China, with its 1.2 billion people, presents itself as one of the most promising future markets for most multinational companies. China also has a proud and continuous history of more than five thousand years with one written language. However, China, through its historical and political development, was often isolated regionally. It is a very diverse country with more than three hundred local dialects. These regional differences translate into differences in consumer attitude and purchasing behavior between product categories and brands. Complicating the regional picture are the various degrees of market and income development by region. Eastern and South Eastern coastal areas are developing faster due to earlier and larger investments by overseas Chinese. Since most of the overseas Chinese originally come from Guangdong and Fukien, these two South Eastern provinces have received the lions share of their investments. The result is that income disparity among regions in China is widening.
Based on our experiences in conducting consumer surveys for the same product or product category from all over the world, we have accumulated a vast data base (over 8000 new products or line extensions) on survey responses using the same procedure and same questionnaire. It is our intention in this paper to share this experience with our Japanese and European colleagues regarding the differences in consumer responses from Asia, Europe and the U.S. Purchase intentions from Japan, Taiwan, China, the U.S. and five European countries (Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom) will be presented. According to actual in-market validations, proper interpretations of survey responses for decision-making will be discussed
Forecasting new Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sales potential prior to test market has been available, and quite successful for twenty -20 years. During the past eight years, much effort has been devoted to duplicating the forecasting success into non-FMCG areas such as financial services, subscription-type products or services, durable goods and other service areas. The authors have been requested by these non-FMCG marketers during this period to investigate the applicability of a modified standard concept and concept/product test procedure to calibrate the forecasting models. In this paper, we share these experiences with the European colleagues some case histories on testing procedure and Year 1 sales forecasting for these types of new services and products. Since each type of service or product is so different from one another, the test procedure needs to be modified to fit each case. However, the general principle, procedure and questionnaire sequence remain virtually the same.
The U.S. test marketing scene has been going through revolutionary changes since 1980 with the advent of electronic technology with high powered minicomputers. It is now possible to collect supermarket laser scanner sales data, TV viewing patterns, packaged good purchase histories and household demographics into a single (household) source database. These data enables us for the first time to realistically evaluate the cause-and-effect relationship of many marketing variables such as advertising weight and scheduling, promotional synergy, commercial copy quality and their relationship to sales. There are three major suppliers of these test marketing services in the U.S. These are Information Resources, Inc., SAMI/Burke Inc. and A.C. Neilsen. The second part of this paper presents a new test marketing technology provided by SAMI/Burkes Test Marketing Group for capturing all panelist purchases through a supplementary data wand. In SAMI/Burkes ViewScan markets, panelists use the data wand at home to supplement purchase records gathered in scanner grocery stores by means of a scan wand. Data obtained through this combined method are presented and comparison made with respect to store scanner only data to show the significant improvement on data quality and coverage, especially in health and beauty aids and over-the-counter drug categories.
This paper summaries the authors' experience in estimating the sales impact of product quality improvements, made to new products. The paper describes the manner in which a particular forecasting technique takes account of product evaluation in its estimation process, and clarifies the specific components of sales affected by product quality. Case history material is shown to demonstrate the sales impact of product improvement. Four specific points are highlighted. First, the importance of high product quality in launching new brands. Second, the impact on sales that variance in product quality can have. Third, that the sales impact generated by product improvements can be estimated pre-launch. Fourth, that pre-test market systems can, and should, be used as diagnostic tools to evaluate product change.
In this paper, the authors describe a method that has been tested for many years. It offers a means for testing and evaluating the sales effect of price decisions based on consumer survey data at various price levels before the product's new price has been released to the market. Thus marketing companies can evaluate pricing decisions without revealing their intent to the competition. We have been able to test, as part of the BASES system product concepts and/or products with various price levels by using the unique calibration data base to evaluate the price impact on potential trial and repeat purchase. Manufacturers have the opportunity to estimate price elasticity at trial, as well as obtain estimates of repeat purchase and sales volume before product prices change in the market place.
In this paper, several case examples, including several new self-diagnosed test products are presented. Detailed description of the pre-test market procedure, including the use of either printed concept material or TV commercial with product trial use experience at home is given. In addition, estimating procedure of sales volume and other sales components, such as penetration, purchase units and sizes, repurchase rate and repurchase cycle if applicable, is included. Summary of validation record (comparison of forecast vs. actual in-market sales) will be included.
Over the past 15 years, the author has monitored the success or failure of more than 2000 new products from three different professional perspectives: academic, manufacturing and new product research consultation. This experience has convinced me that most of these failures could have been avoided by a clearer awareness of the reasons behind them. The causes of new product failure fall into two broad categories, which 1 will call tangible and intangible. Tangible reasons are those that a non- marketer of the new product, e.g., outside marketing professionals or even consumers, can detect. They include such readily perceptible factors as poor product quality and competitive reaction. Intangible reasons are the subtler problems resulting from counterproductive corporate situations and attitudes toward new product development. The former type of factor is often the result of the latter.
Estimating sales volume potential for new innovative products is generally quite difficult. Traditional comparative measurement methods of presenting to potential consumers some competitive products along with the new unique product is obviously not appropriate. This means that share measurement for new innovative products is either inadequate or often impossible since one cannot answer the "share of what?" question properly. Even for products not totally innovative but which have the potential of expanding the category volume significantly, the usefulness of a share method is still questionable. Thus, prior to test market, the only reasonable way to evaluate a new innovation is to test it monadically with all potential consumers and obtain their purchase interest. In the following sections, a description of the test methodology and explanation of the estimating procedure to gauge sales volume potential of new innovative products with case examples will be presented.
This paper will summarize the reasons for these new product failures, concluding with specific recommendations based upon fifteen years' experience in researching and monitoring the progress of over 2000 new packaged goods launched in both the U.S. and Europe.
This paper describes a new technology that will potentially improve specificity in targeting advertising. After a long period of little industry attention, the effective targeting of advertising has recently been given greater priority by the research industry in the U.S.A. This renewed interest is due in part to the assumption that the use of single source data (TV viewing data, purchase data, etc., obtained from a single household over time) allows the advertiser to define media target markets directly by brand/category usage instead of demographics.