INTROUDCTION TO MARKET RESEARCH
Market research can be referred to as the process of gathering information about a market, product or services or customers. Market research is a specific area of marketing that informs businesses like Kellogg’s about the things consumers need, how best to design products to answer those needs and how to advertise those products to consumers. Market research helps Kellogg’s to plan ahead, for example looking at what products or extensions it should develop and for whom. INTRODUCTION TO THE COMPANY

Kellogg Company is a producer of cereal and convenience foods, including cookies, crackers, toaster pastries, cereal bars, fruit-flavored snacks, frozen waffles, and vegetarian foods. The company's brands include the following Corn Flakes, Keebler, Pop-Tarts, Eggo, Cheez-It, Nutri-Grain, Rice Krispies, Bear Naked, Morningstar Farms, Famous Amos, Special K, All-Bran, Frosted Mini-Wheats, Club Crackers and Kashi. Kellogg products are manufactured in 18 countries and marketed in more than 180 countries around the world. TYPE OF RESEARCH I WOULD USE FIRST

It is more cost-effective for Kellogg’s to conduct secondary research before they start conducting primary research because it allows them to build an understanding of the market and identify any major barriers before committing to expensive research, it also allows them to develop some assumptions, which means Kellogg’s can use the primary research to test its assumptions. SECONDARY RESEARCH

Secondary research which is also known as desk research can be referred to as the summary or synthesis of existing research rather than finding out new information. Secondary research helps Kellogg’s to identify their competitors, perform a strategy for benchmarking and also determine the segments the company should target in view of factors such as demographics, population, usage rate, life style and behavioral patterns. Examples of secondary research are paper based and electronic. There are two main sources of secondary research which are:

Internal research
Internal research may be defined as the information that already exists within the business. The following are examples of internal research: * Previous marketing research
* Sales personnel
* Accounting and production records
* Data records
* Sales figures
External research
External may be defined as the information published by other organisations.The following are examples of external research: * Books and newspapers
* Trade journals and websites
* Government statistics
* Market research reports
PRIMARY RESEARCH
Primary research can be defined as the information that an organisation has gathered first hand and has not been gathered before. This can be through the following methods: Kellogg’s uses the following: Questionnaires, focus group, survey, field trials, and panels. Questionnaires

A questionnaire is a research tool which consist of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Kellogg’s using questionnaire has helped contribute to their planning stage of their new product in such a way that the questionnaire allows statical analysis, such as calculation of a mean score or percentages, it may also involve the use of scales for example asking their customers want they think about their new products and that they could give a scale of 1-7 to describe how their services are, by customers doing this they enable Kellogg’s to understand the consumers overall response which helps them improve on their planning stage of their new products. Focus group

A focus group can be defined as a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging. The focus groups helped Kellogg’s to find out how new product suggestions could be developed and still fit in with the crunchy nut brand. It’s also help Kellogg’s to establish what consumers were looking for in terms of potential new flavours and textures. Kellogg’s put ideas from focus group on boards, the board has pictures using products ideas and a description of what the new products would look like. These boards were then shown to a large range of people in a survey; they were asked to rate their ideas about the new products so that Kellogg’s could identify which product ideas consumers liked best. Survey

A detailed study of a market or geographical area to gather data on attitudes, impressions, opinions, satisfaction level, etc., by polling a section of the population. A well-laid out customer survey allows Kellogg to obtain customer feedback which can tremendously help to improve customer retention, Customers are the best judge of Kellogg’s product or services and hence a customer survey can help the organization decide on which products and services needs improvement, Kellogg’s use survey to find out from their customers if their services or products are satisfactory, their also ask customers what they think about or suggest about their new products in other to improve their company. QUANLITATIVE RESEARCH

Qualitative is used to describe certain types of information, the term qualitative data is which items are describe in terms of quantity and in which a range numerical values are used without implying that particular numerical values refers to a particular distinct category. Kellogg’s uses qualitative research to find out what customers thinks about their products, Kellogg’s using qualitative research establishes a conversation with consumers ,it prompts consumers reaction to ,for example, a new product idea and helps Kellogg’s understand what they think of it ,how it makes them feel, why they find it interesting or not. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

Quantitative data are focused on numbers and frequencies rather than on meaning and experience. Qualitative data (e.g. questionnaire and experiments) provide information which is easy to analyse statistically and fairly reliable. Quantitative research may use questionnaires administered to large numbers of respondents. This allows statistical analysis, such as the calculation of a mean score or percentages. It aims to give a representative picture of what consumers think of a new product idea or a new food.