This paper discusses the research challenges faced by Egg, a leading Internet bank in the United Kingdom, and describes the innovative approach it has taken both in its use of research methodologies and in the technology of the Internet to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Considerable emphasis is placed on the high quality of service it provides and high-volume, continuous research on all aspects of its services is considered fundamental to its long-term success in both attracting and retaining customers. Egg has adopted a policy of joined up research by using continuous and overlapping sources of research data from multiple sources to create a complete picture rather than a series of isolated fragments of information. Frequent, short web-based quantitative surveys are complemented with standard qualitative and desk research activities to provide this integrated and holistic view. Along the way, Egg has had a number of methodological, technological and ethical issues to consider, and this paper will draw on the practical experiences of the authors to demonstrate how they can be managed and resolved satisfactorily.
The topic of this paper was given as The Value of Continuous Research. For any of you who may have doubts as to the value of continuous research, let me say that continuous research is the only type of research appropriate in brand development measurement. I could finish this talk within the next 60 seconds by suggesting to you that: "Since the marketplace is dynamic so should it's measuring device". Or, in other words, Manufacturer and Consumer Behaviour are continuous and as such its observation should be continuous. So, finished my paper and we can all go home! Not so. While Dynamics are a major justification for continuous research, the most important reason for continuity of brand measurement is that it gives us the ability to, finally, start building integrated marketing plans and to stop testing brand success or failure as a function of single determinants. All marketing and, therefore, market research revolved around the measuring of isolated variables with ever-increasing complexity in order to obtain the ultimate accuracy. Or so the analysts claimed. The more complex the technique, the more accurate the result. In this paper, I will attempt to show you that this is not necessarily so. I will further attempt to show that the assessment of a brand's performance cannot be restricted to measuring, however accurately, the performance of isolated variables. I will suggest to you that there are not absolute but only relative values. Marketshare on its own is no indication of brand success or failure. That a growing market share could mean a weaker brand and that a declining market share could mean a stronger brand. This might sound like heresy, particularly to those of you who represent marketing companies.
This paper illustrates the creation of a monitoring system for the insurance market in Italy, which in recent years is undergoing rapid development. This continuous research programme, called SIMTASS, has as objective the supply of a detailed picture of the local market. The implementation of the SIMTASS methodology is based on a typological analysis of the Italian communes which , as been created using the large amounts of information in existence at commune level on the structure of the population, the economic structure and income. On the basis of this typological analysis 21 clusters of communes have been identified, internally homogeneous as communes but different from one another as clusters.
This paper will make the case that the regular monitoring of tourism is the most relevant way of assessing changes in travel patterns. The paper will look in detail at two regular surveys, the British Travel Survey Monthly which is designed to measure total tourism in GB and the British Travel Survey Yearly which monitors the holiday market specifically. In addition the paper will also present a case study of a particular resort (Jersey) and show how the travel market in this Island has been measured over the past 20 years by use of regular market monitors.
The purpose of the paper is twofold: firstly to describe the problems involved in conducting research, and particularly continuous research, among a highly mobile minority group: and secondly to consider the techniques of continuous advertising tracking research, and how these can be successfully applied to monitor advertising effectiveness in the travel sector.
In consultation with the Magazine Division it was definitely decided in May of this year to start and implement a comprehensive continuous (readership) survey of the magazine market. For the time being this survey will be restricted to developments on the readers market, though some analyses, being deductions thereof, can also be used to support decision-making processes on the advertisement market.
It is probably relatively easy to assess the need for such information when it is only used in-house, but how does an organisation which provides a service to the public at large assess the value of the research it disseminates? This question arose when the English Tourist Board questioned the relevance of one of their studies 'The English Hotel Occupancy Survey'. This paper describes how the English Tourist Board critically assessed the value of this survey both to internal and external users. It describes how a postal survey was conducted with recipients outside the Board; and how the results of this investigation were used. Also, it describes how the validity of the research was examined and criticisms found to be groundless.
The paper describes practical experience with a method for monitoring advertising effectiveness (Werbemonitor). The principle of this method lies in the continuous collection of specific advertising effectiveness measures from consumers at frequent intervals and the relation of these measures to concurrent advertising expenditure in the various media. The measures used in consumer interviews concern two different criteria of advertising effectiveness: Awareness of the advertising campaign and attitudes/product expectations related to the brand. The paper is concerned with experience of the relationship between advertising awareness and expenditure. A variety of practical examples are given
The paper describes practical experience with a method for monitoring advertising effectiveness (Werbemonitor). The principle of this method lies in the continuous collection of specific advertising effectiveness measures from consumers at frequent intervals and the relation of these measures to concurrent advertising expenditure in the various media. The measures used in consumer interviews concern two different criteria of advertising effectiveness: Awareness of the advertising campaign and attitudes/product expectations related to the brand. The paper is concerned with experience of the relationship between advertising awareness and expenditure. A variety of practical examples are given.
The case we should like to show to you today demonstrates the usefulness of continual research in the industrial market and also the necessity of this kind of research. It shows the value of comparing the results of different industrial studies in the course of time and in the same market. Such a comparison in the time is only possible if the methods used in successive surveys are identical. If this is the case, interesting results may come forward and the company using market research in this way will derive a lot of benefit from it. In March 1964 we did a survey in the Dutch market of lamp standards about purchase and customers appreciation of these products. Two years later (June 1966) this survey was repeated. Sampling and interviewing methods were identical to the first study, and so was the main part of the questionnaire.
Advertising as a means of action on human behaviour is quite typical of our age; however, the assumptions we make, the theories we develop in that field, the research we are currently conducting to test the impact of advertising are still deeply affected by attitudes and concepts which have been bequeathed to us by the last century. This discrepancy, I believe, tends to decrease the effectiveness of advertising and to impede communications between the creative people and the research people. We are now working at COFREMCA on the realisation of periodic quantitative surveys which appear to us both as a valuable tool for readjusting advertising strategies and a progressive means of adapting more closely our approaches and our theories to the advertising realities. In the first part of this expose I shall recall in outline what makes the originality of our age in the field of affecting man's actions. In a second part I shall try to point out in what way our concepts relative to advertising action are still marked by those of the 19th century. Finally, I will evoke one type of quantitative periodic surveys which should facilitate a further development of these concepts.
The model is essentially a modified and completed, DAG-MAR inspired system containing various psychological measures , questions about actual behaviour, distribution and reading habits (media information). It distinguishes between the analysis of short term effects (i.e. measurement of the current campaign) and the long term effects. It is completed by an analysis of the communication content of the advertising. The model is non-linear. Sampling is done every four weeks and is random, but the model has also been applied to selected target groups.