Market Research Final Project

Week 7 EOC- Trader Joe's

Trader Joe’s started their company in the 50’s as small pop-up convenience stores on the west coast. It was a chain of convenience stores called “Pronto Markets.” In the 60’s the founder changed the stores name to Trader Joe’s and started doing business differently.
Trader Joe’s prides themselves on being able to offer value to their customers. They like to be different by always offering low prices. They don’t believe in sales or frequent shopper cards. Their motto: Great food+ Great price= Value. Trader Joe’s seeks out interesting and unique products for their customers. They offer ten new products every week. They are always trying to make the shopping experience fun instead of monotonous.
Since Trader Joe’s doesn’t do much advertising they use their newsletter as a form of advertising. Trader Joe’s has multiple locations all around the country but they don’t seem to be as popular as other large grocery stores. I think that Trader Joe’s has a great company and they could be a lot more successful if they conducted some market research to help them answer questions relating to why people might choose to shop at other grocery stores instead of theirs. I think they could conduct a simple survey throughout all locations of their stores that would help to better understand their current customer and also how to draw in new customers. This would improve their sales and overall awareness of the company to the world.
If I were in charge of designing the survey that would be conducted in the stores I would design a broad questionnaire that would answer one question for the company. Could we improve sales by spending more money on marketing and advertising? The survey I would create would look something like this:
Trader Joe’s Survey:
1. Do you read Trader Joe’s Newsletter?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Sometimes
2. Are you the type of person that pays attention to advertisements?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Sometimes
3. Do you wish that Trader Joe’s would implement a rewards club?
a. Yes
b. No
4. Do you buy all your groceries at Trader Joe’s or do you have to go to other stores also?
a. I buy all of my groceries here
b. I come to Trader Joe’s for specific products and I have to go to other stores for other products
5. Would you be interested if Trader Joe’s started offering coupons?
a. Yes
b. No
6. Would you be more likely to shop at Trader Joe’s if they offered sales regularly?
a. Yes
b. No
7. Why don’t you think other people don’t shop at Trader Joe’s?
a. They don’t know enough about the company
b. There is not enough locations for them to frequent one
c. They do not know enough about the product you offer
d. They don’t care for the products that are offered
8. Would you more likely to come into our store if you saw more advertisements from us through TV, newspaper, or internet ads?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Maybe
9. Do you like that Trader Joe’s doesn’t offer any sales and always has low prices?
a. Yes
b. No
10. If you are a frequent shopper of Trader Joe’s do you wish that we would start a rewards program for customers like you?
a. Yes
b. No

Week 6- EOC Tax Cuts

If someone is listening to a spokesperson or reading an article that is written in an opinion they are more likely to be swayed in the direction of the speaker. That is why a lot of the time people speak with opinion as opposed to speaking with facts. They are trying to persuade the listener in a certain direction.

“Congress must make the 2001 and 2003 middle class tax cuts permanent in order to create a stable economic environment for our small business families. With Nevada sitting at a shocking 14.2 percent unemployment rate, we need to enact and sustain any incentives that allow the private sector to flourish and get Nevadans back to work.” This quote was pulled from an article written by Steve Tetreault from the Washington Bureau. In this entire article the basic question that Steve is trying to answer is should the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 be extended or should they be expired. Steve, the person writing the article, obviously has an agenda because you can tell by the style of his writing and the content of his article that he favors the tax cuts being extended. This is a quote that is placed in the article that helps support Steve’s view. “I would think with the economic downturn you would expect there would be a larger portion of the citizenry that would like the tax cuts to continue.”-said Gonzales. If quotes like this are being presented in the article along with no opposing quotes viewers see the quotes as facts rather than viewing them as a basic opinion. Steve also included facts in his article that ONLY supported his view on the question of tax cuts. An example of this is the following quote. “The average middle income family in Nevada would save $1530 on their 2011taxes if the tax cuts are extended-according to a study this month by the non partisan tax foundation. “ In that quote he is proving to middle class families that if they do vote for the tax cuts to be extended they will be saving a great deal of money. By letting the reader know that the study was conducted by a non partisan group it helps the reader subconsciously think the writer of the article is also non partisan in their views.

In conclusion many articles are written in opinion. These articles are usually answering a basic question or reviewing a generic problem. They are written in a certain way to persuade the viewer to favor a certain side.

Week 5-EOC WSJ Privacy

It's "unnerving," –she says.-WSJ Privacy. This was quoted from Julia Preston, a 32-year-old education software designer from Austin, Texas. She was talking about how she feels about being tracked on the internet. She had once done a search on her computer about uterine disorders and soon after she started to notice fertility ads pop up on all of the websites she visited. This bothered her because she felt that her privacy was being violated. This violation of privacy has become a very big deal in society lately. Is there even such thing as online privacy now-a-days?

“A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers”. –WSJ Privacy. Apparently more spying is going on than consumers know about. How are we as consumers supposed to feel about our every move being followed on the internet? Not only are these spying companies getting ahold of our personal information they are turning around and selling this information to companies that need the information about consumers. This spying is becoming more popular by the day.

“Tracking became possible in 1994 when the tiny text files called cookies were introduced in an early browser, Netscape Navigator. Their purpose was user convenience: remembering contents of Web shopping carts.Back then, online advertising barely existed. The first banner ad appeared the same year. When online ads got rolling during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, advertisers were buying ads based on proximity to content—shoe ads on fashion sites. The dot-com bust triggered a power shift in online advertising, away from websites and toward advertisers. Advertisers began paying for ads only if someone clicked on them. Sites and ad networks began using cookies aggressively in hopes of showing ads to people most likely to click on them, thus getting paid.” -WSJ Privacy. These activities led to companies wanting to follow and target their target consumers to help better their bottom line by boosting sells. In my eyes I feel that there is definitely no online privacy now-a-days. Unlike most people that are bothered by the lack of privacy, I personally think it is ok that there is companies out there that track my information. I think it is kind of nice to be able to only see ads that I usually find interesting. It makes it easier to find what I’m looking for sometimes.

"Beautiful Stranger TV"

“Beautiful Stranger TV” is a really cool outlook on where trends are being started. Instead of following around celebrities with cameras shouting at them asking them who they are wearing, Beautiful Stranger takes their cameras out on the streets looking for ordinary people that have exceptional style. I think this is a really interesting way of conducting marketing research because these researchers are not following trends that everyone is already following (like trends put down from couture designers) they are finding average everyday people that have great classic style. Not only do they stop these people and get them on video, they also ask them about where they get their style from, what kind of trends they are into, and if they participate in any eco-friendly trends. Some reports even go as far as to ask the people what type of music can be found on their iPod. I think this is a very successful way of doing market research because instead of conducting market research through surveys and getting forced answers, these researchers are catching all of their research result through realistic on camera answers. These researchers also ask these people where they like to hang out and what activities they like to participate in. This helps to mark the hot spots around that neighborhood. This would help many companies to realize why or why not their hang out spots are successful or not. “Beautiful Stranger TV is a great example of an experience survey. Experience survey is a type of in-depth interview in which knowledgeable people are asked about a particular research problem. In this case the knowledgeable people are the fashionable people found on the streets, and the research problem is what the researchers are trying to capture from each of these unique individuals. I think this is an absolutely great way for conducting research!

"BIG" with Tom Hanks

Everyone who is young seems to want to be older and vice versa. Everyone wonders what they will be when they grow up. One boy gets to find this out in a way he had not anticipated. A fortune telling video arcade turns a young child (Tom Hanks) into a man. Tom Hanks plays the adult version of the child. He gets a job at a toy company and quickly moves up the ranks from being behind a computer terminal to being in the board room. The reason he moves so quickly up the ladder in the company is because he has the thoughts and actions of a child. It is like a case study. A case study entails intensive investigation of one or more situations similar to the problem at hand. If the toy company is trying to research what types of toys kids are interested in playing with what better way to test toys then on kids? Josh Baskin (Tom Hanks) basically acts like the companies case study without anyone even knowing what is going on. Josh knows what kids will like so that what he invents. Life as an adult is not as easy as it seems though. A girl from work asks him if he wishes to sleep over and he still believes girls are "icky." Hank’s uses an idea for interactive electronic comic books to propel him to a position of respect with the boss of the toy company he works for. This is an example of the case study, because Josh thinks like the child he really is. Most regular adults are too advanced to think what type of toys kids would like. Eventually the big man becomes little again, and can live as a child once more. At least he gets to live as a child knowing what life as an adult will be like.

Eoc Week 3: "9 to 5"

The movie “9 to 5” is a classic comedy about three secretaries kill their boss. The producers of the movie got the idea for the film from an article they ready about how someone tried to kill their boss. The movie became very popular during its time because everyone seemed to be able to relate to the movie in someway. Although the movie is shown as a comedy it really is the way that most women felt when working in the business world surrounded by so many egotistical men. It was right around this time that women were making their way into the work force, positioning themselves in jobs more than just desk receptionists. This movie pushed the envelope and helped get the whole concept out there and moving. The movie created quite the movement.

What many people don’t know is the makers of the movie did actual market research to see if secretaries really felt this way about their bosses. The results they acquired were quite shocking. By conducting some simple applied research they gathered realistic information from real-life secretaries. Applied research is the type of research that you must conduct. The type of applied research they conducted I would say would have had to have been exploratory research. This would include qualitative research, in-depth interviews, and observations. This type of research helps clarify research in certain types of environments. The producers never came out and told us what they did to gather the exploratory research, but they did mention that they spoke to actual female secretaries about their views on their bosses. They could have simply done this by conducting a focus group. A focus group is where a group of people discuss their attitudes toward a product, idea, etc. This can be in an interactive setting or there can be a moderator helping the group to move along.

There were many ethical dilemmas referenced in the movie. These included killing your boss, office affairs, and sexism. Although these are very serious ethical dilemmas they film got around them by playing them off as jokes.

EOC Week 2 Research Surveys

Many people conduct marketing research to help them make better decisions when it comes to improving their brand our business. These better decisions come from external research that is gathered through many stages of the marketing research process. Researching others people surveys and results can help people decide what type of research would be best for them to conduct like, and it also helps them learn a lot about the company conducting the research.
I decided to research the results of a fashion survey conducted on young girls. The fashion survey was called “Are you a Fashionista or a casual cutie?” The survey was conducted on girls between the ages of 10-14 with the average of the girls taking the quiz at age 13. The survey was attempting to answer questions like, “Are you trendy or laid back?” “Do you wear designer or thrift store finds?” “Is pink really the new black?” The research company conducted the research on all SmartGirl users. Smart Girl is an online community where girls can share their opinions, creativity, experiences, and goals. The girls can see what other girls are thinking and add their own thoughts to the mix. Visitors to the site are generally girls between the ages of 11-17. They come from many countries around the world.
The researchers wanted the girls to open their closets and tell them more about their fashion styles, what they wear, where they shop, and what their favorite outfits are. By conducting this research the company was trying to find out what is popular amongst girls of this age. A clothing company that shares similar target markets to that of SmartGirl users might have paid a researching company to conduct the survey to help them determine current trends going on with their target market.
The results I reviewed were very detailed and included all questions with the answers and appropriate percentages. Many of these included graphs of the results. This surveys results could be very advantageous to many companies. One company I could think of that would benefit from this would be the girls’ clothing store called Justice. I have attached the link of the marketing research where all the results can be viewed. http://www.smartgirl.org/reports/4413755.html

Week 1 EOC: Expectations

When I first think of marketing research I think of those annoying people that stalk you in the mall asking you if they can bother you to fill out a survey. Many shoppers run in fear from these annoying researchers, but what I hope to uncover from this class is that market research isn’t always annoying and tedious but more interesting and helpful. I want to learn how I can conduct helpful research that will assist me when I start up my own company. I want to know who to hire and what kind of research will best benefit my type of company. I do also expect to conduct some sort of market research myself. I hope to uncover some valuable information that will help me along with my midterm and final’s projects for this class.