A chapter such as this can only scratch the surface in terms of informing the reader what techniques are available, what they do, how they do it, and what are the pitfalls, so it must be seen as purely introductory. Nevertheless, it attempts to introduce the subject in as undemanding a way as possible, using verbal rather than mathematical descriptions of the techniques wherever possible. Complex mathematical descriptions are, we hope, kept to a minimum. Multivariate analysis is broadly concerned with the relationships between a set of variables. How similar are they? Are they correlated? Can they be summarised effectively? Are they predictive of outcomes in any sense? Are there groups of respondents with similar behavioural or attitudinal patterns as measured by these variables? Multivariate techniques attempt to answer questions such as these.
This paper outlines the conventional techniques of testing preferences; it suggests that, quite apart from technical discussions about the advantages of one or other preference testing method, when more than one preference dimension is brought into regard, the results of well-proved methods take on a radically different aspect. The problem dealt with is how the preferences for different informants, who may be different types of informant, for different products or services, under possibly different conditions or assumptions on the part of informants, can be represented. At first a conventional representation of a possible preference test is shown, and then a principal component analysis of the same data is mapped in an original way that is described in detail. The results are dramatically different from the more conventional representations of preference test findings the product with the most consistent and relatively high score is when one takes all the preferences for all the products into account simultaneously - the worst possible bet for the market.
In its eleven years of existence the Israel Institute of Applied Social Research (Jerusalem) has made only one study entirely devoted to measuring the impact of communication. It was a blitz-survey on the radio-listening by the Israel population to the international Bible Quiz last year.
Comment on Mr. Ehrenberg's paper: "Factor analysis in market research".