[Research Proposal for ‘share drive’ campaign]

By

Muraleedharan R

2012PGP213

Submitted to

Prof. Bhavani Shankar

IIM Indore

2013

Qualitative Market Research

Abstract

Purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of “Johnson’s Baby ‘share drive’ for under privileged” campaign conducted by Johnson and Johnson Company. Here I have given a qualitative research proposal to analyze the effectiveness of this campaign in developing the Brand equity of J&J Company. In-depth interview, focus group discussions and collage constructions are the three methods of inquiry proposed in this research.

Company Background

Johnson & Johnson is a U.S multinational medical device, pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods manufacturer founded in 1886. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company is listed among the Fortune 500. Johnson & Johnson ranked at the top of Harris Interactive’s National Corporate Reputation Survey for seven consecutive years up to 2005, was ranked as the world's most respected company by Barron's Magazine in 2008, and was the first corporation awarded the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy by the U.S. State Department in 2005 for its funding of international education programs. However, in recent years the company's reputation has been adversely affected by product recalls, fines for pharmaceutical marketing practices, litigation with a group of shareholders, and other legal issues.

Johnson & Johnson is headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey with the consumer division being located in Skillman, New Jersey. The corporation includes some 250 subsidiary companies with operations in over 57 countries and products sold in over 175 countries. Johnson & Johnson had worldwide sales of $65 billion for the calendar year of 2011.

Johnson & Johnson's brands include numerous household names of medications and first aid supplies. With a legacy of over 100 years, Johnson’s Baby, J&J’s Brand, is a market leader in its category, driving the trends and developments in the baby space. Johnson’s Baby aspires to touch every baby in India with brands operating in the widest consumer spectrum.

CSR Campaign

Johnson's Baby has launched ‘Share the Language of Love' campaign by partnering with Goonj, a voluntary organisation, to help underprivileged children.

The month-long national campaign is to enable young children from underprivileged backgrounds to have access to basic baby requirements. It will facilitate the movement of baby items to high-need areas. The campaign will encourage all mothers to put old, unused or extra baby items like clothes, toys, books to better use by contributing them instead of holding on to them for emotional reasons. The collection drive has commenced at multiple collection points in top tier 1 and tier 2 cities and will continue through the month of May.

Ms Anshu Gupta, founder director, Goonj, said the organisation is in short supply of baby clothes and the campaign will address an important gap in addressing a basic need. Urban mothers and young children will also benefit vastly from this exercise in empathy and sharing.

According to Mr Tushar Murdeshwar, general manager (marketing), Johnson & Johnson, the collection drive is not limited to any one item and the company hopes to supply a wide range of baby items to families in need. Apart from the campaign serving a social cause, the company is confident that mothers will be able to teach their young children the virtues of sharing through this campaign, he added.

Research Objective1. How people perceive this campaign? More specifically the customers for J&J products2. Effectiveness of campaign in improving the brand equity of J&J’s Baby brand

Research Design/methodology/approach

In-depth interviews, collage, Focus group discussions are the methods of inquiry recommended for this research and approach and reason behind employing each of this method is discussed later part.

In-Depth Interview

The in-depth interview is a technique designed to elicit a vivid picture of the participant’s perspective. They are an effective qualitative method for getting people to talk about their personal feelings, opinions, and experiences. They are also an opportunity to gain insight into how people interpret and order the world. We can accomplish this by being attentive to the causal explanations participants provide for what they have experienced and believe and by actively probing them about the connections and relationships they see between this campaign and J&J Baby as a brand.

Respondents Profiling: Around 28 Respondents are selected through Maximum Variation sampling so to get a good mix on as many factors as possible so that one can more confidentially generalize the findings to a target population, The variability may be kept in terms of their socio-economic class, but you can choose largely parents of infants or toddlers who purchase products of J&J. Besides by this sampling technique we can cover wide range of respondents involved in consumer decision making process i.e. includes influencer, buyer, and referrer. There is no age limit in selecting the respondents, anyone above 25+ falls into the sample as in most of the houses old people were the one influencing to buy the baby products.

Followed by this sampling strategy is writing an in-depth interview which contains lead questions to be asked during the interview. Lead questions are given in Exhibit 1.

Focus Group Discussion

A focus group is a carefully planned discussion designed to obtain a selected group of individuals’ perception regarding a defined area of interest. Here the area of interest is ‘share drive’. A focus group is an ideal approach for examining the stories, experiences, points of view, beliefs, needs and concerns of individuals. Through this method we can ask participants to develop their own questions and frameworks as well as to seek their own needs and concerns in their own words and on their own terms. Group work allows the researcher to access different communication forms which people use in their day-to-day interaction (How is this helpful to your research?). Being able to gain access to diverse forms of communication is valuable since it may not be possible, or can be difficult, to capture the knowledge and attitudes of individuals by asking them to respond to more drect questions. FGD provide an economical data collection option and capture a wider range of responses than individual interviews. Besides reveal insights and nuances that other research methods cannot.

Approach: Groups are led by a moderator who seeks to create a non-threatening environment for all participants. The moderator has to use a detailed discussion guide of open-ended questions that follow a logical sequence. Guide questions are given in Exhibit 2. This discussion guide has to guide addresses topics and specific questions relating to the research objective. Responses and observations are to be recorded on the spot.

Respondent profiling: Size of a group is fixed around 7-8 respondents. 28 respondents of four groups are selected through Maximum-variation sampling to get a good mix so that we can get wide range of information. Same criteria are followed as in In-depth interview for identifying the respondents.

Collage

Collage is an arts-based research approach to meaning-making through the juxtaposition of a variety of pictures, artifacts, natural objects, words, phrases, textiles, sounds, and stories. It is not meant to provide one-to-one transfer of information; rather, it strives to create metaphoric evocative texts through which readers, audiences, and patrons create their own meanings on a given research topic. Usually, material is taken out of context from a range of sources and used to create a new assemblage from the collage collected. What underpins the creation of research collages is the attempt to construct meanings about the research question and/or process, the participants, and emerging themes. How does it fit in your scheme of things? What insights you will get? It may be helpful if you want to know what customers think of J&J as a brand. but it can be used to corroborate what is being told by respondents in the interviews.

Respondents Profiling: Proposed to select around 100 respondents randomly. Usually high size of sample is advised for collage so to get a broad perspective. Here respondents are asked to make a collage out of given resources on how they perceive Johnson’s baby brand. Later researcher has to probe the respondents on each and every picture they have used to represent the brand pictorially in collage. From this we can analyse how people perceive J&J as a socially responsible brand.

Data Analysis

For easiness it is advised to follow five categories or stages of analysis as follows1. Narrative: These techniques included suggested actions that are preparatory to the coding

process or which help the researcher to derive meaning through narrative approaches, such as narrative reading or writing of textual data

2. Coding: These techniques apply to those actions that involve organizing and reorganising the data into categories that enable the researcher to identify relationship between and among categories

3. Interpretation: These techniques are those actions that enable the researcher to make meaning from the narrative and coding activities and facilitate the researcher’s understanding of the conceptual framework generated through the coding process

4. Confirmation: These techniques enable researcher to be confident that the interpretations they have derived are from the data and not from researcher construction

5. Presentation: These techniques are those actions that researcher may use to present the findings to a particular audience in a cogent manner and which serves as a tool for further analysis and improvement

Expectations

The process of analysing qualitative data varies from one study to another, depending on how the researcher is guided by the research questions, the theoretical framework of the study, and the appropriateness of the technique for making sense of the data. The purpose of analysis is to interpret and, hence, convert the data into a story that describes the phenomenon or respondents’ views, using the emic perspective. The process typically involves collecting the data that will inform the study, breaking down the data into various categories and making connections between these categories in terms of relationships among them, then visually displaying the interpretation and writing it up for dissemination. While the discussion of dta analysis discussed here is by no means complete, it may provide novice researchers with some ideas for activities that will help them to begin analysing data.

Exhibit1: Lead questions for In-depth interviewIf you select those who are exposed to this campaign or who contributed to this campaign you can avoid the first question. You may use it (RQ 1,2) for potential consumers of J&J.

Are you aware of ‘share drive’ for under privileged? – Research ques 1 Are you aware of the brand that runs this campaign? – Research ques 2 What do you like most about the ‘share drive campaign’? – Research ques 1 What do you dislike in the campaign? – Research ques 1 Suggestions for the improvement – Research ques 1 Why do you like or buy J&J? – Research ques 2 How do you perceive J&J as socially responsible a brand? – Research ques 2 if you use

the word socially responsible you are introducing bias. Are you willing to buy J&J brand because of this campaign? – Research ques 2 Did your positiveness on J&J improved because of this campaign? – Research ques 2 How do you perceive the brand J&J because of this campaign? – Research ques 2

Exhibit 2: Lead questions for FGD

What do you know about ‘share drive campaign’? Any suggestions for improvement? How do you perceive the brand J&J by this campaign? Why do you like or buy J&J?

I think most importantly you can focus on understanding the consumer - brand relationship and then introduce this campaign related questions to find out how it effects the perception or subsequent purchase decisions.