Marketing Question

Overview

This assessment requires you to explore, research and reflect on marketing research practice, and the theorectical, practical and ethical considerations that must be considered when undertaking marketing research. You are required to develop a strategy to educate an audience and help them understand the topic though a short presentation.

Purpose

The purpose of this assessment is for you to engage with a contemporary issue facing the marketing research industry - conducting research with respondents experiencing vulnerability - by conducting independent research, synthesising the findings and then presenting these in a report or video presentation format to a target audience of your junior colleagues or collaborators. The assessment simulates the role that you as a marketing professional, have in both your own lifelong learning as well as in educating and informing your colleagues on trends and challenges affecting the practice of marketing, specifically the practice of marketing research in this case. Understanding the impact of contemporary issues in the practice of marketing research is not only relevant to marketing research practitioners, but to all marketers as users of research data.

As you are enrolled in a Postgraduate Marketing course, I expect you are in, or are aiming for, a senior/managerial role in marketing or a related industry or are an entrepreneur with your own (future) business. As such, you will be expected to keep on top of trends and challenges affecting the practice of marketing. Lifelong professional learning is important, but so is the ability to be able to communicate with and educate more junior marketing and non-marketing colleagues/collaborators on how these topics affect your business and how you practice marketing.

Thus, for this assessment you are to produce a piece of education material in the form of a presentation. Please keep in mind that this is still an academic exercise and thus requires rigor in your analysis and theory must be present in what you are communicating to your audience. Your submission should reflect your learning, inquiry and scholarly work.

Learning Outcomes

The targeted Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) for this assessment are:

• CLO1: Critique and propose how marketing research can be conducted and managed by both clients
  and suppliers for optimum results for stakeholders.
• CLO2: Critically analyse the advantages and disadvantages of different types of research designs,
  data collection, and sampling methods.
• CLO4: Assess the overall quality of a marketing research project and its usefulness in the marketing
  decision making process

Marking Criteria

This assessment will measure your ability to:

• Structure and Presentation (15%)
• Sampling methods (30%)
• Data collection methods (30%)
• Managerial insights (25%)

Assessment Details

Marketing research is conducted with diverse populations, and often the population of interest in a research project presents unique opportunities and challenges that should be considered in the design and management of the research project. In this assignment you will explore, research and reflect on the practice of conducting marketing research with vulnerable groups (in Australia or a country of your choice).

The Research Society Code of Professional Behaviour states that research projects must be carried out in an ethical and professional manner, and “must take special care when collecting information from people in vulnerable circumstances in the community” (rule 27). For the purposes of conducting research in Australia, The Research Society defines vulnerable circumstances as including "those experiencing homelessness or other disadvantage" and "people with serious medical conditions" and highlights that these vulnerable circumstances may be "permanent or temporary".

It is important as a marketing professional to understand the process of engaging diverse and underrepresented communities in our research and marketing efforts. Thus, the aim of this topic is for you to consider how marketing research can be used to reduced inequalities in market participation through considered and effective research design.

In your submission: 1. Explain to your audience the theoretical, practical, and ethical considerations that must be taken into account when selecting a sample when the population of interest for a marketing research project are in vulnerable circumstances. Illustrate how the practice of sampling for people in vulnerable groups differs to that of those who are not

2. Demonstrate (with examples) the advantages and disadvantages of at least two data collection methods when conducting marketing research with people in vulnerable groups.

In your discussion of the above two points, identify the challenges in effectively managing marketing research projects being conducted in vulnerable groups and recommend strategies to overcome these.

It is recommended that you select a context to frame your discussion of the above points. For example, consider a commercial marketing research project for a product targeted to people with serious medical conditions (e.g., pharmaceutical products), experiencing economic disadvantage (e.g, financial services) or a social marketing research project on a topic relevant to those experiencing homelessness. The choice of context is up to you – so pick something that is of interest to you but also will help you illustrate the issues related to conducting marketing research with vulnerable groups. You may choose to use the context of the case study from A1 & A3 if you prefer.

Your submission will be in the form of a 5-8 minute presentation that includes both visual and audio elements. You will also be required to submit a document that includes your reference list. In choosing how to format your presentation please take into consideration how information needs to be conveyed appropriately to your fictional target audience (junior marketing and non-marketing colleagues/collaborators), as well as your actual target audience (your instructor). If in doubt, please sense-check your approach with your instructor before commencing.

In addition to the presentation you must submit a reference list that features a minimum of ten (10) items; at least five (5) of which must be relevant academic sources (journal articles or academic texts). Please ensure that the critique is referenced according to RMIT standards, using the RMIT Harvard system.

Tips

In your submission the following is highly recommended that you use:

• A strong and enticing introduction that shows insight of the topic and clearly defines the context you are using to frame your discussion
• The use of clear, relevant sections to your presentation
• A compelling conclusion that draws clear inferences and insight which summarize the thinking presented in a confident manner
• Tables, charts and diagrams that provide ready insight, comparative perspectives and crystalize your analysis and insights into the topic
• Examples or case studies that support your examination of the topic and help educate your audience by seeing the topic in situ
• Pictures and associated visual representations are also valuable and recommended, but please don’t spend all your efforts on these – remember it is what you are saying that is most important, not how pretty it looks;
• Bold and insightful thinking on the topic that stimulates the audience to want to learn more

Avoid the temptation to obsess over the ‘perfect’ way to do this and focus predominantly on how you prefer to communicate a new topic to someone else.

If you are authentic in your approach and maintain the academic rigour, insight and perspectives necessary you will do well.

Submission format

Submit the following files as uploads:

• The written component (reference list) for this assessment as a Word or PDF document.
• The video component of this assessment as an MP4 file (We suggest using Canvas Studio to record your video presentation, but you may use the tool of your choice)

Rubric: