GSBS6505-Marketing Research in Practice

Task:

You are the marketing research manager working for the advertising agency, #Hit. The agency #Hit has just won an account in the product or service category of your choice (e.g. banking, hotels, restaurants, airlines, cars, clothing, etc.). As part of preparing for the strategic approach to take for the account, #Hit has commissioned your research company to prepare an overview of recent advertisement activity in the category. You will be required to source and collect secondary data, qualitative data, and quantitative data in order to identify the characteristics of advertisements currently utilized in the chosen product category. As the account will specifically focus on print and online/Web media, you are instructed to only focus on those two media. 

For the Senior Strategic Planner of #Hit, you need to prepare a report on your findings. He is interested in any themes you found and any similarities or differences across the two media. You should also incorporate secondary data to support your findings. 

Part 1: Data Collection

1. Choose a product or service category: e.g. banking, hotels, restaurants, airlines, cars, clothing, etc.

2. Collect 30 recent advertisements from the category you chose in point 1:

a.15 should be Web/banner ads and 15 should be print ads (e.g. magazines or newspapers).

b.. You will need to include a copy of the advertisements and document where you got them (i.e. reference them).

Part 2: Qualitative Analysis

The Senior Strategic Planner of #Hit wants you to analyze the advertisements from a qualitative perspective and prepare a summary report with sub-headings (2 – 3 pages maximum). Some things you may like to consider are: 

1. Provide a summary of the characteristics of the print ads that you have collected. What themes did you find? (For example, execution style).

2. Provide a summary of the characteristics of the web/banner ads that you have collected.

3. From your summary, identify four (4) themes on which you will compare the print and web/banner ads. Based on those themes, how are print and web/banner ads similar and how are they different? 

Part 3: Quantitative Analysis 

Use the survey below to answer questions for EACH of your 30 advertisements

1. Code the survey and set up a data file in SPSS that reflects the survey (ensuring you correctly specify the variable type for each question).

2. Think of two other questions to include in your survey regarding the advertisements. Remember, they need to be objective, observable characteristics of the ads. Marks will be awarded for question wording, identification of variable type, and the appropriateness of the scale or response options. Ensure that you include the questions and response options in both your SPSS spreadsheet, AND your report.

3. Evaluate each of your ads using the survey (including the two questions that you have added to the survey).

4. Enter the data for EACH of your ads in SPSS. You should have 30 observations (rows, i.e. one for each ad).

5. Save your data file using the following naming format (where .sav is the SPSS data file extension): Quant_Student number_Last name.sav, for example: Quant_1234567_Smith.sav 6. Answer the analysis questions below. 

Qantitative Anaysis Questions

For each analysis question, write a statistical interpretation, and a separate one-sentence managerial conclusion based on the results from your SPSS analysis. Your one-sentence managerial conclusion should be free of statistical jargon, and should clearly explain the statistical results for management in layman’s terms. Include the SPSS output for each analysis question (use copy-and-paste). 

1. Frequencies

a. Referring to Q6, what appears the most frequently in the ad?

i. Overall, for all ads combined

ii. For Web ads?

iii. For Print ads?

2. Descriptive Statistics

a. Describe the distribution of the size of the ad (considering shape, central tendency and dispersion):

i. For Web ads

ii. For Print ads 

3. Conduct Crosstabs with Chi Square to determine compare the types of ads (Web vs Print) on the following:

a. Where the ad appeared on the page

b. Ad purpose

4. Choose the appropriate technique to investigate the two questions you have added to the survey. c. Main ad focus