ADV 344K Exam 1 Review

 Ethnography is a form of qualitative data collection that records behavior in natural settings
to understand how social and cultural influences affect individuals’ behavior in natural
settings to then understand how social and cultural influences affect individual’s behavior
and experiences. Requires extended observation of behavior in a natural setting.
 Netnography is a research technique similar to ethnography but instead required deep
engagement with an online community.
 In-depth interviews (IDI) are a data collection method in which a well-trained interviewer
asks a participant a set of semi-structured questions in a face to face setting. This is the
most common data collection method with the focus group being number one. The
interviewer uses probing questions to elicit more detailed information on the topic. The
general rule is that the more the subject talks about a topic, the more likely he or she is to
reveal underlying attitude, motives, emotions, and behaviors.
o You use these to seek deep information on feelings, experiences, and perceptions.
The example in class was from the science panel where they were talking to a man
and asked why he went to the event. He responds that his wife is educated and
makes him go. Through the interviews they found that UT can be an intimidating
place to people who don’t have a college degree. In focus groups you require much
more time and people, so an IDI is technically easier to do and moderate.
 Focus groups are more like an in-depth interview with a group. They’re centered around a
general topic and are relatively unstructured. The facilitator or moderator encourages
discussion among participants. You choose this route because you want to focus on what
people are thinking and feeling but in a collaborative environment. Focus group research is
a qualitative data collection method in which responses to open-ended questions are
collected from a small group of participants who interactively and spontaneously discuss
topics of interest to the researcher. It usually last two hours and has anywhere between 6
and 10 people.
o A moderators guide is a detailed outline of the topics, questions and sub questions
used by the moderator to lead the focus group session. Groupthink is a
phenomenon in which one or two members of a group state an opinion and other
members of the group are greatly influenced. Online focus groups are similar to in
person focus groups, except digital.
o Mad Men: Don had an idea and thought he was right, but wasn’t. The women were
in their early 20s and they fond that the girls don’t care about a routine really, they
just want something that can help them get married. It was beauty in service to the
men in their lives, nothing more.
o The real salad dressing focus group had women in their late 30s and mid to late 50s
with one man as well. People play off of each other when describing the bottle and
portion control. The group was racially diverse.
 o The SNL skit should three totally different people testing hidden valley ranch.
Mellissa is basically a frat guy and the moderator is doing a horrible job. The
moderator offered money which made it a competition among other things.
 A bulletin board is an online research format in which participants agree to post regularly
over a period of five days. It’s usually ten to thirty participants and a period of three to
seven days where they must post three times a day. It’s less formal than an online focus
group and the type of content is inspired from the users and from a moderator that
oversees online discussion.
 Projective techniques are an indirect method of questioning that enables a subject to
project beliefs and feelings onto a third party, into a task or situation, or onto an inanimate
object. This is stuff like word association, the ZMET test, or the sentence completion test.
 Research in the workplace lecture example: You’re an intern working for a nursing home
and your boss wants you to start a page for the nursing home. The first question to ask
yourself is, what do I need to know first? Who is on FB and what’s our target audience?
o We’ll start with Pew, which is the best resource for questions about online media
use and look for the average age of a FB user. 89% of Americans are online and 11%
aren’t. 34% of the elderly are not online and 34% of people with less than high
school education aren’t online- this is just internet access, not social media use.
o Then the social media fact sheet tells us that almost 70% of all U.S. adults are on
social media. 64% of 50 – 64 year old’s are on social media with the average age
being 40. Most FB users visit the site at least once a day and nearly half of U.S. adults
get their news from there per day. 73% of adults use YT and 35% use IG.
o What are we to gain from a FB presence? Who would look for us? How do we build
traffic? Who makes care decisions?
 Steps for locating, verifying data:
o Find the original, primary source
o Look for the exact info you need
o Check their citations and their research methods
o Find the original citations and numbers
o Double-check all the numbers
 Research is a science because it’s:
o Problem oriented – looks for a solution
o Procedure driven – requires careful planning and execution
o Empirical – based on observation and experimentation
o Logical – we can infer sound, consistent arguments
o Community based – shared with a network of researchers to advance knowledge
 The scientific method are research procedures that should be logical,
objective, systematic, reliable and valid.
 Applied versus basic research:
o Applied research is designed to answer practical, often immediate questions
o Basic or pure research is driven primarily by theory or the desire to build general
knowledge that reaches beyond
 Applied research is designed to answer practical, immediate questions like
what does the marketplace look like for mints? And pure research is driven

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 primarily by theory or the desire to build general knowledge- it’s usually
what academics do.
 SWOT is a situation analysis that’s done to look critically at a current situation that typically
draws from secondary data- it stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
It’s purpose is to inform your project as you move forward and the analysis happens as you
comb through available data and look for clues. It helps organize the most important info
when you need to process a lot of information or data. The SW portion are internal to the
organization and the OT are external factors.
o Start with the problem and generate some initial questions -> find information ->
organize info found into the four square and make sure you place things correctly ->
patch together the SWOT. It’s subjective and it’s a guide (limitations) so it’s
qualitative and not generalizable.
 ADV and PR research uses qualitative data to explore phenomena like how people interact
with brands and organizations and what needs a product or service meets. Any research
questions that requires looking closely at individuals. The phases of adv and PR research:
o Determine research problem
o Select the research design
o Execute the research design
o Communicate the results
 The three typical research designs are:
o Exploratory – need to dig deep, usually qualitative. Research designed to collect and
interpret either secondary or primary data in an unstructured format using an
informal set of procedures. The key characteristics are that it’s an exploration and is
subjecting meaning on the research subject. The limitation is that it does not provide
conclusive evidence.
o Descriptive – usually based on numbers and statistical analysis, can correlate
multiple factors. Collects quantitative data to answer questions like who, what,
when, where and how. The limitation is that it doesn’t provide direct evidence of
causality, only statistical and qualitative metrics.
o Casual – experimental to isolate cause and effect carefully. It collects data that
enables decision makers to determine cause and effect relationships between two
or more variables.
 A situation analysis happens after you have a basic understanding of what you’re studying.
Our key question is: what is the current situation for Fenty in the marketplace? A situation
analysis would be the background research for a larger research effort that would include
primary research. It’s a starting point for any additional research that we’re going to need
to do. It’s a step further, with hard data, to analyze. What do we need to know right now?
 Syndicated or commercial data is information that has been compiled according to some
standardized procedures which provides customized data for companies. Mintel is a
syndicated consumer and market research data platform. We focus on reports from the
past two years. The value is massive with each typical report costing over four thousand
dollars and we get all of it for free.
 Secondary data is information previously collected for some other problem or issues.
Primary data is information collected for a current research problem or opportunity. The
criteria used to evaluate secondary data are:

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 o Purpose: what’s the purpose of the data collected?
o Accuracy: who published this and is it out of date?
o Consistency: are there inconsistencies in the various data sets?
o Credibility: reputation
o Bias: did a car manufacturer fund an emission study?
 Seven steps to the research process:
o Step 1: Write out specific information needed
o Step 2: Expand initial search phrases by using synonyms or adding an “s”
o Step 3: Add relevance & quality to results by adding a “+” between two words
o Step 4: Conduct search on several search engines (academic and non-academic)
o Step 5: Systematically read findings and reflect on the results
o Step 6: Revise original search phrases
o Step 7: Search deeper, follow key links and references
 Searching like a pro involves using Boolean search methods. It relies on AND,
OR, and NOT commands.
 A research proposal is a bridge between the researcher and the decision maker- it’s a
contract. There are nine sections to it:
o Purpose of the proposed research project
o Type of study
o Definition of target population
o Sample design and data collection method
o Specific research instruments
o Potential managerial benefits of study
o Proposed cost of total project
o Profile of research company
o Optional dummy tables
 Media research in this case refers to your research of media coverage regarding your client.
We are interested in media content as it happens and the only way to do that is to be on it
all the time, it’s daily surveillance. This is earned media- the stories on the news, tweets, FB
posts, brand mentions, etc. This is how to survey media coverage, so we know what’s going
on. You should monitor the media for celebrity endorsements, brand fit, public behavior.
You can also spot relevant trends, see what your competitor is doing, see what’s on the rise
like comfort clothing and fanny packs. You need to always be looking. Hyundai trolls Twitter
for negative customer experiences, specifically people who have been complaining. The
Digiorno example is “#WhyIStayed You Had Pizza” and shows how a media team has to
know rich context behind all social media decisions. Media research has a 5-step protocol:
o Step 1: Start internal, in person – talk to people within the organization and ask
them what they know.
o Step 2: Move to internal social media, something the organization has control over.
 Social Mention and Google Alerts
o Step 3: Move to local media, how does the media portray you and comparables?
o Step 4: Move to national, at least checking in several times a day with the brand and
the industry.
o Step 5: Then use tools like the social media aggregation tools mentioned.
 Nexis or Lexis Nexis to search all the news.

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 Quantitative has a heavy emphasis on formal, closed ended questions. Qualitative is a
collection of data in the form of text or images using open ended questions and smaller
sample sized. The key differences are:
o In quantitative research you have to know what you’re looking for in order to
measure it. For qualitative you would ask, how do people spend their time online?
Qualitative begins with an exploratory research question and the purpose is to learn
how people make sense of their lives, experiences, and the structures of the world.
Qualitative is focused on exploration and not measurement. It’s focused on the
process of gather data, which is interactive and dynamic.
o Qualitative has the researcher as the primary instrument for data collection and
analysis. It will usually involve fieldwork, going into the natural setting. The process
of qualitative research is inductive, which means that the researcher builds concepts
and theories from the data. They can use ethnography, interviews, or focus group.
Understanding the research subject and sometimes being able to interact (when
necessary) to collect more valuable information is key. Netnography, with Robert
Kozinets is a video that’ll be on the exam. Another is hot science cool talks.
o Quantitative might have numerical representations of the responses we gather to
locate averages and find statistical relationships.
o We use qualitative to explore phenomena like how people interact with brands and
organizations and what needs a product or service meets- any research question
that required looking closely at individuals. The phases are: determine research
problem, select the research design, execute the research design then communicate
the results. The typical variables are demographics, lifestyles, brand/organization
awareness, brand/organization attitudes, consumer satisfaction, intention, and past
behaviors.
 The approaches qualitative research include some forms of observation, ethnography,
interviews, and focus groups. What distinguishes them is the researchers level of
involvement and where it’s natural or artificial. The first two are in the field (ethnography)
via participant observation and non-participant observation. The second are non in the field
but still qualitative through intensive interviewing and focus groups.
o Participant observation means that the researcher enters the field and tries to see
things as they happen but also tries to become involves. Non-participant
observation is like consumer ethnography where we see people use products in
certain ways without being involved within it- like the researcher understanding the
toothbrush kids industry.
o The researcher also has to develop and maintain relationships to balance between
observing and participating.
 Recording your data: taking notes- written notes are the primary means of recording data.
You can’t take lots of notes in the field so you’re limited to jottings which are very brief
notes to serve the memory when writing actual field notes. Notes will suggest new
concepts, connections and theoretical propositions. You should include all environmental
factors including where the subjects were within the environment. It should also include
research methodology, feelings and thoughts.

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 Customer panels are large samples of households that provide specific, detailed data on
purchase behavior for an extended period of time. Media panels are similar, but they focus
on media usage behavior.
 Social mention is a social media search engine that searches user-generated content across
all platforms for word of mouth and consumer sentiment.
 In primary research, emphasis is placed on sampling design. With secondary research, you
must determine if the target population is relevant to the research problem. Internal
secondary data is collected by a company for accounting purposes, marketing programs,
etc. External secondary data is collected by outside organizations like federal or state
governments. Primary sources of secondary data are things like scholarly sources, NAICS, or
Forbes. Common sources of internal secondary data include sales invoices, accounts
receivable reports, etc. The NAICS is a system that codes numerical industrial listings
designed to promote uniformity in data reporting procedures for the U.S. government.
 Analyzing “texts”: this happens in qualitative and it’s the data we analyze. Texts are
transcripts of interviews, videos, field notes, pictures, videos, printed articles, blogs, etc. It’s
exploratory and inductive where data drives the identification of variables of interest. To
fulfill the exploratory goals, you must be reflexive by reevaluating what you think you are
seeking and iterative by continually going through the data.
o For transcripts you need to browse and make notes of first impressions then start
labeling the relevant words, phrases, sentences or sections. Go through all the codes
and label categories of the codes- into two categories, themes that the researcher
derived from participants customs and themes that the researcher identifies as
significant to the projects focus. At the end of the day, the data needs to tell a story
when you write down your findings in a narrative filled with direct quotes and
themes that emerged within the analysis.
o The basic guidelines for qualitative analysis are: remember your driving research
questions, don’t rigidly pursue your initial expectations, try to account for as much
of the data as you can in your results and to be very explicit when you report and
interpret you findings.