Consumer preferences and consumption patterns in breakfast cereals

Cereal Survey

In undergoing a breakfast cereal survey, it is critical to identify and understand the concepts and variables that could influence a customer's preference and consumption of breakfast cereal. A researcher who has no sufficient about breakfast cereal preferences and consumption would be able to identify and use important concepts and variables for the study through the following suggested methods: review of literature, focus group discussions or FGDs, in-depth interviews (IDIs), or ethnography.

A review of literature about the cereal survey will guide the researcher in identifying and determining the factors that will be appropriate and used for the study. Using this method, the researcher will go through all the studies relevant to the cereal survey, and from this review, the researcher will then decide which concepts and variables are relevant to his/her study. Moreover, the researcher will have better judgment in choosing the variables to include in the study, based on validity and reliability tests conducted in previous surveys. In fact, inclusion of the variables in the study would add further to the reliability and validity of the variables and results that have been used in previous studies (including the proposed survey on breakfast cereal preference and consumption).

Another manner of identifying concepts and variables about the study is through qualitative methods. These include FGDs, IDIs, and ethnography. In conducting an FGD, the researcher will explore the specifics of preference and consumption on breakfast cereals among the target groups of the researcher. For example, the researcher could invite children and mothers as main consumers and buyers of breakfast cereal products, respectively. From the FGD, the researcher could explore the reasons why children prefer a specific brand of breakfast cereal, and whether their preferences are similar with their mothers' choices. Furthermore, the researcher could explore the frequency of purchase, consumption, budget, and usual places where the mother purchases the product. Also, the exploratory discussion could lead to other dimensions and information about breakfast cereal purchase and consumption that were not identified in previous studies. Similarly, in IDIs, concepts that will be explored and discovered during the one-on-one interview could be developed into variables for the survey. For concepts identified in FGDs and IDIs, they will be used as variables for the survey, and will be tested during the analysis stage for validity and reliability.