Marketing Research Objectives and Rationale

Question 1

Background

Blackpink is a South Korea all-girl group formed and managed by the YG Entertainment group. It is currently among the highest rated and most popular all-girl group in the world. For the pop music genre, their popularity has risen globally to include performances in the US for famous platforms such as Coachella and on YouTube where they have the largest following in their category. The group is doing well as influencers and brand ambassadors. Each of the group’s four members has a product they are currently endorsing. As individuals, they have pushed popular luxurious brands such as Moonshot, Dior cosmetics, and Louis Vuitton. A majority of their following comes from younger female audiences aged below 25 years. The said consumer group is referred to as Blinks. Reports indicate that the consumer group spends money and time collecting souvenirs that represent their favorite pop stars. The case study indicates that a report by Korean Bizwire found that the consumer group has a new fascination that incudes desire to “smell” like their favorite pop star. Blackpink has an official online store that helps in the distribution of their merchandise including t-shirts, hair accessories, bags, and jewelry. However, the store does not stock perfume. With their large following on social media and the new interest from UK fans, it is important for the group to consider expansion abroad in order to expand their reach and diversify their consumers.

Marketing Research Objectives and Rationale

The following marketing research objectives are geared towards showing whether Blackpink, through YG Entertainment Inc., can benefit from the UK Blinks. The popularity and success that the group has enjoyed over the last four years has been primarily because of the domestic South Korean market. Therefore, the research objectives include the following:

To find out the type of merchandise that the UK Blinks would be interested in buying

To identify the reasoning behind the UK Blinks in terms of preferences regarding the K-Pop stars

To establish whether the merchandise should be branded for each of the Group’s members or for the group itself or indeed for Blinks

These objectives are directly related to the reason behind the expansion of the group into the UK music scene. The latest statistics have shown that the UK market has shown a lot of interest for Blackpink, creating a gap that needs to be filled. In terms of marketing and branding, the marketing objectives above are meant to dive into the UK’s under 25 female consumers as a possible target market for the group’s merchandise.

Methodology

The research will use an online survey to collect data. In this approach, a set of survey questions will be sent to a target sample for responses to be sent via different internet platforms. Specifically, the methodology will use various media including social media and email to send and receive survey questions and responses respectively. YG Entertainment will implement an online survey via the internet to gain insight and feedback on the objectives mentioned above. An online survey is chosen for its appropriateness as a qualitative research tool. The intention is to have the respondents provide rich potential of qualitative information. The proposed methodology will utilize open-ended questions to yield long-form typed answers from respondents. The questions are purposed to reveal experiences, accounts, narratives, opinions, and other personal reflections of the study theme and objectives. The online survey will identify issues and themes that will then be explored further for the purpose of answering the study questions. In the qualitative questions provided, some quantitative questions will be added for purposes of establishing research parameters such as gender, nationality, and age.

For the online survey, open-ended questions will be presented to the research participants in a written format via social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and via Instagram. The reason behind choosing social media as a proposed avenue is because of how it has gained popularity among young females below the age of 25. The group is comprised of heavy social media usage and activity on the three main platforms mentioned. Email will also be used for purposes of communication and clarification of issues as the study continues. Alongside the qualitative online survey questions, close-ended quantitative survey questions will be sent on the same topic for purposes of establishing context. In the proposed study, the research will provide contextualizing information and key definitions to assist in framing how participants perceive the qualitative survey questions. The format will also include a section asking participants to respond to questions in detail so as to explain the perspective presented or to further explain their experience in the context of the research questions. The advantage of this is that it will lead to diversity in responses. Another important consideration made before choosing the online survey method is that the researcher will not be in a position to clarify or probe the responses provided which may lead to cryptic and vague data. Such information is likely to yield inaccuracies in interpretation and analysis. Therefore, the researcher will insist on the information provided being brief and detailed to reduce room for error. Another advantage includes an ability of online surveys to collect more responses in a given period of time compared to any other approach. Therefore, even with the less detailed data, there is more of it as a compensation. Additionally, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic requires less interaction and social distancing. This makes the online survey approach the most suitable for collecting data. It will also reduce the need to travel long distances to collect information because online platforms are able to target people anywhere and at any time.

The strengths of a qualitative survey include the fact that it will help the study in identifying issues, needs, and experiences that will be explored in the analysis section. It is also worth noting that online surveys have the advantage of being easy to amend or re-run based on the responses. This will provide an evolving or responsive methodology of research. Also, online surveys will get typed responses decreasing translation needs by the researcher. Lastly, online surveys will be delivered broadly on a wide population on social media with asynchronous responses and delivery.

Sampling

For the current study, a probability-based sampling (also called random sampling) is preferred. In this method, the respondents are selected using some sort of probabilistic approach. The likelihood with which a member of the frame population is selected into the sample is known. In this survey, the cluster sampling approach will be used. In this methodology, a natural sampling unit is used in a group or cluster of individual units. Specifically, in the online survey proposed, it will be both useful and convenient to sample by discussion groups on a given platform like Facebook or Instagram, and then to sample users in the said groups and domains. The advantage of using this approach is that it requires fewer resources, is more feasible, and will achieve the research objectives. Because cluster sampling select only certain groups from the entire population, the method requires fewer resources for the sampling process. It becomes cheaper as the approach requires fewer administrative or travel expenses. Additionally, the division of an entire population into a homogenous group will increase the feasibility of the sampling. 

Data Analysis

In the proposed qualitative study, the data will be subjective, will be rich, and will also consist of in-depth information because it will be presented in word form. Analyzing qualitative data will entail reading the large amounts of transcripts and then looking for themes by way of establishing similarities and differences. Subsequently, the report will find themes and develop categories for purposes of answering the research questions. Qualitative research will yield unstructured text-based information. The textual data will include the interview transcripts from the online surveys and responses. For the special categories of people living with disabilities, qualitative data will include audio responses to the survey questions.

Data analysis in the proposed qualitative research will be defined as a process of systematically arranging and searching the interview responses and other non-textual material accumulated by the researcher to increase an understanding of the issue under study. In the study, YG Entertainment will aim to look for patterns that show a trend among the blinks group of consumers. The process of analyzing qualitative data will involve categorizing the data. Basically it will involve making sense of the huge data amounts by reducing their volume in raw format, then followed by an identification of significant patterns, and lastly drawing meanings from the data and ultimately building logical chains of evidence.

Reporting

The research will employ a descriptive research approach. The goal of the descriptive research used in this report is to describe the different phenomena and their characteristics. The research will be more concerned with the what rather than the how and why. The intention is to know what is happening in the UK market and what the Blinks market is looking to consume in terms of its affiliation with K-pop stars. Therefore, the online survey tool will be utilized to gather data and then a descriptive approach taken to report the findings. In the descriptive approach, the research will use qualitative means to gather data but employ quantitative approaches to analyze. For example, frequencies, patterns, percentages, trends, averages, and other statistical analyses will be used to show and interpret relationships. All factors considered, qualitative research is more holistic and will involve a rich collection of information from various social media sources to gather a deeper understanding of the individual participants/respondents, including the opinions, different perspectives, and/or attitudes. Qualitative research is preferred because it collects information or data qualitatively, thus gaining more information and the method of analysis will be quantitative to show relationships. The reporting will involve an inductive exploration of data in an effort to identify recurrent themes, pattern, or concept and then describe and interpret these different categories. In the qualitative research approach, the data collected using qualitative means will then be analyzed quantitatively and statistically. This is preferred in the research because the researcher will first examine the qualitative data in a thorough manner to establish relevant themes and concepts and then convert them into statistical or numerical data for comparison and evaluation.

Timing and General Costing

It is estimated that the research will be conducted in three months. a budget of $5,000 will be needed to facilitate the online surveys and to hire a statistical tool for data analysis as presented above.

Question 2

What is the first item you would consider buying from your favorite celebrity? Explain

How often do you shop online and do you enjoy the experience? Explain

Would you consider shopping only from your favorite online store or do you look for the best offers?

What type of merchandise would you be interested in buying online?

Do you know any pop stars local and international? What are some of your favorites?

How interested would you be in using foreign products from South Korea?

Do you have a favorite perfume brand and how often do you change it?

Explain the story behind your favorite perfume or the lack thereof?

How would you describe your need for a new perfume brand?

Do you think celebrity-endorsed products are genuine? Why or why not?

Would you want a product specially branded for you?

Do you buy products that are trending or are you a believer in having an individual taste?

Based on information that you will have a product signed by your favorite pop star, what price are you willing to pay for a perfume brand?

Would you prefer your merchandise to be branded you or should it retain the original branding?

Would you view a perfume brand differently if you found out it is your favorite star’s choice? Explain