MANAGEMENT 3210Y
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Group Research Project
Introduction
The group research project is a semester-long project done in groups of four and will consist
of a written report and a class presentation. The project is broken down into four topic areas.
Each group member will serve as "leader" for one topic area. The leader is responsible for
organizing, delegating, and finalizing the report for his or her topic area. This does not mean
that the leader completes his or her report independently — all group members should
contribute to each part of the project. Each student in the group will be asked to evaluate the
contribution of the other members of the group. If there is consensus that a particular group
member has not sufficiently contributed, that member’s grade may be negatively affected.
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 with products used by people you know. You
should choose a company that interests you, since you will spend a great deal of time learning
about the company and its consumers.
Groups will be formed the second week of class (i.e. January 17th). Time will be also be
provided during this class to discuss potential topics. The following week (January 24th) the
following need to be submitted:
1. names of individuals on the project team
2. The leader for each topic
3. team name (optional)
4. 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.
For this topic area you must first collect pertinent secondary data on the company of your
choice, as well as the industry within which your company operates. Company data should
include company's objectives, sales volume information, competitor information, a brief
history of the company, product lines and brands, marketing successes and failures, marketing
mix, and a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. Industry analysis
should look at industry size (number of units sold or dollar sales for at least the last five
years), industry leaders, demographics of target market (number of people, religion(s), race,
age distribution, education level, state of health, labour skills, standard of living, etc.), any
particular legislative or political issues, Opportunities and threats in the industry as well as
any other factors particular to this market.
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. Analyze and interpret several advertisements, if
possible, whether or not they use semiotics. Use your analysis to explain the company's image
within consumers' minds.
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-images? Try to
uncover all pertinent information relevant to how personality, the self, and psychographics
might affect product usage.
Additionally, you should summarize and review articles specifically related to how
personality, the self, and psychographics affect purchase and consumption of the product or
product category. For example if you chose to study Mercedes, you might seek out articles
that analyze how one's automobile affects one's self-image. These articles can be from the
popular press, the web, and/or from academic journals.
3. Attitudes and decision making.
Construct a general associative network for your product. You will need to interview several
people in order to do this. 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?
Next examine the consumer decision making process for your 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.
Additionally you should summarize and review articles specifically related to consumer
attitudes and/or decision making for your product or product category. These articles can be
from the popular press, the web, and/or from academic journals.
4. Group influences and sociometrics.
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 people who have purchased
the product in order to assess the effect of others on purchasing behaviour.
You should also examine the flow of information between people. Is word of mouth an
important factor for purchasing your product? How does word of mouth flow? You should
construct a sociometric map depicting the flow of information regarding your product
between people. Try to get a “chain” of at least three people, and interview each regarding
how they heard about the product and what they told the next person in the chain.
Additionally you should summarize and review articles specifically related to group
influences and/or sociometrics for your product. These articles can be from the popular press,
the web, and/or from academic journals.
Group Report
The report 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) and
handed in the last week of class. Recommendations on improving the marketing of the
product or service could be included, but note 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. Copies of any advertisements,
questionnaires, etc. should be included in an appendix.
Group presentation
Each group will give a final presentation to the class limited to a maximum of 30 minutes. It
should review and synthesize what you learned. 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. Copies of any visual aids, PowerPoint presentations etc. must also be handed in
after the presentation.
Evaluation Criteria
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 class-room audience.
The report is worth 35% of the final grade.
Industries
Automobile
Household products
Cosmetics/Jewellery/perfume
Clothing
Magazines/books
Pets
Medical
Food
Recreation
Entertainment
Gardening
Furniture
Personal Services
Business Services
Software
Insurance/Financial
Sports/ Fitness
Health
Fast food
Toys
Computer games
Computers/computer accessories
Communication services/products
Tobacco
Security
Charity