The Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS) can be used to explain and forecast changes in the aggregate course of the economy. Its explanatory as well as its predictive power appears to be relatively low. Partly this might be caused by some methodological problems inhearent to the way in which the questions (upon which the ICS is based) are asked and in which the ICS is computed. Some of these issues already occurred in the literature to a certain extent. In this paper some new evidence is presented to underline the methodological weakness of the index. This is done by means of time series analysis of the Dutch ICS in the period 1974-1983, as well as by means of analysis of one cross section referring to a questionnaire we did ourselves in the spring of 1984. There appear to be for instance serious problems with respect to the interdependences between the answers on the questions and over time, the unidimensionality of the scales, the homogeneity of the answers given. Moreover the ICS differs among various subgroups of the population and especially among different subgroups facing different developments in for instance income.
In this paper, a classification method (the index method) is proposed which aims to discriminate between members of two groups (e.g. buyers and non-buyers). The index method is compared with two-group discriminant analysis which is a standard and common technique of exploratory data analysis for selecting relevant variables and specifying the relationships between variables. It is shown how the index methods accounts for the problems met in applying two-group discriminant analysis.
Now is a common practice to measure the degree of availability of a brand at the point of sale, scarcely anyone has given thought to investigating how this availability comes about and what factor influence it. In this case, the order form is not just an insignificant orde document but a written record of the range of goods carried. The order form is therefore a trade marketing instrument. These basic thoughts, coupled with specific analyses of the sector, led to the conception of the "NIELSEN ORDER FORM INDEX". The article gives a summary of the study methods and the significance of the order forms in the German food trade, and uses a case study to present the results and a few interpretation possibilities. The article also includes a summary of the results for 95 items and a commentary. This section discusses indicative findings concerning the effects of order form listings for the various organisational forms of the German food trade. It supplies the manufacturer new data of a logistic nature and information on the assortment policy of the trading organisations, thus lightening the darkness over part of the way along which goods travel to the consumer.
Now is a common practice to measure the degree of availability of a brand at the point of sale, scarcely anyone has given thought to investigating how this availability comes about and what factor influence it. In this case, the order form is not just an insignificant orde document but a written record of the range of goods carried. The order form is therefore a trade marketing instrument. These basic thoughts, coupled with specific analyses of the sector, led to the conception of the "NIELSEN ORDER FORM INDEX". The article gives a summary of the study methods and the significance of the order forms in the German food trade, and uses a case study to present the results and a few interpretation possibilities. The article also includes a summary of the results for 95 items and a commentary. This section discusses indicative findings concerning the effects of order form listings for the various organisational forms of the German food trade. It supplies the manufacturer new data of a logistic nature and information on the assortment policy of the trading organisations, thus lightening the darkness over part of the way along which goods travel to the consumer.
In this highly competitive situation the "IHA Retail Trade Index" provides every retailer with information about: - the size of the various markets; - their and their competitors' share of the market; - the importance of various product groups within the product field investigated; - the purchasing behaviour of their customers (number of buying acts, quantity bought and amount spent per buying act). The purpose of this report however cannot be to describe these and other special analyses in detail but to have provided you with a short survey of the Swiss retail trade situation as observed by a neutral market research institute.
The concern with Quality of Life and the large numbers of social indicators that are being identified as relevant to quality of life, raises political and ethical questions in respect of choices that must be made from among them. The necessity to choose may be superseded by the judicious use of indices which combine large numbers of indicators. The paper briefly describes a general theory of index construction and a method for the same which maintains the integrity of the theory. A theory of anomie is then outlined and the theory and method of index construction are illustrated with the construction of an index of anomie.
We have chosen to illustrate the theme "Prom market research to media plan" with three actual application which are amongst the most interesting of their kind, of the computer to the marketing process at the "plan" level. The diagram shows the general outlines of the method which was chosen. Two independent sources of information are available : -an index of reading and television viewing habits; -an index of habits concerning the product, obtained through a special survey. The problem consists in defining the target-group for the given product, first in terms of attitudes, then in terms of socio-demographic criteria, and to define the best media plan for the group in question.
We have chosen to illustrate the theme "Prom market research to media plan" with three actual application which are amongst the most interesting of their kind, of the computer to the marketing process at the "plan" level. The diagram shows the general outlines of the method which was chosen. Two independent sources of information are available : -an index of reading and television viewing habits; -an index of habits concerning the product, obtained through a special survey. The problem consists in defining the target-group for the given product, first in terms of attitudes, then in terms of socio-demographic criteria, and to define the best media plan for the group in question.
In 1970, we, at IFOP/ETMAR, worked on perfecting the computation of indexes from opinion surveys. By experience, we knew how important psychological phenomena reveal to explain the evolution of economic realities such as the successful launching of a new product or the general economic situation. The indexes are built up with a method using factor and multiple regress analyses, which made it possible to select a limited number of questions as the synthetical index computation basis. The fluctuations of these indexes as time passes are a valuable source of information to better understand present time as well as the future. They make it possible to anticipate on the actual facts and take appropriate action at the right time. In the following paper, IFOP/ETMAR describes its main indexes and explains their purpose.
In 1970, we, at IFOP/ETMAR, worked on perfecting the computation of indexes from opinion surveys. By experience, we knew how important psychological phenomena reveal to explain the evolution of economic realities such as the successful launching of a new product or the general economic situation. The indexes are built up with a method using factor and multiple regress analyses, which made it possible to select a limited number of questions as the synthetical index computation basis. The fluctuations of these indexes as time passes are a valuable source of information to better understand present time as well as the future. They make it possible to anticipate on the actual facts and take appropriate action at the right time. In the following paper, IFOP/ETMAR describes its main indexes and explains their purpose.
For some years - and in many countries - an attempt has been made to become acquainted with the financial aspirations of individuals and to measure their psychological needs. In order to do this, the same question is regularly asked of samples of the population and the responses, which become meaningful through a comparison of the results of repeated surveys, are studied. But the answers thus obtained are difficult to analyse. Actually, a diversity of factors determine them and it is a tricky job to isolate their respective effects. Also, the availability of such a long series of statistical data such as those which IPOP has is bound to provide a great deal of information to those studying problems of this kind.