Final Report
This is where your entire project comes together. The report should be in the form of a Powerpoint deck (saved as PDF), and should include the following sections. Please post this online under the category “Project Report” and your group number. You are encouraged to add notes in each slide to elaborate on or explain the content. If you do so, use the “Print Notes” option in Powerpoint and send the document to a PDF printer. I would like a hard copy as well.
Executive Summary
Summarize the objectives, scope, method, key findings and recommendations of the study.
Research Context
Summarize the background of the marketing problem, including data on the product/industry you obtained from secondary data (including sources cited), that can help the audience understand the context in which the research is being conducted and the need for the research.
Research Purpose and Objectives
State the research purpose, the marketing decision(s), and the research objective(s).
Qualitative Research
Describe the qualitative research you conducted and summarize the main findings from it.
Survey Methodology
Describe the research methodology for the survey (i.e., the target population, sampling procedure, contact method, response rate, and sample size). Summarize the sample characteristics (demographics and other key characteristics if any). Mention any potential limitations of your research such as those due to the sampling procedure used or due to nonresponse.
Results
This section should include both Full Sample Results and Segmentation Results.
Full Sample Results should present a summary of the responses for the sample as a whole. You should organize the discussion by grouping questions (or variables) that are related. For example, you may have a number of questions related to shopping habits (How often do you shop? Which stores do you shop in? What do you spend on average per shopping trip? etc.); these may be presented under the heading, “Shopping Behavior” or “How do our target consumers shop?”. Use your imagination and common sense in deciding how to organize your findings. Try and prepare the reader for the recommendations that will follow in the next section.
You do not have to report the findings for every single question; pick those that are important and relevant to the research objectives; interesting and unexpected results may also be worth reporting, if you can use them to formulate recommendations.
In terms of statistics, you would usually report means for metric variables, and percentages for non-metric variables (typically, no statistical tests are needed here). Highlight the key take-aways: for example: “40% of the sample drank less than 2 cups of coffee a day”. For key questions, you may present the data visually (e.g., in bar charts).
Segmentation Results should describe the segment-level analysis and the results of that analysis. Make sure to explain how you segmented the sample, and why you chose to use that basis for segmentation. Next, summarize the (statistically) significant differences between segments, and what you concluded from those differences. Present the data visually or numerically (in tables) to illustrate your points, and for each finding briefly indicate how it will be useful in formulating the recommendations to be made later.
It may help you to summarize each key conclusion in the form of a statement, and follow that with the numbers supporting that conclusion. For example:
Product performance is more important to men (mean = 6.1) than to women (mean = 4.3).
Implication: the positioning strategy for the male segment should focus more on product performance.
Some tips on writing this section:
(i) You may use either bar charts or tables with the numbers to show your results. For segmentation results, please also include a table showing the numbers and statistical significance (p-value) in the Appendix for my reference.
(ii) Make sure to interpret the findings that you describe and consider their implications, rather than merely showing the graphs or numbers.
(ii) Make sure that I can verify all your conclusions in the tables for Segmentation Results (that’s why statistical significance must be included in the tables in the Appendix). You will be penalized for unsubstantiated or incorrect conclusions.
(iii) You do not need to report the result of every hypothesis test you conduct. Report only those results that you believe are interesting and/or useful in formulating recommendations. (This would normally include only statistically significant results, but could also include non-significant results if the lack of significance is unexpected or has implications for the management).
(iv) Don’t lose sight of the overall goal here, which is to present actionable findings and a narrative that makes sense of the findings, i.e., presents the findings in a way that leads to insights about consumers and allows you to make useful recommendations to management. So when presenting the results, look for consistency between different findings and try and link related findings together. For example:
- if men are more price sensitive and heavier users are more likely to be men, then you might connect the two and say that the firm might need to lower the price to target heavy users.
- if a profile of the target segment emerges from your analysis, try and describe this profile, highlighting the aspects that are consistent with each other (e.g. women may be heavier users of the product, buy it more often, spend more on it and be more promotion sensitive–all of which is consistent information), as well as any information that is inconsistent (in which case you may speculate on reasons for this).
Recommendations
In this section you should summarize the insights from the study and present your recommendations for management. Make sure that you address the marketing problem and decision(s) identified earlier, and that your recommendations are thoughtful, detailed and comprehensive. Additionally, the recommendations should have some basis in your findings, i.e. some connection to your results (as opposed to being conjured out of thin air). One last point—a recommendation to “do more research” is not a substitute for other recommendations that actually address the marketing problem.
Appendix
This section should include all the tables you refer to in the presentation, and indicate the statistical significance of hypothesis tests as reported by SPSS. Please label the columns and rows so they can be interpreted. Do not attach unedited computer printouts, and do not include results that you do not discuss in the report.
Your grade for the final report will depend on:
- organization of the report,
- quality of data analysis and ability to provide useful insights, and
- quality of recommendations
The grade for the report will be based on the slide deck, including any notes (and I recommend that you do include notes to clarify and elaborate on the bullet points in your slides).
Presentation
You will typically have no more than 8 minutes of “air time”, followed by a few minutes of Q&A, so you should plan on presenting only a subset of the slide deck you prepare for the report. Make sure to rehearse and not to exceed your time limit as you will be stopped at the end of the time limit! The presentation should cover the following topics:
- Marketing Problem and Research Objectives
- Key results and conclusions
- Recommendations
All group members must be present and participate in the presentation.
