This paper is meant to be a discussion paper and a contribution to a more systematic approach to what is called "industrial marketing research" . This approach will be two-pronged, i. e. the product flow from the top to the bottom of the product pyramid and the product flow in a manufacturing process from conception to marketing. It is felt that in this way the research contribution to management thinking can be more clearly defined as also the contribution of research methods to the solution of research problems.
If I had to summarise in a short sentence all I have said till now, I would express myself as follows: "In industrial marketing you have to deal with individuals of high qualities; your skill is useless if it is not adapted for their personality and if you are not able to think and to act free from mental barriers and limitations".
Under the cover of terms such as evaluation of advertising policies, marketing plans, motivation studies designed to improve advertising impact or brand image evaluation, business firms often ask consultants to plan and foresee their advertising action with a view to improving its impact on the public. Nowadays, even large well established firms who enjoy a secure if not monopolistic market, come to us because they have doubts as to the effectiveness of their advertising. They want to know what the purpose of advertising is; whether it has a purpose; whether their advertising "works"; whether it brings results.
The aim of this paper is to convey to all marketing research experts present at the current ESOMAR Seminar some idea of the major changes taking place in Europe at this moment with respect to methods and techniques of market research on industrial products. Looking back over the past ten years of our activity in this field we believe that these changes are largely due to new requirements and increased possibilities in the field of data collection and processing. We shall expound this point of view in three points which, we hope, will provide a starting point for discussion and an opportunity of confrontation between various domains of experience. The three parts of our paper are entitled: - Limitations of traditional research; - Data collection at the industrial level; - Data and informatics.
In our work as industrial surveyors particularly concerned with the chemical field, we have often to face discussions about two main subjects, which, although - in our opinion - covering the chemical branch, may also occur to most of the market surveyors for industrial goods. The two above mentioned subjects are the following: - Possibility to make long term forecasts (i.e. for a period of about 10 years); - Forecasts reliability.
As it is well known, the input-output analysis is a tool of forecasts for inter-sectorial requirements, bused on the hypothesis of the independent development of the final demand. The demand is, therefore, influenced only by exterior elements connected with the change in tastes, in.the economical and techno logical progress, and by the specific targets at which the Government aims in an economic system more or less controlled . So, the matrix is, basically, a tool of economic planning. How could then input-output analysis be suitably applied to a problem of micro-economy such as the survey of the specific branch of plastics materials? Starting from an already aggregated and accepted scheme of Italian matrix, made for the year 1953, the "Chemical sector" can be divided into the various types of plastics materials; the chemical field is thus split up into two branches: the former including the whole of chemical products - plastics materials excluded - and the latter subdivided into the different productions of plastics materials. Since the branch concerning "Other manufacturing industries" is also interested in plastics materials, as a manufacturer of the same, an analogous division has also been made in this sector.