Purposes of Research: Market Research

Market Research
Product market; competition; competitor analysis; advertisment placement; advertisment effectiveness.

Product Market
Product testing allows you to test whether or not the product will meet the target audiences' needs. This would help fine research about my film because I can do a poll to get the target market opinion:

What should the name of the documentary be?
A) A Walk to Beautiful  /
B) Bigger Stronger Faster /
C) Social Life: Banstead //
D) Billy the Kid  ////

My film name was unsuccessful in the market place. I created a market poll to see if it would have been successful

Competitive analysis
Things we do that they don’t	We offer a regional outlook than other documentaries.
Things we do better than them	We know what teens are like as we are teens.
Things we do equally well	Undertake research about teenagers, both do interviews
Things they do better than us	They had a budget a crew, talent, access to a range of equipment.

Advertising placement

The Woolpack – Pint glass

The youth club – T-shirt

Energy drinks from local newsagents

Lorimers pens and essentials

Primark clothing could be worn because there are no tags on the clothes.

Competition

With the competition we offer a range of things that my competitors don't. We offer a regional outlook whereas most documentaries do not have that outlook. Also we have better knowledge of teens these days as I am a teenager, and finally we do not have a budget whereas these big documentaries have a budget.

Advertising Effectiveness 

Advertising effectiveness is very important because by the advertising campaigns we produce we will need to know how effective it was against consumers so we could hire someone to do an advert that will appear on a website and they will be able to tell you how many people clicked on the advert. This will be important for my production because I want people to be aware of my documentary that I am producing.

Observation

Controlled Observation - The research decides where the observation would take place, at which time, with what participants, in what circumstances and uses a standardised procedure.

Rather than writing a detailed description of all behaviour observed, it is often easier to code behvaiour according to a previously agreed scale using a behaviour schedule.

The researcher systematically classifies the behaviour they observe into distinct categories. Coding might involve numbers or letters to describe a characteristic, or use of a scale to measure behaviour intensity.

Naturalistic Observation - Naturalistic observation involves studying the spontaneous behaviour of the participants in natural surroundings.

Participant Observation - Participant observation is a variant of the above but here the researcher joins in and becomes part of the group. For example a mystery shopper, an undercover Police Officer. The researcher takes a false identity an the real identity is concealed from the group.

Evaluating Controlled Observation

Evaluating Controlled Observation

I conducted a controlled observation to monitor attitudes and reveal truths about what social activities do young people do in Banstead. I chose this method over natural /participant observations because I found that doing the controlled observation method was a lot easier to perform to this sort of research. Natural observation would have been difficult because it would’ve required me to monitor the people in their natural habitat, so that means having to go to the activities that they were going to and would’ve been difficult to keep an eye on them at all times. Another reason why I didn’t choose natural observation is that some people may not feel comfortable with a new person in the group which could make this experiment fail. Participant observation again would’ve been difficult to do because it would have again required me to get involved in what they were doing and would’ve been difficult to monitor them in that observation. 

I looked at existing experiments to come up with my own controlled observation so the experiment I looked at was the “marshmallow test”. It was developed by psychologist Walter Michel back in the 1960’s, the experiment was about studying pre-schoolers’ and the ability to delay gratification. The children were left in a room alone with a single marshmallow left in front of them and if they could refrain from eating that marshmallow the researcher would come back in the room to give the child two marshmallows. Overall this experiment helped me with my own experiment and gave me the idea of giving something physical to see how they would react to the material.

My table that I created for this controlled observation was fairly reliable. I think this because maybe I could’ve changed the wording slightly and maybe put different columns in to make the research go further, for example maybe change the column of “sarcastic remarks” to something different to help make the experiment go further. 

In order to make this research more valid, I could add an extra person to the observation which could reduce biasness which could make the research more valid and reliable. Another way to make the research more valid is to add more measurements to the table so then you won’t be grouping behaviours together.

The strengths of my observation was that I had a range of leaflets placed on the table for people to look at so I could do my observation as successful as possible. I had a range of different people who took a look at the leaflets and they reacted in all different ways which made my experiment very successful. The weaknesses of my observation are that maybe my table could’ve been updated more with more emotions and reactions towards the leaflets.

I found from my results that not many people found the leaflets very appealing to them but some people found them more appealing than others as they found the leaflets more appealing which made it very equal in what I found.

This is one of the tables in which I marked on one of the participants:

Rating out of 5 (1 being low and 5 being high)	Interest in Activity	Not interested in Activity	Looking at the leaflet and throwing it back down straight away	Laugh	Comments on the leaflet	Sarcastic Remarks
1				ü		ü
2			ü		ü
3		ü
4	ü
5

This table shows that the participant was intrigued about the leaflets and took it very seriously as they was showing that they was interested in the activities shown. 

In conclusion this research has forwarded my documentary because the results I found was very useful because it shows a range of views on what sort of activities there are in Banstead and some people found the leaflets very boring whereas some people found it very interesting and this research will definitely put forward my documentary.

Bibliography

Marshmallow Test: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/the-marshmallow-test-understanding-self-control-and-how-to-master-it-by-walter-mischel/2015716.article

Interview about Banstead