introduction

This report is a requirement for a Quantitative and Qualitative Research class at the University of Texas at Austin. It focuses on analyzing consumers' preference for three brands of body wash: Dove, Olay, and Tone. The three brands were selected based on their similarity in price and position in the market. In order to effectively analyze the impact of advertisement on brand preference, three magazine ads for the three brands were similar in format but different in the attributes of the product they stressed in their copy.  

An online questionnaire was prepared and distributed via email to students in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Students were asked to further distribute the email to friends and family. Recipients who elected to respond followed a link in the email to the online questionnaire. A total of 64 respondents completed the questionnaire in a period of five days; these respondents form the basis of the statistical analyses detailed in this report.

The purpose of this study is to find the respondents' brand preference before and after viewing the ads, the attitude respondents have toward the brands and the ads, and how the attitudes toward the brands and the ads affect the respondents' brand preference. Apart from understanding these aspects and their relationship to each other, significant tests such as t-test or chi-squared test were also conducted in order to see if the results from the respondents can be projected to the same population as the respondents.

The following sections of this report will describe in detail the research methodology (the questionnaire structure, survey design, description of the sample, and description of the data collection process), an analysis of the results, the conclusions drawn from these results, and a summary of the findings. For reference, the full and original survey that the respondents took is included in Appendix B: Original Survey; while a version of the survey with each question annotated with frequencies and means is included in Appendix A: Survey Data.