One of the things I have learnt during my time at Condé Nast is that when you are creating a brand campaign the different elements must be underpinned by research. The research must demonstrate why the proposed campaign is going to be a success, whether that success is quantified by generating more brand awareness, increasing sales or raising audience engagement (or whatever your goal is). In order to obtain useful and valid data you must carry out both primary and secondary research.
For this project I initially wanted to gather a tiny bit of primary data just to see whether or not my idea would be feasible and something of interest to my target audience. In order to do this I simply created an instagram poll and posted it to my story. The poll was of course aimed at people between the ages of 16-25 and I asked 3 key questions:
1: Do you listen to podcasts (76% said yes)
2: Would you engage with a podcast that discusses current affairs and social issues? (72% yes)
3: Would you be more interested if each episode featured special guests? (74% Yes)
Given the positive response from this instagram poll I knew that my idea of a "Private Eye for Gin-Z's" in the form of a podcast series would be successful but on speaking to my supervisor it became clear that this was not a good enough form of primary research. It is a very scatter gun approach. Furthermore, posting a poll on your social media feed can lead to obtaining bias results as your followers are likely to know you and try to answer in the 'correct way'. Due to this I created a survey on survey monkey explicitly for those between the ages of 16-25 and to ensure that the answers were not bias I paid for survey monkey to hand it out to random participants in the correct age bracket.
The results of this survey were very successful and gave me sufficient evidence to assume that my idea was viable and that there is a genuine gap in the media market for a publication such as Amplify. However, if I were to do this project again I think I would have given myself more time to collect primary data in order to validate my research further. I would have probably conducted a focus group and perhaps even an interview in order to gauge a further understanding of the type of content a target listener would want to hear in the actual podcast and also why exactly they felt a magazine like Amplify was necessary.
I also carried out a certain amount of secondary research for the purposes of this project. My primary research was very useful in aiding me to see if there was a gap in the market for my specific magazine -- if there was a consumer desire for the type of content I am proposing to produce, however, it did help me to establish why podcasts as a media outlet were growing so massively and becoming so successful. What's more, utilising secondary data from other reliable sources is very beneficial and it validates the overall idea further. The main pieces of information I looked for in relation to my campaign was the growth of digital media consumption, what it has been fuelled by and how it is changing the media landscape. I looked predominantly at Deloitte and Ofcom reports for this information and was pleased with what I found. This research helped me to establish why podcasts are becoming so popular and the fact that their popularity is showing no signs of slowing down therefore it's important for brands to think of some method of having an on-demand digital streaming platform.
A few screenshots of my research:
