Market research supplemented by Qualitative Media Research can provide a Holistic Research Approach for better Analysis and Decision Making

Market research supplemented by Qualitative Media Research can provide a Holistic Research Approach for better Analysis and Decision Making.

First of all: What is Qualitative Media Research?

Qualitative media research involves a process of all of understanding and analyzing content of a company that appear in a news paper, online journal, blog or even discussions happening on social media platforms. The overall analysis of all the featured content posts gives an understanding of how a company or a product is doing. Moreover it helps a good researcher understand the impact of the content on the perception of the product or company in the minds on the audience who are the potential customers.

Let me give you a hypothetical example:

Product XYZ has been launched in the Middle East market and is seen as a threat to many of the co existing players, mainly PQR. XYZ comes with a unique technological feature that enables a wrist watch to be used as a GPS device.

Mr. 123 of XYZ says, “it’s an innovation in the GPS market”

Our Reviewers from 789 publication tried out the product and said that the product is:

1)Cool

2)User Friendly

3)Multi purpose

4)A little heavy

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx End of sample Article xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Explanation:

A Researcher may analyze the above article and a few other related articles to find out how the product is being perceived in the market.

Qualitative media research fundamentals and findings can be Supplemented with those of market Research especially, when we look at the product reviews and feedbacks surveys conducted by market research agencies, which may look inappropriate or biased as there are too many aspects to deal with.

This post is an attempt to make the reader understand the imperative potential of qualitative media research and its advantages when supplemented with Market research.

Stages of a product life cycle where market research techniques are used:

Pre Launch/ Development:

Understanding the preferences and the feedbacks of the customer.

Scope for improvement and a safer bet compared to actual launch of the products.

Reducing risk of failure in product launch and application of marketing techniques.

 

Growth:

Understanding the market share.

Competition analysis.

 

New Product Development research:

Research evaluation over a period of time from introduction to maturity and creating a base for the development of next product launch.

Scope for improvement and minimization of errors.

Stages of a product life cycle where Qualitative Media Research techniques are/can be used:

Pre Launch/ Development:

Competition analysis of available or potential competitive products in the market.

Understanding their key offerings or topics by qualitative analysis.

Understanding positives and negatives in currently available products.

Tracking the blog ratings or analyst ratings for competitors.

STP (Segmentation, targeting and positioning) analysis of competitive products.

 

 

Launch/Introduction:

 

Mapping buyer sentiments

Evaluating positives and negatives of the launched product

Tracking the influencer factors

Tracking the blog ratings or analyst ratings for competitors

Tracking the blog ratings or analyst ratings along with analyst and journalist comments

 

Growth and Maturity:

Mapping buyer sentiments

Analyst expectations in terms of technology and additional innovations prevailing in the market during that period of time.

Understanding the key offerings of competitor products launched during that period of time.

Research evaluation over a period of time from introduction to maturity and creating a base for the development of next company product.

Global overview of products launched globally.

An overview of possible advantages of collaborating Media and Market Research techniques:

By adopting an amalgamated approach, research can be conducted on every lifecycle stage of the product thereby providing a holistic overview of the product feedback and also results from market research and media research to asses and counter check the accuracy.

This would reduce the margin of error significantly and thus provide more accurate reports.

Scope of Amalgated Research (Media+Market):

EXPLANATION OF THE ABOVE WITH A COMPREHENSIVE EXAMPLE

Here, we would be looking at an hypothetical example of a Laptop manufactured by a global computer manufacturer.

 

   

 

Looking at the imbalance between the expected product and the actual product, the product is going to fail in the market theoretically. Also, the perception and feedback of the target group would be naturally negative.

But, to your surprise, the product may actually take off in the market and may gain a good perception and feedback in the market especially from people belonging to the age group 30-40 as the product features may be liked by the middle aged group.

Qualitative media research in this case would help the company derive the overall perception of the product in the media and the trend analysis thereby giving the company a clearer picture beyond the reach of market research techniques

CONCLUSION:

A life of a product is not determined by the way it is being positioned but by the way it is perceived by the consumers.

Qualitative media research enables to track the perceptions of the product from time to time at each of the product lifecycle stage. This is possible not only on a regional scale but a global scale too.

No wonder American washing machine companies got richer each day as their big sized machines continue being a successful product to make Lassi (a yoghurt drink) in Punjab, but was a flop product in America as they were too big to accommodate in their houses.

Being an international company, would you not want to know how your products are doing?-Globally.