Introduction
According to Graeff, ‘it is useful to think of marketing research as a process, or as a series of activities that should be performed’. Moreover, ‘marketing researchers should make decisions sat each of the stages of research process’.(Graeff T.,2006,39-40) To make marketing research process smooth, careful planning is needed.
The following plan is designed in order to work out efficient market research program, aimed at exploring Hong Kong people’s opinion on vegetarianism and finding out whether more Hong Kong inhabitants consider becoming vegetarians due to the current porcine or swine flu. The plan includes the following steps: defining the objectives of the research; detailing further areas, beneath each of the objectives; analysis of available secondary data; choosing market research processes, relevant to objectives of the research; describing procedures of the research; elaborating on data preparation techniques; opting for the suitable for of reporting. The plan should also concentrate on timeframe of the project, necessary financial resources and credentials.
Market research Program Plan
Objectives
The research has two objectives, which are ‘to find out what Hong Kong people think about vegetarianism’ and ‘whether more people are becoming due to the current porcine or swine flu’. The second objective can be broken into the following sub-objectives:
to find out if Hong Kong people express concern about the epidemic of swine flu
The first objective, which was not reformulated, seeks to consider people’s attitude towards vegetarianism. The need to get full-scale notion of people’s perception calls forth the necessity to explore different contexts, related to vegetarianism (health and safety, animal rights campaigns, saving money and increase disposable income etc.).
to make sure that Hong Kong people consider vegetarianism a relevant tool for securing themselves against becoming infected with swine flu
Second objective would seek to make sure (or disprove) the fact, that Honk Kong people establish the link between epidemic of swine flu and vegetarianism as a relevant security tool.
to get to know, if there are people, who plan to become vegetarians due to being afraid of swine flu epidemic
The last objective is set in order to find out if there are people (and estimate the number of such people), who are currently changing their eating habits in order to get extra protection against swine flu.
We can also unite objectives ‘a’ and ‘b’, formulating is as ’to find out if swine flu belongs to reasons, which made people, who have recently become vegetarians, semi-vegetarians or at least ‘meat reducers’ change their nourishment manner. Nonetheless, we consider breaking the second objective into two separate sub-objectives to be more efficient in terms of further consideration of suitable research process types and research design.
Desk research
Secondary data are data that were collected by persons or agencies for purposes, other than solving the problem at hand. (Curtis K.,2008,7-1) According to Aaker, Kumar & Day, ‘the first thing the research should do is search for secondary data, available on the topic’. (Aaker D., Kumar V.& Day G.,2001, 102) The main application of secondary data is ‘to gain familiarity and to establish a context in which primary data …