Bulletin

Issue: April 2005

News

Marketing Research students help local business

Marketing research students at La Trobe University Shepparton are again participating in an important research project to help the local business community.

For the second year running they have conducted a survey and personal interviews to evaluate the Shepparton Show Me (SSM) promotion campaign.

SSM promotion was formed in 1998 to promote Shepparton’s retail and commercial benefits. It is funded through a sliding scale levy on local commercial properties and run by a panel of 11 community representatives from business and the Greater Shepparton City Council.

Since its inception, funds raised have been used for media promotion, primarily through television, to market the city to both the locals and to those who reside outside what would normally be considered Shepparton’s market.

Early in 2003, the SSM reached a point when it required verifiable data to assess its effectiveness in working towards its aim. Until then, there had been very little research undertaken to assess the recognition of the Shepparton Show Me brand and its ability to influence a market.

The brief for the study was to provide the Shepparton Show Me Panel with data regarding the effectiveness of the Shepparton Show Me promotion, in regards to attracting consumers of retail and business services as perceived by the Shepparton retailers and service providers.

In 2003, 10 students under the direction of lecturer in marketing, Dr Marthin Nanere, sent questionnaires to 3000 people in 10 regional centres surrounding Shepparton and received 274 responses. In addition, 200 people were personally interviewed to assess the extent to which the SSM had taken hold in their minds and how it may have influenced their purchasing decisions.

The students found that most of those interviewed were largely satisfied with retail and business services in Shepparton. The students also delivered a written report to the SSM panel containing their findings as well as detailed statistical analyses.

Following this, the La Trobe University Marketing Research students of 2004 undertook to complete a research project for the City of Greater Shepparton, which focused on the Shepparton Show Me promotion and how the owners and managers of various businesses perceived the promotion and their expectation of it. The students disseminated questionnaires to 200 retail outlets in Shepparton’s CBD. It was shown that retail businesses overall benefited specifically from the promotion compared to service providers.

After taking up a new position at the La Trobe Bendigo campus in November 2004, Dr. Nanere and his marketing research students are again conducting an important marketing research project with one of the oldest continually running festivals of its type in Australia with a history dating back 135 years, the Bendigo Easter Festival. The Festival traditionally has been operated by the Bendigo Easter Fair Inc (BEF Inc). Due to this long history, there is a long standing expectation in the Bendigo Community that four days of entertainment and events over the Easter period will be provided at no cost to attendees.

Over the last few years, surveys have been conducted of Festival attendees and it appears that attendees are reluctant to fund the Festival by way of admission fees. Given this, it is considered that the business community must be engaged to try and attract sponsorship and other support to assist in meeting the costs of staging the Festival.

One of the challenging research questions that the marketing research students need to address is how the Bendigo business community currently perceives the Festival.

Dr Nanere said the exercises were a way in which the University could become inte-grated with the community and play a role in contributing to the economy of the region.

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