data looks like from a sample MRI report.
Basic Research Designs
Primary research can be designed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data.
Quantitative Research
Quantitative research delivers numerical data such as number of users and
purchases, their attitudes and knowledge, their exposure to ads, and other
market-related information. It also provides information on reactions to
advertising and motivation to purchase, sometimes called purchase intent.
Quantitative methods that investigate the responses of large numbers of people are
useful to test ideas to determine if the market is large enough or if most people
really think or behave that way.
Two primary characteristics of quantitative research are (1) large sample sizes and
(2) random sampling. The most common qualitative research methods include
surveys and studies that track such things as sales and opinions. Quantitative
research is usually designed to either accurately count something, such as sales
levels, or to predict something, such as attitudes. To be predictive, however, this
type of research must follow careful scientific procedures.
One of the biggest problems in using quantitative methods to study consumer
decision processes is that consumers are often unable to articulate the reasons they
do what they do because their reasons may not fit into answers provided in a
survey. Furthermore, most people are not tuned in to their own thoughts and
thinking process to the extent that they are comfortable saying yes or no or
checking a space on a rating scale. Also, respondents have a tendency to give the
answers they think the researcher wants to hear.
Qualitative Research
The goal of qualitative research methodologies, therefore, is to move beyond the
limitations of what consumers can explain in words or in responses to pre-planned
questions. It provides insight into the underlying reasons for how consumers
behave and why.
Common qualitative research methods include such tools as observation,
ethnographic studies, in-depth interviews, and case studies. They trade large
sample sizes and scientific predictions for greater depth of insight. They probe to
seek understanding to such questions as:
What types of features do customers want?
What are the motivations that led to the purchase of a product?
What do our customers think about our advertising?
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How do customers relate to our brand and what are their emotional links to
our brand?
Qualitative methods are used early in the process of developing a brand
communication plan or message strategy for generating insights, as well as
questions and hypotheses for additional research. They are also good at
confirming hunches, ruling out bad approaches and questionable or confusing
ideas, and giving direction to message strategy.
Because qualitative research is typically done with small groups, researchers
cannot project their findings to the larger population. Rather than drawing
conclusions, qualitative research is used to answer the question why, as well as to
generate hypotheses that can be tested with quantitative methods.
Principle:Qualitative research provides insight into underlying reasons and
motivations.
Experimental Research
Experimental research is designed using formal hypothesis testing techniques
that compare different message treatments and how people react to them. The idea
is to control for all factors except the one being tested—if there is a change in the
results, then the researcher can conclude that the variable being tested caused the
difference. It’s used to test marketing factors as well as advertising appeals and
executions in such areas as product features, price, availability, and various
advertising creative ideas. The Principled Practice feature in this chapter
explains how a researcher used experimental studies to determine the impact of
advertising on behavior.
Sometimes in experimental research the measurements are electronically recorded
using such instruments as MRI or EEG machines or eye-scan tracking devices.
Electrodes can be used to monitor heart rate, pulse, and skin temperature to
determine if people have a physical response to a message that they may not be
able to put in words. In particular, emotional responses that are hard to verbalize
may be observable using these types of sensors.
How Do We Use Research?
Most research has become so specialized that independent research companies, as
well as in-house client research departments, are the most likely research sources.
As markets have become more fragmented and saturated, and as consumers have
become more demanding, the need for research-based information in advertising
planning has increased. Figure 6.2 summarizes the seven ways in which research
is used in marketing communication planning:
Market Information
Consumer Insight Research
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Brand Information
Media Research
Message Development Research
Advertising or IMC Plan
Evaluation Research
Market Information
Formal research used by the marketing department for strategic planning is called
marketing research. It includes surveys, in-depth interviews, observational
methods, focus groups, and all types of primary and secondary data used to
develop a marketing plan and, ultimately, provide information for a brand
communication plan. A subset of marketing research, known as market research,
is research used to gather information about a particular market.
Market information includes everything a planner can uncover about consumer
perceptions of the brand, product category, and competitors’ brands. Planners
sometimes ride with sales and listen to sales pitches, tour manufacturing plants to
see how a product is made, and work in a store or restaurant to evaluate employee
interaction with customers.
Brand information includes an assessment of the brand’s role and performance in
the marketplace. This research also investigates how people perceive brand
personalities and images. Common methods used to gather information about a
brand and the marketplace are:
The Brand Experience:When an agency gets a new client, the first thing the
agency team has to do is learn about the brand through brand research. That
means learning where the brand has been in the past in terms of the market, its
customers, and its competitors. Researchersmay also go through all the
experiences that a typical consumer has in buying and using the product.
Competitive Analysis: It’s also important to do a competitive analysis. You
may want to do your own personal comparative test to add your personal
experiences to your brand analysis.
Marketing Communication Audit: Either formally or informally, most
advertising planners will begin an assignment by collecting every possible
piece of advertising and other forms of marketing communication about the
brand, as well as its competitors, and other relevant categories that may have
lessons for the brand. This includes a historical collection as well.
Content analysis: The advertising audit might include only informal
summaries of the slogans, appeals, and images used most often, or they might
include more formal and systematic tabulation of competitors’ approaches and
strategies called a content analysis. By disclosing competitors’ strategies and
tactics, analysis of the content of competitive advertisements provides clues to
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how competitors are thinking and suggests ways to develop new and more
effective campaigns.
Principle:Do your homework about your brand. There is nothing more
embarrassing than proposing a great new advertising idea only to find out it was
used a couple of years ago by a competitor, or even worse, your client.
Consumer Insight
Both the creative team and the media planners need to know as much as they can,
about the people they are trying to reach and in as much depth and detail as
possible.
Principle:Insight research is designed to uncover the whys of the buys, as well as
the why nots.
Collecting Feedback. Feedback can be obtained from customers as a part of
interactive customer contact - systematically recording information from customer
service, technical service, inbound telemarketing calls, and online sites. Some
businesses use the Internet to involve customers in making decisions about
product design, distribution, price, and company operations using online surveys,
blogs, online communities, and other social media.
Monitoring Buzz and Tracking Behavior. The Internet has made it easy to track
comments about a brand. Many marketers monitor chats and blogs and also do
more general scanning for key words to find out what people are saying about
their brands and products.
Neuromarketing. Marketers have turned to neuroscience, which uses highly
technical equipment to scan the brain as it processes information and makes
decisions. Neuromarketing is the application of this research technology to
consumer behavior. For example, Campbell’s Soup used neuromarketing and
biometrics to analyze consumer responses to brand communication.
Media Information
Media planning begins with consumer research and questions about media
behavior that help with the media selection decision. Media planners often work
in conjunction with the information account planners to decide which media
formats make the most sense to accomplish the objectives.
Next, media research gathers information about all the possible media and
marketing communication tools that might be used in a campaign to deliver a
message. Media researchers then match that information to what is known about
the target audience. The MRI data shown earlier in Figure 6.1 illustrate the type
of information media researchers consult to develop recommendations.
Message Development and Diagnostics
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As planners, account managers and people on the creative team begin the
development of a message strategy, they involve themselves in various types of
informal and formal message development research. They read all of the relevant
secondary research information available to become better informed about the
brand, the company, the competitors, the media, and the product category.
As writers and art directors begin working on a specific creative project, they
almost always conduct informal research of their own. They may visit retail
stores, talk to salespeople, and watch customers buy. They may also look at
previous advertising, especially that of competitors, to see what others have done
before. This personal research has a powerful influence on what happens later in
the message development process.
The next step is to produce and test different ‘big ideas’ both informally within
the team and through more formal structured research. Creative development
research often uses qualitative methods to assess the idea’s effectiveness. Called
concept testing, it can help evaluate the relative power of various creative
approaches. The idea is to test the Big Idea to see if it communicates the strategy
behind the message, and also test various executions of this big idea.
Another technique used to analyze the meaning of communication is semiotic
analysis, which is a way to take apart the signs and symbols in a message to
uncover layers and types of meanings.
Evaluation
Concept testing is actually the first level of evaluation. After an advertisement or
any other type of marketing communication message has been developed and
produced, it can be evaluated for its effectiveness both before and after it runs as
part of a campaign. Pre-testing is research on an execution in its finished stages
but before it appears in media. While creative development research looks at the
power of the advertising idea, pretesting looks at the way the idea is presented.
The idea can be strong, but the target audience can dislike the execution.
Evaluative research is done during a campaign and afterward. If it’s used during a
campaign. If it is used during a campaign, the objective is diagnostic: to adjust
the brand messages to make them strong. This is sometimes referred to as copy
testing. The goal of posttesting research is to determine the effectiveness of the ad
or campaign.
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