EOC: Big

What marketing research methods were demonstrated in the film?
Longitudinal research – I noticed exploratory research being utilized in the movie Big. Exploratory research can clarify the research environment and help improve the design of descriptive studies. They used focus groups that were a group of kids that played with the toys and expressed their attitudes toward the products. These focus groups are in an interactive setting, coordinated by the company. Longitudinal research examines shifts over time.
Brainstorming was also another way research was being conducted in the movie. Once the boy gave his ideas they rest of the group was able to feed off of his crafty ideas. If they had a larger sample of people for the research, they would have come up with a better product.
Casual research was being conduct by the owner of the company on the weekends. He casually walked around the store and observed how the customers played with the different products. This approach relies on experiments to establish cause and affect relationships. Casual research seeks to control for external influences in an effort to asses a cause and effect relationship between two variables.
Many of the research approaches weren’t reliable or valid before the research. Reliability in a research context is the degree to which measures are free from random error and, therefore, yield consistent results. The company could have double checked all of the components of the study to make sure there were no data errors.