Conduct a marketing research project. You need to choose one research problem (from a given list, see below), develop the hypotheses, summarize preliminary insights, design a questionnaire, collect data, and conduct analysis, and make recommendations, etc..
This is an individual assignment (100% of the overall mark)
The word-limit will be 1,500 words at maximum.
For the assignment, you need to conduct a marketing research project (and write the report accordingly). This includes choosing one research problem, develop hypotheses (as introduced below), collect data, and conduct analysis, etc. This report is an individual assessment with a word limit of 1,500 at maximum.
This research project needs to be of “causal research” (e.g., see more details in session 2 – “the process to conduct marketing research” for different types of research). Simply speaking, it should investigate the validity of the causal relationship between pairs of marketing constructs. Let’s see an example below:
Suppose we would like to conduct a marketing research project for a company (e.g., Tesla, which is an electric vehicle and clean energy company and mainly specializes in electric vehicle manufacturers such as the Model S, Model 3, and Model X, cars, etc. – this is simply for illustration, and you may choose other companies and/or any brands for the assignment). We should initially identify their marketing research problems and we can do so for a wide range of areas such as their pricing, product, communication strategies, and customer behaviors, etc.
Suppose that we decide to focus on their customers’ behavior (e.g., how customers perceive the brand, to what extent do customers prefer the brand and customers’ purchase intention to the brand, etc.). We may start from exploratory research, e.g., to generate some initial insight related to customers’ behavior. The “exploratory research” refers to the kind of research which sheds light on the nature of the problem (e.g., to figure out what is going on in the market). For example, we may conduct the exploratory research by organizing interviews and group discussions with some existing/potential customers, and we can ask them open questions related to their behaviors, e.g., why do they choose the brand, and what factors do they consider when they make their choices across different brands, etc. Alternatively, we may conduct the exploratory research by resorting to previous studies in the literature (e.g., academic journal articles and/or business report) where we rely on the data/findings which has been compiled, gathered, organized and published by others.
During the exploratory research, we could be told by the participants that they choose Tesla because of the personal charisma of Elon Mask, or because they perceive the brand as innovative and environment-friendly/sustainable, etc. – somehow these are related to the image of the brand. Alternatively, we may find in academic journal articles (if we choose to rely on previous studies in the literature) that the personal charisma of the founder/endorser of the brand, customers’ perception for the innovativeness and sustainability, etc. drive customers’ behavior. Therefore, during the exploratory research, we could have some preliminary insights/knowledge: that is, brand image drive customer behavior for Tesla.
(for the assignment, you are expected to obtain the preliminary insights/knowledge by summarizing the findings by previous studies in the literature – you do not conduct interviews and/or group discussions).
Here you may raise a question, e.g., we may have obtained some preliminary insights via conducting exploratory research such as interviews and/or group discussions (e.g., the participants may tell us during the discussion that “brand image is critically important regarding customer behavior for Tesla”). Should we just trust these preliminary insights? and would that be enough? The answer is no. This is because, first, those customers who participate in interviews and/or group discussions may not be representative enough (usually we only have a small number of participants for interviews/ group discussions), and this leads to a selection bias. Second, which is more important, these preliminary insights only tell us that “the participants think that brand image is critically important regarding customer behavior for Tesla”, but unfortunately, what participants think may not always be what the reality is.
Similarly, you may raise another question, e.g., we may also have obtained some preliminary insights by summarizing previous studies in the literature. Again, should we just trust these preliminary insights? and would that be enough? Usually, the findings by previous studies may only be applicable under a specific context. e.g., some studies in the literature were conducted many years ago and the market has already changed substantially. Some studies were conducted for an alternative industry other than the automotive industry (e.g., and Tesla) and for other regions/countries. Some other studies try to provide insights but unfortunately without solid evidence.
Therefore, we need to investigate the research problem by ourselves based on more relevant, solid, and up-to-date evidence on top of what we find from the exploratory research. We do not take what we find through the exploratory research as our final answer, and we would like to conduct causal research for this assignment.
We provide you the following (causal) research problem (following the examples we just used):
“To evaluate the impact of the brand image on customers’ behavior for Automotive companies (e.g., Tesla)”
Of course, we need to be more specific about what do we mean by “brand image” and also what do we mean by “customers’ behavior”. Therefore, we can clarify them by developing some “sub-questions”. e.g.,
1. What is the effect/impact of Customers’ perception of Elon musk’s image on their perception of Tesla (e.g., as a premium brand)?
2. What is the effect of Customers’ perceived innovativeness of the brand on their preference to the brand (e.g., Tesla)?
3. What is the effect of Customers’ perceived environmental sustainability of the brand on their purchase intention to the brand (e.g., Tesla)?
In these sub-questions, we replace the general term “brand image” by more detailed and related terms (e.g., the image of Elon Mask, perceived innovativeness, and environment-friendly/sustainable, which were addressed earlier via the exploratory research). We have also replaced the general term “customer behavior” by more detailed and related terms (e.g., customers’ perceptions, preferences, and purchase intentions). Note that we can add more sub-questions by simply playing with different combinations of those detailed terms (and/or add more detailed related terms such as customers’ perception of the reliability of the brand etc. which we may be told by customers or we may find from previous studies in the literature). For example, we could have a fourth sub-question like “What is the effect of customers’ perception of the reliability of the brand on their purchase intention to the brand (e.g., Tesla)?”. We could have developed many more sub-questions but normally we only include some representative ones so that we can limit the scope of the research project (or we can conduct a second project if we are interested in some of the sub-questions).
Therefore, by now, what we would like to do is to address the research problem by answering those three sub-questions.
In the marketing research report (or any marketing academic journal article), we normally “re-write” the sub-questions as “hypotheses”. A hypothesis is a supposition or proposed explanations made based on limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. So, instead of directly answering these sub-questions, we modify our tasks so that now we want to find out if the corresponding hypotheses should be accepted or rejected based on further investigation. For example, we can develop the hypotheses for the three sub-questions above as follows:
Hypothesis 1 (we can write it as “H1”): Customers’ perception of Elon Musk’s image has a positive effect on their perception of Tesla as a premium brand.
H2: Customers’ perceived innovativeness of the brand has a positive effect on their preference for the brand (e.g., Tesla).
H3 – Customers’ perceived environmental sustainability by the brand has a positive effect on their purchase intentions to the brand (e.g., Tesla).
You may have noticed that every hypothesis not only proposes a causal relationship but also indicates the potential “direction” of the causal relationship. These initial directions (e.g., positive or negative) are based on what we find earlier from the exploratory research (e.g., we may find some customers in the interviews tell us that Elon Musk’s image motivates them to choose Tesla or some journal articles or business reports may suggest the perceived image of the founder/endorser would improve customers’ perception of the brand).
Therefore, to summarize, we have following the research problem and three hypotheses:
To evaluate the impact of the brand image on customers’ behavior for Automotive companies (e.g., Tesla)
H1”: Customers’ perception of Elon Musk’s image has a positive effect on their perception of Tesla as a premium brand.
H2: Customers’ perceived innovativeness of the brand has a positive effect on their preference for the brand (e.g., Tesla).
H3 – Customers’ perceived environmental sustainability by the brand has a positive effect on their purchase intentions to the brand (e.g., Tesla).
For the assignment, what you need to do is to conduct marketing research to solve this marketing research problem. Specifically, you need to investigate if these hypotheses are valid or not. You need to collect data and conduct statistical analysis accordingly. If the results of your analysis support the hypothesis, you will ‘accept’ the hypothesis. you will ‘reject’ the hypothesis otherwise.
At this point, you may raise a further question: what do we expect from the results? Is that possible to have results that conflict with our intuition? You will find out more when you have researched by yourself, but now let’s see an example:
We have H1 for which we want to investigate the effect of Customers’ perception of Elon Musk’s image on their perception of Tesla. Some initial insights may suggest a positive effect (that is why we hypothesize a positive causal relationship – btw, we expect you to summarize these initial insights and write them in the report – see details in the other document for the required format/layout of the report). Once we conduct the remaining of the causal research, we may have one of the three possible results as follows:
1. We find that customers’ perception of Elon Musk’s image does have a positive effect on their perception of Tesla as a premium brand. if this is the case, we will accept H1;
This is usually what we see from the results and this is also what we may expect from our intuition.
2. We find that customers’ perception of Elon Musk’s image does have a negative effect on their perception of Tesla as a premium brand. if this is the case, we will reject H1.
This very rarely happens, and this is in conflict with our intuition and preliminary insights, and we need more evidence to find out why (e.g., usually this is caused by a poor design of the data collection, misunderstanding of the questionnaires, etc.)
3. We find that customers’ perception of Elon Musk’s image does not have any significant effect on their perception of Tesla as a premium brand. if this is the case, we will reject H1.
This can also be usually seen from the results and this means we do not find any significant evidence for the causal relationship.
So, how do we take advantage of the insight? If our results accept H1, we then can confirm the positive effect of customers’ perception of Elon Musk’s image on their perception of Tesla. The managerial insight is that Tesla needs to protect/maintain/promote Elon Musk’s image at all costs as it is critical for the brand. This is also what many hi-tech companies were doing (e.g., Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.). However, if our results reject H1, it would mean that the customers’ perception of Elon Musk’s image is unimportant for their perception of Tesla. Many companies do not especially portrait the image of their founders. Thus, the managerial insight is that Tesla does not need to spend resources in maintaining Elon Musk’s image. Overall, whether we should accept or reject the hypothesis is an empirical question.
For the assignment, you need to choose one (causal) research problem and develop three to four hypotheses (this does not affect the mark, but you need to be aware of the word limit). You can see the following examples of research problems and hypotheses you can choose (and modify).
Topic option 1:
Research problem:
To evaluate the impact of the brand image on customers’ behavior for Automotive companies (e.g., Tesla)
You may initially have the following hypotheses:
H1: Customers’ perception of Elon Musk’s image has a positive effect on their perception of Tesla as a premium brand.
H2: Customers’ perceived innovativeness of the brand has a positive effect on their preference for the brand (e.g., Tesla).
H3 – Customers’ perceived environmental sustainability by the brand has a positive effect on their purchase intentions to the brand (e.g., Tesla).
H4 – Customers’ perception of the reliability of the brand has a positive effect on their purchase intentions to the brand (e.g., Tesla).
Note that you can modify the topic by changing the company name, the brand, or the industry, or take different combinations of different terms and/or add more related terms to form/add your hypotheses.
Topic option 2:
Customers now shop online more often than ever. For a specific industry (e.g., the fast-fashion apparel industry or whatever industry you are interested), businesses are interested in what factors drive customers shopping online and/or prevent them from shopping online? Some say that customers shop online because customers would have a wider range of selectable products online (they can only see a limited range of products in high street stores due to limited store inventory capacity). Some say that it is because customers perceive online products as more affordable (is it true?). On the other side, some argue that it could be inconvenient for customers to buy fast fashion apparel online (e.g., customers may prefer facilities such as a fitting room in the physical store), which makes customers less likely to buy apparels online.
Research problem:
To evaluate some factors which drive customers’ online purchasing behavior for the fast fashion industry.
You may initially have the following hypotheses:
H1: The perceived variability of products (e.g., the width of product range) for online shopping positively affects the consumer’s online purchase intentions for fast fashion apparel.
H2: The perceived convenience (e.g., delivery) of online shopping positively affects the consumer’s online purchase intentions for fast fashion apparel.
H3: The perceived affordability of online shopping positively affects the consumer’s online purchase intentions for fast fashion apparel.
H4: Customers tend to shop offline because of the lack of supporting facilities (e.g., fitting rooms) for online shopping for fast fashion apparel.
Note that you can modify the topic by changing the company name, the brand, or the industry, or take different combinations of different terms and/or add more related terms to form/add your hypotheses.
Topic option 3:
Online influencers (e.g., Youtubers and TikTokers) now have substantial influences on their audience. Many brands now collaborate with them to motive potential customers. Suppose you are conducting a research project for a cosmetic brand in the beauty industry (or any product industry, such as digital device, tourism product, etc.)
Research problem:
To evaluate some factors related to online influencers that drive potential customers’ behavior for cosmetic brands in the beauty industry.
You may initially have the following hypotheses:
H1: the perceived expertise of the online influencers for the brand has a positive effect on customers’ perception ion towards the brand.
H2: the perceived relevance of the online influencers with the brand has a positive effect on customers’ perception of the brand.
H3: the popularity of online influencers has a positive effect on customers’ perception of the brand.
Note that you can modify the topic by changing the company name, the brand, or the industry, or take different combinations of different terms and/or add more related terms to form/add your hypotheses.
