PART II ‐ PLANNING EXPERIENTIAL BRANDING
14 M ARKETING RESEARCH IN EXPERIENTIAL BRANDING
14.1 Marketing research in experiential branding campaign planning
Figure 14.1 – The framework for event content
methods requires analysis and classification of responses (Hair, Bush, and Ortinau 2006) to uncover the common interest of the target group.
In section 11.1.2 we emphasized the advantage of having a narrowly defined target group in order to identify event contents that likewise are narrowly defined and hence more likely to be unique for the brand. This narrow definition of the target group on i.e. behavioral or psychographic (Belch and Belch 2007)variables (Belch and Belch 2007), increases the likelihood of identifying these unique interests of the target group, as the diversity in the population will be less. An example of this could be in the distinction between a target group defined merely as “women aged 30‐50” and a more narrow definition as “women aged 30‐50 who are health conscious homemakers”. Identifying common interests for a significant share of the former group will most likely not yield very specific results as virtually all types of women personalities will be represented, whereas individuals in the latter group will more likely be similar on a behavioral and psychological level. Hence the common interests on which event contents can be based are more easily identified through the initial qualitative research the more narrowly defined the target group is.
The limited sample size that is most often characteristic for qualitative research does of course not yield results that can validly be assumed as generalizable for the entire target group, hence a
descriptive research design with a larger sample size may be employed to validate the findings of the exploratory qualitative research (Hair, Bush, and Ortinau 2006). This would also be the case if a company already has preliminary insights into what the target group is involved in and need them validated. Such quantitative research could be conducted through e.g. an Internet survey, as these are fast, easily administered through existing providers, data collection is computerized and hence free from human error, minimizing the nonsampling error (Hair, Bush, and Ortinau 2006). If the company has a customer panel with members representative of the target group, the research could be conducted with these, as the company previously will have identified the individuals as being part of the target group, which will not be the case if buying an internet survey from a specialized firm.
Surveys seeking to uncover attitudes toward a set of interests are focused on gathering state‐of‐mind data (Hair, Bush, and Ortinau 2006), and hence questions should be based on ordinal or ordinal‐
interval scales to retrieve answers as these allow the company to rank order the data and hence evaluate alternatives directly (Hair, Bush, and Ortinau 2006).
In some cases, e.g. when the target group is a specific societal group, secondary data on the
members’ interests may be available online, or from syndicated data from research firms, which may eliminate the need for the company to conducting research itself.
Perceived authenticity of the brand/company – After having identified possible options for event content, the company must determine whether the target group perceives the brand/company as having authenticity in relation to these individual options in order to choose the optimal event content.
The objective of the research to be conducted should be to identify the general perceptions of the target group in relation to the degree in which the brand authentically relates to the different possibilities of event content. As the data gathered must validly represent the perceptions of the target group as a whole, a large number of responses must be gathered, and hence a quantitative research should be conducted (Hair, Bush, and Ortinau 2006). Again, Internet surveys provide an attractive method for gathering the survey data however the company should of course seek alternative options if the target group is not generally represented on‐line. Likewise, as the data collected will be state‐of‐mind data of the perceptions of the brand relation to different event contents, questions should be constructed with ordinal or ordinal‐interval scales, to allow ranking of alternatives. Since the assessment of whether a brand is perceived to be authentic in relation to a given event content may be abstract, the company should, if affordable, conduct a prior construct development based on qualitative research. This could be done through in depth interviews, wherein the company should seek to uncover the domain of observables associated with authenticity in the target group(Hair, Bush, and Ortinau 2006). Subsequently when the company has uncovered how the target group perceives authenticity, the survey can be conducted.
14.1.2 Event content choice research relating to the clockwise route
Target group perception of brand image ‐ In the clockwise route through the framework above, we again start with the target group, but in this case the company must initially identify the value
associations the target group perceives as relating to the brand. The objective of this research will be to obtain valid results describing existing brand value perceptions in the target group, and hence a descriptive research design is appropriate. It is assumed that the company has a prior
knowledge/idea of the overall dimensions of the brand value associations and hence is able to create questions based on this. However allowing for direct respondent input of value associations that were not identified by the company. As this survey again will seek to uncover state‐of‐mind data questions should list positive and negative adjectives relating to the brand image and be rated on ordinal or interval‐ordinal scales, (Hair, Bush, and Ortinau 2006). Internet surveys again are very suitable for this due to the arguments presented above, and they easily allow respondent input of their own value perceptions. This direct user input option of course requires some human data
processing to classify responses which potentially raises non‐sampling error (Hair, Bush, and Ortinau 2006).
Target group involvement with identified event contents ‐ Having collected the data from the research described above, the company must conduct thorough analysis to uncover which specific event content options the brand is perceived to be authentically related to. Based on these results research must be conducted with the objective to identify whether a significant share of the target group is predispositionally involved with one or more of the alternatives. Further the research could be utilized to uncover whether the analysis carried out by the company in identifying possible event contents actually corresponds to the brand value perceptions of the target group, by assessing whether the target group perceives the brand to authentically related to these. Again the type of research to be conducted should be quantitative to ensure validity, and follow the same structure as described above, with Internet surveys based on questions with ordinal or interval‐ordinal scales (Hair, Bush, and Ortinau 2006).
14.1.3 Event composition – pretesting the content
Once the optimal event content has been chosen, objectives for the campaign has been set, and the event has been composed, including as many Experience Realms and SEMs as necessary, the
company may pre‐test the concept. Such a pre‐test is an analogue of test marketing as described in Hair, Bush and Ortinau (2006). The objective of a pre‐test should be to ensure that the elements constituting the experience provide the impression sought with the target group. Conducting a pre‐
test should in our opinion not be considered as a necessity if thorough marketing research has been conducted during the planning, as described above.
When conducting a pre‐test, or test marketing, the strongest impressions will be generated through a test that contains at least some of the actual event content, hence it can be costly to thoroughly test the concept. If the pre‐test is based on an imitated experience, like virtual test marketing, where the respondent has to imagine the experience the impressions will not be generated as vividly and the evaluation of the event will hence be less valid. Pre‐testing the concept can contribute to cancelling a weak concept that might not have generated any significant effect or by indicating small adjustments to be made in order to maximize the effects of the concept, whereby pre‐testing should not be discarded altogether.