Marketing Research in Health Products - Essay Example

Running head: Con Marketing Research ___________ ________________________ ________________ Marketing Research The types of market research information that might be useful to a condom manufacturer Uninterrupted supply of health products with easy accessibility and affordability for lower income group customer is an urgent need of the hour. Condoms fit the bill of such a health product immediately. In an environment of a global scare of AIDS and STDs general awareness about indiscriminate and unprotected sex may be well understood along with the importance of contraceptives as an effective deterrent; however effective purchase of condoms may not come about at unsubsidized market prices. "Statistics indicate the magnitude of sex related problems: each year, one million girls become pregnant, and $25 billion in federal funds are spent annually on families begun by teenagers for social, health welfare services. One million Americans are currently infected with HIV, and almost a quarter million have died from AIDS"(di mauro,1995). Research evidence is on record that consumer tends to regard free/subsidized goods as inferior and has general reluctance to go in for their purchase .Whereas anything priced goes through a detailed consumer decision making process in terms of exercising choice and ascertaining quality of the bought item. This holds for use of condoms too.For this reason social marketing of condoms have a market strategy to price for affluent in order to subsidize poor. DKT-Brazil is a case in point: it sells condoms at full price to some and uses some of the profits to subsidize condom sales to the poor(DKT,2002).People would tend to use more, a priced condom then a free/subsidized one. Market research is essential for successful marketing and promotion of condoms. Carefully planned research helps guide the product design and selection, package design, advertising and promotion, and distribution. Market research can also help to identify proper pricing with in various segments. The brand name and packaging leave important message for customer at the point of sale and again at the time of use and it is important that such messages facilitate purchase and use of the condoms. Quite similar to different advertising messages for varying target groups, it may be required to vary brand names and packaging messages for different target groups. Market research can help in such selection of brand names and package designs. Thus we have an effective list of data variables that a market research plan may aim to collect as pertinent information. A list of such variables is carried below. (i) correlating AIDS and condoms-awareness (ii) correlating STDs and condoms-awareness (iii) data on sexual activity-number of partners,frequency,casual or structured etc (iv) demographical details of users-sex,age,occupation,soci-economic background, ethnicity etc (v) data on frequency of use of condoms (vi) data on use of condoms vis a vis other methods of contraception (vii) data on choice pattern between free versus priced condoms (viii) data on various prices which are affordable for condoms (ix) data on preference for product attributes(color,strength,flavor etc) (x) data on ability to pay for added product attributes (xi) data on pre purchase considerations(hesitation,awkwardness,fear of opening sexual habits to public domain etc) (xii) data on determining factors in the purchase decision(product attributes,price,packaging,brand image, advertising message etc) (xiii) data on adequacy of distribution outlet(reasons for having more outlets, kinds of outlets etc) (xiv) data on preferred outlets(reasons for selection etc) (xv) feed back about packaging (convenience of use, message on package, interpretation of message, adequacy of message etc) (xvi) feed back about brand image(whether up-market or inferior, segment it caters to, brand message,USP etc) (xvii) data on effectiveness of advertising and media campaign(recall, understanding , message and adequacy etc) The problems of undertaking primary consumer research for Condoms The most prominent problem in carrying out primary consumer research for Condoms is the extended and hard-shelled hesitation of the consumer in discussing sexual preferences in public domain. The research would likely have a Pandoras box of questions relating to sexual habits and a privacy conscious individual would be guarded to the extent of being non-responsive. There is a fear of revealing information on unapproved sexual behavior like sex with prostitutes, casual sex, homosexuality etc. This is particularly the case with a large population strata comprised of conventionally raised and low incomes groups having low levels of education; within such strata social guilt networks are more pronounced. Deficiency of sex education is one major cause within this group and even other groups of population. A generous input of sex education and health education related to sexual activity may temporize the secretive respondents attitudes. Hard-shelled attitudes may be maintained particularly when the consumer is unawares of the objective of the research he has been made part of. Making him aware of the socio-commercial research activity can help loosen him a bit. Doubly ensuring confidentiality of identity and information provided can ease the respondents further. This aspect poses problems in interfacing with consumers. Direct face to face interviews may not be preferred whereas consumer may be more responsive by email, mail, telephone and prefer to maintain anonymity of response etc.Two additional interrelated problems associated with consumer research for condoms relate to validity of conclusions and economics of the research. In order for findings to be significant condom research should be based on a reasonably large sample of various segments which involves considerable costs. It is partly because of high cost and primarily due to social importance attached to the issue that campaigning responsible use of condoms is taken up as social marketing with generous donation supports from governmental agencies and international organizations. Social marketing conducting organizations are often criticized for over extending donor/grant budgets- donors think that an organization that pays too high salaries or "wastes" too much money on overhead or advertising or sales commissions is somehow not being frugal with taxpayers money or donations (Letts et al 1999; Cordes et al 1999). Another problem may be veiled and misleading responses from consumers who wish to project an affluent and macho image. For instance responses to a free condom distribution campaign may unjustifiably downgrade the offered product as inferior with unpredictable distribution. Similarly macho image may be projected when responding to sexual activity questions. Such responses would need to be identified and moderated. A programme of primary research A precondition to any primary research program would be strict confidentiality of the information shared by the respondents. Researcher may even allow anonymity of respondents provided general demographic details are furnished. The interaction with respondents should also avoid direct face to face experiences. Email, mail and telephone based questionnaires may be used exensively.Questionnaire should include a brief and attractive pamphlet educating consumer of the health related pitfalls of casual and unprotected sex. The sample size chosen must be sufficiently representative of various consumer segments. The core research should target audiences only above the age of 18 as the responses are likely to be more stable and mature. A separate subset of parallel research can be carried out for younger people say, 14-16 year olds. Within core research two broad segments may be identified. One never married or now not married and other married. Within these two segments more categorization may be made based on, say, level of education. Research questionnaire design for all categories of respondents can broadly carry the contents cited above as relevant information in market research effort for condoms viz items (i) to (xvii).These can be broadly divided into questionnaire part as below: (A) Awareness about implications of casual and unprotected sexual acivities-items (i) & (ii) (B)Demographic Details-item (iv) (C) Sexual Behavior-items-items (iii), (v) & (vi) (D) Pricing of Condoms-(vii), (viii) & (x) (E) Purchase Decision-(ix), (xi) & (xii) (F) Distribution of Condoms-(xiii) & (xiv) (G)Packaging & Branding-(xv) & (xvi) (H) Adverting & Media Campaign-(xvii) The above items are not exhaustive and a substantial number of explanatory variables can be added to make the questionnaire effective.Effectiveness of the research design can also be ensured by involving the target audience in the design process. In a campaign by Porter Novelli in Tijuana the help of female sex workers was solicited in developing a series of comic books aimed at teaching skills for dealing with various types of clients who did not want to use condoms (Ramah and Cassidy,1992). Ethics of condom manufactures survey of 14-16 year olds? Usually accepted impressionable ages have shrunk globally with the advance of education standards.Sex education has become compulsory part of curriculum from very low grades and 14-16 years old of today have already passed through a couple of years of such education. Their sexual maturity is of course a function of their emotional quotients and level of sexual experience at ages 14-16 years. It, nevertheless, is accepted that this age group along with higher teen years is the most vulnerable group to casual, frequent and unprotected sexual encounters. Childhood pregnancies and motherhoods have turned more frequent then ever before. This also exposes this age group to well know medical and health hazards at early ages. Any condom marketing campaign to this group has to have a distinct social marketing flavor. Yet, as (Kotler and Andreasen,1996) note, nonprofit marketers: "must try to entice macho men into wearing seat belts, timid souls into giving blood or taking medication around which swirl rumors about devastating effects on sexual potency, or aging citizens to finally admit they are infirm or otherwise need assistance." Its message has to be safe and responsible sex.Commercial condom manufacturers research sometimes tends to have questions which not only laud indirectly the macho perception of frequent and sex and conquers over opposite sex but also tend to encourage such activities with strong impressionable messages. Such research also casts aside social responsibility in raising awareness about health hazards like AIDS, STDs etc with entire focus on selling more condoms at higher prices. Thus any market research in this consumer segment has to be more educative then commercial. It is very important that in addressing such a segment emotional quotient and maturity quotient of the respondent is measured right before the commencement of research. Those teens falling below preset minimum quotients may be eliminated right away from research. Any adopted or conventionally taken up abstinence should similarly result in eliminating the respondent. The ethical considerations must extend through out the research and should avoid references to prostitutes or homosexuality as far as feasible. A carefully considered market research with distinct social flavor would not be ethically unacceptable for 14-16 years olds. We can ask like Michael Rothschild asked "Why Cant We Sell Brotherhood Like Soap?" (Rothschild,1979) and two years later Bloom and Novelli sought to define the special problems inherent in social marketing (Bloom and Novelli,1981). In sum any social marketing is only the application of commercial marketing concepts and tools to programs designed to influence the voluntary behavior of target audiences where the primary objective is to improve the welfare of the target audiences and/or the society of which they are a part (Andreasen 1994) Works Cited di Mauro, Diane. Executive Summary. Sexuality Research in the United States: An Assessment of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. New York: The Social Science Research Council, 1995. DKT International. 2002. 2000 Contraceptive Social Marketing Statistics. Washington, DC: DKT International. Letts, Christine W., William P. Ryan, Allen S. Grossman (1999), High Performance Nonprofit Organizations: Managing Upstream for Greater Impact. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Cordes, Joseph J. , Jeffrey R. Henig, Eric C. Twombly and Jennifer L. Saunders (1999), "The Effects of Expanded Donor Choice in United Way Campaigns on Nonprofit Human Service Providers in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area," Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 2 (June), 127-151. Ramah, Michael and C. M. Cassidy (1992), Social Marketing and the Prevention of AIDS, Washington, DC AIDSCOM, Academy for Educational Development, 1992. Kotler, Philip and A.R. Andreasen (1996), Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Marketing (5th. ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Rothschild, M. D. (1979), "Marketing Communications in Nonbusiness Situations or Why Its So Hard to Sell Brotherhood Like Soap" Journal of Marketing., (Spring), 11-20. Bloom Paul N. and William D. Novelli (1981), "Problems and Challenges of Social Marketing," Journal of Marketing 45 (Spring), 79-88. Andreasen, Alan R. (1994), "Social Marketing: Definition and Domain," Journal of Marketing and Public Policy (Spring), pp. 108-114. Further Readings Novelli, William D. (1990), "Applying Social Marketing to Health Promotion and Disease Prevention," in K. Glanz, F. M. Lewis, and B. K. Rimer (eds.), Health Behavior and Health Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 342-369. Marmor, T. R., M. Schlesinger and R. W. Smithey (1987), "Nonprofit Organizations and Health Care," in The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook New haven: Yale University Press, 221-239. Kotler, Philip and Gerald Zaltman (1971), "Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change," Journal of Marketing, Vol. 35 (July), 3-12. Read More