Exploratory Research Report

Executive Summary

Contents

Introduction

Situation One

A product manager suggests development of a non-tobacco cigarette blended from wheat, cocoa, and citrus.

Before a product can be created, product managers need to make sure that people will actually like and purchase it. One way of doing this is through concept testing. “Concept testing is the attempt to predict the success of a new product idea before it is marketed” (Market Navigation 2009, pg. 1). Usually done within a focus group, participants sample and discuss openly what they think of the product. This will then provide consumer feedback to market mangers to assist them in developing their ideas. The participants of the focus group are usually around 8 to 12 people with open minds and a willingness to brainstorm ideas about the topic (Hair, Lukas & Miller 2008). Also, the members of the focus group should be people who you are planning to target if and when the product is developed. This way you are able to reveal consumer needs, motives, perceptions and attitudes. If the opinions of the focus group seem to be all negative, the job of the moderatoris to facilitate discussion on how and what can be done to develop this product that is more appealing to them. Exploratory research is not meant to have a black or white answer, the more detail there is in the research the easier is for the researchers to breakdown their findings and continue their research.

Situation Two:

Situation Three:

Situation Four :

An advertiser wishes to identify the symbolism associated with cigar smoking.

This final situation would best be researched within a focus group using association techniques. Word association is where a list stimulus words or phrases related to the topic of research are read out to the respondent. The respondent is asked to respond with the first word or phrase that comes to his/her mind without putting too much thought into their answer (Hair, Lukas & Miller 2008)....