Marketing of Schoolies Week - Research Paper Example

? Marketing research strategy for a case study and Executive summary This paper will cover problem statement and the research methodology of ‘Schoolies’ Week – a tourism event that takes place in Australian Gold Coast, involving students who have completed their Year 12. The problem statement is centered on a significant negative publicity that has resulted from civil disturbance, caused by drunken ‘Schoolies’. The Queensland State Government is a major event’s sponsor, due to its purported social and economic benefits to the region, though this sponsorship has faced opposition from the members of the community who argue that it is dangerous, in terms of sexual predators and alcohol abuse. This matter has been made worse by a section of the media, which has published derogatory article showing that the event should not be sponsored by the government. Another section of the public argues that the event benefits commercial businesses in the Gold Coast, and hence it is not worth government sponsorship. The following report is prepared with the aim of justifying the current financial commitment for the event. Table of Contents Problem statement 4 Background 4 Management Decision Problems 4 Marketing Research Problem (MRP) questions/statement 5 Research objectives 5 Proposed mixed method to address MRP 5 The proposed Research design 5 Data collection instruments – questionnaire 7 Sampling plan, data collection procedures and data analysis 8 Key limitation of the study design 10 Independent-samples t-tests 10 Analysis of variance (ANOVA) 12 Bivariate correlation coefficient matrix 14 References 15 PART A Problem statement Background ‘Schoolies’ week is a major tourism attraction event, which takes place annually at the Gold Coast, Australia. The event, which attracts many sponsors and participants, is usually attended by students who have completed their Year 12 (the final year at high school). The following is the event’s problem statement. Management Decision Problems 1. What can be done to reduce ‘Shoolies’ negative publicity? 2. What innovations can be introduced to reduce ‘Schoolies’ harmful behavior? 3. What actions can be taken to avoid violence and public drunkenness and predatory sexual behavior by older males, during ‘Schoolies’ occasions? 4. How can the negative perception of the members of the community against ‘Schoolies’ be changed? 5. What actions can be taken to curb the media’s negative publicity of the ‘Schoolies’? 6. What information can be gathered to justify the financial commitments of ‘Schoolies’? 7. What actions can be taken to show the locals that ‘Schoolies’ is a worthy public project? Justification Since the ‘Schoolies’ events were started in 1975, many negative behaviors have resulted in the events’ negative publicity, and actions needs to be taken to address this problem, if the event is going to get public good will. This negative publicity has been as a result of negative behaviors, such as drunkenness, which cause civil disturbances in the main street. As such, the actions that should be undertaken to rescue the good name of this project, should focus on changing the behavior of the students who participate, because this is the root cause of problems. Despite its perceived social economic benefits, the role of the state government as a financier of the event has faced many hurdles because some groups, including the members of the opposition have argued that the event is largely benefiting the private sector such as the hotels along the beach, hence not worth the sponsorship. This calls for a deliberate action by the government to ensure that the real benefit of the event to the members of the public is evident, to justify its financial commitment. Marketing Research Problem (MRP) questions/statement 1. Why do the media and the public consider ‘Schoolies’ as a negative project that is not worthy commitment of public resources? 2. Why do the youth who attend the ‘Schoolies’ engage in negative behavior? 3. Why does the opposition find the budgetary allocation on ‘Schoolies’ as not worthy? 4. What are the benefits of holding ‘Schoolies’ events? 5. What are the factors that encourage volunteers to support ‘Schoolies’ 6. What are the social economics benefits of ‘Schoolies’ to the locals? Justification Schoolies has become so popular to the extent that other similar events have started to operate, and this means that the event holders must undertake deliberate marketing strategies to ensure the event remains competitive, to avoid losing clientele to the rival organizers. In this regards, it has become critical to collect the information on the causes of the problems that the event is currently facing, such as what has caused its negative publicity; as well as the reason that could lead to its success, such as encouraging of volunteers support, among many others. Research objectives 1. To encourage more volunteers to support ‘Schoolies’; 2. To find justification for financial commitment of’ Schoolies’; 3. To find the causes negative behaviors during ‘Schoolies’ events; 4. To find ways of ensuring ‘Schoolies’ competitive advantages. Proposed mixed method to address MRP The proposed Research design This study will take the form of both qualitative and quantitative approaches (mixed methods). The quantitative and qualitative research methodologies will be used to expediently differentiate contrasting research strategies, which will essentially depend on the nature of the research question or the problem being examined. As Gay (1996) explicates, quantitative and qualitative techniques presents corresponding aspects of the scientific study method, whereby the quantitative approaches are concerned with testing of hypothesis (primary deduction) while qualitative approaches are concerned with generating of hypothesis (primary induction). The complementary use of qualitative and quantitative methodologies has gained popularity as they are used in formulating wide innovations in science and social research. This provides a better array of perspectives and insights and allows substantiation of the results by different methods of triangulation, which boosts the general validity of findings and improves the usefulness of the study. The participants will be sent an invitation to take part in the focus group whereby the objective of the study will be explained comprehensively. The qualitative research interview will be conducted to identify the expectations and needs of the students during the event. Furthermore, focus group will be used to extract the participants’ feelings, attitudes, reactions and experiences in a manner that is not possible with the ordinary interview. This includes one-on-one interviewing and observations of the participants with respect to issues that affect Schoolies. An opinion survey will be designed in the form of a questionnaire, which shall also be used as a measuring instrument. Berg (1998) provides that use of questionnaires to perform surveys is one of the most common methods of collecting data, which can be used to measure important issues that affects the marketability of a product or service, including beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, characteristics, opinions, and expectations among many others. As such, the use of a questionnaire will be suitable for measuring different issues that affect holding of Schoolies every year. To further assist in collection data, an interview will be conducted to identify the expectations and needs of the stakeholders, which will entail the expectations and needs of managers of the firms that benefit from Schoolie. Kvale (1983) has provided that a qualitative research interview can be used to collect information that explains more about the real-life situation of the of the respondents, which in this case stands for needs and expectations, with regards to the inference of the meaning of the descriptive phenomena, which in this case stands for the market issues that affect Schoolie . The purpose of the qualitative research interview will also include collection of information regarding the likes and dislikes of the respondents, the knowledge of the respondents, the thoughts and attitudes of the respondents as well as their experience (Bless & Higson, 1995). An open-ended approach allows the respondents to give answers in a flexible manner, which also allows the researcher to ask inquisitive questions, which enhances follow-up. This approach is the most common form of interviewing because its open-ended design allows respondents to give detailed responses, hence speaking volumes of their experiences and perspectives. For the purpose of this study, and due to the importance of getting detailed and unbiased information from the respondents, the researcher will also make use of a standardized open-ended interview. The idea of allowing the respondents to give their opinions and experiences in as much detail as they wish to allow easy coding of data since it is extremely difficult for the researcher to identify common themes from the open-ended questions. Before data collection, the researcher will conceptualize and consider the ideas, but in accordance with the suggestions of Neuman (2003), creation of new processes and new ideas during data collection will be important. The data that will be collected will have to be purposefully focused on answering the research questions, a concept that was echoed by Creswell (2005). In addition, the forms that will be used for data collection will be designed in accordance with the research questions as well as the information that will be collected during the interview. Data collection instruments – questionnaire The following questionnaire was filled by the students: 1. What is your age? 2. What is your gender? Male Female 3. When did you start attending Schoolies? 2013 2012 2011 2010 Before 2010, please specify 4. Which place did you attend your Schoolies? Port Macquarie Gold Coast Byron Bay Cruise Whit Sundays Other, please specify 5. Where did you get the information about Schoolies? Friends Newspapers Television Family members Magazines Past Schoolies Others, please specify 6. When you first attended Schoolies, did you find it as you expected? If no, give reasons. 7. Did the negative publicity by the media affect your decision regarding Schoolies in any way? 8. Do you believe that the media has given the true picture of Schoolies? Give reasons. 9. Do you think the government is justified in continuing with its funding of schooling? 10. Why do you think students engage in negative behaviors when they attend Schoolies? 11. What strategies do you think can be put in place to stop negative behaviors during Schoolies? 12. Do you think the Schoolies benefits the community in any way? If not, who do you think benefits from the events? 13. If you were to attend another Schoolies, what improvements would you like to find? 14. Would you give money to your children to attend Schoolie in the future? If no, why? 15. Do you have any additional comments about Schoolies, you would like to make? Sampling plan, data collection procedures and data analysis The researcher will use purposive sampling for the qualitative study and simple random sampling for the quantitative part. Simple sampling will be selected for the quantitative part because no complexity is involved in the selection process. A purposeful sampling (also called judgmental sampling) is based on the fact that the researcher is capable of selecting the participants who are effectively suited to meet the purpose of the study. This method of sampling will ensure that an extensive and thorough assessment is conducted and hence the researcher will be able to obtain a better understanding of the strategies that can be undertaken to ensure running of Schoolies is successful. In the selection of purposive sampling, it is conceived that sampling for proportionality is not of the essence; furthermore, purposive sampling is ideal for reaching the targeted sample in a speedy manner (Neuman, 2003). The populations in question will have different groups of participants, who will take part in the opinion survey. A total of 100 students who attend the event will be targeted for the quantitative study, which will be conducted through a survey. These students will be selected from the current years’ Schoolies. To facilitate collection of data from the firms that benefits from the event along the beach, focus groups, which will involve selection of managers of those firms, will be conducted in a customized manner. The participants of the focus groups will be selected through a purposive sampling technique, which is considered to be more convenient for this study (Terre & Durham, 1999). The process of data collection will entail one-on-one interviews, storytelling, answering of open-ended questions and explaining of the personal perception as regards to Schoolies issues. In the one-on-one interview, the researcher will directly ask the participants questions that are deemed important for the study and then the participant will be left to respond to those questions freely and without undue influence or pressure. According to Garg (2006), a good plan for the interviews time-line will be critical and the researcher will allocate a range of duration to each session, taking into account the fact that interviews are different and may take different durations. In this regards, the researcher will set a range of 45 to 60 minutes. After the first round of interview, a follow-up interview will be conducted in 2 to 3 weeks. This follow-up will help establish whether the participants will change their perceptions given the change of conditions and time (Machlup, 1978). Following completion of collection the data from the opinion survey, the data will be captured in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and then analyzed using the IBM SPSS 11.0 package. The data will be described using descriptive statistics as well as frequency tables. According to Hussey and Hussey (1997), descriptive statistics are ideal for reviewing and displaying of quantitative data, hence producing relationships and patterns that can be explained, something that is not possible with raw data. To check data errors and consistency, the researcher will produce frequency tables for the questions posed in the questionnaire. In addition, the researcher will work out the means, sample sizes, standard deviations and any other statistical measures that will help derive more meaning from the questions. The mean of a sample, according to Sekaran (2000), is used to describe the central tendency of data, which presents a general arrangement of data, which is achieved without deluging the researcher with all the observations made in the data set. On the other hand, on the analysis of qualitative data, which will be collected through the questionnaire, a similar method used to analyze data collected from focus groups and interviews will be used. A bottom-up approach will be used to stimulate themes in which case the data will be organized in accordance with the questions from the questionnaire. As such, the themes will be analyzed in the context of goals, process and competence evaluation criteria. Finally, the researcher will integrate the quantitative and qualitative data to derive an in-depth meaning from the results. Key limitation of the study design The most significant limitation of the study design is the fact that all those who were included in data collection were either beneficiaries or current participants of Schoolies. This presents a possibility of introducing bias in the information collected because the participants could be tempted to avoid painting a negative picture of the event. The other problem is that the number that was sampled is somewhat small, hence not a very good representative of the whole population. Furthermore, the investigation of accurately complementary techniques (mixed methods) presents significant challenges. These take account of additional human and financial-based additional costs, the need for respect for different epistemological positions and methodologies as well as teamwork. PART B Independent-samples t-tests t-test for Equality of Means (international vs. domestic students) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference 1 EVA -.206 .728 EVNA -.206 .738 2 EVA -.642 .876 EVNA -.642 .871 3 EVA -1.740 .731 EVNA -1.740 .730 4 EVA .873 .737 EVNA .873 .731 5 EVA -.353 .718 EVNA -.353 .662 6 EVA -2.000 .695 EVNA -2.000 .698 7 EVA -.027 .754 EVNA -.027 .757 8 EVA -.221 .651 EVNA -.221 .612 9 EVA .490 .737 EVNA .490 .765 10 EVA .191 .765 EVNA .191 .773 11 EVA .480 .655 EVNA .480 .697 12 EVA -.461 .799 EVNA -.461 .785 13 EVA .574 .527 EVNA .574 .507 14 EVA -.794 .675 EVNA -.794 .632 15 EVA -.319 .775 EVNA -.319 .781 16 EVA -.882 .833 EVNA -.882 .800 17 EVA .574 .699 EVNA .574 .689 18 EVA -.975 .624 EVNA -.975 .594 19 EVA .319 .718 EVNA .319 .737 20 EVA -.510 .856 EVNA -.510 .833 EVA – equal Variances Assumed EVNA – equal variances not assumed The standard error is most significant in no. 2, while mean different is highest at no. 6. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) Mean Square F Sig. 1 Between Groups 3.666 1.030 .463 Within Groups 3.559 2 Between Groups 5.614 1.097 .418 Within Groups 5.118 3 Between Groups 5.911 1.743 .147 Within Groups 3.392 4 Between Groups 4.611 1.355 .278 Within Groups 3.402 5 Between Groups 4.114 1.307 .300 Within Groups 3.147 Total 6 Between Groups 2.054 .362 .954 Within Groups 5.677 7 Between Groups 3.547 .951 .522 Within Groups 3.729 8 Between Groups 3.378 1.315 .296 Within Groups 2.569 9 Between Groups 2.060 .426 .923 Within Groups 4.833 10 Between Groups 3.813 .933 .534 Within Groups 4.088 11 Between Groups 3.258 1.170 .373 Within Groups 2.784 12 Between Groups 5.972 1.781 .138 Within Groups 3.353 13 Between Groups 2.291 1.305 .301 Within Groups 1.755 14 Between Groups 3.739 1.276 .316 Within Groups 2.931 15 Between Groups 7.048 3.224 .015 Within Groups 2.186 16 Between Groups 5.052 1.052 .448 Within Groups 4.804 17 Between Groups 4.761 1.897 .114 Within Groups 2.510 18 Between Groups 1.308 .336 .965 Within Groups 3.892 19 Between Groups 2.441 .578 .821 Within Groups 4.225 20 Between Groups 4.194 .752 .680 Within Groups 5.578 There is a significant statistical difference between the YEAR started and Q5 (no. 15) (sig. = 0.015) Bivariate correlation coefficient matrix Correlations 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 20 Pearson Correlation -.288 .102 .001 -.100 .222 .394* -.018 -.203 -.120 -.055 .254 .054 .016 -.027 -.117 .061 .090 .138 -.272 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .129 .598 .997 .607 .247 .038 .927 .292 .534 .778 .183 .781 .934 .890 .545 .752 .643 .477 .153 N 29 29 29 29 29 28 28 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). From the output table above, there is a strong and significant association between 20 and 6(0.394: sig at the 0.05 level). References Berg, B. (1998). Qualitative research methods for the social sciences. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Bless, C., & Higson-Smith, C. (1995). Fundamentals of social research methods: an African perspective. Cape Town: Juta and Co. Creswell, J. W. (2005). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating Educational and professional publisher. New York: Sage Garg, A. (2006). My experience interviewing the crusader participant. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(4), 1-18. Gay, L.R. (1996). Educational Research. Competencies for Analysis and Application. 5th Edn. London: Merill Prentice Hall. Hussey, J., & Hussey, R. (1997). Business research: a practical guide for undergraduate and postgraduate studies. London: Macmillan Business. Kvale, S. (1983). The qualitative research interview: a phenomenological and a hermeneutical mode of understanding. Journal of phenomenological psychology, 14(2), 117-195. Machlup, F. (1978). Methodology of economics and other social sciences. New York: Academic Press. Neuman, W. L. (2003). Social research methods: Quantitative and qualitative approaches (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Sekaran, U. (2000). Research methods in business. New York: Hermitage Publishing Services sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Terre, B., & Durrheim, K. (1999). Research in practice: applied methods for the social sciences. Cape Town: University of Cape Town press. Read More