The main purpose of this paper is to describe how specific research methods were used to support the decision making regarding the very recent introduction of new cooking equipment on the Dutch market. Specific characteristics of this market necessitate a producer to only carry a small assortment.
This paper introduces - necessarily briefly - OPAS, a system to optimise products and assortments. Basically, two parts can be distinguished. The first part consists of all models related to data collection and conjoint measurement, resulting in an array of values (called utilities) for each attribute level. Starting with traditional conjoint measurement, problems for applications are summarised. For a significant part of these, solutions have been formulated and the implications for the models are shortly indicated. Thus, it is possible to include a large number of attributes and to apply this system to taste-testing. The second part contains models for prediction (including a set of probabilistic choice models) and the routines for optimisation. Since the latter can include constraints (e.g. costs, number of products) a large amount of practically relevant questions can be answered. This is illustrated by a sample of the situations where OPAS has been successfully applied, which is followed by a concluding section on limitations and future extensions.
Market segmentation is one of these concepts that can also be applied to industrial buying behaviour. In this connection one basically has a choice between either using a priori defined segments or finding the biases of consumer segmentation in a set of response related variables through clustering of respondents. This paper shows the use of conjoint measurement for segmenting an industrial market. The potential is illustrated with a description of research carried out for office furniture.
The degree of information contained in advertisements currently is a hot issue. Some consider it part of the social responsibility of marketing people not to publish only 'empty' advertisements, others have stated that more informative advertisements are preferred by the consumers. The research described in this paper was undertaken to determine the role of information in the perception and preference of advertisements.