In the most recent years demand for services to business enterprises has significantly grown because of various factors. Market research and management consultancy have both profited by this growth but the link between these two services still remains a question mark and is hard to define. If we compare consultancy services offered by research institutes or by single researchers with traditional consultancy, we realize there are some differences which should be evidenced. A market researcher when acting as a consultant is working under very special conditions which must be clearly identified to avoid any possible ambiguity or any dangerous conflicts. lip to the present the demand for market research/consultancy and the offer of this service have been rather limited because of some problems existing for the enterprises and also for the institutes. In this respect three main limiting factors were identified: (a) the type of methodological approach applied to market research, static and restrictive (b) resistance made to this service by residual corporate bureaucracies (c) the researchers' lack of training and experience With these definitions clearly in mind, we can say that the activity of market research tends progressively to incorporate values and operative modalities typical of consultancy. This evolution is desirable for it goes to the advantage of those researchers who find their own strategy and positioning on the market through this process.There are opportunities for developing standard services and opportunities for developing consultancy activities. In fact, the majority of market research business managements are still in an intermediate position. To quit this ungratifying position a considerable amount of money will have to be invested, no matter which direction one takes.
Market research is social research. If it is not - and every time it is not - social research it is not even "research", in that it cannot claim objectivity nor truth. In the past this has often been forgotten and has led to poor research. We have not realised that the objectivity we claimed for our research was actually objectivity of methods but not of the subject or issue studied.
On the 10th, March 1974, the new Espresso came out: an issue of 128 pages in "Time" magazine format, which covered all the subject matter in the three sections of the old Espresso (Polit./Cult./Econ.). It is a format common to many other weeklies all over the world. It was not a complete novelty even for the Italian market: "Panorama", a Mondadori weekly, had adopted the "Time" format from its first appearance in 1966. Despite these precedents, the new Espresso raised many problems which had to be solved, as will be seen in this chapter: editorial problems, since the contents and format of a magazine are, clearly, interdependent variables. The problem became more acute due to the particular strategy adopted. The change was dictated by specific technical and economical requirements. But the solution adopted, although it may seem both obvious and natural, was not the only one possible. It was chosen in the light of a precise strategy of expansion for the magazine. The operation took from February 1973 to March 1974.
These notes explain the method of sampling used for the Magazine Readership Survey carried out in Italy this year (ISPI, 1973 edition). The ISPI survey is a sample survey based on 21,000 interviews. It has been carried out each year since 1966 for the purpose of estimating the number of readers of the weeklies and monthlies of major interest from an advertising point of view. The 1973 survey is of particular interest because it provides concrete evidence of the advantages of using a stratified sample with non-proportional distribution between the various strata.
One of the marketing problems in the Italian publishing industry concerns control of distribution. Most publications, in fact, are distributed by organizations that are not dependent on the publisher, and control at point of sale is not as timely, complete and accurate as would be desirable. To solve this problem publishers may : a) request sales data from the distribution organizations, carry out controls at samples of newsstands through their own personnel. As far as we know, both methods are used. But we do not know if a systematic and continuous survey has ever been carried out on a sample of newsstands covering all publications. A survey of this type poses complex organizational and methodological problems. In order to clarify the problems, we present the results of a pilot survey conducted on a sample of 16 newsstands . The fieldwork was done in November, 1971 and covered a period of two weeks.