Hi everyone, welcome to this modul about "Market Research".

My name is Faical Akaichi and I am a research economist at Scotland's Rural College.

This modul is divided into 3 lessons. In the 1st lesson I will focus

on introducing the model of market research and the second lesson I will

describe the different types of data and the methods used to collect data.

Finally, in the third lesson, I will focus on describing the most commonly used

statistical techniques to analyze market research data. Let's start with lesson 1.

After completing this lesson you will have gained a general information about

market research. For example you will be able to identify and explain the

different steps to conduct a market research study. In this lesson I would like

to cover 5 points: firstly I will explain the concept of market research.

Secondly, I will describe the role of market research. Then I will talk about

the different types of market research. In the fourth section, I will focus on

explaining the main steps of market research. Finally, I will talk about some

ethical issues that need to be taken into consideration when conducting a market research.

So let's start with the first point: what is meant by market research?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary,

market research is the collection and examination of information about things

that people buy or might buy and their feelings about things that they have bought.

In other words, it is the collection and analysis of information

about people's demand for products and services. However, does market research

consists only of collecting and analyzing information?

Well, the answer to this question is given in the next slide.

This is a more detailed and accurate definition according to the American Marketing Association,

market research specifies the information required to address a

pre-determinant issue, designs the method for collecting information, monitors and

implements the data collection process, analyzes results and communicates the

findings and their implication. Therefore in addition to the collection and

analysis of information, market research must: 1) identify the problem to be addressed,

2) the type of data to be collected,

3) the method to collect the data, 4) the method to analyze the data,

5) how to communicate the results of the analysis and finally, 6), consider what the

implication of the results are. I am going to give more information of these

different steps of market research shortly. So, from the 2nd definition we

know that market research is needed to address a specific problem. So, what are

the problems that market research can be used to resolve or can help us to solve a

specific problem. Here I am going to give you some examples of this problem.

For example market research is needed when a company wants to undertake a

different market strategy. For example the company is planning to produce a new product

and wants to investigate consumers' interest in the new product.

Another role of market research: it can be used to solve a problem such as

declining market share. Also a firm can conduct market research to

weigh up different alternatives of product or service. For example, the firm

wants to identify the consumers most preferred alternative from a range of

product alternatives, that the firm can then produce.

Also market research is also used to explore trade-off or conflicts over strategies,

policies or products attributes. For instance, market research can be used to

explore how consumers a trade off different food attributes or bundles of

food attributes, such as no organic local fruit versus non local but organic fruit.

Well, depending on the nature of the problem to resolve a specific type of

market research is undertaken. So, what are the different types of market research?

This is what we are going to see in the third section of this lesson.

There are different types of market research and each type is generally used

to answer specific types of questions and meet the needs of an organization.

Market research can be broken down in many ways. One of the most common

classification is to group research into: 'qualitative' market research and

'quantitative' market research. Qualitative market research is usually exploratory

in nature and is useful for uncovering insights into research questions, that

may not be well defined, or when no previous research has been done in the area.

For example market research using a focus group to collect information on

the reasons behind consumers enjoyment of specific food attributes; for example

the attribute 'lower greenhouse gas emission' from production of

specific food of the product. Qualitative market research is

also characterized by using a small and non-random sample size. A less structured

and longer survey; simpler methodologies to collect data, for example

focus group or one-to-one interviews. And the results for a qualitative market research

cannot be generalized is an important characteristics.

That the results from a qualitative market research cannot be generalized to the

whole population. And the reason is because of the non-representativeness of

the sample of interviewed subjects taking part in the qualitative market research survea.

Okay, this is what we mentioned at the beginning and we said

that one of the characteristics is small and non-random sample. And this effect

directly the representativeness of the sample. Okay, so what about quantitative market research?

Quantitative market research is usually used to gain deeper

insight into an issue that may have been previously explored using qualitative

market research. Quantitative market research is characterized by using large

and random samples; structured and shorter surveys; more sophisticated data

collection methods, for example choice experiment and experimental auction.

The results obtained in quantitative market research are or can be

generalized to the population, with the condition that the sample is

representative or the population. Nonetheless, conducting quantitative market

research is time-consuming and in some cases is quite expensive.

I conclude this section by highlighting the existence of other classification of

market research, for example you can find the preliminary market research,

conclusive market research and performance market research.

These are three other types of market research. More information can be found

at this link if you are interested to find out other way of classifying

different type of market research. Okay so this is the link that you can visit

and you will find out the definition of some of this type of market research and

other type of classification of market research.

Part 1: Introduction to Market Research

The Economics of Agro-Food Value Chains

Meet the Instructors