MANAGEMENT 3210Y
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
GROUP RESEARCH PROJECT GUIDELINES
Background
Product positioning refers to how consumers perceive a product or service relative to its
competition. Product positioning is thus not so much about the product itself, as it is
about the place the product occupies in the mind of the consumer. Positioning a product
thus requires understanding the consumer.
How consumers perceive a product or service (or how you would like them to perceive it)
influences the attributes of the product, the message(s) relayed in any promotional
material, how and where it is sold, and its price. For example, Mount Blanc pens sell for
over $100 and are clearly not for everyone, including many wealthy people. People who
buy them, buy them as a fashion statement or as a status symbol — not because they are
good writing instruments. They’re not made of translucent plastic and you won’t find
them in packs of ten in Walmart next to your 49-cent Bic (which is positioned
differently), or advertised in the weekly Shoppers Drug Mart flyer. How a product is
positioned thus affects the product itself, the price, the way it is promoted and the place
where it is purchased; i.e. all aspects of the marketing mix.
Occasionally, brands have to "reposition" themselves because of varying factors such as
changing customer needs and tastes, competitive actions and pressures, poor sales
performance, new entrants into the market, changing distribution channels, and so on.
McDonalds, for instance, recorded a net loss in the 4th quarter of 2003 because it lost
touch with consumers, failing to recognize the global changes in consumers’ greater
concern for health. They are trying to reposition themselves by capitalizing on their
competencies like store location and convenience and changing their menus.
Repositioning may involve changing the image of the product in the mind of the
consumer, modifying the product, changing the name, stressing different benefits,
changing the target market, or a combination thereof. Repositioning requires rethinking
the entire marketing strategy.
Project Overview
The group research project is a semester-long project designed to integrate and apply the
course material to the development of a real-world marketing strategy. The project
requires a team of three to five people to select an existing product or service, reposition
it, and then outline a general marketing strategy or plan for the repositioned product
based on an understanding of the consumers. Marketing plans must also take heed of
corporate financial capabilities, but for the purpose of this project you can assume that
the company has both the skills and the finances to pull off the repositioning.
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It consists of a written report and two class presentations and is worth 35% of the final
grade and will require both secondary research as well as primary research collected
through a questionnaire administered to a small sample of the target market.
Since leaving the project to the end of the semester is counterproductive it needs to be
completed in three phases. Dates are set for the completion of each phase. As the aim of
the first two phases is to ensure that the team is on track, and to provide feedback, they
will not be graded. For each phase not handed in on time, however, the group will lose
10% of the overall project grade. Details of each phase are given below. See the course
outline for due dates.
Objectives
 To integrate and apply the understanding of the concepts and principles of consumer
behaviour learned throughout the course to real-world marketing strategy.
 To develop skills working in groups
 To develop leadership and presentation skills.
Group selection
You will work on this project in groups of three to five people. Groups will be selfselected and a list of members must be provided by the third week of class. One person
in the group must be elected as a contact-person. Group cohesiveness is often improved if
the team also gives itself a name. All problems arising within the group related to relative
contributions of the members are to be handled internally by the group. This is an
essential part of the group project experience. You will, however, have an opportunity to
provide a confidential evaluation of the quality and quantity of your group members’
contributions at the end of the semester. Your grade can go up or down based on these
evaluations. It is important, however, to inform the instructor of any problems that have
arisen, and the steps taken to resolve them, before the evaluations are submitted.
OUTLINE OF GROUP PROJECT
The following outline is provided as a sample structure for your group project. It is not
meant to be all-inclusive and should be modified where necessary to fit the specific
context within which your product or service is marketed. Your marketing strategy
should draw on as many topics covered in class as possible.
Phase One: Market Profile
The deliverable for this phase is a two-to-three page description of the specific product or
service and product category the group has chosen to focus on, a one to two sentence
statement as to how the group plans to reposition it, and a timetable with a breakdown of
who is responsible for what (i.e. a project plan).
Phase Two: Description and justification of your target market segment
Phase two is primarily about the product or service category your repositioned product
belongs in, a profile of the consumers in that market, and the trends occurring in the
segment. Phase two is essentially about how consumers currently view your product and
how you would like to reposition it, i.e. what changes you would make and how you
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would like your customers to view it. The deliverable for this phase is a five-to-six-page
progress report and involves a profile of your product category's market, a description
and justification of your new target segment, a product positioning statement, and a draft
of your questionnaire. At this time you will also be required to give a short (5-7 minute)
oral presentation to the class describing your product or service and its new target
segment. Part of the class on this date will also be used to pre-test your questionnaire and
receive feedback from the class.
Phase two consists of:
1. A profile of your repositioned product category's market and the product itself based
on any secondary research such as library research, company brochures, websites and
reports, personal interviews, etc., you have conducted.
 Describe the product category you are analyzing. Where does it sit on the store
shelf?
 Describe the product or service you are repositioning. What are its features and
benefits?
 Describe the market for your type of product in terms of size, historical trends,
growth forecasts, etc.
 What customer segments exist in the market?
 How do consumers currently use the product?
 How do customers currently perceive the product or service? Is it seen as the
safest, best quality, cheapest etc. in its category? I.e. what is its current position?
 Describe competitive positions within major market segments. Who are the
leaders? Why? What are their positions (e.g. have they positioned their product as
the safest, cheapest, best quality, trendiest, etc.)? Look at their advertisements and
other marketing communications. Who are they targeted at?
 What is different about your product relative to the competition that you can
capitalize on?
 How loyal are consumers to competitors
 What recent trends (e.g. economic, demographic, psychographic) have affected
the nature of this market? For example, if you want to reposition a woman’s
cosmetic product and target it towards men, you would want to find out what is
happening in the men’s cosmetic market.
 What marketing opportunities do such market shifts suggest?
2. A description and justification of your new target segment.
 Based on your understanding of the market, what consumer segment(s) do you
feel will be especially attractive in the future? Describe that segment.
 Justify why you have selected that segment.
 How does the problem recognition occur for your product?
 Describe the internal/external search process. What sources of information are
used? When? For what purpose? How do these inputs affect consumers?
 Describe the kind of knowledge and involvement consumers might have about
your product.
 What types of means-end chains might they have?
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
What do they value and what is it about your product that will help them realize
those values
 What are the general lifestyles of your consumer?
 Is symbolic meaning important for your product?
 What will using the product say about the consumer?
 Describe the interpretation processes consumers might use in learning about your
product. Is exposure likely to be accidental or intentional? Is comprehension
likely to be shallow or deep? What types of inferences, if any, are likely to be
common?
 Do any issues of one's personality and self-image affect purchasing and use
decisions for your chosen product
 Do consumer psychographics and lifestyles affect product usage? What lifestyle
factors do the consumers seem to have in common?
 What might be your consumers' consideration set? Which brands might be
included?
 What beliefs exist regarding important brands and product attributes? Why do
these beliefs exist? What are the salient attributes?
 Describe typical decision strategies used by consumers to make a choice in this
product category. What model best predicts choice?
 What are consumers' attitudes towards the brands in the category? Do strong
subjective norms exist? What kind of brand loyalty, if any, exists for your product
or service category? Why does it exist?
 Is there role specialization in the buying process? What are the relative influences
of family members or others in the buying process? Are there other important
reference group or cultural influences?
 Is word of mouth an important factor for purchasing your product? How does
word of mouth flow?
 Where and when do consumers buy the good or service? How does the setting and
timing affect consumer behavior? How important is the sales environment or sales
person?
 What do you want to know about your consumer – what information do you need
to gather?
3. A repositioning statement. This should be only one or two sentences, and should
outline how you would like your product or service to be viewed by your target
market.
4. A draft of your questionnaire (not more than two pages long) as an appendix. The
questions in this questionnaire must be based on what you think are the key consumer
behavior issues for your target segment. While you will want to have demographic
questions and questions about the product itself, don’t forget to ask respondents about
their lifestyle, attitudes and values. This information will be invaluable when it comes
to developing your marketing strategy.
5. Your group must also make a 5-7 minute oral presentation to the class. In this
presentation, you need to describe your product/service and its new target segment,
and use your findings thus far to convince the audience that your repositioning idea is
a creative and profitable one. This is an opportunity to get feedback from the class.
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This class will also be used to pretest your questionnaire so print enough copies for
everyone. The aim here is not to collect data, as it is unlikely that the class is
representative of your target market, but to get feedback on the questionnaire itself. If
people in the class are part of your target market you may wish to administer a revised
survey at a later date. You should not administer your questionnaire until you’ve received
feedback. You should also aim to survey minimum of 50.
Phase Three: Marketing Plan Final Report
The final phase of this project involves using the knowledge about the potential
consumers for the repositioned product gained during phase two to put together a
marketing plan. In other words, now that you have a good understanding of the
consumers for your product how are you going to market it to them? The final report
should contain the following:
1. A revision and expansion of the first two phases and should integrate the concepts
discussed in class with your questionnaire data as well as any other secondary data
you may have about your target segment.
2. A product positioning statement
 Including the specific brand image to be used.
 Justify your positioning statement based on your analyses of the target
consumer’s behaviour
3. Marketing mix recommendations
 Select a product strategy for your brand. Discuss packaging, brand features,
services, etc. Justify your strategy with what you have learned about consumer
behavior in Phase Two.
 Select a pricing strategy for your brand. Justify your decision based on your
understanding of price sensitivity, cost, competition, and psychological pricing
considerations.
 Outline and justify a general promotional program.
 How will you create consumer awareness?
o Don’t just say “we will use effective displays to grab consumers
attention.” What will make them effective and why?
 What is the relative importance of various promotional mix tools?
 What are your advertising objectives?
 What is your message?
 What slant or idea will promotion take? – This should be consistent with
the positioning statement. How are you going to persuade target audience
to buy your product?
 What media will you select and why?
 Will you use a personal selling program? If so, why and how?
 Design and justify the appropriate channels of distribution.
The heart of this project is your analysis and application of the basic consumer behavior
issues, concepts, models, and theories involved in the marketing problem you are
addressing. Your marketing strategy should flow from what you know about the
consumers of your product or service. You won’t know how to effectively market to
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them unless you understand them. For this reason it is a marketing strategy rather than a
marketing plan that is called for. In other words, the general approach is more important
than the specifics. For instance, if the consumers of your product are into healthy living,
then the health benefits of your product might be one message you would want to convey.
While you can offer creative suggestions for how this is done you need to justify your
general approach. The same is true for strategies involving aspects of the product itself,
advertising, sales promotion, pricing, and distribution. For example, you can’t just say
you will be a price leader without justification. People switch brands because of low
prices when there is weak brand loyalty and price sensitivity. Is this true of your product
category? If you’re relying on your existing brand loyalty for pricing or some other
aspect of the marketing mix then you need to research how the brand is perceived.
You can’t simply say that your product will stimulate word of mouth. If you sell a stain
remover product will people talk about it? Do people value clean clothes and
appearance? Do they want to be able to remove stains? Does your product remove stains
effectively? If the answer to these questions is “Yes” then perhaps people will talk about
your product. If the answer is “No” then people probably won’t talk about it. Do people
talk about water? Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. What would you value?
Some of this information can be confirmed in the survey. The idea is to convince the
reader(s) (i.e. your marketing manager or financiers) that your idea of a repositioned
product or service would succeed.
The final report, due the last day of classes, must be a professional and polished
document, no longer than 25 double-spaced pages (excluding any appendices, references,
or exhibits), using no smaller than 11-point font. Be sure to cite all references where
appropriate in the body of the paper and list your sources of information, including
articles, interviews, etc. at the end. Any additional charts and tables (if not used in the
body of the text), as well as the PowerPoint presentation and questionnaire, should be
included as appendices. Papers must include a cover page with the names of all group
members. The first page of the report must be a table of contents and the second page an
executive summary that provides a brief overview of the report (i.e. product chosen and
your market repositioning concept). A common error with the executive summary is to
summarize what the team did rather than, or to the exclusion of, the results. An example
of a table of contents is provided at the end of these guidelines.
Final presentations
Presentations will take place over the last two classes of the term. Unless a compelling
reason can be given for making the presentation on a particular date, the order of
presentation will be chosen by lot the week before. Those groups giving their
presentation the first week of presentations have the advantage of getting feedback on
their project before the final report is due. Those going on the second week have the
advantage of extra time. All team members must participate in the presentation.
The final presentations must be in PowerPoint. They must be professional, interesting,
and clearly convey the strength of your repositioning concept and both the thoroughness
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of your marketing plan and its soundness in terms of consumer behavior. Plan on
presenting roughly 15 minutes of material, leaving about 5 minutes for classroom
discussion. Since part of the presentation mark is for class discussion it is important to
encourage questions. You are expected to attend all the project presentations, as some
exam questions will be based on them. Each group must include a copy of its PowerPoint
presentation with the final report.
Grading
This project is worth 35% of the final grade; 10% is allotted for the presentation and 25%
for the final report. In general, the project will be evaluated on your choice of the key
consumer behavior issues involved in the marketing problem, the creative way in which
you analyze the consumer issues, how you select and use concepts from the class to help
solve the segmentation and repositioning "problem", the originality and soundness of the
strategies that you recommend and how clearly these follow from your consumer
behavior analysis.
More specifically, papers will be graded using the following guidelines
Organization, style, grammar and spelling
20 points
Executive Summary
25 points
Profile of the market (competition trends etc.)
25 points
Product positioning statement
5 points
Description and justification of target segment
10 points
Analysis of consumer behaviour issues
35 points
Strategic marketing mix recommendations
20 points
Conclusion
10 points
150 points
Note that a substantial portion of the mark is allotted to the Executive Summary.
Executive Summaries are so called because they are for busy executives who lack the
time to read the entire report. It needs to be brief and specific.
Oral presentations will be graded using the following guidelines
Content
10 points
Organization
5 points
Presentation style
5 points
Use of visual aids
5 points
Timing
5 points
Handling questions
5 points
Professionalism
5 points
40 points
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Sample Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Product Description
Product repositioning statement
Product category market profile
Segments
Competition
Trends
Target segment Consumer Behavior
Motivation and Values
Personality and Lifestyles
Attitudes
Decision making
Group Influences
Cultural Influences
Situational Influences
Marketing mix recommendations
Product
Price
Promotion
Place
Conclusion/Summary
References
Appendices
Charts and Tables
Questionnaire
PowerPoint Presentation
Examples of Past Projects
 Vinegar repositioned from a condiment to a cleaning agent
 Ford Dakota repositioned as the truck for women
 Huggies Baby-wipes repositioned as all-purpose hygienic wipes
 Swiffer wet jet repositioned as an industrial Swiffer Mighty
 Travel cosmetic organizers repositioned as a “Purse Pal” for teens
 Bacardi cooler repositioned as a low carb cooler
 Dasani Bottled Water targeted to children (and parents)
 Spray 9 All-purpose cleaner repositioned as a stain remover for clothes
 Bounce Dryer sheets repositioned as a room deodorizer
 Molson’s Canadian repositioned as a beer shampoo
 HMV repositioned as a Music Café
 L’oreal concealer for women repositioned as a concealer for men
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