This paper aims to inform marketers and researchers interested in Mexico's market about how the Mexican Association of Research and Public Opinion Agencies (AMAI) has dealt with the problem of defining a common ground where all parties involved (research, advertising and media agencies, along with advertisers) talk the same language in terms of socio-economic levels. Additionally the paper aims to make a brief comparison among the SEL classifying systems used in the three main economies of the Latin American world in order to provide a first approach to what could in the near future become a simple rule of 'comparability' among the three systems. This idea does not mean, at this moment, to create a unique classifying system for the three countries. On the contrary its aim is to look for ways in which the outcomes of the already developed statistical models for classifying households could be more comparable. Nevertheless, in the future a common system should be jointly created by the professional research associations involved.
The computer age has dramatically changed the way we communicate, exchange information, and conduct commerce. Much the same way the telephone connected people around the world, the computer and the Internet will wire the world. However, computer ownership and Internet access have widened the divide between haves and have-nots. This well-researched divide does not solely exist based on socioeconomic determinants, but also on generational and cultural factors. Utilizing Cultural Access Group's Language Segmentation scheme, this paper addresses the issues described above and provides profiles of different Hispanic market segments, not only in terms of wired versus non-wired Hispanic households, but also acculturation, socio-demographics, and technology usage. Findings will help marketers and advertisers as well as social researchers better understand and access the growing U.S. Hispanic market segment.
ESOMAR has sought ways to help standardise some of the procedures used in market research surveys. This does not in any way imply that we are seeking to treat Europe or any other part of the world as single homogeneous markets. On the contrary, our aim is to look for ways in which the tools we use in research can be made more comparable from one country to another so that the true diversity of the marketplace can be more readily identified. This chapter reports work carried out over a number of years. It represents an attempt to develop a common system for assessing the social and economic standing of the populations in the various countries of Europe. The system is designed for Europe, but we believe that it may also have applications in other parts of the world, either as it stands or in a modified form.
Since the earliest days of marketing and social research, attempts have been made to group populations and survey respondents into classes: groupings which discriminate between people in ways which are considered likely to be relevant to the research objectives. We all know from our own experience that people from different social groups differ not only in what they can afford but in their preferences and habits. Such information has always been used to set quotas for samples and in the analysis of survey results; frequently the classification variables are proxies for what the researcher is really interested in but is unable to measure directly, such as their tastes and attitudes towards the product in question. Classification variables such as sex and age are straightforward to obtain. In this chapter we look at one of the oldest, but still most vexed and problematic, classifications: social class or socio-economic grading.
Brazil may well be the country with the largest experience of using a uniform socio-economic classification system in the world. It adopted one such system in 1970, as a result of the recommendation proposed by a panel nominated by the National Association of Advertisers (ABA). It has been revised and updated five times since then. The history of the Brazilian experience does not matter as much as the lessons we derive from it, which may be relevant for the future. We summarise here what we think those lessons are, and also explain how a common, uniform criterion was or can be achieved. We also mention the difficulties found in twenty-seven years of experience, from the purely technical to the fieldwork limitations that have an impact on the results of any classification system.
As a result of the combination of the "Culture of the Jars" and the mechanism of transferring of state funds to the private sector there were: - impossible food prices, but the people feed themselves - solvent demand in goods for long-term use - political and social passiveness of the population - extraordinary tranquillity That is also the reason why in the eyes of many foreigners, Bulgaria looks like the "Sleepyhead of the Balkans", like an incredible country. The sacrifice and the self-sacrifice of a whole generation (the older people) is one of the major reason for this. And so 0 the economic reforms are not coming, there is no large-scale privatisation, the employment rate skyrockets, the state enterprises stop operation one after the other, the buying power of the salaries decreases in times and there is no reaction to all that. For example, You would like to buy a losing enterprise or not functioning at all. As the enterprise is state, You address Your offer to the relevant state department. You make a very good mutual advantageous offer. Nobody else wants to buy this enterprise. It doesn't mean, however, that You are going to accomplish a deal. In most of the cases an enterprise of that kind is part of someone's scheme of transferring budget funds to his private firm. The person (or persons) empowered politically to hold themselves in this situation have enough power to send your offer in the dust- bin. In short Your "mutual advantageous" offer is not properly addressed to those who really own the enterprise and make profit out of it.
A lot has already been said here about changes. Changes in the economy, in aspirations and social values, changes in attitudes, changes in consumer behaviour, changes in producers behaviour. Retail and wholesale trade belonged to the areas where the radical developments of the early 90s changed the situation dramatically. The Czech Republic can be given as an example. In the past, the patterns of Czech retailing corresponded with the state of the whole economy - low amounts of selling space, inconvenient retail structures and the consumer in an inferior role. After the fall of the communist regime a principal economic transition started. Privatisation has entirely changed the ownership structure and both the retail and wholesale network have become enormously fragmented. Now a re- concentration process has been started. These developments go hand in hand with changes in the quality of retail supply and are supported by a large influx of international chains.
In our paper we focus on the economic situation of Polish families observed in the consecutive waves of the household budget data collected by the Central Statistical Office within the period of 1987 - 1993. The available data put various limits on our investigation. It is a common sense that in all turbulent economic systems a substantial part of GNP (estimated sometimes up to 20 or 30 %) exists beyond the scope of the official statistics. Incomes were under reported on a significant scale under the old economic regime but distributional effects of the under-reporting have probably changed. Another deficit of the Polish household budget surveys is a limited coverage of the total population. Up to 1993 Polish households were stratified by the sampling procedure in four socio-economic group: workers (employees), farmers, mixed households (households receiving incomes from farm and employment) and pensioners. In the consequence, households with heads being a self-employed person in the private non-agricultural sector (and few other categories of minor importance) were excluded from the surveys. The excluded groups add up to approximately 12 % of population in the end of 80's. The re-weighting procedure we use in our investigations cannot set off a total bias caused by the incorrect sample procedure.
The Gulf War had a profound impact on Saudi Arabia's political climate as well as its economic and market structures. Macro-economic dislocations have included sizeable budget deficits and dwindling financial reserves, not only due to the direct costs incurred during the war but due to substantially increased military spending since the war. Other developments have included a change in the composition of the expatriate workforce due to the government work permit policies, which had a particularly marked impact on the retail trade. Economic recovery has been unexpectedly buoyant, largely driven by private sector confidence. As a result, prospects for marketers look as promising as ever as attested by strong consumer as well as institutional demand for products and services. The paper will discuss demographic, macro-economic as well as market related changes since the Gulf War and will draw on the results of research carried out by MEMRB on: the changing structure of the retail trade and prevailing retailer attitudes' consumer beliefs and attitudes towards key socio-economic issues Through this period of rapid change market research has played a vital role in assisting companies come to grips with the changing political, social as well as economic landscape, providing vital input for the formulation of business strategy.
The present paper deals with the experiences and perceptions of consumers in Hungary, the former CSFR 1 ) and Poland since the revolutionary changes in 1989 up to 1992. The data shown are based on large representative studies conducted in these countries and offer insights in consumer relevant attitudes and attitude changes. Results are focusing on the topics of income and sources of income, material possessions, family savings and household finances as well as subjective evaluations of the personal standard of living and the status of the countries economies. The first part of the paper concentrates upon the experience of the economical situation, the second part discusses the psychological experience of the transition from a command to a demand economy and describes future perspectives as seen by the people today. It is argued that the original enthusiasm about opening up to the West has been replaced by disillusionment and fear as documented by increasing pessimism. At the same time there are no signs for real despair which could cause a backlash. Instead the populations of these countries are more or less successfully coping with a difficult situation by a very resourceful use of non-monetary additional economies.