2. Marketing Information and Research Assignment Briefing June and September 2013 Angela Dalrymple Senior Examiner Professional Certificate in Marketing 1

3. Assignment Introduction The MIR June / September 2013 assignment consists of three tasks – Task one: a research proposal (12 sides of A4 +/- 10%) Worth 50% of the final mark – Task two: a presentation (12 slides +/- 10%) with supporting speaker notes (1500 words +/- 10%) Worth 25% of the final mark – Task three: a discussion paper of 1500 words (+/- 10%) Worth 25% of the final mark 2

4. Assignment Context You are required to write this assignment from the perspective of a Research Executive working for a Marketing Research agency You are creating a research proposal, presentation and discussion paper for a client organisation of your choosing – This should be your own organisation, or one you are very familiar with – The assignment should not be written from the perspective of an employee within the chosen client organisation 3

5. Task 1: Research Planning for Decision Making Research Proposal Context: – The organisation is keen to monitor the behaviour of its customers / users when they are purchasing the organisation’s products or services Only in the case of organisations which do not sell products or services, customer / user behaviour needs to be monitored when they are using the organisation’s products and services Research focus: – What length of time do people take when purchasing or using the organisation’s products or services? – In what manner do people purchase or use the organisation’s products or services? – With how much ease do people find or use the organisation’s products or services? – What are the reactions of people when purchasing or using the organisation’s products or services? 4

6. Task One: Research Proposal Structure Follow standard research proposal structure set out in e.g. BPP Study Text for MIR – Background and rationale – Objectives – Approach and methodology (this should including sampling) – Reporting and presentation procedures – Timelines (e.g. shown via a Gantt chart) – Fees/Budget – Background to the research agency / Outline CVs There is no requirement for an Executive Summary If an introductory letter from the agency to the client is included, this must be included as part of the specified 12 page count for Task One – Page count does not however include Table of Contents – If a Table of Contents is included, this should show the relevant page numbers of each section 5

7. Task One: Background and Rationale Background & Rationale – May be shown as separate sections – Or as a single section where the Rationale is clearly shown to follow on logically from the Background Background of the organisation should outline – Brief description of the client organisation, its markets and products / services – Context of how customers / users currently purchase / use the organisation’s products / services Rationale should provide a clear justification as to why the client needs this particular research at this point in time, e.g. – What are the main reasons why the client is keen to carry out this specific research project at this point in time? – What will the research results be used for by the organisation? Background & Rationale likely to consist of approx. 1-2 pages (worth 10 marks) 6

8. Task One: Research Objectives Based on the criteria given in the brief: – The length of time people take when purchasing or using the products / services – The manner in which people purchase or use the products / services – The ease with which people find / use the products / services – Any reactions of people when purchasing or using the products / services Each of these criteria need to be presented as research objectives with associated information targets, e.g. the following general example – To verify the environmental data requirements of boat-owners by quantifying the level of need for:- Waste disposal facilities Marine wildlife data Washdown systems maintenance Objectives section is worth 12 marks Refer to CIM Senior Examiner reports for other useful examples 7 Information Targets Research Objective

9. Task One: Approach & Methodology A research proposal is a selling tool for the research agency – So your approach & methodology should clearly be presented in a manner which would convince the client organisation to use your agency for this research Your recommended Approach & Methodology should be clearly and specifically linked to meeting your stated research objectives and information targets – Candidates should avoid simply providing “shopping lists” of research approaches / methods unrelated to their stated objectives – Candidates should also beware of developing an inappropriately low or high range of research methods, e.g. One single set of focus groups / one survey / secondary research alone would be unlikely to meet most sets of research objectives, However a range of 5 or more research methods would also be likely to prove excessive / too costly for the organisation 8

10. Task One: Approach & Methodology Justification is needed for your methodology and sampling approaches – Why are your overall approach and specific research methods the most appropriate to meet the research objectives, e.g. in terms of costs, and the types of respondents being researched? – Do you need both secondary and primary research – if so why? To meet which research objectives? – If you are recommending secondary research, which data sources would be specifically useful to meeting your research objectives? – Do you need both qualitative and quantitative primary research, or just one of these methods – if so why? To meet which research objectives? – There is no need to include actual questionnaires or discussion guides in your proposal, or to actually carry out the research proposed. – Copying an approach or methodology directly from a template or previous assignment is strictly forbidden and will be penalised via the use of CIM plagiarism detection software. 9

11. Task One: Sampling Sampling is a key part of your proposed methodology, and must be clear / justifiable – Candidates should not simply include general sample theory in their assignments with no justification E.g. “For the quantitative survey we recommend using stratified random sampling” – Why is this the most appropriate sampling approach? For which group of respondents? – Candidates should not create sample numbers which have no justification E.g. “For the proposed focus groups we will run 6 groups with 8 participants per group” – Why 6 groups? What will be the difference in content between the sample in each group? Why 8 participants? What will they be asked in relation to the research objectives? 10

12. Task One: Sampling Candidates should provide a basic summary of the overall sample universe, the sample frame they recommend drawing from this universe, and the proposed number of respondents to be researched from this sample frame. Example:- – “There are 907,000 businesses operating in the UK construction sector (Federation of Small Businesses, 2013) – Using sample from a business provider such as Dun & Bradstreet, a sample frame of around 9,000 construction businesses would be recommended for purchasing sample for the quantitative survey – Working on a conversion rate of around 1:10, 900 interviews would be conducted for the proposed quantitative survey to meet Objective 1.2:- 11 LocationLondonManchesterBirminghamGlasgow No. of Interviews240230220210

13. Task One: Timing, Fees & CVs Timescales can either be presented as a Gantt chart, or with key activities simply listed under e.g. “Week 1”, “April 2013” onwards Examples of Gantt charts can be found in Senior Examiner reports – Candidates should not copy generic Gantt charts into their assignments, but should contextualise them to the approach they are recommending Fees should include an overall total, and a breakdown by key areas of research activity / researcher man days CVs and agency background information should show experience relative to the proposed research project – Real agency names / candidates’ own names should not be used Examples of both fee breakdowns and CVs / agency experience can be found in Senior Examiner reports 12

14. Task Two: Secondary Research & Presentation Planning Context: You are still writing from the perspective of your role as an Agency Research Executive from Task One You are required to undertake a short secondary research study into the methods used by the client organisation’s competitors to deliver their products or services to their customers / users – Only if the organisation has no competitors, you may benchmark / present on comparable organisations instead of competitors You are asked to produce up to 12 presentation slides, plus speaker notes providing explanation with each slide (speaker notes 1500 words in total) – Slide count and notes word count must be within +/- 10% of these limits – Cover slide, table of contents slide and bibliography slide/appendix may be included in addition to the 12 presentation slides 13

15. Task Two continued The presentation slides should be based on the findings of secondary research information which you obtain in researching this task Candidates therefore need to:- – Gather secondary information on the market – Select the most important elements of this information – Prepare a presentation of their findings Take note of the command words for each bullet e.g. – Analyse the methods used by the organisation's competitors to deliver their products or services to their customers / users – Identify the implications that the research findings may have on your recommendations for improving the delivery of the client organisation's products and services – Evaluate the benefits and limitations of the specific secondary data that you have collected as part of the research – Briefly describe what other data would have been useful but was unavailable, and suggest further research that needs to be undertaken 14

16. Task Two continued Examples of relevant factors to the delivery of the organisation’s products / services may include e.g. – Channels used, support provided, unique features, online vs. offline delivery etc. When planning how to allocate the content of your 12 presentation slides, ensure that you pay attention to the different weightings for each bullet in the mark scheme Use a range of published reports, newspapers and Internet sources Reference these sources both in your slides and in a Bibliography slide using correct Harvard referencing format – Further information on Harvard referencing on the CIM learning zone Ensure slides only contain key points, with speaker notes to provide supporting explanation – Font sizes on slides should be large enough to read when pasted into the assignment, and slides should not be overcrowded with text – “Death by PowerPoint”! 15

17. Task Two continued Consider the target audience of directors and senior managers of the client organisation, and create your presentation content accordingly Graphical and/or statistical data is expected to be included in the presentation – Supporting speaker notes should clarify what such information means for the organisation You are not expected to physically give the presentation in person You do not need to develop costings for this task – You have been asked by the client organisation to carry out this work as a no-cost follow-up to your Task One proposal 16

18. Task Three: Customer Databases Context: You are still writing from the perspective of your role as an Agency Research Executive from Task One You are required to produce a discussion paper relating to the client organisation’s customer data (1500 words +/- 10%) You must address the following 3 areas:- – Identify how the organisation's customer database could be used to profile customers – Explain what is meant by data mining and how it could apply to this particular organisation – Explain how data protection legislation and controls impact on this organisation's use of a customer database 17

19. Task Three continued Address all 3 bullets of this task, and pay attention to the marking scheme The task clearly states that all 3 bullets should be discussed specifically in relation to the client organisation – Generic content or material simply copied from textbooks / lecture notes and not applied specifically to the client organisation is likely to fail this task You should provide a reasonably detailed explanation of the use of database information for profiling, data mining and data protection in the context of the chosen organisation You should support your answer with examples from the client organisation, and references to other theory or authors which you have read in preparing your answer to this task 18

20. Format & Presentation Marks for format and presentation are awarded over each of the 3 tasks These marks are awarded for e.g.: – Relevance of content to the tasks set – Use of course concepts and frameworks – Use of professional business tone and format – third person recommended (not “I”, “we”, “you” etc.) – Contextualisation of content as required for each task – Correct in-text and bibliographical Harvard Referencing – Adherence to word / page / slide count in each task – Reference to supporting information such as the BPP MIR Study Text Other useful sources to help with writing this assignment include MIR reading list textbooks, Senior Examiner reports and CIM Learning Zone 19