The people who devise the vocational programs

at Capilano College believe there’s nothing like
adding a slice of real life to get the subject well

4

students in the
marketing course of the
Business Management
program were given the job
of carrying out a market
research survey for the
North Shore News, in the
course of which they con-
ducted 656 interviews with
North Shore residents by
phone and in local shopping
centres.

This is the third year the
college has undertaken such
a@ project for The News as
part of the work assigned to
marketing course students
said Doug Loblaw,

program  coor-

“The community college
concept is that in order for
students to have practical
business training they must
have student projects in the
real world rather than use
case studies out of books”,
Loblaw explained.

“This marketing project is
of mutual benefit to our
students and to the North
Shore News. No one gains
more than the other. The
North Shore News is to be
commended for allowing us
the opportunity to carry out

truly into their students’ heads. And that’s

such a marketing project for
them.”

The first market research
project was carried out in
1977.

“The North Shore News
needed marketing data so
they came to see us”, said
Loblaw. After talking with
publisher Peter Speck about
what data was required,
Loblaw felt the marketing

class could handle a
readership survey.
What the _ readership

survey does is to provide a
profile of the newspaper's
readers for the editorial and
advertising staff.

“The students like the
project because it gives them
a chance to deal with a
community business, find
out how it is run and design a
market research question-
naire for it,” said Loblaw.

FOCUS GROUPS

“The first idea in
marketing is to know the
customer’s needs,” he
Stressed. “If you don’t know
who the customer is and
what they want, the com-
pany provides services which
are not successful.”

FINDING OUT WHAT people think is part of the task of this marketing class at Capilano College. Marketing In-

structor, Doug Loblaw (centre), and his students have done several public opinion surveys for the North Shore
News. (Ian Smith photo)

To help pave the way for
the preparation of this year’s
questionnaire Bob Graham,
associate publisher of The
News, went and spoke to the
students. The class also did
in-depth research with focus
groups composed of dif-
ferent age and sex mixes
relating to the total North
Shore — made up from other
North Shore residents.

The questionnaire varies
slightly from year to year.

This year some of the new
questions asked were to find
out what the general attitude
of the reader was to the
paper, towards voluntary

subscriptions, publication
dates, TV listings and flyers.

The 30 students involved
took two weeks to compile
the research data.

Each student was required
to do 25 interviews. The
result was some did all
telephone interviews while
others did a mix of telephone
and shopping centre _in-
terviews.

“The biggest problems
with a questionnaire is to
keep it short, which this
isn’t” said Loblaw. “It can
take up to ten minutes to
answer. This is also a student

Capitano College offers programs in:

Business Management

Business Office

raining

Career Alternatives

project, not a professional
one, so there are bound to be
errors.”

PLANNING JOB

But he pointed out that the
usual market research
project covers upwards to
300 people, while this one
covers over twice that
number.

Loblaw defines marketing
as a planning function.
“Everything you see in the
marketplace today by way of
consumer and _ industrial
products have been
developed by the marketing

system two to five years
previously,” he says.

What of the role of the
newspaper in bringing the
manufacturer’s message to
the consumer?

Loblaw’s answer is that
there will always be a future ©
for newspapers because they
are based on the written
word.

“The message in a
newspaper is read and re-
read by a consumer, unlike
an electronic message. The
newspaper is also an af-
fordable media for the small
business,” he declares.

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