Unit 3 Assessment

Methods of research Primary research is the process of gathering data that did not previously

exist. An example of this could be. You are wanting to develop a football game

but you’re not sure about what your target audience is. A simple questionnaire with the basic questions like age, gender, do you

play fifa, do you play PES, or do you have a game console. These basic questions would help you figure out what kind of audience

you are wanting to appeal to. This is an example of primary research because this data will have not

been found before with the same specific set of questions. However there may be something similar which you could compare to

when you do your secondary research. With primary market research you can choose the people you question

with this being a football game standing outside a sports shop or an indoor football center could be the best option.

Primary research example 2 When producers have completed their film they will have a focus

group. Focus groups are a group of randomly selected people who give

feed back on different things such as films and products. If the focus group points areas out that they are not keen on then

the media producers will go back and re-shoot/ re-write this is so that they get the best film possible that people will enjoy.

An example of where a focus group has changed a film would be Bourne identity the alternate ending to this film is where Bourne and “Marie” spend an entire evening on a beach having a nice romantic date however the focus group opted for the original ending as they felt it would have ruined the trilogy.

This is primary research because this data had not been collected before and this was the first time the movie had a focus group.

Primary research example 3

Another example of primary market research could be an interview. By asking a person a series of questions you can get the exact information you are looking for. You are able to get as much detail as you desire however this method of primary research can be a long process and it takes a lot of time to interview each person and record their opinions.

Methods of research (secondary) Secondary market research is the collection of data that has

previously been conducted and has been publically produced.

One example could be you are wanting to create a new TV program but are not sure what channel to pitch it to. You are aware of which programs are similar and you want to find out which program gets watched the most, as that channel will have the most traffic for your target audience. You may go onto a website such as the BARB to find out which channel you such pitch it to.

Example 2 Another example of secondary market research could be

testing out similar product’s. if you are games designer then you may test out similar games so you can see what works and what doesn’t and things that don’t work you may fix them and put them into your game. This will give you a unique selling point which puts you above competitors. This is secondary research because the game has been created and you are finding out information from existing media.

Example 3 A third example for secondary market research could be

browsing through existing data such as questionnaire’s. There are website out there that you would be able to find relevant data to your product. This way you can compare answers between your primary data and the secondary data this will give a better idea about what consumers want.

Quantitative Quantitative research is referring to number and data that

can be put into graphs and or organised. One example of this could be a questionnaire this is because

all the questions will be the same for example if there are 3 check boxes for a question this could be easily organised as x number of people will have checked one box and x number of people will have checked another . This can be easily sorted into categories and the correct action can be done for the most checked answer.

Example 2 Another example of quantitative research could be a vote for

example you have made a movie but you have two ending’s you could gather together a focus group and have them vote on which ending to use this way you should be able to find a winner but it is key you have an odd number of people this way it cannot be a draw. Once you have gathered the data you can put it into a tally chart and identify the majority vote.

Example 3 A third example of quantitative research would be

experiments. These could be done in a number of ways but the end result will always be data you can sort. Quantitative research is very basic but can be key. It is usually quicker and more straight forward as you don’t have to treat people as individuals and have lots of descriptive writing to read through. Quantitative and just be put into a graph and easily scanned through.

Qualitative Qualitative research is a lot more in depth and give an insight

into people opinion’s and feelings. One example could be an open ended questionnaire this Is

different to a simple checkbox one and it will ask the person a question but will have a box in which they can write exactly what they think as normal checkboxes might not include their opinion. This is usually better for the company as they can make the product a little bit more personal.

Example 2 Another example could be a focus group for example you

have finished shooting and editing for a movie but before you release it you want to test it out on some of the public. Focus groups come in for a small screening and they give the thoughts and opinions to help movie directors improve their film’s some answers may be I didn’t understand how the story jumped. Writers then may go back and change the story so that it put something in the middle of the gap that might help explain to viewers what happened.

Example 3 Another example could be simple observation say you made

an advert and the aim was to make people smile or laugh at it. You could put on a small screening and observe their reactions. If the outcome is not what you had hoped then you could ask questions after as to how to improve it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcj7QT0Abk8 this is an example as the corporate men are sat behind a screen observing their moods.

Data gathering agencies The role of a data gathering agency would be to collect data

on certain matters around the media world. Examples of these could be TV channels, newspapers and magazines. Companies can then pay to access the data that they wish which massively saves time in the research stage or the production. All this data would be classed as secondary market research.

Data gathering agencies. The national readership survey covers over 250 of Britain’s news brands

and magazines http://www.nrs.co.uk/training-2/helpful-tools/useful-chart/ this data would be useful because it shows the figures about how much of the population reads magazines with this information advertisers can decide whether to place an advert in a magazine with the current standing being 80% they may decide to but then they would need to know which magazine to publish their advert in with this chart they can then see that they largest percentage for readers would be the popular daily news brands. However these figures are very spread out across the three categories sop therefore they may decide that a newspaper/magazine would not be the best option. These are very useful to the Media Industry as all the documents are accessible online this save massive amounts of time trying to collect this data themselves.

Data gathering agencies BARB publish the most watched shows from a variety of

channels  http://www.barb.co.uk/whats-new/weekly-top-10? with this data it allows publishers to come upon a decision as to which time to run their adverts. For example if X-factor was the number one watched program on ITV for the past three weeks then advertisers may decide that this would be the best time to advertise but that all depends upon the demographic being correct. This company is useful to the media industry as the media industry largely operates around TV shows and adverts meaning that this website will be very useful in helping production companies address a whole load of matters.

Audience research Audience profiling is finding out the profile of your audience before

hand i.e.. Gender, age, interest’s and work experience. Demographics is the data of the populating showing age, gender,

income and education. An example of this could be a YouTube channel for if you access your video manager there is a section within that shows your demographics here you can see the age of viewers and their gender along with the location. This can help the creator as they can adapt their content to appeal more to viewers.

Geodemographic is the demographic for an area for example a town this will measure things like average income and class.

Audience research Here we can see the age range for the UK in 2014. This

demographic shows how the population is spilt up this can be used to assist media creators in making adverts. As you can see the most dense population is people ages 25-54 therefore media creators can adapt their adverts to appeal to this age range. However 0-14 has a large portion of the population and these are the ones most likely to be watching TV therefore you could adapt the advert to appeal to these as kids are more likely to get things stuck in their head and repeat to their parents.

Audience research Psychographics are more about people as individuals. This

targets peoples personalities ,attitudes and interests. An example of how these can be useful together would be

first you identify your target market by using the demographic looking at all of the categories then you would turn to psychographics to get a more in detail report on your audience.

Market research Market research differs as this type of research is all about the market

as opposed to the audience. Things that could be included in market research could be popular products.

Organisations would want to know if they were creating a new product as this could steal some of the market away from your organisation.

One example could be EA they released their new game Battlefield 4 before the new call of duty was released this was to jump ahead and try and steal some of the market and this worked. Players just wanted a new game so they went out and bought the new Battlefield which took up a large sum of their money meaning that most people could not afford the new call of duty. This put a dint the the call of duty franchise’s profits.

Production research Production research differs to market research as production research is

more about finding actors and music things that are more specific. One situation could be you have a similar film for example 2012 and the

day after tomorrow both are very similar. 2012 which was released 5 years after the day after tomorrow they might have wanted to know their budget as they would want to know how much they should aim to budget.

It is very important for organisations to use this information as they can start delegating budgets. For example they would have watched the day after tomorrow and have seen areas in which they would have thought would have been a weakness. They may have though the special effects where not as good as they could have been so they may have a look at their budget and try and out do them by delegating abit more.