- Internal Code :
- Subject Code : MBS574
- University : Murdoch University Assignment Help Era is not sponsored or endorsed by this college or university.
- Subject Name : Market Research
Strategic Research in International Markets
The managerial marketing trend that the Nivea is dealing with is that the organisation is trying to understand and interpret the new marketing trends and identify the prevailing opportunities in the market for the marketing purposes of the organization. In order to successfully retain the customers with the organization it becomes important to introduce innovations and keep offering something new to the customers. Thus, it is important to increase the market share and brand value of Nivea in the U.S. market (Alberti et al., 2018).
The marketing research problem is that an organization needs to conduct both qualitative and quantitative research for developing marketing strategy. A proper research is to be conducted in order to market the product effectively to the target market. The main problem is to determine the preferences of American consumers for Nivea skin care and cosmetics and to know the segment the company should target for their products.
It is very important for the company to defend itself against the true competitors. Nivea is relying on heavy market research to have an edge over its competitors. From the beginning it is defending its core business either through new advertisement campaigns like Creme da la Creme in the 1970s or through the introduction of new and better products. This helped Nivea to keep the brand fresh and introduced new sources of sales (Bilgram et al., 2011).
However, the company faces many challenges. One of the greatest challenge which the company is facing is in the U.S. market. The brand is not strong in the U.S. market as compared to other parts of the world. The primary reason behind this problem is the most dynamic environment of U.S. in the world. To develop focused marketing strategies and overcome the obstacles in teh U.S. market, the company has to undertake extensive market research. This market research would help Nivea to come up with more new and better products to attract the customers from various segments of the society.
In order to develop, sustain and evolve a brand it is very necessary to undertake market research. To remain relevant and to revamp the brand, Nivea had to rely on marketing research. It is very well demonstrated with the help of Nivea Vital that even a single product line could appeal the customers and enhance the brand image of a company. This is irrespective of the fact that the product has or hasn’t target the core target audience.
The main thing that the company, Nivea seeks is consistency in its marketing. This is however, difficult in the case where same message is to shared with different cultures and countries. But Nivea is trying it’s best refine and retain the consistency in its marketing across global markets through marketing research.
There is an urgent need of a research to understand the preference of customers of the U.S. consumers for skincare products. A descriptive research design should be used by Nivea to understand the preferences of American consumers. One of the very useful design that could be used is survey method. This survey method can help to know:
- Who uses the Skin care products?
- When the consumers use these products?
- Where is the product used?
- How the consumer uses the skin care products?
Moreover, this method would help the company to able to reach more and more customers rather than only a focus group. This survey method is also easy in comparison to other methods. This method keeps everything simple and easy between the respondents as well the researcher. This design will help to provide insights about the preferences of the customers. Ultimately, this method would also helps the company, Nivea to know about some specific issue by asking specific question to the consumers regarding the preference for skin care products.
A qualitative research for knowing the behaviour of people which is known as exploratory research can also be used. This can be used to interview focus or specific group of people, for example men and women of America (Creswell, 2009).
A casual research could also be used by the company, Nivea. In this, the company can do test marketing on the skin care products and could analyse the after effects of using the skin products.
The qualitative research plays a vital role in understanding the preferences of consumers of America for the skin care products. It helps to determine the motivation which included the motives and desires of the consumers and also the behavioural sciences which includes the likes and dislikes of the consumers. It allows the researcher to get insights into the underlying causes and the motivation of customers. In simple words, the qualitative research helps the analyst to know not only the preferences of the skin care products of the consumers but it would also help to know the reason behind using or preferring certain skin care products (Dolnicar et al., 2018).
The qualitative research technique that must be used by the researcher is segmented groups. This segmentation would help the researcher to target smaller groups and get insights of that specific target group. If a small sample of consumers of America on the basis of characteristics such as age, income or behavioural trails are focused, it would provide more insights to the researcher about the preferences of skin care products. The benefit of using focus groups is that it helps to provide a relaxed setting along with offering a richness of comments (Lopes, 2017).
A Likert scale can also be used to determine the preferences of a consumer. This can be in the form of:
- Highly Agree
- Agree
- Disagree
- Highly Disagree
If Nivea have to conduct research in Singapore, electronic survey could be used. There are several reasons of using this electronic survey method. One of the major reason of using electronic survey is that it is the faster means of getting a survey. Also, it could first use segmentation to divide the market into focus groups. To enter into Singapore, the researcher needs to validate the segment for better understanding the preferences of consumers. Before positioning, it is required to know the needs of customers of Singapore.
Therefore, using these methods Nivea could reach to a greater amount of respondents in a very short duration of time. The main thing which should be focused on is to reduce the margin of error. This margin of error could be reduced with the help of more respondents a researcher has and this further make the results more credible (Margarita, 2015).
References for Nivea Marketing Research
Alberti, B., Asgian, C., Caldwell, H., & DeFanti, M. (2018). A Proposed Brand Portfolio Strategy for Nivea to Gain Competitive Advantage. In Competition Forum (Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 130-135). American Society for Competitiveness.
Bilgram, V., Bartl, M., & Biel, S. (2011). Getting closer to the consumer–how Nivea co-creates new products. Marketing Review St. Gallen, 28(1), 34-40.
Creswell, J. W. (2009). Quantitative and Qualitative Research Design.
Dolnicar, S., Grün, B., & Leisch, F. (2018). Market Segmentation. In Market Segmentation Analysis (pp. 3-9). Springer, Singapore.
Lopes, A. T. M. (2017). Conquering the market through effective communication: NIVEA hair care case study (Doctoral dissertation).
Margarita, I. Å. (2015). Analysis of marketing mix: Nivea case study. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 3(2), 173-185.
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