The authors of this paper consider that they encountered the challenge during the Seventies and that it is appropriate for them to recount their experience for the benefit of those of their fellows who have not been confronted with it as yet. Apart from this desire to share experience - and perhaps even more motivating still, they hope that the paper will arouse a feed-back of information and reaction. The ambitions of the paper are threefold: - To draw attention to the increasing relevancy of simulation models in a market environment that is undergoing radical change and to the usefulness of such models both for market researchers and for decision-makers generally; - To illustrate, by a case study, the manner in which these models can be constructed; - To demonstrate the fact that these models can make an effective contribution in actual practice.
The authors of this paper consider that they encountered the challenge during the Seventies and that it is appropriate for them to recount their experience for the benefit of those of their fellows who have not been confronted with it as yet. Apart from this desire to share experience - and perhaps even more motivating still, they hope that the paper will arouse a feed-back of information and reaction. The ambitions of the paper are threefold: - To draw attention to the increasing relevancy of simulation models in a market environment that is undergoing radical change and to the usefulness of such models both for market researchers and for decision-makers generally; - To illustrate, by a case study, the manner in which these models can be constructed; - To demonstrate the fact that these models can make an effective contribution in actual practice.
Many legislative decisions have been adopted regarding the dissemination of product information to consumers. However, there is very little evidence that consumers' purchase behaviour has been affected by these actions. This paper is an attempt to assess the causes of such a lack of efficiency and to propose solutions for a more effective approach. It is argued that policy-makers' decisions are strongly influenced by implicit hypothesis about consumer behaviour and. that these implicit models are always incomplete and often wrong.
This paper is an attempt to discuss the concept of validation when applied to marketing models. It is suggested that "validity" is a highly complex notion that the marketing scientists inherited from various other disciplines. Unfortunately, pre-existing conceptions about validity bear little relevance to the specificity of the marketing context, hence a new framework is proposed in order to take into account the requirements of this context when validating a marketing model. Various aspects of marketing models verification are reviewed and a taxonomy of approaches to validation operations is put forward. The second half of the paper is devoted to a practical example of a validation exercise dealing with a micro-model of the new product adoption process; special emphasis is given to the role of management in specifying and carrying out the validation task.
Our objective is to expose and evaluate a particular class of simulation models, on which we have been working for some years and with which we have arrived at operational applications. To keep within the conceptual framework we have drawn, we shall define this class of models by the criteria: - micro-analytic; - behavioural. The objective of these models being to forecast the effects of marketing strategies elaborated by the user, these models are predictive and not normative. Then we shall try to evaluate the specific contribution of the micro-analytic and behavioural models to the practice of marketing.
Our objective is to expose and evaluate a particular class of simulation models, on which we have been working for some years and with which we have arrived at operational applications. To keep within the conceptual framework we have drawn, we shall define this class of models by the criteria: - micro-analytic; - behavioural. The objective of these models being to forecast the effects of marketing strategies elaborated by the user, these models are predictive and not normative. Then we shall try to evaluate the specific contribution of the micro-analytic and behavioural models to the practice of marketing.