This study created and implemented a new method for locating and profiling innovative consumers. The innovators were identified as such by virtue of ownership of products warranted or given status as innovations by the consumer sample researched. This study is in direct contrast to those conducted in the last forty or more years which have defined innovative behavior in terms of researcher delineated characteristics of either products or consumers which when present are then said to indicate innovation.
The paper begins, by discussing the problems that can arise in the design of samples for multi-purpose industrial and consumer surveys. A model of the data collection in such surveys is given in the format of a data hierarchy. This discussion is then applied to a specific panel survey, dealing with fertiliser usage and purchase in G.B. The paper examines the classes of 'minority' variables measured and how the estimation of these was affected by a change in sample design from quota to random. An account is given of how a map-based sample frame for agricultural holdings was created and the development of the stratification, with the aid of prior data. The disproportionate sampling by strata, as well as actual holding selection and projection method is described.
This paper reviews the sampling and fieldwork techniques of five Businessman Readership Surveys conducted in the UK during 1973-1980. It's objective is to present in outline, and discuss, the sampling approaches designed for surveying a "large" minority audience within the total population.
Finding samples representing segments of the general population when the rate of strike (percentage of the segment in total population) is inferior to 20%, is becoming a common performance asked from the practitioner by client marketing companies. This is at least the experience of SECED - Research International in France. The survey of practice within this agency indicates clearly that not only targeted samples of the population, but very narrow target samples form an increasing part of the commissioned work of this agency. Special techniques, not resorting to the well established statistical sampling techniques, are currently used to cope with this problem. They are presented in decreasing order of statistical orthodoxy, from the "telephone screening" to the "introduction technique", through use of data-files and statistical inference, with remarks on their cost efficiency. None of these techniques is actually original, and the paper is mainly intended to initiate discussion and sharing of experience on the practical ways and means of finding these "oiseaux rares".
This paper is an introduction to the philosophy of supply control systems to optimise newspaper and magazine sales. The construction of the system was started in 1972 as a cooperation between the management of sales and distribution and the management consulting firm: Peter Matthiesen a-s, Copenhagen. The first version of the system was implemented to all points of sales outside the Copenhagen area in October 1974 and in October 1976 to the points of sale in Copenhagen. The system has continuously been extended and improved due to new experiences and technological changes. Implementation of the system led to considerable reduction in the costs of unsold copies.
There is no doubt that the quality or rather the reliability with which findings of any type of market research can be translated into practical use, is heavily dependent on the final sample that has been obtained. The sample directly deriving from the applied sampling technique -and its control-; a technique which is directed by two elementary factors: 1. the complexity of the population from which the sample has to be drawn; 2. the problem analysis on hand. Other factors such as budget available may be of influence on the scope of the study, priorities that must be set and the like but have no fundamental impact on the sampling methods as such.
The problem I am going to present you regards a study which has contributed to solve a major problem of the client, a car manufacturer, and which has engaged our institute in a new area of technical development, quite unusual as compared with the normal fields of operation for a market research company. I shall try here to point out the main problems we had to face, without, of course, entering into much details, due to the complexity also of some mathematical aspects involved. The unusual problem which the client submitted us some three years ago was the following. We were asked: 1. To find a way for measuring, on a continuous basis, the "reliability", of each mechanical or electrical component of a selected list of car models in 4 European countries.
This paper discusses a problem that is frequently encountered in consumer market research. It is the requirement to obtain 'usable' samples of small minority market sectors where cost and time constraints exist. The author has not found the answer to this problem and certainly does not claim that the approach he illustrates by way of a case history constitutes the answer.
The area bordering the Ticino river, in Italy, has been recognized as a zone of particular naturalistic interest and, as such, placed under the protection of a special official body. Some years after the institution of the Park, the "Consorzio Parco Lombardo della Valle del Ticino" arranged for a survey, carried out by Demoskopea, to evaluate quantitatively the present level of utilisation of the Park, to ascertain the opinions of people frequenting the banks of the Ticino river, and to provide information useful for the determination of further measures, such as the construction of infrastructures.