Assignment 1: Task 5: Research for media production

It is important for companies starting a new advertising campaign to do research before actually starting making the product and advert. The reason they have to do this is to make sure that the product will be suited to the audience they are aiming for. If this is not then there may be an issue with getting their product off the shelves or getting complaints from their video.

           Research is not as straight forward as it sounds as there are different types of research and different methods within the form. One type of research is audience research which deals with the question of who is going to be watching the advert and buying your product. If a company gets this research wrong then their product will unlikely sell more than if they got this research right. Questions that are addressed in this type are 'what do they do for a living?' This question is important because it lets the company know what there audience is doing for a living to determine how their product will fit in with the audiences lives. Another question is 'What area they will live in.' This is important because  the company will have to decide what region they are aiming to sell their product in more. This means that if the product is for a tractor then it would be pointless aiming this product for the city and so they would research more into the audience in area of the country. What hobbies they do is also another important topic to research as it will show the researchers what programmes people watch with specific hobbies.

Market research deals with looking at what other companies that sell the same product, trends which involve the product and awareness of the product. Looking at other companies will mean you are able to see how they have done in terms of sales and how they have achieved what they have. Doing this will help you to see if your product will be able to make a profit and if the market is too saturated for your product. Looking at trends and patterns you will be able to view how the product has done overall and in the past. It will also be able to let you see if it will become more or less popular in the future which is important so that you do not waste the money making an advert but does not have any effect because it has already been around and gone. Overall market research is very important because it allows the company to see if their product will be able to survive in the market and how to do it.

The final research to do is production and addressing the question, how is the product going to be made and at what cost. Logistics is important because it lets the company know how much money would have to be spent to collect everything for making the product and advert. Included in this is whether it is viable to complete the product and everything to make a profit. 

In research there are 4 main categories that it will come under and using more than one will be essential to gather the perfect information. One category is secondary research and this means you are looking at research what others have done and be videos, questioner, surveys or books. Pros of doing this method of research is that you will not have to use as many resources to find the information you will need and not spend a lot of money on resource such as paper or people to perform the questionnaire which you can spend on making the advert. Cons of this method are that the information you have gathered may not be for the specific requirement you are looking for and therefore not answering the question you need answered. Another con is that the research you find might be inaccurate or old which will result in you gathering the wrong information and not create a suitable advert.

The second research method is primary research and this is when you find the information you need on your own without taking research from other people through the form of something like a questionnaire or survey. Advantages of using primary research is that you are able to make your own questions meaning you can recieve more specific information for what you want such as ' On December 1st 2006 how many Wotsits did you eat?' which would be impossible to find from someone elses research. Another advantage is that you can control what people answer your questions to recieve information from your target audience. Cons of this method of research is that you will have to go out and use your own resources to get information which will cost money and time.

within these research methods there are also types of research which are quantitative and qualitative. These two types of research are how the information is collected and viewed. Quantitative research is information that is displayed as figures which is useful for comparisons. This is a good research type because it doesn't require lots of reading and can be viewed quick. Another reason why this is a good type is because it means you are able to show up this information as many things like graphs, charts or simply as numbers to compare trends through time. A third reason why quantitative research is good is because it fast to collect as it usually only requires tick boxes and not written words.  Even though these are good points there are still a few bad points one of which is that they do not give you lots of detail and are limited in getting details from the person answering.


Qualitative research is research that is written and not figures. Pros of using this type are that they can be very detailed which means you may get new information from people that you have not before thought of and therefore can research further to improve the data received. The participant is also not confined to the questions and answers given by the researchers meaning you will end with better results. Cons of this type are that they can take a long time to be completed which means you will not be able to ask lots of people to complete it as it will take too long. This could also mean that not as many people will want to take part because they are not willing to spend their time on it. There is always a risk of either not getting enough information from the person taking the survey or too much, giving irrelevant information which the person conducting the research will have to read through and use up valuable time.