3. Yarra Valley Water and the market research agency employed various research methods to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. As a researcher, discuss the advantages of each method and how each stage of the approach is linked.

Yarra Valley Water is the largest of Melbourne’s three retail water corporations based in the east of Melbourne, servicing approximately 30 per cent of Victoria’s population. In 2019, Yarra Valley Water led the development of a campaign to support the Victorian Government’s initiative to save water. Householders were to be encouraged to reduce their daily water usage from the per capita average of 161 litres to 155 litres per person per day. With Melbourne Water, a statutory authority responsible for managing and protecting Melbourne’s major water resources, the water retailers—Yarra Valley Water, South East Water and City West Water—launched a campaign to reduce water usage and ‘Make Every Drop Count—Target 155’.
Despite increased water supplies into dams as a result of Victoria’s desalination plant, Melbourne’s water storage supplies are currently at around 60 per cent, having steadily decreased from year to year. Following the Millennium Drought in the years 1997 to 2009, when annual rainfall was 73 mm below average (or 12.4% below the 20th-century mean), population growth and climate change have accelerated. Melbourne is the fastest-growing city in Australia, and is expected to grow from 4.6 million inhabitants to almost 8 million over the next 50 years. With population growth comes increased annual water usage, resulting in a 10.7 per cent increase over the past five years. Melbourne’s climate is now characterised by longer, drier periods, greater temperature extremes and more intense storm events, which in turn dry out the land, affect rainfall patterns and reduce rainfall water storage, placing further pressure on drinking water supplies.
As a result of population growth and climatic changes in the Melbourne region, water authorities are working to secure Melbourne’s water supply by utilising various strategies. One such strategy is the implementation of water efficiency measures, which call upon public support. Yarra Valley Water has taken the lead and is working with a market research agency to create a campaign to encourage Melburnians to save water. Several different market research techniques were used in the creation of this campaign.