Goals of Assignment:
In this assignment, you will review a brief marketing research project. After reading the brief report, you will identify the key elements of the research methodology and submit your answers with a template I provide you (below). Another goal of this assignment is for you to practice your ability to understand, interpret, and interact with data displays... there's a lot of charts!
Being able to "dissect" a secondary marketing research report is important for a few reasons. First, it helps you understand the strengths and weaknesses of a research design, which allows you to properly judge the quality of the conclusions presented. Secondly, as new marketing researchers, it is important to carefully "breakdown" how other MR professionals conduct their work because it reveals to you patterns of professional practice.
Step 1: Pick a Report & Review It
Review ONE of these marketing research projects (pick one that seems interesting to you!)
- "Americans’ top skin concerns and how much they’d spend to treat themLinks to an external site." by Jamie Ballard for Yougov.com. Published May 1, 2024.
- "Marijuana leads alcohol for daily usage. Alcohol is well ahead for monthly usageLinks to an external site." by Jamie Ballard for Yougov.com. Published July 17, 2024.
- "How often do Americans eat leafy greens, and which ones do they think are the best?Links to an external site." by Jamie Ballard for Yougov.com. Published July 10, 2024.
- "The enduring appeal of classic technology: A poll of Americans’ past and present usageLinks to an external site." by Taylor Orth for Yougov.com. Published Feb. 16, 2023.
- "Which industries do Americans think should be more regulated?Links to an external site." by Taylor Orth for YouGov.com. Published March 06, 2023.
- "Food Waste | YouGov Poll: October 3-6, 2022Links to an external site." by YouGov Team. Published October 13, 2022.
NOTE: In many cases, YouGov's charts are interactive. Part of this assignment includes you taking the time to look through and explore these interactive data displays. Also, in many instances the amount of results included in a YouGov report is quite large... your goal will be to focus in on the most interesting / important claims made in the report.
A note about YouGov: YouGov constantly publishes "quick hit" style research reports about contemporary topics. Visit their website or check out their most current Retail & Consumer article webpages . A great resource for marketers!
Step 2: Summarize the Study and Evaluate the Quality of the Secondary Research
Wait, we really haven't learned many details about how to do marketing research yet! You're right! We're still just getting started with learning about how to conduct basic marketing research. Thus, I don't expect you to have a highly nuanced or sophisticated break down of the marketing research project just yet. You can use the content learned in Week 1 to provide a basic methodological review. You can use the Page (seen previously) Secondary Data & Research - How to Review the Quality of Secondary Research to think through some of the strengths and weaknesses of this study.
USE THIS TEMPLATE TO SUBMIT YOUR ANSWERS. COPY & PASTE IT, replacing the content in brackets []
What if your article has MORE THAN ONE study discussed? Simply copy/paste this template again to report the other study.
1. What is the issue/problem that motivates this research project? [Provide a few sentences here answering this. Usually the article itself will explain the motivation behind conducting the survey, in other cases you might need to figure that out yourself]
2. What are the research objective(s)/question(s) for this project? [Provide a few sentences here answering this.]
3. What is the research design? [Provide a few sentences here answering this. HINT: Be sure you understand the specific way measurements were taken. All YouGov studies uses an online survey methodology, so be sure to note that but also get more specific about what they did for the particular study you reviewed]
4. What is the sample of respondents used in the study? [Provide a few sentences here answering this. In most cases, results will also be broken down by subgroups of respondents. Here, just summarize the overall sample composition.]
5. How was the data collected from the sample? [Provide a few sentences here answering this. Depending on your personal preference for how you summarize the article, you might have already answered this up in section [3] ]
6. What are the key results / findings from this study? [Provide a few sentences here answering this. HINT: Even in these short studies, there's a lot of findings reported. Focus on clearly highlighting (with appropriate numerical values in your summary) what you understand to be the "most important" insights according to the authors. I expect you to be thoughtful when deciding what to focus on in this short summary!]
7. In your professional view, identify ONE notable STRENGTH of this study and ONE notable WEAKNESS. [Hint #1: When identifying strengths / weaknesses of a research project, be sure you're identifying things that either strengthen or weaken the degree to which you can trust the conclusions made in the report. BE SPECIFIC and EXPLAIN WHY you see each item as a strength/weakness. For example, it would not be sufficient to merely say "online surveys can have bias". If you think the online survey was specifically a problem here, explain precisely why!]. [Hint #2: Students often say a weakness is a "small sample size" of the YouGov studies. This is probably a bad critique! You generally do not need a exceptionally large sampleLinks to an external site. to derive reasonable estimates... consumer surveys of 1,000 of more respondents are generally considered quite large!]
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