Marketing Research on Instant Noodles consumptions by students in higher institution. 1. Defining the problem and research objectives. To conduct marketing research on the consummation of instant noodles by students undergoing their higher level of education. The first step is defining the problem and research objectives. To identify the problem and objectives, the three things that are uses are exploratory research, descriptive research and causal research. Firstly, exploratory research is conducted to gather preliminary information that will help define the problem and suggest hypothesis. According to the initial information that obtained, the main problem in this research is to determine the cause of students in higher institution prefer to take instant noodles in their diet routine. After that, the second method is through descriptive research. Descriptive research is used to describe things such as the market potential for a product. Marketing research results show that the potential market for instant noodles among students in high institution are very encouraging.

The next method is causal research. Causal research is to test hypothesis about cause and effect relationships. In this research, the main cause of students in high institution more takes instant noodles in their diet routine because it is cheap and easy available. Effect, noodles product in high institutions has expended and the students of high institutions are the target market for instant noodles products.

2. Developing the research plan
Once the research problem and objectives have been defined, the second steps is determine the exact information needed ,develop a plan for gathering it efficiently, and present the plan to management. The research plan outlines spells out the specific research approaches, contact methods, sampling plans, and instruments that researches will use to gather new data. Research objectives must be translated into specific information needs.In this cases suppose that Maggi the very famous brands for instant noodles wants to conduct research on how would students in high institution react to a proposed instant noodles sold under the Maggi name. Maggi currently dominates the worldwide instant noodles market. The proposed research might call for the following specific information: * The demographic, economic, and lifestyles of students consuming instant noodles in high institution:
(Would Maggi need to target a new segment of students in high institution?) * The characteristics and usage patterns of the broader population of Instant noodles among students in high institution:
(The Maggi product would need strong relevant positioning in the crowded instant noodles market.) * Retailer reactions to the proposed new product line:
(Failure to get retailer support would hurt sales of the instants noodles) * Forecasts of sales of both new and current Maggi products.
(Will the new product increase Maggi overall profits?)
The research plan should be presented in a written proposal.The proposal shouldcover the management problems addressed, the research objectives,the information to be obtained, and how the results will help management decision making also include estimate research costs. To meet the manager’s information needs the research plan can call for gathering secondary data, primary data, or both. Secondary data consist of information that already exists somewhere,having been collected for another purpose.Primary data consist of information collected for the specific purpose at hand.
Primary Data Collection shows that designing a plan for primary data collection calls for a number of decisions on research approaches,contact methods,the sampling plan,and research instruments.Research approaches for gathering primary data include observation, surveys, and experiments. We discuss each one in:
First the observational research, involves gathering primary data by observing relevant people,actions, and situations.In the cases the high institution might evaluate more instants noodles.
The seconds now is use ethnographic research involves sending observers to watch and interact with consumers in their “natural environments”. The example is watching what high institution students really do.
The third research is on the survey research, which is the approach best suited for gathering primary data by asking people questions about their knowledge, attitudes, preferences, and buying behaviour. By asking higher institutions students why they choose instant noodles for diet routine.
The last research is on experimental research whereas involves gathering primary data by selecting matched groups of subjects, giving them different treatments, controlling related factors, and checking for differences in group response. The example before produce the new flavour of instant noodles Maggi might use experiments to test the effect on sales of two different prices it might charges.

Contact Method
The information about the instant noodle can be collected by using the contact method which consist of mail, telephone, personal interview or online.
The first contact method is by mail questionnaire. The method can be carry out by asking a random student about the instant noodle. The method may give us the honest answer regarding the consumption of the instant noodle, for example the most popular instant noodle is Maggi. Students may give the positive comments towards maggi.
The second contact method is by using the telephone interviewing. Telephone interviewing is the best methods to collect the information and it more flexible than the mail questionnaire. This is because, we can ask the difficult question and skip the questions.
Meanwhile the third method is by personal interviewing which take two forms that are, individual interviewing and group interviewing. The individual interviewing method involves the talking with people in their homes or offices, on the street or shopping mall. In this instant noodle consumption case among students, we can ask the students after they finish their classes. The interviewing is flexible. We can show the actual product such as the maggi for the students to try it by themselves.
Group interviewing consists of 6 to 10 people to meet the trained moderator to talk about the products, service or organization. A group of students will be asked about the quality of the maggi they had consumed in a day, how they manage their money on the consumption of the maggi. They will get paid a small sum for attending the meeting with the trained moderator.

Online Research
The information about the consumption of instant noodle among the students in higher institution also can be collected by using the online research. We can get the primary data through the internet survey, online panels, experiments and online focus groups
By online research, we can take many forms. We can use the web as the survey medium by asking several questions about the instant noodle consumption among the students. We also can conduct a experiment on the web. We can experiment the different price of the instant noodles in the market, the product features on different sites.
The web based survey research giving more advantage than the other method. By going online, we can easily distribute internet survey about the consumption of the instant noodles among the students in the higher institution. We also may get many respondent to answer the survey questions once the enter the selected website.

Sampling
A sample is a segment of the population selected for marketing research to present the population. There are three decisions have been required to designing the sample, which are who is to be studied, how many people should be include and how should the people in the sample be chosen.
The first decision is who is to be studied. In this research, we will have the students to be studied for what they consume especially the consumption of the instant noodles among them nowadays. The second is how many people should be includes. We can say the amount of students who consume the instant noodles is in a big sample. We may get more reliable results than the small samples. The third one is how should the people in the sample be chosen. In our research, we choose high institution students because of the demand of the instant noodles among them.

Research instruments
There are two main research instruments, which are questionnaire and mechanical devices.
The first instrument is questionnaire. Questionnaire is flexible because there are many ways to ask questions. We can ask a various question to the students about the instant noodles and students will answer a multiple choice questions and they can answer the question with their own words. For example, we may ask the students, “what do you think about the high consumption of instant noodles among the students in high institution nowadays?” students may answer it their own word. This kind of question is an open-end question. With the open-end questions, we may find a various kind of answer and thought about the consumption of instant noodles. Students may give their own opinion and this will help us in the marketing research as well.
Meanwhile, there is a closed-end question that provides answer as the choices and students will choose the suitable or accurate answer regarding their own thought towards the questions.
In addition, the second research instrument is mechanical devices. This instrument also been used even though the questionnaire instrument is the most common research instruments. Researchers use this kind of instrument to monitor the consumer behaviour. There are still other researcher applying the neuromarketing to measuring the brain to learn the ways consumers feel and may respond.
The brain electrical activity also can be track by using the MRI scans and EEG devices. With this kind of technology we can track the brain electrical activity and the blood flow can lead us to know what turn the consumer off or on regarding the marketing and brands as well. In this case, we can know what brands of instant noodle satisfy the students more.
Neuromarketing techniques can be used to measure the consumer involvement and emotional responses. However, brain response also will difficult to interpret.

3. Implementing the Research Plan

In this step, the marketing research plan are put into an action. All the information about maggi consumption by the students in higher institution will be collected, processing and then analysed. For example, the information are put into the table.

Table 1 : Number of instant noodle ( maggi ) consumption by students in higher institution. From the table, graph can be plotted to show the curve of instant noodle consummation. Data analysing can be easily made by referring to de consummation curve. 4. Interpreting and Reporting the Findings In this step, the findings about the instant noodle consumption will be interpret by the user. The information is summarized by each sections and is concluded. The report is to be specific by means there must be a summary of results, analyzation of data and interpretation of data. After that, the findings are sent to the management to make a decission.