A Marketing Research Proposal

On

Submitted to

Mr.Ramanath Maiya
Regional Sales Manager
NIE, Bangalore

Submitted by

Jeeweshwar Kumar
MBA (2009-11)
Amrita School of Business
Coimbatore
 CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. OBJECTIVES

3. DESK RESEARCH
3.1 Purpose
3.2 Procedure

4. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
4.1 Purpose
4.2 Population & sampling
4.3 Procedure

5. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
5.1 Purpose
5.2 Population & sampling
5.3 Procedure

6. REPORTING

7. TIMING
1. INTRODUCTION
The New Indian Express is a newspaper with its head office based in Chennai in south
India. It was started in 1932 as the Indian Express, under the ownership of Chennai-
based Veradharajulu Naidu.
Following the death of the then owner Ramnath Goenka in 1991, the Goenka's family
split the group into two separate companies. The northern editions, headquartered in
Mumbai, retained and renamed Indian Express into The Indian Express title, while the
southern editions became The New Indian Express. The two newspapers used to share
articles till early 2008, but they are now very much different corporate entities. The
newspaper is known for its intrepid and anti-establishment tone.
The New Indian Express is now published from all major cities in Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala besides Orissa, including Chennai, Coimbatore,
Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kochi and Bhubaneswar. In total, it publishes from 22 centres in
the south. It also publishes city supplement known as Expresso which covers the local
news of each city.
Its various supplements, which appear on a weekly or fortnightly basis, include pullouts
on career and education besides one on lifestyle called Indulge. Also a special
supplement for Saturday edition by name Zeitgeist is being published after its
rebranding in 2008. The Sunday magazines are i.witness and ii.witness.
Rebranding of 2008, have brought very important changes in The New Indian Express
(NIE). It has emerged as a strong brand in south India. Its marketing campaign shows up
it as a watchdog of the society.

2. OBJECTIVES
The overall objective is ‘to study the brand perception of “The New Indian Express”
among its end user’. This has been broken into the following sub-objectives:

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1. To identify brand perceptions along with reasons for preferring or not preferring the
brand in relation to competitor brands.
2. To examine purchase decision-making of consumers.
3. To examine the effect of rebranding on consumers.

These are the detailed further areas beneath each objective.

1. To identify brand perceptions along with reasons for preferring or not preferring
the brand in relation to competitor brands.
This objective would seek to go beyond the practical uses. It will establish what
other brand of newspaper consumer is aware of. It will look at both spontaneous
and prompted awareness.
This objective is far more exploratory and will help to discover what appeals to the
most promising segments for the brand.

2. To examine purchase decision-making of consumers.

We need to primarily identify the consumer behavior and also analyze the buying
pattern of consumers of the newspaper. The factors may include -
 Content
 Scope of advertisement
 Layout
 Critical tone
 Price
 Brand equity
 Location

3. To examine the effect of rebranding on consumers.

This objective will establish the impact of rebranding on consumer, either in positive
manner or negative manner.

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 The proposed research will have three stages. The first stage will be to inspect
existing sources to uncover brand perception and any useful information. The
second stage will involve qualitative research to provide in-depth information on the
brand perception. This will help to design the questionnaire to be used in the third
stage.

4. DESK RESEARCH
3.1 Purpose
Search secondary sources will be carried out to refine the objectives and provide
lines of enquiry for the next stages. Specifically, the desk research phase will
gather information on national brand perception of The New Indian Express. This
trend data should give a useful indication about the status of the marketplace.
The desk research will attempt to establish the following:
How many consumer regularly buying newspapers?
 Which section of people read which brand of newspaper?
 Which prices category is selling more?
 What promotions strategies are being followed by which newspaper?
 What is potential market to focus?

3.2 Procedure
The search will begin internally with the organization; personnel who may have
access to records will be asked for consultation. They would be briefed on the
requirements of the research and it may require holding few meeting with them.
The sales team may be part of this. It would be expected to have access to:
(possibly indirectly) internal reports on the domestic marketplace; information
on distribution to distributors; correspondence with customers; regional buying
marketplace and will indicate strengths and weaknesses that will help in
segmentation. An external search will also take place. Information from external

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 sources will be also used. We will inspect published research (Indian readership
survey, internet etc.) for any indications on brand perception.

4. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
4.1 Purpose
Given the exploratory nature of some aspects of the objectives, detailed
qualitative information will be provided. Focused research will be used to
explore and understand the attitudes of potential customers towards the new
brand and subsequent quantitative research will be used to measure how
widespread these attitudes are. The qualitative phase will probe the following:
 What brand perception help in preferring particular brand of newspaper?
 What all perception consumers have about the brand?
 What is the main thing that is liked by any particular consumer?
 Which brand of newspaper consumer is loyal for?

4.2 Population & Sampling

Since the study is being done for Bangalore city, population of the research will
include population of Bangalore. Research will include making of sampling frame
which will cover population who read English daily Bangalore. Sample wil
constitute both male & female, age group (18-60) and education (middle pass to
graduate). The preferred size of sample will be 200. Non-probability sampling
technique (convenience & judgment) will be included.

4.3 Procedure
Given the qualitative research its procedure will involve in-depth interview, focus
group and observation. In-depth interview will be in the form of structured
questionnaire. It will give the complete overview of the consumers brand
perception, individually.

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5. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
5.1 Purpose
This stage aims to quantify how much percentage of samples is reading NIE
regularly. It will also give percentages of names newspaper brand which
consumers are aware. It will provide percentages for both spontaneous and
prompted awareness.

5.2 Population & Sampling

In quantitative research, sample size will be 400 to collect the concerned data
about the brand perception. This will give a spread of responses and the
opportunity to identify interesting differences.

5.3 Procedure
I propose to carry out a personal interview using a structured questionnaire.
Sequence of questions will be in general to specific form. This may not be a cost
effective way of collecting data, but the quality and accuracy will give better
understanding of consumer perception of the brand. Rest of the ways (telephone
interview, mail survey etc) may not be the viable, because many of the
consumers may not turn up for survey.

6. REPORTING
Following the qualitative section of the research, an interim presentation-report will be
submitted. This will be followed by a meeting with “The New Indian Express group” to
discuss the next stage of the research. An outline PowerPoint presentation will be
created. Once this has been approved, there will be a formal presentation of all findings,
along with conclusions drawn. A copy of a report summarizing the findings of all phases
of the research will then be submitted.

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7. TIMING
To conduct the survey along with the fact finding, suggested timeframe for the research
will be one month (starting from third week of April to third week of June). Timing is
tight, so if we are to conduct the research to match the deadlines that is provided.

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REFRENCES

Web Sites.
http://www.expressbuzz.com
http://www.epapercatalog.com
http://www.indiavarta.com
http://www.exchange4media.com/.../news/newsx....relaunch...new/5292615/-
unitedstates

Books
Churchill, Lacobucci, Israel-( A South Indian Perspective) Marketing Reseach.