This paper discusses some factors involved in a communication gap between clients and creatives in the development of advertising. It is almost a truism to say that communicating even within the communication industry is more complex these days. One factor in the gap between the client and the creator of advertisements is inadequate briefing. We shall argue that it is the researcher's responsibility to provide a meaningful frame of reference, provide only enough detail to support his points, and to establish his credibility as a researcher.
In this paper I will attempt to do two things. First, I will tell you a little bit about strategic planning and how we have approached this extremely difficult subject. Second, I will attempt to position Marketing Research within the context of the strategic planning process and the consequences this has for enhancing the importance and thus the status of the research process.
The role of marketing research within larger companies varies widely. The aim of this paper is to evoke a discussion on ways to improve the status of the company researcher in the decision making process. The paper describes the place of marketing research in the organisational structure and gives critical description of its functioning within that organisation schedule in four large companies, without the claim of presenting optimal solutions. The paper was written on the basis of an exchange of experience among marketing researchers of a number of prominent German companies (or subsidiaries of international companies), large public services and advertising agencies.
The mnemonic BASIS stands for Bottlers Accounting and Sales Information System. It is a computer software package designed and supported by The COCA-COLA Company and its purpose is to enable franchised bottlers of Coca-Cola to economically use computers to improve their businesses. By using BASIS instead of developing their own software, these bottlers can save up to 33% of their data processing costs.
Today, we want to share with you some new and exciting advertising research that The Coca-Cola Export Corporation, and Seymour Smith Associates have conducted in the past year. It is new in the sense that it marks the first adaptation of the T-Meter technique to the advertising research needs of the brand Coca-Cola. And, despite the fact that the T-Meter technique has been in use since 1960, this marks the first time this technique has been extended into behavioural data. We have been successful in designing a series of international studies that demonstrate advertising is responsible for sales that would not occur otherwise.
This paper is not intended to be a technical contribution, although we will comment on some techniques and methods that we use. Rather, our purpose today is to focus upon the development, implementation and administration of a global multi-country programme that we think is rather unique in the marketing research field. One of the cornerstones of our marketing planning throughout the world is a general consumer survey that we call a Soft Drink Barometer. The Barometer is a continuing programme of consumer research designed for application in any one of the 130 or more countries served by The Coca-Cola Export Corporation. The major function of this programme is to provide a picture of the status, direction, and extent of change in a range of important marketing variables over the years between countries and on an individual trading area basis within countries.