MANAGEMENT 3210Y
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Group Research Project
Introduction
Companies must understand why their consumers purchase, or perhaps more
importantly, do not purchase their products or services. The aim of this project is to
understand the consumers of a particular product or service in the context of the
industry environment. What is the company doing at present to satisfy its customers?
Why are their customers buying or failing to buy the company’s product or service,
and where, if possible, could the company improve it understanding of its customers.
The group research project is a semester-long project done in groups of four and
consists of a written report and a class presentation. The project is broken down into
four topic areas. All group members should contribute to each part of the project,
although it often works best if one person has responsibility for a particular section.
For this project assume that your group is a small marketing consulting firm hired to
help the company of your choice gain a better understanding of its consumer base.
The management of this company feels they have "lost touch" with their consumers.
They have asked you to provide them with a complete picture of the factors that
influence their consumers’ purchase decisions.
Since you will need to examine attitudes and purchasing behaviours it is easiest to use
friends and family for this, so choose a company and product or service used by
people you know. You should choose a product that interests you, since you will
spend a great deal of time learning about the company, its products and its consumers.
You should also choose a product that requires some consideration before purchase,
but one that is purchased frequently enough that you will not have difficulty locating
purchasers. If the company you choose provides a wide variety of products or
services, select a particular product or product category.
Groups will be formed the second week of class. Time will be also be provided during
this class to discuss potential topics and how your group intends to work. Two weeks
afterwards you need to submit your team name and company and product(s) selected.
Objectives
 To provide a real-life application and understanding of the concepts and
principles of consumer behaviour learned throughout the course.
 To develop skills working in groups
 To develop leadership and presentation skills.
Topics
1. Secondary data and advertising analysis.
The aim of this topic area is to gain an understanding of the current situation. You
will need to collect pertinent secondary data on the product or service of your choice
and its market. As well, you will need information on the company and industry
within which it operates. Company data should include a brief history, its products,
product lines and brands, and marketing mix. Industry analysis should look at trends,
what competitors are doing, and the demographics of target market. For this section
you may also find it useful to do a SWOT analysis and look at the company’s
objectives, sales volumes, industry size, any particular legislative or political issues
etc. This section needs to be kept short, however, as the main focus is on the
consumers not the company or industry.
The second part of this topic area involves performing an analysis of the company's
advertising. You should seek out advertisements for the company and analyze them.
Pay particular attention to the use of semiotics - examine the symbols used within the
ads, and interpret the meanings of these symbols. What do the advertisements tell you
about the product’s consumers? Or, more precisely, what the company thinks about
their consumers.
2. Personality, the self, and psychographics.
You should examine how issues of one's personality and self-image affect purchasing
and use decisions for your chosen product. Additionally, you will need to examine
how psychographics and lifestyles affect product usage. You will need to both
observe and interview product users for this topic area. You should observe people in
the shopping environment making their purchase decision. What lifestyle factors do
the consumers seem to have in common? Do they seem to share any common
personality traits? You should also interview users of the product (it’s easiest to use
people you know). Do the product users have any common personality traits or
lifestyles? Does the product affect their self-image? Try to uncover all pertinent
information relevant to how personality, the self, and psychographics might affect
product purchase and consumption.
3. Attitudes and decision-making.
Construct a general associative network for your product. To do this you will need to
first uncover the associative networks of at least eight people, then analyse these
networks for patterns and similarities. Create an overall associative network based on
the similarities you identify. To what extent has the company displayed an awareness
of its consumer’s associative networks in its marketing mix?
Examine consumer attitudes toward the product. Are attitudes extreme or moderate?
Are they strongly held? How do product attitudes seem to be formed and changed?
Examine the consumer decision-making process for your product. What level of
involvement do people have? How do people come to the decision to purchase this
product? You should observe several consumers as they make their product purchase
decision. You should also interview several people and have them describe the mental
process they go through when making the purchase decision for your product. If they
are loyal users, you may want to have them recall the first time they purchased the
product.
4. Group influences.
Examine how other people affect the purchase decision for your product. Do
reference groups influence the purchase decision? Is conformity a factor? Are opinion
leaders influential? You should observe people as they purchase the product and
interview those who have purchased the product in order to assess the effect of others
on purchasing behaviour. Is word of mouth an important factor for purchasing your
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product? How does word of mouth flow? How important is the sales environment or
sales person.
Research Methods
You will need to conduct both secondary and primary research in order to gather the
information for the various topic areas. You should use some, or all of the following
methods: literature review, observation, in-depth interviews, surveys, and focus
groups to gather data. Requirements for each method are as follows:
Literature Review
For this project you will need to review literature to direct your research in each of the
topic areas. You will need to find secondary information on the company and product
itself as well as the industry. You should also summarize and review articles related to
how the topic area affects purchase and consumption of the product or product
category. It is unlikely that you will find articles relating to your specific product but
should find articles relating to your product category. For example if you chose to
study the Levi jeans, you might seek out articles that analyse how one’s clothing
affects one’s self-image. You should rely primarily on research published in
academic journals (e.g. Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer
Psychology, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of
Marketing, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology). This may be supplemented with articles from the popular press or the
Internet.
Observation:
This involves watching the product purchasers, and carefully recording relevant
information. You then analyse your notes for important patterns. At least two hours
of observation is necessary. Be sure to include in your report exactly where and when
our observations were conducted. Give specific examples to support the patterns you
extract.
In-Depth Interviews: These are one-on-one interviews in which you attempt to gain a
deep understanding of the respondent’s thoughts with regard to your product. The
key to in-depth interviews is to probe beyond the respondent’s initial response in
order to uncover closely held information. You should develop an interview guide
prior to the interviews. During the interviews you should generally follow the guide,
but allow yourself to stray if it seems that you have identified other interesting
avenues to pursue. You should also continue to probe for more detailed responses to
each question you ask. Write down all answers and analyse them after the interviews.
Try to extract themes and similarities from the subject’s responses. In depth
interviews should last approximately 45 minutes, and at least four should be
conducted. Include a copy of your interview guide in your final report.
Survey: You may want to conduct a survey of product purchasers. Craft your survey
carefully to ensure that you obtain the desired information without confusing your
subjects. Since marketing research is not a prerequisite for this course statistical
analyses are not expected, although you should report means and frequencies where
appropriate. You should also report means by specific categories of interest. For
example, if purchasing patterns seem to differ for men and women, you should report
male means and female means. The survey should be relatively short to encourage
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participation. As a guideline it should take subjects less than 10 minutes to complete.
You should survey at least 40 people.
Focus Group(s):
Focus groups can provide a great deal of valuable information in a relatively short
period but are not that easy to organize. If you conduct a focus group of product users,
develop questions in advance that you wish to ask the group. One person should
serve as the group moderator, asking questions and encouraging group discussion and
interaction. The moderator must carefully guide the group discussion without
injecting his or her own opinions. Another person or persons should serve as
recorder, to record the discussion. Since several people will be talking, it may be
helpful to tape record or videotape the session, and transcribe the discussion later.
You then need to analyse the responses for themes, similarities, and differences. Five
to ten people should participate in your focus group, and the session should last
approximately one and half to two hours.
Group Report
The report should be seamless, i.e. it should not appear to be the work of four
individuals pasted together, and must be in business format (i.e. executive summary,
table of contents, etc) and limited to a maximum of 25 double-spaced pages
(excluding exhibits and appendices). It is due the last day of presentations. It should
also provide some indication of how well the company understands its consumers and
make some recommendations on improving the marketing of the product or service.
Note, however, that the intent of this project is not to develop a marketing plan.
All information presented in the report must be clearly documented in the body of the
report as well as in the reference section at the end. Use APA citation style within the
text in your bibliography (U of L Library home page has a link that demonstrates
accurate APA citation style)
The report should also include an appendix containing the following.
 Copies of any print advertisements if not included in the body of the report.
 Any questionnaires, surveys, interview guides, etc. (Do not include raw data
from surveys)
 A print out of any PowerPoint presentation
Group presentation
Each group will give a final presentation to the class limited to a maximum of 30
minutes. Presentations will be given the last two classes of the semester. Presentation
order will be determined the week before presentations by drawing lots. If there is a
compelling reason for giving the presentation on a particular date please let me know
ahead of time. The presentation should review and synthesize the report. You should
focus on bringing the information together to provide a coherent picture of the
product’s consumers. Do not simply “tack together” four separate presentations –
integrate and synthesize the information.
Each member of the group should participate in the presentation. Assume that you are
presenting to the senior management team of your selected company. The class takes
the role of management, and is responsible for asking questions so be prepared for
challenges. Be original.
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Peer Evaluation Form
Working in groups can sometimes be difficult with one or two members not
contributing their fair share of the work. Therefore, at the beginning of the semester
your group needs to develop a peer evaluation form. This form will outline five
criteria for evaluating the performance of your peers. This (blank) one-page form
must be turned in on the fourth week of class (January 28th). You may include
anything your group agrees to on the form, however, it is strongly recommend that
you address the following issues:
 Attendance at meetings
 Tardiness
 Quality of work
 Attitude
 Meeting deadlines
 What will serve as acceptable excuses
It is also recommend that someone serve as secretary/recorder to keep track of these
things. You should be very specific in terms of what is unacceptable. At the end of
the semester, the forms will be returned and you will fill in this form for yourself and
for each of your group members. Marks for the project will be adjusted according to
the results. More information is contained in the sheet on peer evaluations. Final
adjustments will be based on the instructor’s discretion. If there are problems with one
or more member of the group please talk to me before completing the forms. All
information will be kept confidential
Evaluation Criteria
The report and presentation is worth 35% of the final grade.
Report (25/35)
 Quality of analysis and research insights from related theory and concepts,
 Style and organization of report
 Innovative and persuasive aspects of your project.
Presentation (10/35)
 Smoothness of presentation,
 Quality of visual aids, overheads, hand-outs, videos, etc.,
 Ability to attract and retain the interest of the classroom audience.
 Originality
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