Assignment 1: Prepare a Market Research Brief
Successful marketing research requires good communication between the client and the marketing research company. Often the first written communication between the client and the marketing research company is the research brief. The research brief is therefore useful to explain what is expected from the marketing research company. As every brief communicates a different management problem there is no single “ideal” layout or length (as it depends on the problem and the prior expectations of the client). This assignment however will have a word limit (1,000 words excluding references). You can pick any company you want. Below is the structure that you need to follow when writing Brief.
Introduction
- This first section serves as an introduction of the commissioning organisation and is designed to assist the marketing research company in gaining a quick understanding of the market in which the company operates and provides company information that is directly related to the management problem. The information presented in this section will draw heavily from secondary data sources. Please note that the data must exist in the public domain (i.e. you cannot use confidential company information or data).
Background
- This section is designed to provide a short overview of what prompted the need to seek marketing research. It will include a description of the management problem facing the organisation. This section may explain recent changes in the marketplace, the competitive situation and even explain previous research that has been conducted.
Purpose of the Research
- This section is designed to provide a detailed description of the purpose of the research. That is, why is it important to commission this research and why it is felt that research may be of use to decision-making?
- This section is related to the discussion of Management Decision Problem.
Objectives
- There are two types of objectives: Business objective and Research objectives.
- Business objective is the objective of the marketing project the research is for, it is the overall strategic objective.
- Research objectives are the detailed objectives of what you need to know e.g. attitudes, behaviour, usage expectations, perceptions. Is it to understand, evaluate or explore (more qualitative objectives) or is it to measure, record, or ascertain (more quantitative objectives).
- Well-articulated research objectives are essential to a good research project even though they may be extremely difficult to formulate. The client can assist the marketing research company by providing a wider perspective on the marketing
objectives by explaining the business objectives. So, in this section the client should brief the marketing research company on both the research objectives and the business objectives.
- Another important component of this section is to offer support to the marketing research company with methodological issues. For example, if one of the broad objectives was to gain a better understanding of customers’ emotions and feelings, the client could express a preference for qualitative type data. Be careful though. Expressing too strong a preference for one methodology may result in newer or better methodologies being removed from consideration.
- This section is related to the discussion of Marketing Research Problem.
Scope, timing and budget
- This section details the (recommended) population under study (i.e. who should potentially be a member of the population). It also gives the opportunity to the client to point out any sources of information that may influence the scope of the project (e.g. databases).
- Deadlines and budgets are important for all concerned. They often determine whether the research is feasible. Similarly, the deadlines and budgets need to consider the audience for whom the research is intended. When will they expect the results?
- It is often important to also include a comment on the expected format of the report in this section. Reporting formats may include interim reports, progress reports, final reports, conference style reports, tele-conference reports, written reports etc.
References and Appendix
- When preparing the Brief, you will use some sources of information (websites, reports, articles). All these references should be mentioned at the end of the document.
- Appendices are usually not required. But if you need to show very important table or figure, this is the place for it.
In addition to the structure of the Brief, I would like to provide you some Hints how to accomplish this task.
- Some of you will have access to company briefs that have been prepared in the past. Please do not just adapt them for this assignment. We expect that you will prepare a (new) research brief that is currently relevant. The brief should be as focused as possible. Avoid company jargon, acronyms and (company specific) technical language.
- In preparing the marketing research brief, you are commissioning the conduct of marketing research for your (or another) organisation. The brief is usually prepared for a marketing research specialist who may conduct the research on your behalf. The research brief needs to be doable/actionable by the organisation.
- Referencing and citations are thorny issues. It’s true that a professional marketing research brief is unlikely to contain many (if any) citations. However, your marketing research brief is both a professional brief and an academic exercise, so a small, relevant number of in-text citations and references are expected.
- Organisations commission marketing research to diagnose the factual causes of a particular market-based problem or to embrace an opportunity. Since these
problems may be often numerous, trying to solve them all in one marketing research study is impractical. It is therefore suggested that you identify one (smallish/doable) issue facing the organisation (which may be your own organisation) and focus on writing a research brief on that issue, rather than trying to “kill too many birds with one stone.” The purpose of the research and the research objectives need to be well articulated. Objectives should be very focused and stated very clearly. Make them simple and well grounded. Given the word limit attached to this assessment task, this is an important consideration. Focus on quality rather than on quantity!
- Budget is an important component in any research brief. It should be realistic and affordable by the commissioning organisation. This is not an exercise in accounting, but you will have to think through and link your stated research objectives with your budget in a logical manner. I’m not asking that you go out and price the services of marketing research for the purpose of preparing a budget for your research brief. All I am saying is that, for example, proposing a budget of $5,000 for a nationwide questionnaire-based survey of 2,000 respondents is unlikely to be enough for the conduct of the study.
- An additional relevant matter when writing the marketing research brief is to keep in mind that the person reading it (i.e., the marketing research company) will respond to it. Their response forms the basis of your 2nd assessment task i.e. the marketing research proposal. The idea here is that assignments 1 (i.e., the marketing research brief) & 2 (i.e., the marketing research proposal) are linked.
- Refer to the submission page to see how the marks against the components of this assessment task have been allocated. This gives you an understanding on the breakdown of marks that will be used to grade your submitted work. Use it as a guide to plan where you should put more efforts and resources in preparing the research brief.
- I have also posted on Moodle several sample brief. It can give you some feeling how the Brief should look like. However, I would like to stress that those are sample briefs only and they are not ideal. Use them mostly as a reference to the structure.
If you have any questions regarding the Brief, please poste them in the Discussion Forum or contact your tutor. We are looking forward reading your quality submissions.
Regards, Stanislav
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