Assignment 2

Research Treasure Hunt!

Once your group has chosen the product you will be promoting in your campaign, you will gather the following information for Phase 1 of your campaign. This research will be included in your situational analysis and should be the foundation for the objectives and strategies your group proposes.

You can work together as a group on this assignment but each group member should hand in their own summary of the research results obtained that they prepared. In your writeup, you need to summarize the information you find and indicate the primary source of the information (the publication – including title or article or report, author, date).

Do your best to find the information below, using library databases and resources suggested by Mike Davis, our business reference librarian. Research guidance is available online at www.library.umass.edu/subject/business/marketing422.html, a guide prepared by Mike Davis. You can also use web resources and your own foot work (visiting stores to assess the competition, how the product is displayed, priced, etc.). To do an adequate job of research, you should have 10-20 sources in your bibliography (at least half drawn from library databases). The summary of your findings should be typewritten and handed in on Thursday, Oct. 12 (a week later than the Oct. 5 deadline in the syllabus). Include a bibliography of your sources at the end of your summary.

Some great sources to begin your search include: Mintel reports (online database), BCRC, Market Research.com, the Advertising Red Books, Info Trac and LexisNexis.

Information Needs:

  1. Industry/Company Overview

Describe the industry in which your product competes, its size, growth, current trends and developments, and any key factors necessary for an understanding of the setting. Also provide a very brief history of the company, its product lines, sales history, target markets, current marketing mix and any other factors that make the company what it is today.

  1. Product Review

Describe the product or service that is the focus of your campaign. Include the product’s sales history, market share, strengths, weaknesses, key benefits, brand image, and other factors important for an understanding of the product’s or service’s performance and place among its category competitors.

  1. Competitive Review and your Competitive Advantage

Who is the competition? What images do they convey in their advertising and promotional materials and on their web site (if applicable) vs the image your product/service conveys? What do they promote as their distinctive competencies? From your perspective and the objective information you have evaluated, what are the actual competitive advantages of your product/service and that of the competition? What is the competition’s sales history, market share, strengths, weakness, key benefits, and brand image? You can summarize your info in a table like the following:

Competitive Analysis

FactorYour CompanyCompetitor ACompetitor B ….

Brand Name of Product

Strengths

Weaknesses

Brand Image

Pricing

Distribution

Sales

Market Share

Target Audience

Distinctive Competencies/Competitive Advantage

Positioning

IMC

Creative Strategy

Slogan

Key Benefits Emphasized

Image conveyed in advertising

Ad Spending

  1. Consumer Research
  1. Market Segmentation - Identify the various market segments. Consider the various methods of segmenting a market including demographics, psychographics, product benefits, usage patterns, buying behavior and decision-making.
  1. Potential Target Audiences and User Profile - Who are the potential target audiences for this “product” or “service”? Describe the demographic characteristics, psychographic characteristics, and behavioral characteristics of users or heavy users. See Mintel Reports, Lifestyle Market Analyst, Best Customers: Demographics of Consumer Demand, Simmons Market Research (use column B).
  1. Total Advertising Budget for your brand and competitors and Advertising expenditures by media for your brand and competitive brands. See Tablebase (online), LNA Ad $ Summary (library ref.), LNA Class/Brand $ (library ref.), Standard Directory of Advertisers library ref.), Advertising Red Book (online), etc.
  1. Current IMC effort of your brand and competitive brands (as best as you can tell)