Brand Repositioning Research Report

Prepared By:

Megan Filbin

January 8, 2016

Table of Contents

I. Executive Summary……………………………………………...……………………..……..3

II. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..………4

III. Exploratory Research………………………………………………………………….……4

IV. Survey Development and Data Collection…………………………………………………5

a. Sampling Method………………………………………………………………..……5

b. Data Collection Procedure……………………………………………………………5

c. Response Rate…………………………………………....…………………………….5

V. SPSS Analysis and Results……………………………………..……….……………………6

VI. Limitations……………………………………………………..…………………………….9

VII. Conclusion and Recommendations………………………………………………………10

VII. Appendix A: Survey……………………………………………………………………….11

VIII. Appendix B: Hypothesis One………………………………………………………...….15

IX. Appendix C: Hypothesis Two……………………………………………………………...18

X. Appendix D: Hypothesis Three……………………………………………………………..18

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Executive Summary

With the expansions coming to The Discovery, the museum desires to make the shift

towards being perceived as a science center, rather than a children's museum. This shift,

however, it based on visitor perception, which isn't an easy construct to measure. In order to

tackle this task, the installation of Monster Fish was used a variable to see what the current

visitors perceive The Discovery as. Two sessions of data collection via surveys were conducted

with Monster Fish being the dividing factor between the two.

After all the data was collected, conclusions, as well as recommendations, were then able

to be made in reference to how The Discovery can be more widely perceived as a science center.

From this research some important results were found. One, there was no significant difference

between people’s perception of The Discovery and a science center, meaning that overall, The

Discovery is going in the right direction. Two, it was found that after the introduction of Monster

Fish, a significantly greater amount of people believe that The Discovery is a science center.

This means that the separating variable that was chosen, Monster Fish, did make a significant

change in perception. Finally, it was found that people who had not previously visited The

Discovery had a higher perception of The Discovery as a science center in comparison to those

who had visited previously. An overall recommendation that can be made is to focus perception

change on the frequent visitors and continue to expand The Discovery with more exhibits similar

to Monster Fish in order to continue the momentum that has been established.

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Introduction

This report explains the results compiled through market research in regards to the

transformation of The Discovery from a children’s museum into a science center. Previously, the

Brand Repositioning Committee met to explain this problem and how to fix it. They constructed

a list of recommendations of how to help the museum along its transformation. In order to

expand on these ideas and determine if The Discovery is seen as a science center, market

research was conducted.

The Discovery desires through, brand repositioning, to move from a children’s museum

into a hands-on science center to facilitate the museum's growth. In order to complete this

mission, the museum needs to be taking a “show, don’t tell approach” that helps communicate

non-verbally to visitors that The Discovery is a science center to be enjoyed and explored by all

age groups. With new experiences such as Inside Out: an Anatomy Experience and National

Geographic’s Monster Fish, The Discovery has made its path to a science center and created a

perfect opportunity to do market research.

Exploratory Research

Being considered a science center is important for the growth of The Discovery as a

whole. When looking at other science centers around the region such as OSMI and the

Exploratorium, they bring in a large amount of people who rage in age groups and continue to be

returning visitors. By obtaining this larger group of ages, which is expanded from mainly

children, The Discovery can help complete their mission to facilitate life-long learners as well as

move with the expansion of the area. By comparing The Discovery to other science centers, Such

as OSMI and the Exploratorium, this can help the museum gauge to see if they are going in the

direction they desire.

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Survey Development and Data Collection

Sampling Method

The sampling method chosen was a combination of convenience sampling as well as

random sampling. Along with this, a combination of group and individual samples were taken.

The target market for this research was anyone who decided to explore The Discovery. The

target market is very broad because this enabled the research to come from as many people as

possible. Along with this, a combination of several sampling methods were chosen in order to

remain unbiased and retrieve as large of variety of respondents as possible.

Data Collection Procedure

The data was collected through the usage of surveys distributed in person with use of the

iPad. The survey was collected in two sessions. The first session occurred before Monster Fish

was established, while the second occurred after its installation. The only changes between the

two sessions was that Monster Fish was included in the second. The data was then compiled,

coded, and analyzed using SPSS, a statistical software.

The survey included 16 questions, including demographics, for the visitors to answer

revolving around their perception of a science center and whether or not The Discovery is

perceived as one. The goal was to not make the survey so long that they will not be willing to

complete it, but long enough to get valid and significant results. The survey questions would

range in quantitative types. A majority of them were based off of scaling in order to conduct

research on the results. The survey in its entirety can be found in Appendix A.

Response Rate

Out of the total amount of people approached to be surveyed (80), 6 people denied the

opportunity to give their input about The Discovery. This being said, the response rate was 92%,

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which is well above average within this form of sampling. This high response rate can be seen

because of the richness of the communication channel chosen. If the surveys were to have been

distributed on paper or through an email, these high results would not be expected.

SPSS Analysis and Results

The overall theme of this research was to see what current visitors perceives a science center as

and what The Discovery can expand on in order to complete their brand repositioning towards

being as a science center.

1. After the introduction of Monster Fish, a significantly greater amount of people believe

that The Discovery is a science center.

a. Logic: This hypothesis is important because it will indicate if the induction of

Monster Fish is step in the right direction. When analyzing the two different

groups, those from session one and those from session two, it is predicted that

those from session two will have a significantly higher mean when it comes to

perception of The Discovery as a science center. This means that they lean

significantly towards “Agree” and “Extremely Agree”.

b. Analysis: An independent samples T-Test was used to see if after the introduction

of Monster Fish, a significantly greater amount of people believe that The

Discovery is a science center. As predicted session two (M=5.0732, SD=.84824,

N=41) believed The Discovery is a science center significantly more than session

one (M=4.6, SD=1.10172, N=30) P<.05 T(69)=2.4, when looking at visitors who

visited after the induction of Monster Fish. These outputs results can be found in

Appendix B.

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2. Visitors perceive their idea of what a science center to be as more enjoyable than The

Discovery.

a. Logic: The logic behind this question is that people have a predetermined view of

what they believe a science center to be before being approached for the survey.

With this in mind, they are comparing these two constructs, or abstract ideas,

against themselves. If the visitors perceive their view of a science center to be

more enjoyable than The Discovery, this means that The Discovery still has room

to grow to reach the perceived view as a science center. Consequently, if people

do not perceive their view of a science center to be more enjoyable than The

Discovery, this means that The Discovery is well within people’s perception of a

science center.

b. Analysis: Using a paired samples t-test to test visitors perceiving their view of a

science center to be more enjoyable than The Discovery. Not as predicted, there

was no significant difference between the two means of The Discovery

(M=.04776, SD=.63731, N=74) P>.05 T(66)=.613 and science center, when

looking between both sessions of the data collection. These output results can be

found in Appendix C.

3. People who have visited The Discovery previously believe that it is a Science Center to a

higher level more than those who have not visited previously.

a. Logic: This hypothesis is important because it takes into account the “show don't

tell” method of communicating to the public that The Discovery is a science

center, not a children's museum. If the people who have visited previously believe

that it is a science center, that means that the message conveyed inside of The

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Discovery is going in the right direction, however if it is found that people who

have not visited previously believe that The Discovery is a science center, that

means that the correct message is being sent out to the public.

b. Analysis: An independent samples t test was performed to analyze if people who

have visited The Discovery previously believe that it is a Science Center more

than those who have not visited previously. Not as expected, people who had not

previously visited The Discovery (M=5.4167, SD=.66856, N=12) had a

significantly higher perception of The Discovery as a science center to those who

had visited previously (M=4.7627, SD=1.00583, N=59) P<.05 T(69,22.5)=2.80

when comparing means. These output results can be found in Appendix D.

4. Visitors who believe that The Discovery only benefits one age

a. Logic: During the survey, it was asked if visitors believe that The Discovery

benefited only one age. From this, if they did believe that The Discovery only

benefited one age, they were prompted to identify which age they believed

benefited most from The Discovery. Out of this results, the age that contains the

highest frequency can be seen as which demographic people believe benefit most.

This can be for many reasons, one is that it contains the demographic with the

most frequent visitors, while another is that people that believe that The

Discovery benefits one age sees the subject matter presented to them as one

engaging only for that one group.

b. Analysis: Based on the frequency table, of those who believe that The Discovery

is only for one age group believe that the ages 9-12 benefit the most from the

exhibits presented to them.

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Limitations

Some limitations that came along with this research were the following:

a. Time Constraints- Because only one person was conducting the research, this means that

the data collection was based around one schedule. If more people participated in this

data collection, then there would have been a greater opportunity for more results.

b. Number of Responses- Although the response rate is high, the number of responses could

increase if they survey was to be distributed through different avenues, such as online.

This makes it a bit difficult to reach nonmembers, however; and would result in a lower

response rate.

c. Perceptions- A large limitation of this research is the limitation of perception. Each

visitor has a different perception of what a science center, and with this, some visitors can

vary extremely.

d. Length of Survey- In order to collect workable data, the survey length needed to be quite

long. The became a bit of a limitation because some people commented on the length of

the survey, even after being told that the survey could take up to 3 or 4 minutes. Overall,

the data that was collected was necessary in order to have all the findings that were made.

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Conclusion and Recommendations

Overall, based on the research that was collected some recommendations can be made in

response to brand repositioning. As one of the most interesting results, it can be recommended

that more emphasis be placed on the regular visitors. Because people who had not previously

visited The Discovery came into the experience expecting a science center, while those who have

visited previously do not. This could be for many reasons, however this could be the result of

rapid growth. Because these regular visitors have been frequenting The Discovery in the midst of

its shift towards a science center, the can still be set in the mindset from when they first started

visiting. Overall, based on perception its can be seen that people believe that The Discovery is

moving towards being perceived as a science center, especially with the introduction of Monster

Fish, but with the continued integration into exhibits, like Monster Fish, this perception will

expand even more.

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Appendix A: Survey Monkey Survey

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12

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Note on Survey: Between the two survey sessions, Monster Fish was added to the second session

in question 16 to be an option for “Which current exhibits intrigued you the most?” and was then

coded (as 1) only for the second session and not coded (as 0) in the first session.

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Appendix B: Hypothesis One

Hypothesis: After the introduction of Monster Fish, a significantly greater amount of people

believe that The Discovery is a science center.

Note on Hypothesis One: In order to create these results, it was first necessary to see if how

reliable the constructs were by using Cronbach’s alpha. After testing all of the variables for both

The Discovery as well as science center, through Cronbach’s Alpha it was found the Role Play

was unreliable for both of the variables, so because of this, role play was taken out of both

variables. These two variables were used throughout the research.

Group StatisticsSurvey Round N Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

Believe it is a SC

Round 1 41 5.0732 .84824 .13247Round 2 30 4.6000 1.10172 .20115

Independent Samples TestLevene's Test for Equality of

Variances t-test for Equality of Means

F Sig. t df

Sig. (2-

tailed)

Mean Differe

nce

Std. Error

Difference

95% Confidence

Interval of the Difference

Lower UpperBelieve it is a SC

Equal variances assumed

4.444 .0392.04

569 .045 .47317 .23135 .01163 .93471

Equal variances not assumed

1.965

52.458

.055 .47317 .24085-.0100

3.95637

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Variable Construction:

1. Science Center Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Variance if

Item Deleted

Corrected Item-Total Correlation

Squared Multiple

Correlation

Cronbach's Alpha if Item

DeletedWhen you think of visiting a SC...In Depth analysis

25.0896 9.355 .388 .344 .669

When you think of visiting a SC...Hands-on Exploration

24.0149 11.015 .538 .379 .630

When you think of visiting a SC...State of art technology

24.5970 9.396 .540 .338 .605

When you think of visiting a SC...Thought Provoking Exhibits

24.3433 9.835 .699 .538 .576

When you think of visiting a SC...Educational

24.0000 11.030 .512 .365 .634

When you think of visiting a SC...Role-Play

25.4925 10.981 .146 .133 .766

2. The Discovery Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Variance if

Item Deleted

Corrected Item-Total Correlation

Squared Multiple

Correlation

Cronbach's Alpha if Item

DeletedWhat you have experienced inside of TD...In-Depth Analysis

25.4571 8.484 .349 .285 .577

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What you have experienced inside of TD...Hands On Exploration

24.4857 10.543 .328 .126 .592

What you have experienced inside of TD...Sate of the art Technology

25.4857 7.906 .448 .276 .529

What you have experienced inside of TD...Thought Provoking Exhibits

24.8857 9.030 .597 .483 .506

What you have experienced inside of TD...Educational

24.5571 9.265 .571 .401 .519

What you have experienced inside of TD...Role Play

25.7000 9.314 .117 .078 .709

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Appendix C: Hypothesis Two

Hypothesis: Visitors perceive their view of a science center to be more enjoyable than The

Discovery.

Paired Samples TestPaired Differences

t dfSig. (2-tailed)Mean

Std. Deviatio

n

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the

DifferenceLower Upper

Pair 1

TheDiscovery - ScienceCenter

.04776

.63731 .07786 -.10769 .20321 .613 66 .542

Appendix D: Hypothesis Three

Hypothesis: People who have visited The Discovery previously believe that it is a Science Center

more than those who have not visited previously.

Group StatisticsPreviously visited? N Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

Believe it is a SC

Yes 59 4.7627 1.00583 .13095No 12 5.4167 .66856 .19300

Independent Samples TestLevene's Test for Equality of

Variances t-test for Equality of MeansF Sig. t df Sig.

(2-tailed)

Mean Differe

nce

Std. Error

Difference

95% Confidence

Interval of the Difference

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Lower UpperBelieve it is a SC

Equal variances assumed

1.796 .185-

2.151

69 .035-.6539

5.30402

-1.2604

5

-.04746

Equal variances not assumed

-2.80

4

22.553

.010-.6539

5.23323

-1.1369

5

-.17096

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