Marketing 1

Market research is an important element of marketing. It plays the role before any decisions concerning marketing or advertising are made (Zikmund, Ward, Lowe, Winzar and Babin 2011). The aim of market research is to collect information and data, which will be used for analyzing. The information consist manly attitudes and buying power of a selected target group (Zikmund, Ward, Lowe, Winzar and Babin 2011).

Consumers today are more educated and thus more demanding towards an offered product or service. The situation today is completely different from the baby boomer's generation where marketing is not a necessity. During the baby boomer's generation, the people then are not as highly educated as those today and as long as a product satisfies their basic needs, it will be snapped up. As for today, a product must not only satisfy basic needs, but also provide other incentives, and also organizations must deal with the threats of the rising number of competitors.

In Singapore, where there are many different cultural groups living, market research is a necessity. As mentioned, marketing research consists of collecting information such as attitudes, culture and buying power of the target groups. The organization must first understand their positions in the industry and come out with a SWOT analysis. Only then, the organization can start their market research and identify how they will reach out to selected target groups by using information such as attitudes and buying power.

References

Low, F and Lee, H.M. 2011, Bubble tea fad makes comeback. Available from : < http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_649907.html> [17 Oct 2011]

William G Zikmund, Steven Ward, Ben Lowe, Hume Winzar and Barry J. Babin, Marketing Research, 2nd Asia-pacific edition. Cengage Learning Australia, 2011

When doing marketing research in a foreign country, an organization will need to pay attention to issues such as language and culture, etc......