1. Case study: JD Sports
JD conducts their market research to discover the best place to locate
a new shop building in order to be successful. The location of a new
shop is essential in the success of their retail and sales levels. Placing a
shop in the middle of a busy town or shopping area will gain it more
attention and publicity than it would gain from being in a non-busy
area with not much population. Placing a new shop in a busy area will
also be beneficial because if there is already a similar shop in the
location it provides the chance for competitive marketing and to
prove yourself and your products better than the other local shops.
JD collects information about its customers by doing a checkout
survey. This method is just as effective as it is simple and it enables the
company to get opinions from their consumers straight away because
the survey is carried out at the till. Qualitative research is great for
collecting people’s opinions and views on a certain products. JD
collect this information by conducting focus groups which enable
more complex questions to be asked about the products and can also
be helpful in the development of new products with the consumers
opinion in mind. Interviewing a consumer in store can give an insight
into the shopping behavior and allows people to give their views on
the service, as well as their reactions to the store. Building consumer
profiles allows the company to see which products are bought by
which specific age group or gender. By doing this JD can also see
which of the products are the most popular, aiding them in developing
new products which they know will be of interest to said age
group/gender.
JD promotes their business and shops through a variety of ways. One of
the larger ways in which they promote is through sponsorships. They
sponsor the football club Dundee United, Blackpool FC, Luton town FC
and Oldham United AFC; which are all popular and professional
football clubs. This is effective because when these football clubs play
big games that are widely advertised, thousands of people will tune in
to watch the match but they will also see the various sponsors and JD
will be put out to the public eye and knowledge. JD also promotes
their business through magazine and newspaper advertisements in
high circulation products such as FHM (men’s lifestyle magazine) and
NME (music magazine). Bus banners are sometimes used as they can
be seen citywide and a lot of people will view them. TV advertisements
and radio broadcasts are used because it helps them to target their
key target audience by only appearing on selected channels that their
age range and demographic will be listening to or watching.

2. JD communicates directly with their customers by sending out e-mails,
which include brand promotions and product or sale information. They
have competitions with celebrities, e.g. they partnered with Adidas to
provide VIP tickets to go to an exclusive N-Dubz event at the O2 arena.
TInchy Stryder also promoted the Star in the Hood clothing range,
which helped to highlight the new products to the public. Using
celebrities to promote the brand makes it more interesting to it’s
youthful consumers and also creates excitement towards products.
JD uses social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to use
recommendations from their customers as part of it’s promotional
activities. Using these sites will benefit them and help to attract a larger
audience and client base as their main target audience and
demographic will be on these sites and using them frequently which
means they can keep people up to date and also advertise and
promote to make more people aware of them.