1525-0012-0193
UNITED STATES MINT
QUANTITATIVE CONSUMER RESEARCH – FY14 PRE-ADVERTISING RESEARCH
7/16/2014
Introduction /Purpose of the Research
This collection request is for OMB clearance for the United States Mint to conduct a new brand awareness research study seeking information about customer and consumer awareness of the types of products and services the United States Mint offers the public. This research study will measure awareness of United States Mint digital advertising prior to the launch of a new website at the beginning of FY15. Conducting research to measure awareness of United States Mint product and service offerings prior to the new website implementation is imperative to ensuring that the new website is meeting customer requirements and preferences.
The results from this research study will assist the United States Mint in tracking levels of brand awareness and recognition among United States Mint customers and consumers. This information will assist the United States Mint in developing its marketing and digital advertising programs. The data will be used to improve customer satisfaction and increase awareness. The data collection will help ensure that customer satisfaction with product and service offerings is maximized.
Part of the United States Mint’s mission is to produce and make collectible coin products available directly to the American public. Executive Order No. 12862 (September 1993), titled “Setting Customer Service Standards,” establishes a mandate for the government to improve and adhere to best practices when providing customer service directly to the American people, such as by conducting research to determine satisfaction with existing services and to ensure the kind and quality of services offered are aligned with those the public wants (Section 1b). To effectively accomplish these goals, the United States Mint utilizes a combination of accepted research methods that shed light on the awareness, satisfaction and preferences among the public as they relate to collectible coin products and services. The United States Mint Pre-Advertising research survey is one of these instruments.
Conducting market research in advance of introducing new products and services, or before making changes to existing products and services, is vital to ensuring those decisions are as likely as possible to enhance customer satisfaction and maximize organizational efficiency. The United States Mint knows from experience that making new product and service decisions in the absence of a reliable information collection is likely to lead to undesirable outcomes in terms of customer satisfaction and organizational performance. The United States Mint is placing renewed emphasis on advance testing of new product concepts and changes to existing products and services to inform our decision making and improve customer and operational outcomes.
The consequences of not performing this collection are the United States Mint’s diminished ability to produce and offer collectible coin products and services that the public is interested in, and to maintain service levels that satisfy customers.
The United States Mint pre-advertising survey is designed to be web-based, with customers and general consumers receiving an e-mail invitation to complete the survey. The targeted sample is 3,000 general consumers (with some level of coin interest as a qualification), 1,000 United States Mint customers and 1,000 general consumers who are most likely to be exposed to the United States Mint’s digital advertising on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google, Yahoo News or Bing.
The customer sample for the survey will be obtained from customer database lists and will be selected randomly among the population of customers fitting the defined criteria. The general consumer sample will be obtained from Research Now who maintains an online consumer panel.
Potential customer respondents will be sent email invitations to take the survey on-line. The survey should take no more than twenty minutes to complete. Based on our historic response rates and our experience with this type of survey, we anticipate inviting 30,000 customers to respond to the survey in order to achieve the targeted 1,000 sample size. The results of this survey will be reported via a PowerPoint presentation.
For the general consumers, we will draw a sample that is closely balanced to the U.S. adult population on key age, income, and race/ethnicity parameters, taking into account any likely differential response rates among these demographic groups.
Collected survey data will be cleaned, weighted and tabulated.
As stated, this will be a web-based survey taking approximately fifteen minutes to complete. The survey is designed to determine and track U.S. Mint brand awareness, brand recognition (familiarity), website URL recall, and understanding of what the U.S. Mint offers the public as well as measure pre-wave awareness of U.S. Mint digital advertising.
Screener questions include the standard security question, age, gender and income which are needed for weighting, state of residence, and a qualifying question about whether or not the consumer has saved or put aside coins in the past 2 years. As part of the screener, all will be asked:
Awareness of United States Mint (as a collectible coin marketer) as well as other organizations – both unaided and aided
Awareness of United States Mint general advertising (as well as other organizations) – both unaided and aided
Awareness of United States Mint digital advertising and that of other organizations
In the main questionnaire, those who qualify will be asked about aided recall of the themes of the ads, familiarity with collectible organizations, likelihood to purchase from the United States Mint, recall of specific United States Mint digital advertising executions, did they visit the website, what tasks were performed on the web (purchase a product, search for information, etc.), website URL recall, understanding of what the U.S. Mint offers the public, and interest in United States Mint products (e.g., purchase likelihood).
Lastly, all respondents are asked a set of standard demographic questions, after which they have completed the survey.
This survey approach is designed to minimize the amount of intrusion and burden that is placed on customers. Accordingly, calls will not be made to them, nor will other “intrusive” measures that normally might be used to maximize response rates. We plan to send e-mail invitations to respondents explaining that participation is totally voluntary and that their feedback will be used to help improve the products and services we offer. Multiple reminder emails (e.g., one to two) will be sent to potential respondents to invite them to complete the survey. Respondents can complete the survey at a time convenient to them.
No monetary incentive will be offered to customers.
We will ensure that our data provide reliable population-level inferences by carefully designing the sampling plan with appropriate strata and sample sizes and by weighting the data to account for the survey design and to adjust for non-response.
The United States Mint deals with non-response bias in a number of ways. First, question non-response (those who don’t answer a question but would otherwise complete the survey) is minimized by the survey tool, which requires respondents to make a selection for all questions. Second, survey non-response (people who don’t respond to the survey invitation and those who respond but don’t complete the survey) is minimized by keeping the survey short and as simple as practicable, allowing respondents to take the survey at a time convenient to them, and by sending reminder emails (usually one to two) to invitees who have not yet responded.
The United States Mint will account for non-response bias by weighting the survey data and applying other adjustment techniques where appropriate and available.
The collection of information will involve completion of the survey on the web with up to a maximum of 5,000 respondents (a combination of 4,000 general consumers and 1,000 Mint customers). The average time to complete the survey will be approximately 15 minutes. Therefore, the total estimated burden for this survey is 1,250 hours.
|
Pre-Advertising Survey |
All respondents |
5,000 |
Average minutes to complete survey |
15 mins |
Total estimated burden hours |
1250 hrs |
If you have questions related to the review of this collection request, you may contact any of the following individuals at the United States Mint’s Sales and Marketing Department:
Kathy Chiarello – kchiarello@usmint.treas.gov; 202-354-7809
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| File Title | Purpose of the Research |
| Author | Kathy Chiarello |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-31 |