This paper provides attitudinal information collected from mutual fund investors in the United States and Europe regarding various traditional and emerging distribution channels. The author proposes that channels be redefined according to whether products are sold with face-to-face contact between the investor and seller or the sellers intermediary. Furthermore, this paper argues that there are key strategic initiatives and marketing programs that can mitigate investor anxieties and leverage favourable perceptions of various channels. These data have been collected through qualitative and quantitative research.
This paper examines the financial, economic and market forces that are currently driving change within the auto retailing industry and analyses the likely developments in multi-franchising in Europe to the end of the century. The US has tended to lead the way in developing a whole range of alternative retailing formats. This paper outlines a number of dominant trends in the North American market. The remarkable Cerritos development is used as an example of multi- franchising in its purest form and at its most successful. European markets are approaching saturation and rationalisation of dealer numbers is inevitable. The key drivers of change in Europe are examined and a number of case studies are presented for the UK market to illustrate the issues and potential impact of future multi- franchise development
On both sides of the Atlantic, the race is on to understand and meet customer expectations of service delivery, and research has a key role to play in helping organisations implement and sustain effective customer service programmes. For this paper, the authors have combined their experience of working closely with US and UK clients, across a range of different market sectors, to prepare a recipe for success in achieving good customer service, in which research is a vital ingredient. Two case studies, one from each country, are presented to demonstrate how the recipe ingredients have been blended by two very different organisations to produce uniquely successful service cultures. The authors conclude that detailed applications require informed tailor-making, but that research techniques translate well between cultures and markets, and that the exchange of ideas and experience will continue to benefit both clients and their customers.
The topic of my paper, PC-based research in years to come, invites dreaming: talking about research based on the Personal Computer makes it easy to enter the no man's land between dream and reality, that land where cost per interview declines with the speed of a falling star and where a kiss on the computer earns you the optimal solutions. I will try not to do so. Instead, I will first highlight some actual differences between Europe and the USA. Next, I want to discuss the production process of market research and the product range that market researchers (within organisations or as research institutes) are offering. The production process / product range matrix (PP/PM matrix) offers a good base to explain the function and the opportunities of the computer and especially the PC in market research. The PP/PM matrix also offers a good base to show the main developments, threats and opportunities in the market research industry. Finally, I will combine the various developments and will try to draw a picture of PC-based research in the United States of Europe after 1992.
Geodemographics may be described as the applied statistical study of the geographic distribution of population characteristics. The topic of this paper relates specifically to the application of geodemographics classification systems, to marketing questions in general, and to media analysis in particular. By way of further clarification, geodemographics classifications are neighbourhood classifications based on statistics relating to the population characteristics of each residential neighbourhood, derived from comprehensive published and publicly available sources such as census statistics. This paper considers the early development of geodemographics and neighbourhood classifications in Great Britain, where most of the pioneering work took place in respect of marketing applications of such systems. The media and marketing applications of geodemographics that have been developed will be discussed, as well as more recent developments in what has now emerged as a geodemographics industry in Great Britain. The status of the parallel developments of similar systems in a number of European countries will be outlined, as well developments in North America.
American travel to Europe, having hovered around the four million mark for half a dozen years, took off in 1984 and appears to be reaching for a new plateau at around the six million level. Thus, on sheer size alone, this market deserves to be examined analytically, with a view to possible segmentation into a number of sub-segments that might be dealt with more purposively and economically by the travel marketer. If we could distinguish discrete segments in this overall market for travel abroad, we might assess the value of each in terms of size, resources and propensity to travel, so that the marketer could decide whether or not to make it part of his target audience. Having identified a segment and evaluated it, we could then examine its salient travel attitudes, concerns and predispositions, thus helping to guide the creation of products and messages to suit the needs of that particular segment. By identifying the segment members demographically and delineating their preferred media and information gathering habits, we can assist the marketer in determining how best to reach a chosen segment with his message. Such an effort to segment the U.S. market for travel abroad was undertaken by the European Travel Commission.
The intent of this paper is to explore the differences between the U.S. and Europe in terms of the level of research sophistication the use of specific methodologies, the attitudes of researchers in terms of their general orientation and working philosophy, the business climate in which they are working and the constraints that each faces. The question "What can we learn from each other?" is divided in two parts: issues dealing with specific methodologies and issues dealing with more general considerations.
This paper examines the current state of New Product Market Research in the U.S. and compares it with the state in Europe, from three basic perspectives: - New Product Research Techniques; - New Product/Market Opportunities; and the Stature of New Product Research within the overall market function.
The use of consumer panels by manufacturers in Europe as a marketing tool has increased dramatically over the past few years and now seriously competes with the more traditional forms of store audit service. This trend is contrary to that experienced in the United States where the emphasis for tracking markets is mainly derived from store-based information services, using conventional store audit methods or by analysis of computerised records of warehouse withdrawals, like SAMI. The role of consumer panels in the USA would appear to be restricted to performing a mainly diagnostic function. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to try and examine the underlying technical and marketing reasons for this trend and to describe some of the ways panel data is now used in Europe, set against the background of the conference theme, "It Won't Work Here".
This paper concentrates on one particular area, that of employment policy research. With unemployment in Europe, and in the United States, now at between 5 and 6% of the labour force, measures to combat the economic and social scourge of unemployment are clearly critical to public policies of EEC member states, as well as of the US.
What has really happened over those ten years? Does the contribution of the techniques outweigh the limitations of unresolved methodological issues? What is the evidence of practical marketing application? And how far does Europe lead or lag behind the USA? Without any pretence at a thorough technical evaluation, this paper attempts to provide at least partial answers to these questions. However, its desirable, first to recapitulate - necessarily briefly - what nonmetric multidimensional scaling is all about and second, to set its marketing application in an historical perspective.