Project/Client Research & Concepts Assignment
Coca-Cola advert, 1890s. Photograph. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2 Mar 2017. quest.eb.com/search/-5932396a5953426a623278684947466b646d567964436f3d. Accessed 7 Sep 2021.
Coca-Cola, advert 1945.. Photo. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016. quest.eb.com/search/-5932396a5953426a623278684947466b646d567964436f3d. Accessed 7 Sep 2021.
Drink Coca-Cola / Advertisement 1956. Fine Art. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016. quest.eb.com/search/coca-cola/2. Accessed 7 Sep 2021.
Project/Client Research - Primary Resources
Primary Resources: “Primary sources” are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects which were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience. (Wesson, Stephen. “What Makes a Primary Source a Primary Source?” What Makes a Primary Source a Primary Source? | Teaching with the Library of Congress, 4 Oct. 2011, blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2011/10/what-makes-a-primary-source-a-primary-source/.)
Primary Resource Options:
- Google your company's website. Focus particularly the following pages:
- Homepage, logo, fonts & brand colors
- FAQs
- Company/brand history
- Mission & vision statements (what's their value proposition & what makes them unique?)
- About web page
- Company posters, images (photos, drawings)
Secondary Resources
Secondary Resources: Accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand knowledge or experience.
- Published materials:
- Newspaper & magazine articles about the company/product
- Videos about the company/product (YouTube, Vimeo)
- Special events associated with company/product
- 2nd party company research (Hoover's, Business Source Premier databases)
- Communications databases
- Note that very small and new companies may not appear in Hoovers and other databases).
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
An unprecedented collection of peer-reviewed, full-text journals for academic research.
- Gale OneFile: News This link opens in a new window"Provides access to more than 2,300 major U.S. regional, national, and local newspapers, as well as leading titles from around the world. It also includes thousands of images, radio and TV broadcasts and transcripts." -Gale
- Newspaper Source This link opens in a new window"Provides cover-to-cover full text for hundreds of national (U.S.), international and regional newspapers. In addition, it offers television and radio news transcripts from major networks." -EBSCO
- ProQuest News and Newspapers This link opens in a new window"Collection of digitized news content, spanning the latest headlines and developments in contemporary politics, culture, health and technology, to historical coverage of important (and sometimes forgotten) people, places and events dating back to the 1700s." -ProQuest
- Hoover's Company Records This link opens in a new windowBusiness Market Research Collection: Conduct company, industry, economic and geopolitical market research with information from these sources: Hoover's Company Profiles - covering 40,000 global public and non-public companies including financials, competitors, officers, and more; OxResearch - succinct articles covering regional economic and political developments of significance; US and Worldwide Industry & Market Reports from Barnes Reports - covering global industries in depth; and Snapshots - market research overviews on 40+ industries and 40 countries.
- Business Source Premier This link opens in a new windowFull text and searchable cited references for top journals covering a variety of business disciplines.
- Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new windowIncludes the psychology of communication. Articles from scholarly and trade journals.
- Gale OneFile: Communications & Mass Media This link opens in a new window"Articles on all aspects of the communications field, including advertising, public relations, linguistics, and literature." -Gale
Visual Research
Visual Resources:
- From company website:
- Company's entire webpage (logos, typeface/font, brand colors)
- Photos from company History/About web pages
- Company posters, drawings, brochures
- From the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive)
- Use this tool to see previous versions of your company's website. This is a quick way to see old logos, typefaces, brand colors, etc.)
- https://web.archive.org/
- Photos gathered from secondary research databases (Hoovers database, Communications & Mass Media Complete database, etc.)
- Google competitors logos, websites, brand colors, etc. (Find competitors listed in Hoover's database)
Image Databases:
- ARTstor (now JSTOR) This link opens in a new window
High-resolution art images: painting, sculpture, and more.
ARTstor has moved to JSTOR. - Image Quest This link opens in a new windowOver 2.5 million copyright-cleared images for educational use at Pima Community College