Article About Research

Hello, my name is Kieron and I have been asked to write an article explaining my day-to-day job as a researcher. My job is to make transport safe for London Borough of Sutton by advertising safety data around stations and streets. I take my job extremely serious, as it is protecting citizens health and safety on public transport. It is vital that research is done including audience research, market research, and production research to gather information up to make public transport as safe as possible.

Audience research is gathering your research up from the public so you can understand their view on the subject. Seeing the audiences view is vital for this as you can see what they think needs improving and what does not, then you can act on that, making the audience happy.  If you know the audience then you will know how to appeal to them. You can conduct audience research in a number of ways whether that would be Vox Pops, Questionnaires for example; this is primary research because you are getting the information on your own. I prefer primary research, as it is information that you gathered by yourself therefore you can trust it. Questionnaires seem to be the easiest as they don’t cost much to do and they are quick. Questionnaires are really helpful as you find out a lot. You can find out the age, gender and lifestyle of people, which is vital for carrying out a questionnaire then you can find out the demographics. We hold our Vox Pop interviews in high streets such as Sutton, Croydon, Oxford Street and London. We held our interviews not too far from Train Stations and Bus Stops so we had a good idea of the people to interview. Before hand, we planned out some questions of what we were going to ask them for example their age, gender, lifestyle and interests. We done that so we had a well-defined view of the people we were interviewing. Also, another way I can find information is to look at previous audience research to see what has changed. I will look at the things that worked and what didn’t work to see what needs changing and to see what doesn’t. This is secondary research as it is gathering information up that is not yours. Once we have assembled all the information up, we looked at the demographics by focussing on certain questions we asked them. It is important for us to know how they get to work/school? How long it takes them? How often they take public transport? This is essential so that we stay up to date with keeping their health and safety on point. Once gathering all the information, we did a geodemographic analysis. We were comparing our answers with different areas to see what a certain area were desperate in need of.

It is important to advertise safety for transport as it makes people aware of the dangers that are around them. Without these advertisements there would be lots more injuries, as they wouldn’t be aware of the hazards around them. It is essential to conduct Market Research so you know how you can improve your advertising, you will do this by looking at the market now and seeing the ones that don’t work and the ones that do work. The ones don’t work will have to be developed drastically as it is to do with the health and safety of others. It is also ideal to know the safety campaigns that are effective and working so you don’t change them much. There are many different ways in finding this information out like searching the internet to look at different campaigns, focus group to find out what campaigns were affective and observing people to see if they are actually noticing these posters. Searching the Internet for different campaigns helps you understand what is working and what isn’t working. Without doing that you wouldn’t know what advertisement was successful and not successful. If you hadn’t known what was successful and what was you would have continued to put peoples lives at risk, as they are unaware of the risks around them. Focus groups on the other hand are where you gather people up and they will tell you what campaigns were effective and the ones that weren’t. This is a very good way to gather up information, as it is Primary research and your getting the answers face-to-face. Primary research tends to be more reliable than secondary research as you are gathering the information up by yourself and getting the answers you want. Secondary research on the other hand could all be rubbish and not reliable information. Good information to observe is to see whether people are actually noticing the posters. If not make them aware of the posters or the risks around or even move the poster to a place that they will see the posters, decreasing the risk of any injuries happening to anyone.

Production research is also a vital part in my job. When developing new ideas you would need to carry out Production Research. This research will allow you to identify what resources you will need to launch the end product and whether your product would be a success. Product Research will give you an idea of what factors, whether controllable or uncontrollable, could affect the production of your creation. Production research is researching a product or a service in order to congregate information that you can use. It is essential to conduct production research so you are aware of the budget you have. It is very important to know the budget you have so that you know how much money you have to produce your product.  Also, you will find out how you’re going to do it and how long you have to create your product.