My research

MODULE 3: CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING – RESEARCHING

ACTIVITY 1: BEFORE YOU BEGIN RESEARCHING

Ask yourself a few questions to help plan out your research process:

• Who does this product involve or affect? Who is my target audience?

Listeners, including Spanish-speaking people, Spanish students and people who don’t speak Spanish but listen to the program for whatever reason (they like the music, etc).

People who DON’T LIKE the program.

• Who do I need to consult with during my research?

The main presenter of the program, the other presenters and our listeners.

• What do I need to write my research paper?

To have a clearer understanding of how to make my video.

In this stage I consider essential to go and ask people about their opinions. It may give me a wider view of what I want to present on my video and additional handy material.

ACTIVITY 2: RESEARCHING YOUR PRODUCT

1.       I started by looking for the basics of community radio.

a.       Poor countries: men take over the use of radio. So, there are stations which broadcast women-related material specifically in certain times.

b.      I found a manual to learn how to do community radio titled “How to do community radio” published by the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2002, p. 24-28). This book has excellent information for my personal development as a presenter and the general structure of a community radio station.

2.       Then I looked for examples of community radio around the world.

a.            Harvard Community Radio (Harvard Radio 2015)

It’s similar to what I want: people telling how they feel about having a local station at their university. I didn’t like the promo because I want to have something more spontaneous. Besides, opposite to the Harvard video, I want to have the interviews in parks, etc.

b.            Others: 3RPP (3RPP 98.7FM Mornington Peninsula's Community Radio Station 2009)

I didn’t like this spot because, understanding the creators didn’t have good resources, the videos was poorly planned.

3.       Music

I know that maybe searching for the music of my video is too soon, but I think that by listening to the possible tracks can make me expand my imagination in order to find the best idea for my promo.

I googled “royalty free music”, “Latin free music”, “music for videos”. I didn’t find any good track to pick. The only websites that I found interesting were:

a.            https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3376882?hl=en (YouTube 2015)

b.            http://freemusicarchive.org/genre/Latin/?sort=track_date_published&d=1&page=2 (Free Music Archive 2015)

Some of the other sites ask me for money to download music. Frustrating!

4.       This is definitely the source that gave me clarity to structure my video, how to start with.

I have been watching dozens of fundraising videos. But, there was a video by the Hartford Foundation (Hartford Foundation 2015) that really drew my attention. This video gave me a wider perspective of what I can do. First, I have to know how my organisation works (mission, vision, history, etc)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy4Un5atFTI

5.       I’ve read several articles describing how journalism is not such daunting it used to be because nowadays the new technologies, especially the internet, quite simplify research. However, they say that sometimes journalists have to be ready to turn around at other sources, when certain information is not available at modern digital formats. Today, it was the first occasion I got my hands dirty.

In one of my assignments, I have to create a promo video. I decided to focus my video on the radio programme I am part of. First, I have to collect relevant information about the programme such as its history and mission. When I requested it to the main presenter, she handed me a pile of messy folders full with letters and reports. Fortunately, in one of the folders, there was a kind of bulletin with the information I needed, a book titled “Keeping cultures alive. Celebrating 30 years of multicultural radio in South Australia” by the pioneer presenters of the station.

6.       “100 Great Marketing Ideas” (Blythe 2009). Expanding ideas!

At the beginning of my work, I was feeling guilty of watching videos on YouTube, instead of coming up with ideas by myself. However, I ran into a comment inside this book that prompted me to keep looking for examples: “copying ideas is not good. Adapting them, powerful”.

Other interesting concepts within the book:

·         Add value to your product

·         Do something different

·         Speak the customer language (listener in my case)

·         Love your customers, love what they love

7.       “Creating brands people love” (Till B & Heckler D 2009)

This book gave me some tips about how to focus my target.

a.       Customers follow key associations, emotional and rational. Developing satisfying answers for those two questions are the essence of strong brand management.

For example, Mastercard and Visa are almost the same type of service, but the “priceless” Mastercard campaign links the product with touching moments in life, which provides “a sense of warmth, intimacy and tenderness”. Thus, it provides an emotional association.

Other examples, Budweiser links refreshment with “hot afternoons”, FedEx links overnight deliveries with “confidence”, and so on.

And other associations: “youthful”, “contemporary”, “fun” (this applies in our case), “serious”, etc.

b.      The importance of complaints (another reason to make the interviews)

“A customer complaint is an opportunity to really understand what matters to the customer and to get a deeper understanding of the target audience” (also applies for the Activity 3)

c.       Simplicity is the best hope of gaining the customer’s attention.

The author mentions the example of Jello with its slogan “watch it wiggle, see it jiggle”, simple and very fun! 

8.       My interviews.

I have interviewed two people so far. I got the results I wanted from that:

Juan Paolo, 28, Filipino, Spanish student. He says that the program is very energetic, that it is good we have presenters from different ages.

Edwin, 30, Ecuadorian, presenter. He says that the Latin American program contributes to the community in a great deal because it promotes the parties and the culture. He says he didn’t know anything about the radio program before, that it needs a better promotion.

I still have some interviews to perform, focused on different people (women, older ages, etc). 

9.       I also consulted (Mutz J & Murray K 2010, pp 122-123) and found some coincidences with my previous research and even more. For example, a table where it is analysed why the sponsors give, which will be very important when writing the script for my video: they have an emotional response to a cause, the marketing materials appeal to their attention, they want a sense of belonging, they have personal experience with the cause, the right person asked them.

ACTIVITY 3: IDENTIFY AND PROFILE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

According to the people who call the program every week and the type of music they request, our main audience is people who are over 30 or so. We can divide it different groups.

*             Communities from Chile and El Salvador are mainly refugees and over 30 because most of them arrived in the seventies and eighties. Their level of education is varied.

*             More recent migrants are for other countries (Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia) who have to have high educational degrees because of their visa requirements, both student and skilled.

*             The younger generations do not usually listen to radio.

*             Spanish students from every age.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Tabing, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 2002, How to do community radio: a primer for community radio operators, UNESCO, viewed 23 August 2015, <http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001342/134208e.pdf>.

Harvard Radio 2015, Harvard Community Radio, video, YouTube, 26 January 2015, viewed 23 August 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erhlvVVY_No> .

3RPP 98.7FM Mornington Peninsula's Community Radio Station 2009, 3RPP Community Radio Presentation, video, YouTube, 21 June 2009, viewed 23 August 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hmxw3hZMJQ> .

YouTube 2015, Get music from the Audio Library, YouTube Help, YouTube, viewed 23 August 2015, <https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3376882?hl=en> .

Free Music Archive 2015, Latin, Free Music Archive, viewed 23 August 2015, <http://freemusicarchive.org/genre/Latin/?sort=track_date_published&d=1&page=2> .

Hartford Foundation 2015, Four Essential Principles of Fundraising, video, YouTube, 30 September 2011, viewed 23 August 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy4Un5atFTI> .

Tangi, S, Degenhart, B, Degenhart, H & Orkina, A 2005, Keeping cultures alive celebrating 30 years of multicultural radio in South Australia, 5EBI, Adelaide.

Blythe, J 2009, 100 Great Marketing Ideas, Marshall Cavendish Business, Singapore.       

Till B & Heckler D 2009, Creating brands people love, second edition, Financial Times Press, New Jersey.

Mutz J & Murray K 2010, Fundraising for dummies, third edition, Wiley Publishing, Inc, Indianapolis, Indiana, pp 122-123.