Finding and evaluating market research and trade & industry data

40 minute lecture with activities

• Group: 60
• Room: Tiered lecture
• Discipline: Management, Leadership and Leisure
• Level: UG1
• Materials: Slides
• Brief: The session is designed to help attendees complete a written assessment. This takes the form of a written report covering market segmentation analysis of the UK Hotel industry (with a specific focus on Premier Inn)

Learning outcomes

• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different search tools
• Identify an appropriate tool to use for finding information for your specific purpose
• Identify and use key databases in your discipline
• Identify and use relevant specialist information common in your discipline
• Develop strategies for assessing the appropriateness of sources to use in your assignments

Online resources

• Finding the good stuff
• Down to Business
• Knowing where to look: your search toolkit

Introduction (Slides 1–3)
Talk about the assignment that has been set, and that the library has access to a large number of relevant information sources. These will help attendees with the research element of the assignment, and (if used correctly) enable them to obtain a higher mark.

Information matters (Slide 4)
Talk about the current nature of information, and why and how it is important.

Menti activity (Slide 5)
Following on from the above slide, ask students to determine which one of the 4 newspaper headlines is made up:

“Only 100 cod left in the North Sea”

“The Universe shouldn’t exist according to Science”

“Jeremy Corbyn owns secret mansion in Alps”

“Freddie Starr ate my Hamster”

Follow up (Slides 6–8)
Talk about how the Telegraph misunderstood the research data relating to cod population and how this lead to the creation of a misleading headline. Explain that this happens consistently (using the Guardian article on mental health) and re-iterate the importance of critical thought when using information sources.

My Learning Essentials (Slides 9–11)
Demonstrate how the MLE online resource “Finding the good stuff” will allow attendees to ask the right kind of questions about the validity of an information source. Show the location of the online resources within Blackboard.

Finding information (Slides 12–13)
Introduce the importance of the “What, Where, How” searching strategy. Explain to attendees that the remainder of the session will introduce strategies which will enable them to undertake each element successfully

What am I looking for (Slides 14–17)
Focus on the task that has been set:

“Premier Inn launched a budget hotel chain called ZIP. You have been asked to write a short report on the company’s market segmentation”

The discuss how a simple Google search will is likely to return an unmanageable number of results.Talk about the importance of “keywords & phrases” when creating an effective search strategy.

Synonyms Activity (Slides 18–19)
Use the example of the settee / couch to introduce the concept of synonyms.

Use Mentimeter to ask students to identify synonyms for the following key terms:

Premier inn

Budget hotel

Market segmentation

Where will I look for it (Slides 20–21)
Using Mentimeter ask attendees to feedback on which sources they currently use to look for information.

The information landscape (Slides 22–23)
Use the iceberg analogy to discuss the information landscape. The ice below the surface represents information that is not free. Explain that the library pays for access to huge amounts of information from this “deeper” part of the web, which they will need to access using different tools than a Google / Bing search.

Where to look — part 2 (Slides 24–25)
Explain that we will look at finding information, online,but will also explore the Library’s sources of market research data and trade and industry news and a brief overview of statistical information

Searching online (Slide 26–28)
Demonstrate some of the common pitfalls of a standard search, using the examples below (also highlight that this can often lead to pay-walled information which can be very expensive.

- Run a standard Google search for “budget hotel accommodation”
- Highlight the differences with using a site: command search — demonstrate “budget hotels” site:ac.uk; “budget hotels” site:insidermedia.com; “budget hotels” site:wsj.com

Market research (Slides 29)
Brief demonstrations of Mintel and Passport

Access the database using the Library subject guide for Business and Management
Run a search for “The premium vs budget traveller”
Demonstrate how to download sections of the report
Access Passport using the Library subject guide for Business and Management
Run a search for “hotels uk”

Evaluation recap (Slides 30–33)
Emphasise (providing a reminder of MLE online tools) that it is important to consider the “How information is produced” element when using Market Research data. Demonstrate that the information relating to “Booking Behaviours” (Slide 33) relates to survey data based on interviews with just over 1000 people. Attendees should therefore look to include another source with corroborating or similar data in their final report

Trade and Industry news (Slide 34–35)
Run the following demonstrations:

WARC — Run a search for “Budget hotels UK”
Business Source Premier — Search for “budget” AND “Premier Inn” / “SWOT Analysis” AND “Hotel industry”

Explain that a demonstration of Factiva is available from the “Down to Business” resource located within Blackboard

Statistics (Slides 36–37)
Demonstrate the Library subject guide to statistics — run a quick search for “Hotels UK” on ONS and Statista

Referencing (Slide 38)
Explain that reports etc use slightly different referencing conventions and use the information on the slide to demonstrate this. Also mention the Library subject guide as a source of further information.

Further support (Slide 39)
Mention further methods of support and ask the RLUK question.

R19–0520 EDUC11282