Tools of the trade: practical research methods for events, teams and venues
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ABSTRACT:
In the course of their consulting work, the authors have tested various research approaches, primarily qualitative, to provide a more complete picture of the survey respondent and his or her input. The approaches described in this article have been conducted at special events such as the Major League Baseball All-Star Game and selected NCAA championship events, and also for several professional (minor and major league) sports franchises. In the majority of these cases, the research methods were used to supplement traditional paper-and-pencil surveys in the hopes of gaining greater insight into the emotions and motivations of the respondent. Effective qualitative methodologies such as those described in this article, when combined with some quantitative survey instrument, provide a valuable tool for sport marketers in their evaluation of past marketing activities and the strategic planning for future efforts. Marketing research is the planning for, collection and analysis of data relevant to marketing decision making, and the communication of the results of this analysis to management (McDaniel & Gates, 1995). In the course of our consulting activities over the past 8 years, we have found that the second part of this definition, communicating the results to management, is often an afterthought. In our work with various leagues and teams, we have been actively involved not in only planning the research with our clients, but also in planning the most effective ways to communicate not only our results, but also our overall research activities. This has provided us with opportunities to experiment with various computer-based methodologies, hand-held computers, and lap-top computer stations to ask better questions and to devise ways to probe the respondent for clarification and expansion of his or her answers. During that same time we have experimented with video interviews and have applied the mall intercept principle to an entire city. As our client's experience and interest in consumer research increased, we also found the need to supplement traditional survey results, percentages, mean scores and so forth, with some qualitative data that contribute to a better understanding of the consumer's emotional state, decision-making process, and general impressions regarding the marketing communications vehicle he or she has encountered. The need for such illustrative data was manifested during the presentation of our results to a particular client, whose staff was so engrossed in the performance of their duties, they really had little comprehension of the impact of the event upon the consumers. We present our approaches here in the hopes of providing practitioners a basic overview of these types of methodologies as well as underscoring the need for practitioners to understand the need to integrate both quantitative and qualitative approaches when defining and planning their consumer research needs.
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