This paper shows how the findings were used to change the specifications for the buildings, incorporating into the design additional features found to be important to the potential users, to plan for the provision of additional facilities important to respondents, and to help shape the promotional material, the new brochure, and the video. Both the sales brochure and the video highlighted the research findings and stressed how the research had been used to fine-tune the planning of the whole project. Finally, the research findings were presented to potential buyers and letting agents at a series of breakfast meetings.
Traditionally, attitude research has been done by surveys rather than experiments. In part, this is a function of management regarding experiments as risky; they want certainty. This is unfortunate because experiments permit direct observation of cause and effect relationships, while surveys only permit correlations. Our definition of brand equity is the incremental price that a customer will pay for a brand versus a comparable product without the brand name on it. The mechanics of measurement involve randomly dividing customers into different cells and then exposing them to the test brand in the context of one or more competitors. The price of the test brand is manipulated from cell to cell in such a way that the consumer has no knowledge what the test brand is nor that price is a variable. While the basic design is elegantly simple, well thought through decisions are required regarding customers, competition, price levels, frequency of measurement, sample size, and units of measurement. In selecting customers it is critical to select those who are responsible for generating the greatest profits for the brand. In selecting competitors, one has to consider not just those within the category, but, often, those outside the category. In selecting price levels, the further apart the price points, the easier it is to discriminate. However, too large an increase may shift the brand into a different category. In determining the frequency of measurement, it is necessary to consider the dynamics of the category and how long it takes for management to respond to a problem, i.e., the deterioration of brand equity. Similarly, sample size should be partially determined by how quickly a response can be developed if a problem is identified. While typically the units of measurement will be dollars, for some categories time and distance may be appropriate surrogates. The output of brand equity research based on experimental design can help in making pricing decisions, assessing the effectiveness of a promotional campaign and of an advertising campaign, and in determining if a brand is strong enough to support line extensions.
The general trend towards decentralizing data processing is further emphasized by the specific requirements and structures of information existing in the various departments of a large company. What Steirerbrau needed most, besides technical parameters, was an information system offering standardized and yet flexible evaluations, possibilities for carrying out analyses in an interactive process and visualization of aggregated results for presentation purposes as well as simple operation. After having tested various systems the choice eventually was a system that proved its practicability when used with external data: the INF* ACT Workstation. In the sales area the simultaneous availability of internal and external data opens up interesting opportunities for analytical work. The situation in the area of production proved particularly complex: a myriad of most diverse parameters, data from various pre systems and lists, partly manual evaluations. In spite of technical difficulties, however, an integrated information system was created in this field also.
The following paper is a live transcript of the panel discussion which concluded the New Products session. Although the discussion touches on some important areas of theory, the main emphasis is on the practical issues faced by designers, marketers and market researchers. It tackles, head on, some of the raw issues affecting the development of new car designs and this should make it especially valuable to everyone involved in this process.
The subjects we discuss in this seminar influence major marketing decisions - but are still controversial. Simple, practical assumptions or theories govern most of our decisions in designing, testing and evaluating our marketing activities. But these assumptions are themselves rarely tested and their limitations are almost never spelled out. Our purpose in this seminar is to record where the research industry stands on these issues today. We should start from some common ground. For example, that the effects of marketing activities vary considerably, by execution, across product categories and across brands in these categories. That sales matter more than diagnostics like awareness. That share of category sales is an important objective, but there can be other effects of our activities than on volume share and in the short term. Better, more realistic theories will help us when we assess, after the event, what benefit we got from our marketing investment. We also need theories in order to plan these activities properly, to pre-test them, and to budget for them. The full range of research methods is available to investigate these subjects, from small-scale qualitative work to major numerical analyses. Any solid contribution is welcome. However, we are tackling here what may be the hardest, as well as the most important, of all market research problems.
This work has proved very successful as it has provided retailers with a technique for assessing the functionality of their stores as selling machines. The technique has two main areas of application. Merchandising performance can be effectively assessed especially when the customer information is linked to EPoS data. Analysis of sales to traffic can identify merchandising successes and failures. The video technique can be used to assess display techniques and packaging response and yield better results than a pure analysis of sales. All the display area work can be used for Direct Product Profitability analysis by adding to the subjective areas of the technique such as space rating. The second area of application is that of store monitoring and planning. The models can highlight the difficulties that people encounter when trying to shop a store such as aisle widths, queues and staffing levels. It is now possible to empirically analyse the functionality of store design principles. For example go-track aisles are designed to allow store penetration and separate browsing and movement. However many such tracks prevent merchandise penetration via psychological barriers. The most exiting aspect of this work is the possibility of store planning scenarios. The modelling units above allow the examination of the relationships between the fundamental units of the store and how people move between them. Such data should allow the determination of optimum layouts for new stores given certain physical parameters and managerial objectives. This technique provides retailers with the chance to in- crease the service element of his offer and the efficiency of the selling unit. The competitive advantage offered by this technique can be high as the shopper will be better served by the space around him.
In talking here about pre-testing we are not concerned with decisions about budget setting or about the choice of media, or about the various aspects of campaign scheduling. We are dealing exclusively with content, the design of the advertisements as such. The content of advertising is on the whole an under-investigated area. It has over the years generated considerable debate and argument and seen the promotion of many alternative testing systems; but in recent times it has produced relatively little comparative research and objective analysis, still less attempts to validate our methods.
Up to now magazine covers have only been used to attract attention and to protect the inside of a magazine. With the help of a new technical complete manufacturing system - the DOOR-SYSTEM - it will be possible to employ the cover economically as a sales promotion instrument for the advertising business. The magazine will become a personalised direct advertising medium and will be able to ensure additional income for the publishing house. A case study demonstrates the proceedings.
Advertisers and agencies pay considerable attention to the quality of colour reproduction in print advertisements.This paper is concerned with the extent and manner in which inevitable variations in reproduction between different magazines, caused by the use of different printing techniques and qualities of paper, affect the performance of the advertisements within those magazines. This paper describes one test designed to explore the extent to which colour variations are likely to actually affect the impact of the advertising. One test cannot lead to a conclusion, but the results suggest that readers see advertisements in the context of the magazine they are reading, the communication achieved by an advertisement being more influenced by their liking for the magazine than by variations in colour quality.
In this paper we consider, optimal allocation of shelf space over article groups by a mass retailer. To this end the general structure of a number of mathematical marketing models is developed. These "risk-evaluation" models allocate shelf space over article groups and account for the risk which is inherent in the choice of article groups. The models are based on models which are used in financial management to analyse and select portfolios. A couple of these models are tested and some future directions of research in this area are indicated.
What are the real problems of business today ? What ought to be almost the sole preoccupations of management are marketing and innovation. By definition this means getting closer and closer to one's markets, understanding their structure and their needs. I do not see how one can do this without market research. You simply cannot hope to maximise the skills or resources of a company today without good, continuing market research. I will put it more strongly and say that market research is an essential prerequisite of commercial survival in our modem world.