EOC Week 9: The Darkside of Market Research

When thinking about the dark side of market research, money is unfortunately the first thing to come to mind. The world we live in today, you see money being thrown around to create deals that’ll benefit the individuals with the most money. Our politics in America are the worst at this. Like the point made in class, why is it if I call and want to talk to anyone running for presidential election, it’s 99% accurate to say it won’t happen. Now if I have $100 million just laying around and decide the candidate would like this money more than me, the candidate becomes all ears and I’ll be the first person they speak with. Now being the kind of person I am, I won’t give them the $100 million without something in return. What can $100 million by from you? This is not only in politics. The sad truth is money bribery is entwined in every business industry alive, from politics to soccer. Here recently FIFA officials have been arrested on charges of money laundering, a scam that has been going on for 24 years which also involves Nike. The world was made to believe the soccer league was legit in every deal made, but the truth is the league has been receiving bribes for quite some time. This kind of manipulation may have been the reason behind the rise in Brazil’s team. I feel once you break a certain money barrier you can manipulate the market to always be in your favor. With this much money it also makes the chances of you getting caught, slim to none. There’s a dark and dirty side to everything in life, you just have to learn as much as you can about it and be cautious.

Week 8 EOC: Excel Drafts

 After entering the information into Microsoft Excel you can easily turn that information into a variety of graphs. Type the question at the top of the page and the answers aligned under the question. To the right of the answers you will have to type the percentages equally up to 100%. Highlight all the information needed and click the insert tab. You will see a section called charts. In this section you will have a variety of charts and graphs you can select. By selecting one, the information that is highlighted will be turned into that graph or chart. Now take a screenshot, paste in paint, save, crop, and upload onto the blogger. Graphs are an amazing tool used to show a physical representation of the information presented. By being able to see the information in a graph form and not in number form, you can get a better understanding of what the information actually entails. This will also help in comparing survey answers and questions and also in presenting the information. When presenting a lot of numbers and percentages, the individuals presented too may become overwhelmed and lost in the presentation. This means you're not getting your message across accurately. Graphs and charts will help explain the information so you're clear in describing the outcome of your survey.

Week 7 EOC: Final Product Pitch

I’ve gone around prospecting different stores, but have yet to lock down a store to do the market research project. I’m waiting for a response from Artifact, an antique type shop in Town Square. I also spoke to a Crystal shop on Eastern who I’m waiting for a response from. I’m thinking I would have to do market research for either one of them to help bring in costumers rather than sell an individual product. There is a company called Watch Me Rave that sells light up watches who would love some research done for their light up watch product. I don’t believe they have an actual storefront though. They sell their products at music events, festivals, and online. I’ve emailed Watch Me Rave to see if they’ve expanded into any shops, but if they haven’t I believe I could help them expand into some shops around town here or maybe in some different cities.

Even though I have yet to fully lock down a merchant, I’ve been speaking to multiple different places who would be interested in allowing me to do a project like this. I’ve ran into trouble with stores in a few different areas; if they were corporate they are really private about others doing market research, even private owned shops it was hard to get in touch with an owner or someone who could give me permission to do such a project, and some shops just did not want somebody surveying their customers. I think the most difficult part of this project is finding the merchant and what product to research. It’ll be exciting to get out and survey the people to try and make a company some money. I know upon completion of this product, I’ll be able to use the skills learned towards bettering my companies.

EOC Week 6: What did you learn? From your project? From the class discussion?

I unfortunately did not finish the project fully to be able to learn everything I should have. I realize this is not acceptable and cannot happen with the final. I did however read through all my other classmates projects and discovered how different everyone in class feel about fragrances. All the products were unique in their own ways. Some with packaging you wouldn’t expect a fragrance to have like that of a gypsy or in what seems to be a flask. Packaging is a key factor in the success of a fragrance and I now have a stronger understanding of that. The scents themselves ranged in variety as well, with the one that has a smell of love sticking out the most. It seems a lot of the class had troubles with following the directions of the project. My project was by far not the only one not finished, though that is still no excuse. This class is teaching me a skill I can take with me everywhere, help businesses make money through market research. Doing the work and projects will ensure I learn the knowledge and be able to use it outside of the school whether for my own businesses or for others. Not many classes in this school offer anything of the sort, thus why I must stay focused and get the work done.

EOC week 6: Deeper meaning of the film BIG

The film Big demonstrated a couple different marketing research methods. In one scene you’ll see Tom Hanks running around the toy store the company he works for owns and makes the toys for. As he’s running around playing what looks to be laser tag, he runs into his boss, the owner of the company. The boss says how he’s there every Saturday doing his own market research. This shows actual field research, not anything controlled. They were able to study the consumers in the presence of the toys they make in a natural setting. The other form of research methods used throughout the movie is a controlled method. A group of selected kids are brought into a room with only one, one sided window and a door. In this room the children are given select toys to play with and then are watch and studied on how they act and play with each individual toy. Not a very comfortable setting if you ask me. So in my eyes, I see the first method being used to be the better of the two methods. For this example, putting a group of children in a room to test toys, you’re going to get untrustworthy information. The boss understood this and that’s why Tom Hanks ran into him while playing around the toy store.

Week 4: EOC

Using secondary data has its advantages and its disadvantages. When doing marketing research, your best bet would probably be your primary research collected. Secondary data has a few key advantages that make it quiet useful sometimes. There is so much secondary data that it’s really easy to access now and is also a low cost to acquire. Instead of spending your time and money trying to acquire certain data, you may be able to find this data through another company’s previous market research. Secondary data may be used prior to primary data in many cases. This can help clarify the research focus and maybe change the research question. Some disadvantages of secondary data, may include the quality of the research. The research may not be specific to the researcher’s needs. When the data was collected, it may have been collected for different reasons other than the reason’s you need it for and it may have been collected in different ways not according to what you need. You would also have to be careful to check if the information is complete and not outdated. Research done years ago may be irrelevant now due to many changes in the world.

Surveys are the most common method used for gathering information from other individuals. Surveys can be implemented in a few different ways, including telephone, by mail, in person, or even the internet. Surveys are useful in gathering information that wouldn’t normally be available to the public. This is useful for companies to grow, increase sales, better consumer relations, or create better products. The biggest downfall to surveys is how accurate the information gathered will be. Make the surveys simple to ensure a more accurate response.

EOC: Week 5

My personal opinion with how far tracking has gone is that it’s gone too far. It’s at a point where our private lives are no longer private. In today’s world, technology is king. We all use technology so much, internet or some sort of network has become a necessity in most our lives. I think it’s an intrusion in our privacy for companies to have the capabilities they do when it comes to tracking us. They can literally figure out everything you have on your computer or phone about you just by you going to a website or by opening an email. They are able to place these files or little bugs on your computer not only through cookies, but other techniques that have developed to learn everything about you. How did we end up becoming the product for these major companies? I don’t feel this is right, allowing us access to all these technological advancements just to be able to monitor our every key stroke. This information is extremely valuable because if known, these companies can manipulate our online experience to benefit them the most. The more they know about you, the narrower they can make the ads to apply to you and your lifestyle. It’s brilliant on the advertisers end, but still too intrusive. To me the biggest reason for all of this intrusion is greed. The millions companies make off this data collected and sold is yet another huge benefit they gain. So what benefits are we, the consumer, gaining off all this information we’re giving away? Seems they gain all the benefits while we’re convinced to buy the pants who advertise more to your liking while unwillingly giving up all our information that makes us, us.

Week 2 EOC: Survey Questions

What gender are you?

Which age group do you fit in?

Where do you prefer to purchase your fragrances?

How many fragrances do you own?

 How much would you spend on your fragrances?

Does wearing a certain fragrance boost your self confidence?

How often do you wear fragrances?

How many times a year do you buy fragrances?

What kind of scents do you prefer?

Week 2 EOC: Survey Research

The survey I choose to read about is the Retail Clinics Market Overview and 2014 Consumer Survey Results. A retail clinic would be the medical area in a retail store such as CVS, Walgreens, Target or Walmart. There has been a significant rise in these clinics popping up throughout the United States the past couple of years. The information was gathered using an online panel of 2,000 United States adults all the age of 18 or over. I feel to get a more accurate response with some of the question, more adults should have been a part of this survey. Only 35.4 percent of the adults surveyed have visited a retail clinic, that’s up ten percent from last year. Seems over 90 percent of those who do visit, are leaving completely satisfied. With so many satisfied costumers I see retail clinics continuing to grow at a steady rate. The research predicts the same, conservative but steady growth in stores with a projected 2700 clinics to open in 2018. In 2013 the market for retail clinics was estimated at $613 million, but is estimated to increase to $1.8 billion in 2018. Keep in mind most people visiting retail clinics are going for colds, vaccinations, or prescription renewal. People would rather run to the CVS than to a doctor when it comes down to these simple inconveniences. Approximately 84 percent of the retail clinic visitors have a primary physician still, which they have most likely seen in the last year. With this research results, I feel the retail clinic market is a good one to be investing in. I feel it will continue to grow over an extended period of time, because of how much faster and easier retail clinics are than a doctor visit.

EOC: Week 1: What I am expecting from this class.

I plan to learn more about marketing research and really grasp an understanding of marketing by the end of this class. Marketing is a huge part of my life with my Entertainment Company and network marketing company.  I know marketing research consists of researching consumers, competitors, employees and other parts of the marketing success. The research can be done in many ways, one popular way being surveys. Surveys can be easily filled out and collected to give any company or person a quick response to certain questions they may have. I know this information can be very valuable and worth a lot of money, depending on what the research shows. I am looking to find out about the companies who excel in marketing research and why other companies don’t bother so much with it. Is marketing a key reason in why some companies fail to make the leap from being a good company to being a great company? What is the average companies spend on marketing research? All good questions I’m hoping get answered through this class. I can’t say marketing is the most exciting of subjects, but it is something I want to be good at so all in all I’m really just wanting to improve my marketing skills. I have an event in the making for later 2016 so that gives me plenty of time to really do some good marketing research and put together some strong ad campaigns. I want to be more confident in my marketing after this class to be able to complete such campaigns and not have any doubt in selling out the event.