Brief 3: Environmental Take Away

 

Jan's drive to reduce the waste and environmental impact of the packaging associated with home delivery has seen a dependence on compostable containers. These are, however, expensive to provide, and they are only single use items. So, the significant environmental impact involved in production is not off-set through multiple use.

Switching to alternative, more sustainable packaging arrangements will have major cost implications for The Skylark. Jan would like a study to evaluate how three delivery packaging systems work in the real world and how they would be viewed and used by the customer.

1. The compostable packaging.
2. Packaging produced from 100 percent recycled materials. This single use packaging is made wholly from recycled materials, removing the reliance on virgin plastics.
3. Reusable packaging. The customer pays a deposit to use reusable packaging. This deposit is returned when the cleaned packaging is returned to The Skylark by the customer.

Marketing research problem:

Jan is seeking a research proposal which explores customer preferences, attitudes and behaviour towards the adoption and use of more sustainable packaging involved in the home delivery food service.

 

Guidance from your line manager:

 

This is a fascinating issue and a brief that should get you thinking. Before you consider the possible research questions and propose an approach, consider the motivations, and needs of the client(s). As always, try to foresee how the client(s) is/are likely to use the findings from the research and design your research proposal accordingly

With this brief, the clients are looking for evidence that a change in the materials which comprise commonly used packaging will have benefits for the client, their customers, and the wider environment. Ascertaining the types of benefits that might accrue should inform your thinking on what type of data you need to propose to collect. You may also, however ,wish to consider what risks might arise if the proposed course of action is not followed or if it is introduced slower than the competitors (or regulators). There is also the question of whether consumers place sufficient value in the packaging for it to be a unique selling point that can create a competitive advantage.

You may wish to consider approaching this as an experiment or a piece of observational research to assess how the introduction of each packaging system impacts the overall consumer experience of the product. It is obviously not possible to propose undertaking experiments/observations involving every consumer or every product/service, so perhaps think carefully about how you can test the impact on consumer attitudes and behaviour through the introduction of packaging systems in a series of discrete and controlled environments. The closer the proposed research can simulate real-world conditions the better, especially when there is a well-documented gap between consumer attitudes towards sustainable consumption and their behaviour.

Analysis of the Key Consumer and Marketing Trends (From the exploratory research, identify and summarise what trends are relevant to the selected brief and outline why are they relevant to constructing your proposal.)

 

Statement of the research objectives (What does your research need to achieve?) 

 

Statement of the research questions (What questions does your research need to find answers to?)

 

 

Part 2 

Type of marketing research (Which of the six types of marketing research^* does your proposed research address? Is it exploratory and/or explanatory? Justify your decisions.) 

 

Research approach (Outline and justify your proposed approach: is your proposed approach qualitative and/or quantitative? Will the research propose primary and/or secondary data?) 

 

Research sample (What is your proposed sampling strategy? What is your proposed target population, sampling frame, sample size and sampling method? Justify the decisions made.) 

 

Research methods (Which methods of data collection do you propose? How do you propose to undertake your data collection? Justify the selection(s) made.) 

 

Ethical considerations (What ethical marketing research issues are relevant to your proposed research and how will you minimise the risks involved?)