An analysis that critically compares a range of research tools, methods and skills (Essay)
We complete research on subjects, issues or ideas to ensure the production value of an advertisement or film is accurate to the audience and factually correct through many different research processes. It helps you to interpret how the product should be displayed to the audience. As said by Hamza Ismail on Prezi, "Knowing who your targets are is very important as it will help you compete and stay on top."
I will be using research for my project to discover facts and figures on the product and which sector of the audiences are my target audience. This can affect my media production as it may change how I present the audience or product in my project and how it should be interpreted to the audience. I will be using questionnaires to find the consumers interests and opinions on the product to know how it should be represented. I will also be researching data online to find the cost of the product and what target audience it fits to. i will also be using this to find out product information to determine how my advertisement should look.
Primary Research
One form of research taken place in media is primary research which is carried out to answer specific questions about the audience on many topics. Primary research can be executed through questionnaires, interviews and observations. Primary research classically allows you to learn opinions on certain topics and which audience it better relies to. Primary research is a reliable source of research as it allows data interpretation to be easier and the data collected to be recent and updated. It can be time consuming to get all of the data filled out such as surveys and this could also cause inaccurate feedback from the audience if they do not understand the survey or have very low interest to complete the survey. It is also very high cost to print out multiple sheets for people to fill out and takes longer to collect all of the data together.
From my primary research, I found that Skittles are popular with the younger audience between the ages of four to around twenty years old. The largest audience was definitely in the teenagers group but they were more liked in older and younger audiences than teenagers. From this research, it allowed me to understand my target audience and at what ages they prefer Skittles.
I undertook this primary research to discover what my chosen range of target audience opinions were on the product and how popular the product was. This allowed me to understand my audience and whereabouts in the range I should mostly be aiming for. the strength of my primary research was I found out many different opinions on the product. A weakness of primary research was that most people didn't want to fill out a questionnaire or didn't give an accurate representation of their opinion. This may be by how I wrote the questionnaire and they didn't understand or that they didn't want to do the questionnaire in the first place. I have also applied my own opinion on the product because I am in the target range and to give an accurate opinion.
Secondary Research
Another is secondary research which is a collation of existing research from others who have done primary research on the topic. Secondary research is normally completed through searching for information online or in books. Secondary research is time and cost effective as it doesn't require as much attention or money to complete secondary research as it does to complete primary research. It also allows the extensiveness of your data to be wider, allowing to get views and opinions from around the World compared to primary research which only allows where you can get to.
Also secondary research is effective; there can be inaccuracy of data on the internet making it less reliable. Some of these websites can be ones such as Wikipedia as everyone is able to edit the webpage. Secondary research can also not be exactly specific on the subject you are looking for, making it more difficult to find information on your topic compared to primary research where you get the information there and then.
From my secondary research, I found out Skittles target audience is a wide range in age, varying depending on their advertisement. This means that I can target a wider range of people and am able to interpret how my advertisement should look in many different ways to attract different parts of the audience. I also learnt that the colours used in Skittles can be emotion provoking, allowing me to use pathos in my advertisement to attract the audience and giving me an idea of what colours should be used in my advertisement. After also finding that it is the most popular sweets for teenagers, this allowed me to vary my search to see how I could aim it at teenagers compared to children or adults.
I undertook this secondary research to discover the range in the target audience and how much leverage I had in making the advert. It allowed me to understand my audience and what they could be attracted to to pay attention to the advert. The strength of the secondary research was that I found out a lot of information about the target audience, the product and how Skittles interpret their own product to the audience. A weakness of the secondary research was it wasn't specific on what I was searching for, making it more difficult to find out how I should present the advert to the audience.
I felt that my secondary research was the most valuable as it provided me with the most information on my product and how I should produce my advert to aim at the audience the best. Although my primary research shown the target audience and recent information and opinions on the product, the secondary research allowed me to interpret my advert and how to present it easier, allowing me to think of multiple ways to do so.
Qualitative and Quantitative Research
Qualitative research is also used to gain an understanding of reasons and opinions from specific target audiences or segments. Qualitative research can be done through open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and unstructured observations. This makes it easier to examine complex questions on the topic for the audience and allows you to gain more information on the topic. It allows the audience to voice their opinion, not being limited on choice. It does have its disadvantages such as replicability of what someone voiced can be very difficult to write accurately to their opinion. They can also give bias opinions on the topic, making the information less relevant to you. It can also be expensive to do and can be labor intensive to complete.
The opposite of qualitative research is quantitative research, which is the use of numerical data or statistics to quantify the opinions from qualitative research. Quantitative research allows your information to be precise on the topic researched and is less time consuming than qualitative research. One problem of this is that large numbers need to be studied to get accurate and reliable data on the topic, meaning inaccuracies are a possibility.
Audience Research, Market Research and Production Research
Some other forms of research used are audience research, market research and production research. Audience research is defined as any communication research that is conducted on specific audiences to gather knowledge about them such as their age or interests, Market research is the action of gathering information about the consumers’ needs and preferences and production research helps provide content of the production such as the finances for a product and where it is located to to target the audience the best.
My research was valid as I gained multiple opinions on the product and I could draw comprehensive results. I was able to do so as I had multiple views and detailed information on the product and audience, allowing me to do so. The sample groups for my primary research could've been larger to gain a wider range of opinions to get more accurate results but it was difficult to find people who wanted to complete the questionnaire.
Overall, the research contributed to my production as I knew how to target my audience in the advertisement. It gave me ideas on the colour choices in my advert and how to express the happiness I plan to show in the advert. I have learnt that the value of research is important as it allows you to decide how to record and how to change your production to target your audience better.
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