Companies spend a lot of money on research, as they need have the right resources in order to conduct the research and to gather the right information, they need to hire the right people to carry this out, which means they will need to hire those by spending the money. The media products are expensive to produce, for the use of the right equipment. The spending helps the company to attract the right target audience, this helps to attract the audiences attention in the correct way. They need to make sure they product the right product within the budget. The money is put into make sure the research is conducted in the right amount of time.
Primary Research
Primary research is research which is collected as new information, which has not been found before. The purpose of carrying out this information is to answer questions and issues. The research will be resulted with an answer. Examples of primary research are interviews, surveys, questionnaires, test markets, postal surveys and the user groups for products.
Pros
- This is new information which is gathered for a particular purpose, meaning the information is conducted for a reason.
- No one has this information, this is an advantage as competitors will not have this type of source.
Cons
- This is an expensive way of conducting the research due to the equipment for this.
- You may not be able to focus on that many people of different varieties to gather good and clear answers.
Secondary Research
Secondary research, is also known as desk research, this is the collection of information from previous sources and research which is existing, rather than primary where it is new, types of secondary research can be found on the internet, from books, history, phone calls, letters, files and previous experiments which were previously performed to gather an answer and a conclusion. The internal resources include, letters, phone calls, customers and files. External sources are trade associations, internet, government publications and newspapers.
Pros
- This is cheaper to carry out meaning businesses do not have to spend much money on this.
- This type of research takes little effort to carry out which makes it faster to gather the right information.
Cons
- You do not know how reliable the sources of information are.
- The information gathered may be out of date meaning this would be no use to the companies aims for their research.
Quantitative
This is research which is surrounded by data and measurements in order to record information this is performed by questionnaires with simple answers,the findings from questionnaires and surveys are then put in data form such as, line graphs, pie charts and bar graphs, this is the visual mathematic view of the results.
Examples:
- Box Office Figures
- Programmes Rating / number of watching, number of scores.
- Readership circulation figures.
- Number of hits/ views/ subscription.
- Final Sales
Film Rating/ this is showing the star rating for the film Bad Moms: This site shows the rating of the films, this can give indications to the film producers of how good the films are and how successful they are. This will also give the public a good implication of how good the films are.
Pros
- This is something you can look at the see the results, if it were on a graph it is easy to see the result.
- This is good for future reference when reviewing something.
- The accuracy is good.
- Quicker
- Good indicator of both success or failure.
Cons
- This can be bias as this is just a number will no further explanation, people may not understand this.
- May not get as much knowledge or research out of this.
Qualitative
This type of research is about peoples views and options about something and also motivations. This research will help when making decisions and when developing ideas, this will help as you find out different and a variety of answers which are in depth.
Examples:
- Film reviews
- Social Media - Facebook pages e.g. new film.
- Websites
- Games Reviews, peoples responses / discussion.
This is an example of a written film review from someone who has seen the film, this is speaking about their views and how they thought the film was. This shows the success or failure of the film, this can offer information about the film to the public.
Pros
- Clear, as this is put into more detail as people can understand and relate to the information.
- You are getting the full story out of this type of method of research.
Cons
- Some people may have different opinions than other and have different interests and views of things.
- This is a longer way of finding out the information.
- This may not indicate and good or bad review this could be a mixture whereas it is harder to gather one answer.
Website, product reviews and rating, this is found on amazon. This is showing the consumers feedback from a particular product, in this case it is the "Finding Dory" DVD. This is the use of both quantitative and qualitative research as this is using both opinions and the rating towards the product.
Purposes
Market Research
Market research is research which is gathered in order to supply answers in order for an outcome and a conclusion. The answers will be there to provide the consumers needs and preferences. For example, business will carry this out in order to find out what customers want for their products, this will help to determine what the business needs to do for their on going customers in order gain success.
Pros
- This can communicate new ideas to both new and current customers of a business, meaning this will target more than just the current customers, meaning the business will be more successful due to carrying out the right market research to find answers.
- Market research will help to limit the risks as you are finding out the correct information which you need as you have control of who you ask and what you as, in order to come to a positive conclusion for the success.
- Market research helps to expand changes and plan ahead within their image and their business. This means that problems and research can be carried out ahead of time before its too late for a company, for example this will help to beat the competitors.
Cons
- This may be time consuming when gathering the right information, in terms of a detailed research search, this means it will take more time finding the information than actually putting it to work.
- When carrying out this, it may be expensive to find out the resources and making sure things are put into place, in order to find the right information, the costs may be the traveling to specific destinations.
- Limited volunteers to carry out the market research, if not many people volunteered the research would be limited in of terms of how much information could have been found within the market research process, this will reduce the chances of the success.
- This may be targeted at the wrong audience, if the business or company ask the wrong people of the wrong audience their information will not be of use to them as this information would not be helpful.
This is an example of a market research agency which carried out research and sold to various media companies. This particular organisation is National Readership Survey (NRS), this is non-profitable organisation, which focuses their research on the who reads what publication, this will include both magazine and newspapers, the market research will be shown in a table and will represents what sort of people read each one, they are divided due to their social class statues, gender, and their age. This give a variety of feedback to people looking at the readerships.
http://www.nrs.co.uk/latest-results/titles-at-a-glance/quick-view/
Production Research
This is research which is related to the production process which is being carried out, this will be used to find out exact information about a specific topic or product within the media field. This is the research for the concepts of one product, for example a video games, the front cover, the music, the colour and the content of the game.
Pros
- This is will be useful as there are many different concept and components which go into a product , this will help as the detail will help the product to become more successful.
- The research is about one product which means all of the research carried out will have good outcomes in terms on focusing on that one object, this helps the product become successful and to sell.
- They can ask the customers what they like and what they dislike in order to relate to their views of the products.
Cons
- The research, is for the current issues and the markets, meaning they cannot tell what the future will hold and how people will act towards their competitors.
- The products may become out of date, meaning their customers may chose to not purchase the products, meaning the production research, may not be worth the money.
- By the time the research has been competed there may be other things and competitors which will change the audiences mind to their product, meaning the research would have been out of date.
Audience Research
This is research which is carried out by relevant groups of the audience in order to ask and gather information to those who the topic matters. This could be people with the same attitudes, behaviours and also their interests. This could be surveys and interviews.
Pros
- The research and information found is from a targeted audience, meaning the information is meant for a purpose, the information gathered supports the original intention, for the research.
- You are able to cover particular topics and discussions by this form of research and you can ask the right relevant group to support the findings.
- You are able to get different views about a topic or issue which is being highlighted, this is good when making decisions about something.
Cons
- You could get audience feedback which is fake and not realistic meaning the research would have been false in some cases, meaning the research would not have been beneficial.
- You may not get the right answers you had wished for, for a particular topic of issue, this would the research would not have 100% been carried out correctly.
- Not everyone can have a chance to voice their own individual opinions, meaning some important information would have been missed and left off, due to not everyone having a say.
Different Types of Research...
