The safe drug for all. Our group chose Crocin, a product of SmithKline Beecham as

a subject for market research. Of late, Crocin, an Over$-$the$-$Counter $($OTC$)$ drug, has

been advertising on television. The company claims that sales of Crocin have

increased by $10\%$ due to the advertising.

On the other hand, there have also been concerns among some that advertisements

for drugs such as Crocin have a tendency to promote self$-$medication, and this is a

cause for worry, especially among the medical community. There have also been

concerns, that such commercials may affect the prescription style of doctors. The

general feeling is that doctors have, in fact, stopped prescribing Crocin after the

widespread airing of the commercial.

Keeping in mind these diverse views, a market research was conducted in order to

get a fair idea about the general effect that the commercials for Crocin has had on its

sales. This is the primary objective of this research.

Research Objectives

The objectives of our study are as follows:

$$ The primary objective of our research was to study the impact of Crocin

commercials on the sale of Crocin. The company had claimed that the sales

of Crocin had increased by l$0\%$ after the advertisement. We wanted to test this

claim at least within our sample in the Harihar and Davangere region.

$$ Another major focus of the study was to glean if the commercial for Crocin

had in any way affected the consumer and$/$ or the influencer $($i$.$e$.$ the doctor$)$

and$/$or the distribution channel $($i$.$e$.$ the chemist$)$

$$ We wanted to study if the commercial for Crocin had in any way encouraged

self$-$medication.

Methodology

The basic methodology that we followed was the questionnaire method. To serve

our purposes, we designed three separate questionnaires for the consumer, the

retailer $($i$.$e$.$ the chemist$),$ and the doctor. Each questionnaire was designed in a

manner so as to gain the maximum relevant information from the respondent taking

minimum of their time. The questionnaires that were designed are presented below:

Apart from the questionnaire method, we also tried to gather primary information

through informal conversations with the respondents, especially the doctors and the

chemists.

The market research was carried out in the towns of Harihar and Davangere. We

attempted to cover as wide an area as possible, and we were successful to a great

extent.

Sample Composition

Our sample comprised three categories of respondents:

$1.$ Doctors

$2.$ Chemists$/$Retailers

$3.$ Consumers

Sample size: Our sample size for survey comprised $35$ persons, the break up being as under:

Doctors $($from Davangere$)15$

Chemists $($from Davangere and Harihar$)10$

Consumers $($from Davangere$)10$

Experiences and Difficulties Faced in the Field

The market research that we conducted provided us an excellent opportunity to

implement all that we had learnt in our class room sessions in the practical outfield.

After having designed the questionnaire and having made a few minor changes, we

were ready to go out into the field to carry out the survey. As mentioned earlier, we

covered the Harihar and Davangere areas during our research. We found that the

respondents were very forthcoming and cooperated with us for the most part.

Nonetheless, we did face a few minor problems while conducting the survey. These

are as under:

$$ LANGUAGE PROBLEM: One of the main problems faced was the language.

Communication posed to be a problem in some cases, we were mistaken to be

sellers of Crocin! However, we were able to overcome the communication

problem to some extent as one of the group members was relatively

conversant in Kannada.

$$ SAMPLE: While conducting the survey among consumers, we found that the

locality that we were visiting was mainly inhabited by doctors. This maybe

because Davangere is home to a very large medical community. However,

this problem was solved by conducting the survey in a totally different area

of Davangere.

$$ LIMITATION: In the opinion of our group, the sample taken for the study is

too small and not representative enough to draw very relevant conclusions that

may hold good in the larger scheme of things. This, we feel, is a major

limitation of the study.

$$ NEW DOSAGE FORM: SmithKline Beecham has introduced a new dosage

form for paracetomol $($Crocin$-1000$ mg tablet$)$ used in cases of Osteo

Arthiritis. This dosage form is a prescription drug. However, our focus was

only on the $500$ mg dosage of Crocin which is a Non$-$Steroidal Anti

Inflammatory Drug $($NSAID$),$ used as an antipyretic and in some cases an

analgesic. This limited the scope of our study.

Analysis

Our survey comprises three different questionnaires for the three different

categories of respondents.

Therefore, our analysis is also divided into three distinct parts, which we briefly

present here:

Doctor$$s Questionnaire

While analysing the data collected from the doctors, we basically

identified three important questions:

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