This paper describes a sophisticated choice modelling technique for the manipulation of quantative data on customers' needs, expectations, perceptions and values. These feed directly into the development of competitive strategies. Key questions addressed by this model include "Where should the company invest to improve quality in order to best meet the needs of its customers?" and "How much should be invested to obtain the most profitable payback?" Key outputs from the model include benchmarks and standards, relative importance of service aspects, improvement priorities, needs and value segmentation, service and price sensitivity, and customer risk profiling. A combination of gap analysis, relative importance and improvement priorities is used to highlight the most critical customer service aspects. A scenario testing facility is described which can be used to identify the impact of improved quality initiatives on customer loyalty and increased brand preference.
This paper sets out to argue the case for undertaking basic, benchmark research into media and marketing issues in the countries of the former Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites. With the rapid pace of economic, political and social change in all these countries over the past few years, and the introduction of market economies, these represent a major potential marketplace which is largely unexplored in terms of basic, reliable and interpretable marketing-oriented research data. Importantly, the research which has and is being undertaken, often on a piecemeal basis, effectively imports Western European research methods and assumptions into an untested environment. This opens up the risks of misunderstanding conditions, and providing misleading information. Rather, a research-based understanding of these countries needs to built up from relatively basic principles and methods, carefully applied.
Since 1963 the U.S. Committee on Nationwide Television Audience Measurement (CONTAM) has engaged in methodological research. The purpose has been to understand and improve television audience measurement in order to increase the accuracy and reliability of ratings research. Specific projects have included benchmark studies of various types, monitoring of procedures, and analyses of audience data. Recently, in 1988 and 1989 CONTAM commissioned and completed an extensive and unparalleled review of people-meter operations. Beginning in 1991 CONTAM extended its commitment to research quality by initiating an elaborate three-year program of methodological research and development. This paper will include a status report on key components of this new project. The significance of the work and the findings will be discussed. In particular, the paper will focus on the requirements for new thinking and new approaches in - metering operations, - the determination of programs tuned and - persons measurement. CONTAM is composed of research professionals from ABC, CBS and NBC television networks and from the National Broadcasting Association of Broadcasters.
The number of M&A transactions involving German firms has risen sharply since the mid-1980s. An important influencing factor was the development of the internal market of the European Community. The demand for professional services in the area of M&A also grew in parallel. A professional M&A consulting market first developed in the United States. Through international deals, the professional consultants also found their way to Germany (and to other countries). The banks have various reasons for striving for commissions and intend, or are already doing so, to put together and/or beef up their own M&A teams, in order to fight their way to a market position in this field. in this situation, Infratest carried out an empirical basic study in the subject area of "Mergers and Acquisitions". This primarily involved determining the requirements and wishes of the customer and potential customers and investigating the banks' level of competence in problem-solving in comparison to their competitors. The following methodical aspects of the study will be addressed in this report. Training in and familiarization with the subject Decisions concerning the choice of the survey methods, universe, and the sample. The development of the questionnaire and Measures for the assurance of satisfactory response rate of the difficult target group (senior management). The results then showed that M&A consulting will continue to be an important topic in Germany and that the banks stand a relatively good chance of achieving success in this market. And the report closes with a few thoughts on modifications which could be made, should a new edition of the study appear.
The paper reports on a test of the model in a benchmark study done in the field of financial institutions. Respondents are categorized and grouped using the two key measures, and the predictions about them tested using a perceptual mapping technique based on correspondence analysis. The paper closes by examining some of the longer term implications for marketing if the assumptions underlying the model are correct. These are: firstly, that because entrenched commitment depends on the mobilization of core values, conversion and the building of customer loyalty also depends on the mobilization of core values; second, that because human beings are limited information processors, there are always gaps between the current choice and the underlying motivational dynamic which can be exploited to "slice-up" the market differently; and third, that given the diversity of human affections and given that affective inputs are more important than cognitive inputs in creating the beginnings of a switch, the development of "niche" products is inevitable in wealthy societies.