One of our BUS 345 sections (hi, D100!) will be doing some primary market research focused on meal kits this term.

The students have a huge amount of flexibility when it comes to choosing the research questions they want to explore, so it would be difficult to suggest specific resources and search strategies for them. Instead, I thought I'd try a different approach: 

I'll highlight just a few of the possible research questions to give you a sense of the range of research that goes into marketing (section A below). I'll aim to highlight the amount of lateral/creative thinking that a market researcher has to do, but my list won't be anywhere near as detailed as that of a real marketer.

Then I'll list the guides and blog posts that cover the sorts of resources I'd normally use to answer such questions (section B).

Finally, I'll return to the target product and talk about research resources that are specifically about meal kits (section C).

Here we go...   <Read on!>

The wealth of online data published in and about the last few decades is, of course, wonderful and has deeply changed the type and amount of research we can do.

However, that flood of data about the recent past can result in myopic research: if information is not online and in a form that's easy to integrate and analyse with other data, then it may not even be seen, producing research conclusions that miss long-term trends. We are constantly seeking ways to fill this gap in older online information.

I am very pleased to announce that SFU researchers now have access to economic and financial time series data that spans decades — centuries in many cases: GFDatabase!

<Read on for details if you need centuries of data on things like inflation and gold prices...>

Just a quick note to let you know that our special, short-term access to the Films on Demand: Master Academic Collection has been extended for another year.  You can continue relying on FoD's thousands of streaming videos remaining available for integration into your remote classes throughout 2021.

See my initial post from May 2020 about Films on Demand for its full description, as well as... 

<Read on for sample film titles and links to other streaming video resources...>

One of our marketing classes (BUS 345 E100) is going to be doing some primary research on alternative protein products & consumers again this semester.

In support of that class, I've listed some key resources, but students in other classes may also want to use this post as a case study to learn about some of the powerful market research tools available to SFU researchers.  Bon appetite!

<Read on for a menu of delicious databases! >