1. Strategic Marketing: Signature Assignment Part 2
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UCLA Extension: Strategic Marketing Course
Signature Assignment Part 2
Anja Haid
Aylin Sozer
Kaity Tang
Karie Weinstein

2. Strategic Marketing: Signature Assignment Part 2
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Signature Assignment Part 2
Anja Hadid
Aylin Sozer
Kaity Tang
Karie Weinstein
Primary research is new, original research which is conducted either by the company
itself or someone the company hired. The purpose of primary research is to take the raw data,
such as information collected through focus groups or surveys, and interpret the data for a variety
of business purposes, as per the definition provided by Cleverism’s ​Market Research Techniques
(2015). It includes, but is not limited to, surveys, interviews, focus groups, behavioral
observations, or experiments.
Our marketing objective for ​Coca­Cola is to increase annual sales by 6% by stimulating
growth in the US market during the next 12 months. The objective of this research is to explore
factors that may contribute to increasing those sales. When we look for ideas to create an
increase in sales, we must employ certain methodology to understand the “why” behind the
possibilities. The quantitative method of research will tell us which customers did or did not
purchase, indicate the last time they purchased, allow us to see their spending habits and help us
categorize them by demographic. However, the qualitative research methodology will allow us
the personal interaction that will help us determine the “why” that we so desperately need to
know, in order to extract the proper information to help us increase sales. One of the benefits of

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combining qualitative and quantitative research is that it enriches the study by using qualitative
data to obtain information on variables not obtained in quantitative surveys. Another benefit by
using both methods is how qualitative data could help understand unanticipated results from
quantitative data. Combining qualitative and quantitative research methods also gives a voice to
the study participants and ensures that the findings are grounded in participants’ experiences.
Lastly, by integrating quantitative and qualitative research your data has more depth and is more
comprehensive.
The strength of qualitative research is its ability to provide descriptions in context of how
people experience a given issue. Qualitative research methods can be extremely helpful in
identifying factors that have intangible qualities. These qualities, which may not be completely
obvious, can range from socioeconomic status to demographics, ethnicity, gender roles, and
religion. In the book ​The Market Research Toolbox, Edward F. McQuarrie states, “Although
human beings can acquire information about the world through any of their senses, in the context
of market research the two primary senses are hearing and sight. Thus, in qualitative research
you can listen to customers and you can watch what they do. Moreover, you can combine
listening and watching in different proportions in any particular research endeavor, and the
proportion of watching to listening is one of the key factors that distinguishes the different
qualitative tools from one another.” (p. 85) ​Coca­Cola can utilize certain qualitative research
methods to learn how achieve their goal of a 6% sales increase. They can conduct behavioral
observation and experimentation through both ethnographic interviews and focus groups to help
attain this goal.

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Ethnographic interviewing is a type of research that combines immersive observation
along with directed one­on­one interviews. It can help us to understand future consumers in
terms of their attitudes, concerns, lifestyle, and/or areas of improvement. Where focus groups
take place in an artificial, controlled environment, ethnographic interviews take place in the real
world. The data is collected through observation, interviewing, and listening. ​Coca­Cola can
gain future consumers by allowing them to experience the product first­hand. We can get a
picture of how consumers feel about and react towards the product, and how it fits into their
daily life. After evaluating their experiences, we can then decide to make adjustments,
improvements, or possibly even new product introductions in order to stimulate growth.
Ethnographic interviews supplement the focus group interviews, can shape the advertising
strategy, and uncover new opportunities.
As part of our primary market research, we will conduct focus groups to learn and
understand what people have to say and why. “Focus groups are ​one of the main ways used to
conduct primary market research. This method involves getting a group of people in a room or a
place and asking them insightful questions regarding the product, its development, their
preferences, and feedback, etc. These types of focus groups can be run or conducted at any
location feasible for the company or business. This division of the group or the selection process
must depend on the audience targeted or the product of service of the company.” (2015) ​This
small group of about 4­10 people, who share common characteristics like demographics,
attitudes, etc., will be asked by a moderator about their opinions, beliefs, and attitudes towards a
product, service or feature. The emphasis is on getting them to talk, at length and in detail, about
the subject at hand. With the growth of mobile and social media platforms, research technology

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has adapted to help us understand and analyze the data. Taking advantage of this technology is
one way to transform from traditional focus groups to digital focus groups and help to enhance
our data collection methods. The combination of traditional and digital focus groups will better
enable us to find out how consumers feel about ​Coca­Cola.
Coca­Cola will utilize certain quantitative research methods to achieve their goal.
Questionnaires, polls, online surveys, and mobile data collection, together form an efficient
method to gather data from diverse groups of people. With social media dominating the web,
Coca­Cola should utilize this technology. We should leverage ​Coca­Cola’s large following on
social media to ask questions. It is a gold mine to have instant access to highly loyal and
interested customers for market research purposes. Online surveys offered through social and
mobile media platforms are an extremely effective quantitative research method. There are
multiple tools that are effective for specific purposes.
Social media platforms like ​Facebook and ​Twitter offer great advantages for collecting
data and measuring brand awareness and engagement. ​Socialpeeks is a ​Twitter tool used to
discover influencers either by their location or keywords in their bio. It helps provide the insights
that we need to make engaging consumers easier. ​Digital Footprints is a tool used to collect
closed ​Facebook data, flush with user consent. It makes it possible to invite participants, retrieve
profile data, view statistics, search for specific content or patterns, all while sorting and filtering
content according to research interests. ​SurveyMonkey offers a popular online hosted survey tool
that works well for basic surveys. These tools used in tandem will help us to understand
Coca­Cola’s customer behaviors within the social media realm, and what can be done to
improve ​Coca­Cola’s social brand engagement.

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Mobile data collection (MDC) is the use of mobile phones and tablets for data collection
and can be another very useful tool in abstracting data for an evaluation. There are many mobile
phone platforms which allow customization of surveys to collect specific data from ​Coca­Cola
customers, which will point us to the reasons behind their consumption, giving us insight into
increasing consumption for future customers. Online surveys will help ​Coca­Cola to receive
precise numerical estimates of the frequency and magnitude of consumer response. Surveys tell
us specifically how many and how much as opposed to generalizing to help solve our objective.
A survey can be thought of as a question machine, where questions are put to a much larger
number of people than ​Coca­Cola could personally interview.
According to ​Market Research Techniques, internal secondary data consists of
information gathered somewhere else within a company’s firm. Secondary research makes use of
already existing information and data in the company. The major categories include sales reports
and breakdowns, customer databases, and reports for past primary market research. (2015)
Internal databases often contain very specific and detailed information and very fine­grained
breakdowns. An advantage of internal secondary data is that it uses categories and breakdowns
that reflect a company’s preferred way of structuring the world. Outside analysts may use
different and incomparable breakdowns.
External secondary research includes information gathered by government agencies such
as the Census Bureau, information compiled for sale by commercial vendors, and various kinds
of public information available from diverse sources. External secondary data gives a company
objectivity from the outside perspective it provides. These reports are written by analysts with
broad industry experience not bound to any specific product vendor. Data is generally provided

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at the industry level so firm­specific results can be seen in context. In the book ​The Market
Research Toolbox, Edward F. McQuarrie states, “Customer databases might include a recording
of brief descriptive data on all accounts (industry, contact person, phone number, purchase
history), a log of tech­support or response center calls, a record of specific products purchased,
and the like. If your firm has a customer relationship management system in place, this will often
provide a rich source of data on existing customers. Based on ​Coca­Cola’s existing database,
there can be significant and vital information already available at their disposal.
Internal secondary data may also include reports of past primary market research, such as
result of surveys and focus groups conducted in the prior years, accumulated customer visit trip
reports, and so forth.” (p. 53) For a syndicated report, an analysis compiles a variety of data,
using libraries, databases, phone calls, and even some primary market research such as
interviews or surveys, in order to address topics such as trends in social media participation.
Competitor data is another credible source for secondary data. Because the appetite for data is so
huge, especially in the technology markets, the whole industry of syndicated report vendors has
grown up to satisfy this appetite. ​Gartner, Inc. is an example of these vendors.
In ​The Market Research Toolbox, Edward McQuarrie acknowledges, “Sample selection
is a make or break phase of program design. It doesn't matter how incisive your interviewing or
insightful your analysis if you visit the wrong customer ­ people who don't deal with the issues
that concern you or are not part of the market you were trying to address. Garbage­in,
garbage­out is the rule.” (p. 99) We begin the process of determining who to include by
reviewing any segmentation scheme used by ​Coca­Cola. This review of segments is important
because ​Coca­Cola will probably want to visit multiple instances of each important or relevant

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type of customer and will want to avoid any kind of customer that is not relevant to their
objectives. McQuarrie concludes that, “The point of going through this exercise is to avoid
excluding customer types that are important to understand and; second, at wasting your time on
customers who can't really help you; and third (the most subtle trap), always returning to visit the
same small group of comfortable, familiar customers.” (p. 100).
Social listening analytics will help ​Coca­Cola to monitor what is being said about their
own brand and their competitors’ brands, while identifying who their influencers are. They will
need to focus on what they can do for their customers, and not what their customers can do for
them. ​Coca­Cola needs a process to help them sift through all possible content that they could be
reading, viewing and acting upon. But they also need someone who can synthesize data from
different sources and connect the dots for them.
Next­gen marketing research is a virtuous circle of continuous listening, probing and
listening again using real­time data sources. ​NVivo is software offered by ​QSR International. The
software supports qualitative and mixed methods research. ​NVivo helps you to organize, manage
and analyze qualitative data from social media, customer feedback surveys, focus groups,
interviews and more. ​Quester utilizes interviewing software called ​Aristotle, a software program
used for data analysis and data mining. It allows them to conduct qualitative studies with
hundreds to thousands of consumers. ​Provalis Research offers a free version of their
computer­assisted qualitative analysis software called ​QDA Miner Lite. It can be used for the
analysis of textual data such as interviews and open­ended responses.
All­in­all, as part of our marketing objective, we will utilize qualitative and quantitative
data to determine what contributing factors influence overall sales. By implementing focus

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groups, ​Coca­Cola can determine the behavior of their target audience in relation to purchase or
non­purchase of their product. Ethnographic interviews will allow ​Coca­Cola to observe in
real­time, hypothetical situations where their audience will interact with the product. In addition
online surveys, questionnaires, and polls can gather insight on consumers’ thoughts and
comments towards the product and/or brand. Mobile data collection is another valuable source
where customer information can be captured. These are the types of primary marketing research
that ​Coca­Cola can implement towards understanding what can be done to improve overall sales.
For secondary marketing research, the majority of the data can be amassed from existing
information in ​Coca­Cola’s internal databases, such as sales reports and balance sheets, along
with any competitor data and/or public records. Social media listening and analytics also provide
another layer of information for ​Coca­Cola to gather regarding their customers’ attitudes and
behaviors towards their brand and product. Further steps ​Coca­Cola can take, would be to invest
in next­gen marketing research through third­party vendors. This would provide a plethora of
insights that would focus on their target audience and customer demographics, in addition to
conducting and aggregating the research data that ​Coca­Cola can then integrate and adapt
towards their marketing objective and strategy.

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References:
Market Research Techniques: Primary and Secondary Market Research. (2015, May 03).
Retrieved August 14, 2016, from
https://www.cleverism.com/market­research­techniques­primary­secondary/
McQuarrie, E. F. (1996). ​The market research toolbox: A concise guide for beginners. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.