This paper looks at the use of communication, not only advertising, as a strategic resource for creating strong links with the various segments of telecommunications users. This need was isolated by Telecom Italia as a result of the very rapid developments in the domestic market and of the process of globalisation taking place in the European markets, which will lead to increasingly greater competitive pressure in the market. An international and interdisciplinary study group was accordingly set op which conducted research, both qualitative and quantitative, in the four European countries with the greatest level of investment in telecommunications: Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain. The studies highlight similarities and differences that make it possible to isolate the strategic lines for constructing a process of integrated communication, appropriate to the various areas of market considered - business and families.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of the proper management of Customer Satisfaction, in a sector, such as banking, that has seen enormous development in competition over the past few years. The paper will initially examine one or two elements that are characteristic of the Italian scenario and which highlight the effort sustained by the banks in countering the competition. We shall then move on to look at what orientation towards Customer Satisfaction entiais, before finally illustrating a means of successfully managing it, developed as a result of our experience gained in carrying out various surveys in this sector. This approach looks at the possibility of improving a bank's relationship with its customers, on the basis of the constraints and opportunities afforded by the internal structure of the bank and by the external competitive environment within which its outlets operate.
Over a two year period the authors have been involved in the development of a new commercial testing system, that brings together, for the first time, measures of on-air recall and persuasion. The system named AD-VISOR, became officially operational in September 1987, for use in all the major markets of western Europe. The paper illustrates the problems and opportunities of European testing. Practical experience of evaluating commercials across Europe is discussed with the aid of case histories.
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.
In this paper, the authors describe a method which has been tested over many years. It offers a means for testing the sales effect of price decisions before the new price has been released on the market. Thus marketing companies can evaluate pricing decisions without revealing their intent to the competition. To date most 'laboratory' test methods rely on respondents who are solely shown the brand as a concept, this paper stresses the importance of collecting product-in-use data related to different price levels. Often it is the in-use evaluation of the brand which yields the most reliable estimate of price elasticity.
This paper describes the use of awareness tracking data to monitor differences in commercial quality and increases in brand awareness in time. It describes the relationships between awareness variations due to advertising spending and the quality of commercials with in-market results. Case studies show how awareness growth can affect brand penetration so that faster awareness generation can produce faster penetration. This would lead to greater sales volume over a given time period.
The paper argues the case for extending the value of much market research data concerned with concept testing, concept/product use testing and usage and attitude tracking studies by employing modelling systems to predict sales volume or market shares. The points are made that: - such an approach can do much to improve the success rate of new product launches - the present state of the art of available systems is such that their forecasting abilities and versatility in dealing with different product and market scenarios is considerable. - since much of the data is available anyway, only relatively small amounts of time, effort and money are necessary to extend the value of market research to a substantial degree.
This paper shows that a standardised concept/in-home use test, if properly designed, executed and interpreted, can provide a very accurate data base for forecasting new product sales volume and its sales components. To reduce the risk of introducing a product failure into the marketplace, the application of an early and accurate New Product Sales Forecasting Model is essential for many major manufacturing companies in the U.S. and Western Europe. This paper describes, in detail, the test procedure and estimating process for a 'BASES II' test (a standardised concept/in-home use test) and presents some recent actual case validation results on Year One ; Trial Rate, Repeat Rate and Consumer Sales Volume Estimates. These are compared with Actual Test Market or National Launch Sales Volume Results. This recent data comes from France, Italy and the United States. Validation results from other European countries (United Kingdom, Germany and Holland) are also included.
The authors put forward a personal view of the development of social research in Italy since the end of World War II. They describe some of the difficulties inherent in commissioning and interpreting this type of research. Examples are given about the types of research being carried out in Italy, the actions taken (or not taken) on the basis of the results. Finally the authors suggest ways in which research in the political area may be improved in terms of credibility and effectiveness.
This paper sets out to show how a technique which was originally developed simply as a means of eliminating the fundamentally unacceptable product before it incurred substantial losses in test market, has shown itself to be capable of much more. The emphasis of the paper is on a series of case histories which illustrate the ability of micro-market testing to provide the basis of accurate volume estimates, to differentiate between price levels and to provide a speed of response and a degree of flexibility which would be beyond conventional test marketing. A second purpose of the paper is to demonstrate how a research technique which was originally developed for operation in the UK has been successfully transposed into a number of other national environments.