CHAPTER II: RESEARCH METHOD

I. PREAMBLE

This study intends to analyze the current marketing strategies of the pioneering
organizations of Cebuano music and their effectiveness in promoting local music to the
Cebuano community. Specifically, the researchers aim to answer the following questions:

1) What are the current marketing strategies of the Cebuano music industry?
2) How do the marketing strategies affect the interest of Cebuano locals to
appreciate and listen to local music?
3) Based on the findings, analyses, and interpretation of data, how can the Cebuano
music industry effectively market and promote local music to the Cebuano
community?

This chapter is written in order to introduce the research methodology for this
case study regarding the current marketing strategies of the pioneering organizations of
Cebuano music and their effectiveness in promoting local music to the Cebuano
community. Such study is based on the qualitative-based method known as interviews.
This method enabled a deeper understanding of the artists’ and the management’s views
on the marketing strategies adopted by the Cebuano music industry and its effectiveness.

The chapter is divided into several sections that deals with the choice of research
design, selection of respondents, instrumentation, data collection procedures and data
analysis procedures.

II. RESEARCH METHOD

The study, being a qualitative research, seeks to collect and work with
non-numerical data and seeks to interpret meaning from these data to help understand
social life through the study of targeted populations or places (Crossman, 2019). Due to
this, the researchers have carefully selected multiple methods to employ in their data
collection process which could assist them in refining their study better. These methods
include semi-structured interviews, both one-on-one and focus groups, as well as the
descriptive method. According to Doyle (2019), a semi-structured interview is a meeting
in which the interviewer does not strictly follow a formalized list of questions. The
researchers used their interview guide when they interviewed their respondents, but they
did not limit themselves to those questions. The researchers added questions that they
believed were also helpful for their research studies, or questions that followed-up on the
respondents’ answers. They asked questions that would better assist transitions between
topics.

The researchers employed one-on-one interviews with four of their respondents.

This method allows for more personalized data gathering and was employed with
respondents of different companies or affiliations so that the data gathered would be
objective to the respondents’ backgrounds and not influenced by the answers of other
respondents with different backgrounds.

Focus group discussion was used when interviewing respondents of the same
company. This way, the researchers could collect data that was general, unanimous and
consistent for the rest of the group. They could also build up and contribute to each
other’s concepts. This way, the researchers could minimize redundancy with their data
collection because they would not be asking their research questions twelve times within
the same company.

Another method that the researchers used was the descriptive method. The
descriptive method is used to describe the characteristics of a population. In this case, the
researchers used the descriptive method to describe the population of the Cebuano artists
and their record labels, and they used this to gather information about the research topic.
The researchers were also able to ask their respondents to describe their own perspective
in the Cebuano music scene and how each record label/artist that they have interviewed,
had their own methods in what they think is the best for marketing their music.

III. RESPONDENTS AND SAMPLE OF THE STUDY

The sample was drawn from numerous cebuano artists and/or music industry
workers who have been present in the music scene for at least three years. Three of the
interviewees were independent artists who are currently students. Generally, they perform
in music events around the city as solo artists and publish their original music through
online music platforms.

Nine respondents were taken from music companies in the industry. Eight of them
belong to 22 Tango Records and one of them is from ArtistKo. From those in 22 Tango
Records, three of the respondents are prominent artists officially signed with the record
label, four are part of the management team, and one is the Chief Executive Officer who
is also an artist. The four management team respondents are the marketing head, official
writer, graphic designer, and artist manager.

The respondent from ArtistKo is part of the management team. He works as a

music executive in the label. In total, there are twelve respondents for this study. All of
the respondents have experience being immersed in the music scene of Cebu, from
performing in or organizing music events to the production of music.

The participants were chosen through the typical sampling method. The
researchers chose this method because they wanted to find out the marketing strategies
commonly used within the local music industry. These different respondents were chosen
because the researchers wanted to get different point of views on what it is like in the
Cebuano music scene, so as to have a more comprehensive research. The researchers
considered that, the experiences of the independent artists may be very different from
those who are affiliated with a record label, and the workload of the management team is
also unlike the workload of the artists. This was done so that the researchers will not
become biased to only one side of the story. The researchers acknowledge that the
management team and the planning process are just as evident in the music industry
processes as the artists and their performances.

In terms of the record labels the researchers decided to interview, these labels
were chosen because they are the most prominent record labels in Cebu City. They have
been the ones to pioneer the growth in popularity of the local music industry has been
experiencing over the past six years through the music they produce and the marketing
strategies they make use. With their knowledge and background the researchers believed
that they would be the best respondents for this topic.

The artists and management executives were asked to respond through interviews
with questions regarding the different marketing strategies they use and how effective
they have been to the growth of the music industry in cebu. The researchers sent out
letters to the different record labels asking permission to be able to conduct an interview
with their management teams, especially those affiliated within the marketing aspect.
Along with their teams, the researchers also asked approval to be able to interview some
of their artists as well to see how the experience is for them.

For the independent artists, the researchers emailed them personally and sent out a
consent form regarding the confidentiality of the whole interview, after receiving
confirmation from the respondents of their willingness to participate in the interview.
The researchers made sure to indicate that the choice is up to the respondents if they are
willing to participate in the study and that they are free to back out anytime.

The interviews were conducted in 22 Tango’s headquarters which is in General

Maxilom Ave, Mango Square, Cebu City. For ArtistKo, it was conducted in the Music
Lab which is also located in Mango Square. For the independent artists, they were done
through meetups in Axis, and phone calls.

IV. RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

The research instrument used in this study is an interview in which the interview
questions were prepared beforehand. According to Barile (2016), an interview is an
interaction wherein the interviewer presents oral questions in order to obtain oral
responses from the interviewee.

The interview conducted by the group was composed of eleven questions, with
six of the questions presented to the artist and five to the management. Such questions
aided the researchers in obtaining information about various marketing strategies in the
Cebuano music industry and how effective these strategies are.

The primary research tool, an interview guide, which yields the research
questions, is provided herewith:

Interview Guide

The research tool used in this study is a semi-structured interview. The interview
is conducted face-to-face or through phone call with the chosen respondents. The
questions to be included in the interview are as follows:

To artists:
1. Are you affiliated with/officially signed to a music company/label?
1.1 If yes, what are the current marketing strategies that your company
makes use of to promote your music and/or performances?
1.2 If no, what marketing strategies do you personally make use of to
promote your own music and/or performances?
 2. Do you find that these marketing strategies effective? Why or why not?
3. What are the struggles of being a local artist in the Cebuano market?
4. Do you find it difficult to draw attention from local audiences/the Cebuano
market?
5. How difficult is it for you to find and hold on to an audience?

To management:
1. What are the current marketing strategies that your company makes use of to
promote music?
2. What are the current marketing strategies that your company makes use of to
promote your artists?
3. How did you come up with these marketing strategies?
4. Have you found these strategies effective? Why or why not?
5. Did you have to change your marketing strategies from before? Or have you been
keeping the same ones?
6. What are the costs of effectively promoting an artist?

V. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE

The researchers coordinated and conducted a detailed group discussion with prior
permission to conduct interviews for the research. The researchers came up with an
interview guide that consisted of questions that relate to the research topic with questions
addressed to either management staff or artists. Permission letters were drafted and
submitted to the school administration for approval. Once approval was given, these
letters were sent to the respondents belonging to record labels to request for interviews
with them. The suggested date and time as well as the purpose of the research were
included in the permission letters. However, for the respondents who are independent
artists not associated with a record label, a private message was sent by one researcher to
the respondents’ emails regarding the intent to conduct separate interviews with them.
After receiving, feedback of willingness and/or approval, a consent form was sent to their
email as well as a message asking for their preferred schedule and venue for meeting up.

Upon receiving a schedule that was convenient for the respondents, the
researchers met with the different interviewees. To ensure the integrity and well-being of
the respondents during the interview, the researchers informed each respondent of the
purpose of the said interview, and reaffirming that the interviews are to be done
consensually, and that they may review the research once it is finished. The researchers
narrated how the data was to be dealt with and documented, which is through recording
on the Voice Memos application and then through manual transcription.

During the focus group discussion with 22 Tango Records, multiple cellular
devices were used in order to ensure that all responses from the interviewees were
documented with their cellular devices at different places on the table, so that they would
have access to all answers if ever something is unclear or any segment of audio is
indistinguishable in one researcher’s phone.

During the one-on-one interviews, only one researcher was present for each
interview, and thus only that researcher’s phone was used to record that said interview.
For the interview conducted through phone call, the researcher and respondent called via
the Messenger application on their cellular phone. the researcher informed the respondent
that she would be placed on loud speaker and that the researcher was recording her voice
through the Audacity application on the researcher’s laptop.

The interview was conducted utilizing the interview guide as a basis; follow-up
questions were also asked to fully expound on the interviewee’s responses. The
researchers prioritized asking all of the questions in the interview guide, and made
follow-up questions only when the respondents’ answers contained any detail or
information that needed to be explained further.
 After having conducted all of the interviews, the recordings gathered were stored
in a Google Drive, and reviewed and transcribed by the researchers verbatim.

VI. DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE

Firstly, the transcribing of interviews was done manually by the researchers

within one to two days of the conduction of the interviews. The researchers transcribed
the interviews and distributed the work evenly. After all the transcriptions were finished,
the researchers did coding. Coding is defined as the process of assigning a code to
something for classification or identification (Lexico.com)

Coding was essential to the analysis of the various data the researchers gained
through their interviews. Especially since the focus group discussion interview took a
longer time than expected, because responses were very comprehensive and the
researchers added plenty of additional or follow-up questions, the data had to be coded so
as to guide the researchers on focusing on the responses that were related to the kind of
information that they were trying to gather. This also minimizes the chances of important
data being overlooked, and allows for organization and clarity among the wealth of data
being dealt with.

The transcripts coded allowed the researchers to emphasize the significant ideas
or concepts covered in the interview. Moreover, the coded transcripts allowed the
researchers to have a more efficient workflow because the main ideas are already
highlighted instead of manually reading through the transcripts, or scrubbing through
each minute of audio of the interview recording.

Generally, the researchers made use of deductive coding. Deductive coding

includes identifying recurring themes or commonalities in the data acquired, and deduce
a pre-existing theory to organize the data. This coding method is heavily dependent on
the interpretation of the researcher because it is formed by prior theories and frameworks
(Virginia, B., 2006; Virginia, C., 2006). It is important that the researchers fully dissect
the transcriptions, in order for the codes to be completely saturated. The codes must also
have a relation with each other to ensure its cohesiveness with the research topic.

As the researchers observed the data, they made us of a conceptual

framework/lens as they already had pre-existing hypotheses regarding the subject matter.
Thus, the researchers had created a codebook before collecting their data and conducting
the interviews. A codebook is a book containing the means to decipher a code
(collinsdictionary.com). These were created purely based on the researchers’
pre-conceptions on what they believed the possible themes to the answers of their
respondents would yield.

As the researchers coded their data after the interviews, they adjusted their
codebook accordingly. During the initial coding process, the researchers examined their
data and made sure the transcriptions were complete and accurate, especially since these
were done manually. They read through all of the interview transcripts to familiarize
themselves with the data they had collected. Afterwards, they did the line-by-line coding,
in which they established their preliminary codes, which were rough codes the
researchers worked by as they went about the process of coding their data. They
consulted their codebook as reference, and added to it accordingly as well. The
researchers then did open coding, in which they grouped their data in concepts, themes,
and categories. Afterwards, the researchers established their final codes by examining the
most relevant ones and correcting/re-organizing previous erroneous codes. They refined
their coded data and categorized them.

Through the careful placement and sorting of the coded data into categories, the
researchers were able to establish the themes that surfaced. As the researchers critically
analyzed and reviewed their coding processes, they were able to continually correct and
refine their categories and how they categorized their data. This refined data led to the
emergence of overarching themes and patterns. Through identifying themes, the
researchers were able to extract the indication of their data and the general narratives that
their data suggested and provided.