Phew, was this a long and dreadful domain. With the long weekend in the middle interrupting our schedule, it made me felt like this domain took me forever to complete. So, you ask what did we do after the market study? Well, we followed up with a more comprehensive study, that is, consumer study.
Lesson 2: Sometimes we are so focused on what we want that we miss the things we need.
Okay, so what's consumer study? Basically, it's part of the market research, but a more in depth study on consumer's behaviour. Remember what we did on market study? We collected general information on what the market is like, such as demography and purchasing behaviour. After knowing the big picture, it's time to zoom in and focus on smaller parts and details of the picture, hence consumer studies.
Why consumer studies? Well, many studies found that consumers voice are often more powerful than advertising, as the industry paradigm is shifting from product-oriented to consumer-oriented. Why? because consumers are the source of revenue, providing what they need is much easier than convincing them that they need this.
How did we conduct this study? Typical method was to conduct a survey using questionnaire. However, the method has some drawbacks such as fluctuation of consumer's emotion that the researcher could not detect, and also limited and general answers collected. Hence, we conducted a focus group, which allows the researcher to interact with the respondents so that they can capture instantaneous feeling of the consumers. In addition, kids were less articulate in written language, so having a group of kids talking to each other can trigger more responses from them.
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| After the focus group.. Photo courtesy of Kenley |
And so, we went back to SK Subang Jaya to conduct a focus group, asking the children on their eating and purchasing pattern in the school and their perspective on food. The session lasted for roughly 1.5 hours where we voice and tape recorded. And then came the most brain racking part of the domain, which is interpreting what the students say. =O We had to listen to the focus group over and over again and record all the responses before filtering out the unimportant information. To add salt to the wound, many instances we were indecisive as to include what they say because:
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Anyway, after hours of listening to the recordings, we finally managed to compile the information into two mind maps, which you can assess from here and here.
To summarise our findings:
1. The children have the awareness for healthy food but it seems to them as something not important, thus they prefer junk food over so-called healthy food such as vegetables.
2. They do not eat until full as recess time (eating with friends) is considered as a time to socialise.
3. They refer food as energy more than nutrients.
4. They don't mind eating vegetables as long as they didn't realise.
5. Mother figure is a symbol for healthy and wholesome food.
6. Although some of the has lactose intolerance, they generally like dairy products.
7. Pizza, burgers, fast food and bakery products are among the food that they prefer most.
8. They are willing to spend a maximum of RM3 for their food during recess.
9. They usually buy their meals and a drink.
From the findings, we concluded that our product should have the following features:
1. Contains meat product that has hidden vegetables.
2. Completed with a healthy drink
3. Able to provide high energy
4. Costs at around RM1.
After coming to this conclusion, it's time for us to brainstorm and come out with our first draft of our products. So stay tune for the next post, as I shall update on the 10 concepts we come out with. =D
That's all folks!
Dong
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