The Role of Marketing Research in Advertising:
Market research entails comprehensive data; quantitative and qualitative field research; competitive analysis and current trends assessment. Market research is a method of evaluating the external factors that are associated with the threats and opportunities of a SWOTT analysis. Marketing research assists organizations in discovering current trends within the industry and observing purchasing patterns of consumers within the target audience. Once the trends are detected, an organization can begin preparing their strategy for strategic alignment within the market place. In addition to trend discovery, market research also identifies the changing patterns of consumer needs assessments, i.e. products tend to decrease in popularity (i.e. electronics); therefore, it is imperative to for an organization to remain current on technology and innovation as a result.
Rationale for Product Life-Span:
Personally, I believe that market research should be conducted before the product life-cycle and during the product life-cycle, because of an increasingly changing marketplace with an uncertain product life expectancy additional research may be necessary to maintain a competitive advantage. A product may become popular today and suffer from losses in profitability tomorrow as a result of a new trend in technology. In my opinion, an organization must be an aggressive competitor in order to prevent loss of competitiveness.