International Journal of Market Research
The International Journal of Market Research is a unique source of authoritative analysis in the multi-disciplinary fields of market, social and economic research.
Using Support Vector Semiparametric Regression to estimate the effects of pricing on brand substitution
María Pilar Martinez-Ruiz, Alejandro Mollá-Descals, Miguel Ángel Gómez-Borja and José Luis Rojo-Álvarez
This paper analyses the sales impact of temporary retail price discount on consumer goods product categories with different perishability rates, and provides some empirical findings regarding how the deal discounts of competing brands affect the sales substitution effects among them. We focus on the cross-price effects by considering both the asymmetric cross-price effect and the neighborhood crossprice effect. To test these effects we use Support Vector Machine-Semiparametric Regression (SVM-SR ...
Measuring customer loyalty to product variants
Jaywant Singh, Andrew Ehrenberg and Gerald Goodhardt
This paper measures patterns of loyalty for variants of a product, such as different pack sizes or flavour. Unlike brands, product variants are functionally highly differentiated. The study undertakes large-scale analysis of panel data and the results shows that product variants can attract markedly different loyalty levels. However, these different loyalty levels are closely related to big differences in the variants’ market shares – higher loyalty predictably goes with higher sales. Some varia ...
Optimising the language of email survey invitations
Howard R. Moskowitz and Birgi Martin
Respondent cooperation has always been an important topic for the market research industry. One consequence is that over time a number of initiatives have addressed the issue. This paper differs from the previous ones in that it deals with the issue of optimising the invitation to participate as if it were a consumer product or service. Using experimental design, the paper shows how to identify different phrases that generate high vs low respondent intentions to participate. Three segments, or m ...
A new tool for pre-testing direct mail
Margaret Faulkner and Rachel Kennedy
This paper outlines a new pre-testing tool designed to identify which piece of direct mail will generate the best in-market response. The development process is described (interviews with fundraisers and donors as well as six pilot studies). The paper also details an in-market test of the tool in a fundraising setting. Importantly, the tool was tested on direct mail from split-run tests where response was measured in terms of real donations. Test A identified the winner, which was consistent wit ...
Tackling health inequalities using geodemographics: a social marketing approach
Marc Farr, Jessica Wardlaw and Catherine Jones
Market research is generally considered the realm of the private commercial sector. This paper presents an innovative use of market research methods in the public sector, in particular the use of geodemographics, to tackle health inequalities. The term ‘social marketing’ has been around for over 30 years, since Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman’s seminal paper of 1971, in which the concept was first presented. Social marketing is distinguished from commercial marketing by aiming to achieve a ‘soc ...
Forum: Building better causal models to measure the relationship between attitudes and customer loyalty
Jose Antonio Martínez and Laura Martínez Caro
Perceived quality, satisfaction and brand/corporate image/reputation are probably the most widely used variables to investigate customer attitudes in market research. Several models have been proposed to analyse the relationships between these variables and customer loyalty. All these models have a similar focus: to study the causal mechanism that relates customers’ evaluations with their future expected behaviour. In this paper, we propose that all these models are not useful for applied market ...
Viewpoint: Response to ‘Fifty years using the wrong model of advertising’
Spike Cramphorn
This Viewpoint piece by Spike Cramphorn comments on some of the points within the Heath & Feldwick paper published in IJMR 50, 1, entitled ‘Fifty years using the wrong model of advertising’. He discusses some of the flaws of the historical methodology, but also shows the importance of establishing Outcome-Oriented-Objectives when testing advertising. ...
Viewpoint: UK alcohol policy and market research: media debates and methodological differences
Chris Hackley
In this Viewpoint article, Chris Hackley describes some of the important consequences and issues for the industry when the media are faced with market research commissioned from different perspectiveson a high-profile topic – alcoholic drink marketing and consumption behaviour in the UK. He discusses the conflicting role of research in informing the debate on the subject, and argues that engaging with young people – and the media – using research is a complicated problem. Diageo's recent adverti ...
Retrospective two-stage cluster sampling for mortality in Iraq
Seppo Laaksonen
Two-stage sampling has commonly been used in surveys of households and individuals. The standard strategy is first to stratify the frame population, then determine a reasonable number of primary sampling units (PSUs) within each stratum, to choose some of these with probability proportional to size (first stage) and, finally, to draw sampled units randomly within each cluster (second stage). Good determination of PSUs is the key point in this strategy. It is advantageous if the areas are fairly ...
The myth of China as a single market – the influence of personal value differences on buying decisions
Zhang Xin-an, Nicholas Grigoriou and Li Ly
China is a large heterogeneous market with diversified consumer behaviour in different regions. This study aims to examine personal value differences between consumers in China’s inland and coastal regions, and further examine their influence on retail buying decisions. Data are collected from coastal cities (Shanghai and Guangzhou) and inland cities (Chengdu and Harbin) using the matched sampling method. Statistical analyses reveal that China’s coastal consumers are more individualist in their ...
Negative brand beliefs and brand usage
Jenni Romaniuk and Maxwell Winchester
This research focuses on consumer brand usage segments and the responses they give to negative attributes in brand image studies. Analysis was conducted across three markets and four approaches for measuring brand beliefs with respondents who were current users, past users or had never tried a brand. The major finding of this study was that past users of a brand consistently have the highest tendency to elicit negative beliefs about brands. Further, those who have never used a brand typically ha ...
Community-based participatory research: a case study from South Africa
Mélani Prinsloo
Marketing research, often in the form of surveys, is one of the critical tools marketing managers use to guide decision making. Although this occurs in all environments, developing markets present problems in the paucity of information available and a desperate shortage of skilled information gatherers. This leaves those needing information with two alternatives: to import and utilise developed-world researchers and interviewers to gather, input and process information,
at exorbitant costs, or ...
Who shall live and who shall die? A case study of public engagement in health care planning
John May
Rationing of National Health Service expenditure is inevitable, difficult, controversial, and it is unusual for the public to have a direct say in setting healthcare spending priorities at the local level. This paper presents a case study of public involvement in the allocation of some £60 million by a Primary Care Trust in North West London. Market research based techniques were used to demonstrate that the public are indeed capable of making these rationing decisions, given the right support. ...
Forum – Asking the age question in mail and online surveys
Benjamin Healey and Philip Gendall
Three versions of a question for establishing the age of respondents were tested in two surveys. All three questions had very low non-response rates; however, asking ‘How old are you?’ in a mail survey and ‘What age range are you in?’, together with a drop-down response menu, in an online survey produced significantly higher proportions of incorrectly reported ages. Thus, the best advice for survey researchers is to ask respondents for either their date of birth or the year in which they were bo ...
Viewpoint – ‘Wither the survey?’
Mike Savage and Roger Burrows
It is commonplace to argue that the proliferation of new kinds of data and information has created huge social changes that we still do not really understand. One interesting example is the worry of social scientists that their preferred data sources and modes of analysis are being challenged by the rise of new digital data sources. In this situation, where data on whole populations are routinely gathered as a by-product of institutional transactions, the sample survey seems a poor instrument. T ...
Web 2.0, social networks and the future of market research
Mike Cooke and Nick Buckley
Market Research is often accused of failing to provide the insights sought by our clients, and in an increasingly complex society we are challenged to embrace a different model of thinking with different principles at its centre. We believe that a Web 2.0 research platform and a social network approach offers marketing research new tools to meet the challenges of the future. The paper identifies a number of trends that may well provide fertile ground for marketing researchers to develop new appr ...
Mixed mode: the only ‘fitness’ regime?
Bill Blyth
Increasing cost differentials between modes of data collection and countries are requiring users and practitioners to consider more cost-effective survey designs. Using a ‘fitness for purpose’ framework, the argument is made that the tools exist to enable objective evaluation of alternative designs using a variety of methods within a common framework that can be shared by all survey users. The paper argues that coverage will be one of the largest sources of potential bias in any survey using dat ...
New trends in innovation and customer relationship management: a challenge for market researchers
Stan Maklan, Simon Knox and Lynette Ryals
For decades, one of the key roles of market research has been to help companies forecast customer acceptance of innovation and of changes to the marketing mix (the 4Ps). However, traditional market research is in danger of being left behind by new practices in sales, marketing and R&D. Reflecting an increasingly participative approach to customer relationships, these disciplines are moving towards customer involvement and co-creation of value rather than innovation mainly generated by head offic ...
Instantiation: reframing brand communication
Chris Barnham
This paper discusses how brands, and their values, become established in the mind of the consumer. The AIDA model of brand communication is now widely rejected within the marketing community. It is accepted that the consumer does not ‘process’ brand experience at a rational and conscious level, and a new consensus has emerged that focuses on the need to find deeper, and more ‘psychological’, reasons for brand motivation. The brand is now construed as also sending emotional, and therefore more co ...
A new measure of brand attitudinal equity based on the Zipf distribution
Jan Hofmeyr, Victoria Goodall, Martin Bongers and Paul Holtzman
In this paper the authors present a parsimonious measure of attitudinal equity for all brands in a survey at respondent level. Their purpose is to provide marketing researchers with a survey-based measure of brand strength that is attitudinally pure and can therefore be used with confidence for modelling purposes. The authors validate the measure against typical ‘within survey’ metrics, but also against individual behaviour as established in diary and scanner panels. In both cases, they show tha ...
Forum – Culture, communications and business: the power of advanced semiotics
Katja Maggio-Muller and Malcolm Evans
Commercially applied semiotics is well established as a powerful methodology for research and for developing brand communications. Current applications include: deep dives into cultural connotations and category codes that enrich understanding and revitalise communication of key consumer benefits; optimisation of concepts and test advertising (with an enhanced appeal to consumers, via semiotic intervention, which has been proved quantitatively); mapping, development and fine tuning of internal c ...
Viewpoint – After 50 years of IJMR, the state of marketing
Malcolm McDonald
This Viewpoint, from Malcolm McDonald, looks at the current state of marketing, and the relationship between the academic community and marketing practitioners. It argues that academics must avoid talking about increasingly narrow issues in an increasing impenetrable language to an increasingly restricted audience, and that marketing as a whole is long overdue for a reality check, which should encourage a movement towards a more realistic and relevant pursuit of marketing excellence. ...
Marketing research in Japan: from its emergence to the present
Kazuo Kobayashi and Nicolaos E Synodinos
The development of modern Japanese marketing research is described from its inception following the Second World War to the early years of the new millennium. Four earlier periods that coincide with broader socio-economic factors are delineated and important research-related developments are noted. Special emphasis is placed on recent years, with an overview of the research environment in terms of external influences and Japan's domestic setting. In addition, industry statistics are used to crea ...
Improved scale development in marketing: an empirical illustration
Nic S. Terblanche and Christo Boshoff
Far too often marketing instruments are used in research without sufficient evidence of their reliability and validity. As a result conclusions are drawn, recommendations offered and managerial decisions made, based on empirical results that are often contradicted by follow-up studies, or are simply false. Correct measurement using valid and reliable scales is not just a 'nice to have' in marketing research - it is crucial. This study highlights the limitations of more conventional methods of sc ...
Web surveys versus other survey modes: a meta-analysis comparing response rates
Katja Lozar Manfreda, Michael Bosnjak, Jernej Berzelak, Iris Haas and Vasja Vehovar
One question that arises when discussing the usefulness of web-based surveys is whether they gain the same response rates compared to other modes of collecting survey data. A common perception exists that, in general, web survey response rates are considerably lower. However, such unsystematic anecdotal evidence could be misleading and does not provide any useful quantitative estimate. Metaanalytic procedures synthesising controlled experimental mode comparisons could give accurate answers but, ...
Do data characteristics change according to the number of scale points used? An experiment using 5-point, 7-point and 10-point scales
John Dawes
This study examines how using Likert-type scales with either 5-point, 7-point or 10-point format affects the resultant data in terms of mean scores, and measures of dispersion and shape. Three groups of respondents were administered a series of eight questions (group n's = 300, 250, 185). Respondents were randomly selected members of the general public. A different scale format was administered to each group. The 5- and 7-point scales were rescaled to a comparable mean score out of ten. The stud ...
Fifty years using the wrong model of advertising
Robert Heath and Paul Feldwick
This paper investigates the dominance of the information processing model in TV advertising. Despite theoretical and empirical evidence that supports the importance of factors such as emotional content and creativity, the authors show that a rational information-based persuasion model, which pre-dates the development of formal marketing, persists in its domination of almost all TV advertising development and evaluation. It is postulated that this persistence derives from a sociological desire to ...
Forum - Food for thought: shouldn’t we actually target food advertising more towards kids and not less?
Juliet Strachan and Vincent Pavie-Latour
For far too long the debate about food marketing to children and young people has focused on whether such marketing should be allowed in our society, instead of what the balance of that marketing should be. Children and young people are vital, valid, valued members of our society, and marketing is a part of societal life. We therefore have a responsibility to teach children and young people how to consume marketing and how to discriminate between its messages. If society falsely incubates and in ...
Viewpoint - Facebook: the future of networking with customers
Ray Poynter
In this Viewpoint article, Ray Poynter looks at the increasing importance of social networking websites. He argues that portals such Facebook could pose a challenge to traditional market research, a fact demonstrated in its simplest form by the opportunities they provide for finding out quick answers to simple questions at low cost. More radically, such sites could result in entirely new ways of working, by allowing researchers to refine the scope of their problem through interaction with actual ...
Analysing qualitative data
Steve Griggs
This paper is the 1987 MRS Gold Medal winner, and discusses methods of analysing qualitative research data, arguing that they should be open and public (i.e. any researcher should be following the same procedures be able to arrive at the same conclusions). The author is troubled about the lack of concern among qualitative researchers, and in the literature, about analysis: they talk instead only about interpretation, which is what follows analysis. a key preliminary is to develop an appropriate ...
Time use, technology and the future of work
Jonathan Gershuny
This paper, which won the 1986 MRS Gold Medal, reviews preliminary results from a study of changing time-use patterns over the previous half-century, as a basis for speculation about future activity patterns. A particular interest is the growing application of IT (information technology). The limited sources available for time use in the past are reviewed. Time spent on various tasks (in minutes per average day) is compared between 1961 and 1983. Five areas stand out and are discussed: reduction ...
Catastrophe theory in consumer attitude studies
J Chidley
This paper proposes the application of catastrophe theory to describe how purchase intentions change. The underlying idea is that intentions and behaviour often cross thresholds or `tipping points', even when the underlying beliefs change smoothly. The paper won the 1977 MRS Gold Medal. First, a two-dimensional case is considered, e.g. when brand attitudes and social pressures combine to affect intentions. It is hypothesised that where there is high social pressure against a product, changes in ...
Sequential analysis in market research
K Gorton, E J Anderson and R Tudor
This article, based on the 1976 MRS Gold Medal winner, discusses sequential analysis (analysing research results as they are obtained rather than after data collection is completed). It is especially applicable to dichotomies. Sequential theory is largely based on Wald's sequential probability ratio test. Two main applications occur: when it is important to determine which alternative (version A or version B) is preferred, and when the concern is only whether A is preferred, other alternative be ...
Pretesting press advertising campaigns
C Greenhalgh and H A Smith
This paper, which won the 1973 MRS Gold Medal, discusses how to pre-test press advertisements for evaluation (i.e. deciding whether to run the campaign or not). Three problems in such testing are identified and discussed in detail: tests involve showing a single exposure, whereas in real life campaigns readers will see multiple exposures; tests inevitably invite unrealistically high attention levels compared to what the ads will achieve in reality and pre-test experiments must be monadic, with m ...
The discovery and use of laws of marketing
A S C Ehrenberg
This paper, based on an academic lecture, discusses laws of marketing: how they may be established, and their practical value. It won the 1969 MRS Gold Medal. Establishing marketing laws, as in any other science, requires investment in time and money: few companies have the courage to risk this. Five established laws are describes and illustrated: the average rate of buying any brand in a category is roughly constant; the average rate of buying the category is roughly constant for buyers of any ...
Some techniques and interesting results in discrimination testing
C Greenhalgh
This paper won the 1968 MRS Gold Medal, and describes and illustrates discrimination testing (ensuring that a change in product formulation, e.g. to use cheaper raw materials, is indistinguishable from the current formulation to brand users). The test was used on large samples of ordinary users. The method used was triangular testing: each tester is given three samples, two of which are identical, and asked to pick out the one that is different. In the first test, 40% correctly chose the odd one ...
Test Marketing: an examination of sales patterns found in 44 recent tests
E J Davis
In this paper, which won the 1966 MRS Gold Medal, 44 test market results were analysed to see if general patterns in the sales curves could be found. All the cases came from retail audit data from continuous test panels of stores. Two thirds were grocery products, the remainder from chemist panels. Distribution in the chemists is typically much higher than among the grocers. The distribution curve (proportion of stores handling) reaches its shoulder for most products by the third 4-weekly check, ...
Multiple regression and market research
N J S Clemens and P Duncan-Jones
This paper discussed multiple regression and its possible use in market research and marketing. It won the MRS Gold Medal in 1965. The first part of the paper describes the linear multiple regression equation, which relates a dependent variable to a number of independent (or predictor) variables. It has two uses: to forecast the effect of a change in one or more predictors, or to interpret what is going on as a guide to further action. It is pointed out that this involves an assumption about cau ...
Formulation of an index of propensity to buy
L J Rothman
This paper, which won the MRS Gold Medal in 1964, proposes a method of developing a scale measuring individuals' propensities to buy a brand. The theoretical shape of this scale is first discussed. Propensity at any moment depends on the buyer's attitude to the brand, his state of need, and the effect of stimuli received. The probability curve will be S-shaped, bounded by the very likely/unlikely limits. Positive stimuli can shift someone to the right on this curve. Across a sample, the propensi ...
Some problems in the definition and measurement of advertising penetration
R D Godwin
This MRS Gold Medal winning paper (1963) discusses the difficulties of measuring advertising penetration. Through this example, it makes two propositions: that concepts used in marketing should be formally defined, and that the concept we intend to measure should be distinguished from what is actually measured. Advertising penetration is a concept: what we measure, such as recall, is only an attribute of the concept. The various elements implied in measurements of advertising penetration (recall ...
The ethical dilemmas and challenges of ethnographic research in electronic communities
Neil Hair and Moira Clark
The purpose of this paper is to raise the awareness of a range of ethical dilemmas and challenges facing researchers who adopt ethnographic approaches in electronic community research. The paper considers what it means to conduct ethical research in electronic communities, drawing from the two main philosophical approaches: deontology (using codes of conduct) and teleontology (the greatest good for the greatest number). Finally the paper illustrates the problems researchers face with interpretin ...
Understanding retail experiences - the case for ethnography
Michael J. Healy, Michael B. Beverland, Harmen Oppewal and Sean Sands
Retailers develop branded experiences in order to enhance consumers' perceptions of the brand and bring the brand to life. Consumers are effectively immersed in a branded world and experience the brand on a cognitive, emotional and visceral level. Yet, to date, our understanding of retail experience has been limited to studies on the effect of one or two variables (such as music and light) on perceptions of the store. Few researchers have focused on how consumers experience the store on a holist ...
Participant photography in visual ethnography
Jan Brace-Govan
Ethnography is experiencing a resurgence of interest, and visual ethnography offers marketers opportunities to gather appealing and pertinent data. With the increasingly widespread use of digital photography, having participants take photographs as part of the data-gathering process offers an interesting way for respondents to become involved in the generation of research data. However, including participants requires the researcher to be clear on several aspects of research design. Using a proj ...
Say what you mean, mean what you say - an ethnographic approach to male and female conversations
Robin Croft, Clive Boddy and Corinne Pentucci
The fact that people use language in quite different ways and to mean different things has been discussed over the past 500 years or more, across several disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, sociology and linguistics. More recently it has been suggested that there are clear differences in the way men and women use language: the same words can have quite distinct meanings according to the gender of the speaker and the listener. If so, this could have serious implications for market rese ...
Forum - Ethnography within consumer research: a critical case study of Consumer Film Festivals
Lorne McMillan and Brenda Ng
This paper describes an ethnographic research study conducted for Microsoft's Gaming Division across seven countries, among teens and young adults who play PC and console video games. Both the research methodology and the project deliverables relied on the heavy use of video film; not only were in-home interviews were filmed in each country, and respondents were given video cameras and asked to make their own short films to express their feelings about particular topics relevant to PC and video ...
Forum - Going underground: how ethnography helped the Tube tunnel to the heart of its brand
Ian Pring
This paper describes an ethnographic study of customers' experiences of travelling on the London Underground. The research was applied to help identify why there was an apparent perception gap between the more positive results from passenger satisfaction surveys and the negative results, and low levels of advocacy, measured in brand image surveys. The crucial insight from the research was that brand associations are almost wholly independent of the actual journey experience: the journeys themsel ...
Viewpoint - Ethnography and market research
Philly Desai
In this Viewpoint piece, Philly Desai, of qualitative research company Turnstone, provides a brief introduction to the current condition of ethnographic research. He argues that ethnography provides some of the most interesting and innovative approaches and results in market research, but fails to achieve the same recognition afforded to other forms of MR (such as focus groups) because of the lack of a common language and approach, meaning that buyers are ultimately unsure of what they're gettin ...
Assessing mobile-based online surveys: methodological considerations and pilot study in an advertising context
Shintaro Okazaki
This paper attempts to measure the value of an integrated business idea to enhance the hard work of an entire business returning to growth. Following implementation of ‘Try Something New Today’ it is estimated that sales grew by 3.7%, an increase from the previous year’s two percent, representing value in excess of £200 million (approx $400 million in 2008) revenue. ...
Simple rating scale formats: exploring extreme response
Gerald Albaum, Catherine Roster, Julie H. Yu and Robert D. Rogers
The usual simple rating scale purports to measure direction (important/unimportant, effective/ineffective, etc.) and intensity (very, somewhat) of attitude or opinion in a single assessment. Thus, direction and intensity components may be confounded in simple rating scales, which can increase opportunities for form-related biases such as central tendency error. This study examines response tendencies in simple rating scales using the traditional approach and an alternative two-stage approach, bo ...
Development of a research tool for the elicitation of consumer response
Tracy X.P. Zou and W. B. Lee
A new consumer research tool is proposed for eliciting consumer responses from unstructured data, such as narratives. The grounded theory approach is adopted to guide the process of data collection and analysis. Classical grounded theory methodology relies heavily on the ability of researchers to notice patterns in the data and to cope with theory, which is termed 'theoretical sensitivity'. This study attempts to suggest an alternative method that makes use of the sense-making abilities of consu ...
Using the repertory grid to access the underlying realities in key account relationships
Beth Rogers and Lynette Ryals
This paper examines a variety of examples of repertory grid research to assess how and why the technique is used. In particular, the authors focus on the strengths and weaknesses of using the repertory grid to explore the nature of close business-to-business relationships. Compared with the more frequently used technique of qualitative depth interviews, differences were found which suggest that further research is needed to identify what really drives supplier-buyer interdependence. The research ...
Online access panels and tracking research: the conditioning issue
Clive Nancarrow and Trixie Cartwright
In this article, Clive Nancarrow, Bristol Business School and Trixie Cartwright, TNS Global Interactive review and assess past evidence on panel respondent conditioning, and examine conditioning issues relating to the use of online access panels for tracking studies. They present a pan-European study that tracks brand awareness, image and advertising recall using the same respondents to establish whether or not conditioning is a significant factor. The implications for panel management rules to ...
Forum - Small business market research: Examining the human factor
Robert P. Hamlin
This Forum article, by Robert P. Hamlin, of the University of Otago, New Zealand, questions if market researchers take sufficient notice of the mindset of those who commission, or consume, their services? He argues that in an industry where technical and methodological issues take centre stage, the need to understand the 'decision-maker' psychology and the importance of developing effective relationships are often missing from, or only briefly discussed in, core textbooks and other literature. A ...
Viewpoint - Correspondence regarding ‘The choice between a five-point and a ten-point scale in the framework of customer satisfaction research’, by Pedro S. Coelho and Susana P. Esteves
James Rothman, Pedro S. Coelho and Susana P. Esteves
This Viewpoint article comprises an exchange of correspondence between James Rothman, a former editor of IJMR, and Pedro S. Coelho and Susana P. Esteves, New University of Lisbon, in response to their paper published in Volume 49, Issue 3, on five-and ten-point scales. ...
Viewpoint - Measuring the right things
Les Binet and Peter Field
Addressing the hot topic of accountability, Les Binet and Peter Field argue in their Viewpoint for a change of emphasis in the metrics traditionally used for measuring the impact of marketing. Their views are based on a detailed analysis they've conducted of entries to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) annual Effectiveness Awards, and provide some interesting messages, and challenges, for market research. ...
Teenagers' response to self- and other-directed anti-smoking messages: a cross-cultural study
Chip Miller, Bram Foubert, James Reardon and Irena Vida
While the de-marketing of smoking among teenagers has received wide attention in the literature, few have examined the issue of whether messages should be uniform across cultures. Globally, the vast majority of anti-smoking messages are based on fear appeals portraying negative effects on the (potential) smoker him/herself. This research suggests that such a global strategy may be suboptimal. Specifically, while ads portraying the negative consequences to oneself of smoking to oneself may work f ...
The polarisation method for merging data files and analysing loyalty to product attributes, prices and brands in revealed preference
Wade Jarvis, Cam Rungie and Larry Lockshin
The method known as revealed preference data is becoming increasingly available for detailed business and academic analysis; however, it is not widely used in describing consumer purchasing beyond the typical statistics reported by the large panel data providers. These statistics are usually related to the brand only and not to other important non-brand attributes. This paper shows how the customer, product and transaction files in one category (wine) are integrated so that a loyalty model can b ...
Market research data integration - coming to intersections from two directions
Peter Walsh
The fundamental objective of data integration in the market research context is to accurately estimate intersections between variables from different surveys. Standard techniques map data in one direction – from one survey on to another.
It is argued that this is capable of achieving only partial success, and that two intersecting approaches are required. ...
The design and precision of data-fusion studies
Trevor Sharot
Fusion is the linking of two survey datasets by pairing up similar respondents and joining their data records, in order to be able to cross-analyse outputs from one survey with those from the other. Invariably, the two surveys are pre-existing rather than being designed specifically for the fusion, and their samples of respondents differ both in design and size. Depending on the particular method of fusion used, the size of the fused dataset may be the same as one of the surveys or different to ...
Data integration methodologies in market research: an overview
Ken Baker
Fuelled by ever-increasing computing power, data integration techniques involving the combining of information from two or more data sources have become more widely accepted over the past 15 years or so. This paper attempts to outline the strengths and weaknesses of a selection of such techniques. ...
Forum - Total recall: Transforming the possibilities of customer intelligence in an age of intelligent commerce
Sean Kelly
In the ever-changing contemporary marketing and media environments, traditional conceptions of 'the customer' no longer apply, and similarly long-relied upon marketing techniques and product measures have also been forced to give way to a number of new tools and methodologies. The diversity of lifestyles, demographics and ethnic backgrounds in society at large make any communications strategy based on a single, universal message a risky one; rather, what is required in this new landscape is the ...
Viewpoint - Welcome to the future
Samantha Smith
In this Viewpoint piece, Samantha Smith, Head of Future Media Research at the BBC, provides an overview of how media measurement may look in 2030, but only if some bold decisions are taken long before then. ...
The web of insights: the art and practice of webnography
Anjali Puri
The focus of online research has hitherto been largely on using the internet as a tool to reach potential respondents efficiently. However, the internet is more than a tool. It is a ‘space’, like many other social spaces, where people meet, talk, express their views, live their lives. The potential of the web as the object of study has remained underexploited in market research. It is this dimension of the web – as a rich source of data on people’s lives, interactions and opinions – that offers ...
Experimental shopping analysis of consumer stimulation and motivational states in shopping experiences
Gianluigi Guido, Mauro Capestro and Alessandro M. Peluso
The present research investigates the roles of both the individual reaction to environmental stimuli and personality characteristics in consumers’ pursuit of hedonic and/or utilitarian shopping values. The individual reaction to environmental stimuli is operationalised by two closely related measures: the optimal stimulation level (OSL), concerning the level of external stimulation with which an individual feels comfortable, and the arousability, concerning the rate with which the internal stimu ...
Predicting purchase decisions with different conjoint analysis methods: a Monte Carlo simulation
Klaus Backhaus, Thomas Hillig and Robert Wilken
To forecast purchase decisions, different conjoint-based approaches have been discussed. Nevertheless, there is no clear evidence on which variant performs best. This study uses a Monte Carlo simulation to systematically compare different choice-based models and different models of a modified traditional conjoint variant, namely limit conjoint analysis (LCA), which allows for integrating choice decisions. All models compared, except the aggregate logit model, are rather robust. However, the hier ...
The choice between a five-point and a ten-point scale in the framework of customer satisfaction measurement
Pedro S. Coelho and Susana P. Esteves
In marketing research, and particularly in the context of customer satisfaction measurement, we often try to measure attitudes and human perceptions. This raises a number of questions regarding appropriate scales to use, such as the number of response alternatives. Obviously, there is a trade-off between the desired response discrimination level and the effort that is demanded of the respondent to situate his or her answer in one of the scale categories. If this effort is too high it can reduce ...
Valuing the visceral: the increasing importance of the rapid-affective response in assessing consumer behaviour
Susan Bell, Suzanne Burdon, Jane Gregory and Josephine Watts
Since the 1960s, the focus in market and social research has been on the search for deep motivations that underpin attitudes and behaviour, and, ultimately, decision making. This paper proposes an alternative focus based on the imperatives of societal change and the emergence of an instant-response culture comprising a society of individuals who expect to make decisions quickly. This impulsive, visceral approach to decision making is increasingly pervasive, and it is important for researchers to ...
Forum - The strength of British market research is British market researchers: a reply to Piercy
Clive Boddy and Robin Croft
In his Viewpoint in IJMR 48, 3, Nigel Piercy argued that market researchers are obsessed with technique and methodology, rather than providing leadership in management learning. This Forum article challenges this perspective by arguing that the international success of the UK market research industry is due to its pragmatism, commercial orientation and the fact that, unlike in some other countries, it is unhindered by a rigid adherence to any particular scientific paradigm. The
relevance to mar ...
Viewpoint - Polling, politics and the press
Deborah Mattinson
The Viewpoint in this issue discusses the media agenda when commissioning and reporting the results of political opinion research. It argues the case for giving a higher priority to methodological rigour and identifies why research practitioners must fight to protect their integrity. ...
Learning from giants - exploring, classifying and analysing existing knowledge on market research
Agnes Nairn, Pierre Berthon and Arthur Money
The paper presented here is an abridged and adapted version of an article by Pierre Berthon, Agnes Nairn and Arthur Money which appeared in Marketing Education Review, 13, 2 (Summer) 2003. The objective of the paper in the IJMR now is to encourage practitioners and academics alike to build their own research on the foundations which have already been build by previous thinkers. We hope to demonstrate that a good literature review goes well beyond a cursory acknowledgement of other authors who h ...
How face influences consumption - a comparative study of American and Chinese consumers
Julie Juan Li and Chenting Su
East Asia is fast becoming the world’s largest brand-name luxury goods market. This study develops the concept of face and face consumption to explain why Asian consumers possess strong appetites for luxury products despite their relatively low income. This paper distinguishes the concept of face from a closely related construct, prestige, and examines the influence of face on consumer behaviours in the United States and China. Due to the heavy influence of face, Asian consumers believe they mus ...
The usefulness of the Basic Question - procedure for determining nonresponse bias in substantive variables: a test of four telephone questionnaires
Henk van Goor and Annemiek van Goor
The Basic Question Procedure (BQP) is a method for determining non-response bias. The BQP involves asking one basic question – that is, the question relating to the central substantive variable of the study – of those persons who refuse to
participate in the survey. We studied the usefulness of this method in four telephone surveys by comparing it with the results obtained in ‘refusal conversion’ studies. (1) Does the BQP enable us to collect information on the central substantive variable of a ...
Researching mere exposure effects to advertising - theoretical foundations and methodological implications
Anthony Grimes and Philip Kitchen
This paper concerns a potentially under-researched area of great relevance to the discipline of market research – namely, low-attention processing of marketing communications. Given the accelerating complexity of media and consumer environments, mere exposure effects to advertising stimuli now play an increasingly important role in forming and influencing consumer decision making. As such, the development of methodologies to study these effects represents a major contemporary challenge for marke ...
The live or digital interviewer - a comparison between CASI, CAPI and CATI with respect to differences in response behaviour
Fred Bronner and Ton Kuijlen
One of the core activities of market research is the collection of data by interviewing. Three developments have strongly influenced this activity: decreasing response rates, higher interviewing costs, and the growing awareness that the respondent needs to be treated like a ‘real’ customer. These developments have led to new ways of sampling (from ad hoc to access panels) and to using other methods of collecting data (from CATI/CAPI to CASI). The effects of the different methods or modes of coll ...
Forum: Measuring the value of insight – it can and must be done
Steve Wills and Sally Webb
This paper discusses whether researchers really want to become the pro-active, consultant level professionals that they so often claim, or if they are actually happier in a reactive role, applying their professional skills to meet the demands of others. If it is indeed the former, then they will have to acquire much greater commercial acumen. ...
Viewpoint: Public Information – now’s the time to make it freely available
Keith Dugmore
In this Viewpoint piece, Keith Dugmore argues that there should be greater freedom of access to data collected by the government. A diverse mix of organisations, from the Office for National Statistics to Ordnance Survey, hold vast amounts of information collected at the expense of the public, yet their varying usage policies can create difficulties and boundaries for commercial companies. Removing these limitations could fuel economic activity, as it has in the US. ...
Conjoint respondents as adaptive decision makers
Jon Martin Denstadli and Rune Lines
One implicit assumption in conjoint measurement is that respondents solve the conjoint tasks by using some form of weighted additive rule for preference judgements. The weighted additive rule is assumed to be associated with a high level of accuracy, but at the same time to be among the most cognitively demanding processes for arriving at preference judgements. Research from other domains, including consumer behaviour, indicates that people often use highly simplified rules to arrive at preferen ...
The implicit and explicit role of ad memory in ad persuasion: rethinking the hidden persuaders
Alastair Goode
In 1957 Vance Packard wrote The Hidden Persuaders arguing how ads could persuade at a sub-conscious level. However, since Freud first popularised the concept of the ‘sub-conscious’, psychologists have been advancing the understanding into what the systems underlying sub-conscious processing are and the extent to which it affects behaviour. Cognitive psychologists have focused much of their effort on exploring the differences between ‘explicit’ memory (the conscious recollection of events) as opp ...
Segmenting food markets - the role of ethnocentrism and lifestyle in understanding purchasing intentions
Bahtisen Kavak and Lale Gumusluoglu
Previous research on ethnocentrism and lifestyle has focused on attitudinal segmentation. However, consumer attitudes may not always be consistent with the actual purchasing decision. Since behavioural intentions are more proximal predictors of behaviours than attitudes, segmenting markets using purchasing intentions might be more appropriate. The purpose of this study is to use purchasing intention to examine whether lifestyle and ethnocentrism can be useful indicators in segmenting foreign and ...
Roots marketing: the marketing research opportunity
Clive Nancarrow, Julie Tinson and Richard Webber
Given the past and current migration of many populations, a significant and growing global marketing opportunity exists for products where the national identity or country of origin can be used as positive sub-branding. Two important questions for marketing researchers are discussed: first, how to ‘reach’ these consumers psychologically and, second, how to ‘physically’ reach them. To appreciate how to reach them psychologically the emotional significance and key dimensions of national, cultural ...
Energy: igniting brands to drive enterprise value
John Gerzema, Ed Lebar, Michael Sussman and Jason Gaikowski
BrandAsset® Valuator research has demonstrated that consumer perceptions of ‘Energy’ offer new insight into shifts in market value – adding to the case that brand building is best viewed as a strategic corporate investment. This unified metric links marketing performance with financial performance to prepare financial managers and brand managers to make more informed decisions on how to fund and guide marketing efforts to most effectively generate sales, equity and value. Further, the Energy met ...
Forum - Media proliferation and the demand for new forms of research
Adele Gritten
In this Forum article, Adele Gritten addresses the challenges facing the media industry as a result of the concurrent trends of media and brand proliferation, market saturation and technological development, and the resultant changes these have produced on consumer behaviour. The paper assesses the current state of the media industry and the new ways in which consumers use media, as well as providing recommendations to marketers and researchers, and making some predictions about the future of me ...
Viewpoint - Response to ‘Client-driven change: the impact of changes in client needs on the research industry’ (IJMR, 48, 4)
Rowland Lloyd
In this Viewpoint piece, Rowland Lloyd responds to the article 'Client-driven change: the impact of changes in client needs on the research industry' (IJMR, 48, 4) by Simon Chadwick, where it was argued that professional and trade bodies need to be educated about the changes taking place in the MR industry, and should reassess their codes of standards and issues such as respondent confidentiality. By contrast, this article asserts that European market researchers are bound on the latter front by ...
Viewpoint - Response to ‘Client-driven change: the impact of changes in client needs on the research industry’ (IJMR, 48, 4)
Bernice Hardie
In this Viewpoint piece, Bernice Hardie responds to the article 'Client-driven change: the impact of changes in client needs on the research industry' (IJMR, 48, 4) by Simon Chadwick. While agreeing with Chadwick's conclusions that agencies may need to change their structures to meet the demands of the new research landscape, the article argues that most agencies already possess staff with the skills that will be required to do so, and merely need to free them up from other activities, rather th ...
Viewpoint - The commercial-academic divide: never the twain shall meet?
Sheila Keegan
Sheila Keegan examines the much-discussed divide between MR practitioners and academics, and argues that while each group sees the work of the other as exerting a limited influence on their own field, they should in fact look to combine their efforts in order to improve both the theory behind and practical application of market research. ...
Can cross-national/cultural studies presume etic equivalency in respondents’ use of extreme categories of Likert rating scales?
Catherine Roster, Gerald Albaum and Robert Rogers
The purpose of this study was to determine differences in extreme response to rating scales between cultures/nations in a measure of corporate reputation. Separate surveys examined differences in respondent use of extreme categories for five-category Likert rating scales in a broad study of corporate reputation conducted in the United States, China, the Philippines and Ireland. Results showed that the US and the Philippines samples were more likely to use extreme scale end points than the China ...
An empirical test of six stated importance measures
Keith Chrzan and Natalia Golovashkina
This paper reports on a web-based commercial customer satisfaction study consisting of 1284 respondents, which measured stated attribute importance using six different methods (importance ratings, constant sum, Q-sort, maximum difference scaling, unbounded ratings and magnitude estimation). Statistical analyses were used to evaluate these six methods in terms of (a) the time they take to administer, (b) their ability to provide discriminating measures and (c) their predictive validity. Clear win ...
Integrating marketing intelligence sources - Reconsidering the role of the salesforce
Ken Le Meunier-FitzHugh and Nigel Piercy
Research has identified that after 40 years of discussion the use of the salesforce as a source of market information is relatively widespread in business-to-business organisations, but that the majority of organisations do not gather, store or
disseminate this information effectively. The research highlights that the salesforce should be set clear objectives and incentives and, most importantly, be included in the dissemination of market intelligence for the organisation to gain
maximum benef ...
Comparing methods of brand image measurement
Carl Driesener and Jenni Romaniuk
This study compared rating, ranking and ‘pick-any’ measures of brand image associations. The pick-any technique is a free response measure, where respondents are given an attribute as a cue and asked which brands they associate with it. It is a free response in that respondents can link any, all or no brands with each attribute. It only captures the association, however, with no indication of relative strength. The study confirmed past findings that the three measures are highly correlated at br ...
Developing reliable online polls
Nick Sparrow
Based on their success at predicting the outcome of elections, opinion polls are used by the media, government and the political parties to measure public attitudes to a very wide range of other issues, helping to shape policy proposals and inform debate. Despite their importance within the political process, the media, political parties and pressure groups nevertheless want feedback from opinion polls quickly and cheaply. Large-scale random probability surveys may provide the
best-quality data ...
Forum - Understanding the buzz that matters: negative vs positive word of mouth
Alain Samson
Alain Samson discusses the differing impact and variables of negative and positive word of mouth, how to research them and how to measure their effects. He also discusses how WOM can be forecasted, and be utilised in PR. ...
Viewpoint - The importance of blogging
Mike Cooke
Mike Cooke expresses his opinion on blogging, arguing that this rapidly growing phenomenon (in which he includes social networking and content-sharing websites) is having a massive influence on consumers and, consequently, how research should be conducted. He says that researchers need to adopt a culture of engagement to keep up. ...
Utilising surveys for finding improvement areas for customer satisfaction along the supply chain
Ipek Deveci Kocakoç and Ali Sen
In today's competitive environment, companies that want to survive need to improve their products and services. If customer satisfaction measurements are used as a source of improvement effort, the results will be more satisfactory and realistic. Satisfaction of the end customer is strongly related to satisfaction of the whole customer chain. If a company's wholesalers are not satisfied, it is likely that the end customers will be dissatisfied. This study represents how customer surveys can be u ...
Influences of customer differences of loyalty, perceived risk and category experience on customer satisfaction ratings
Mark S. Johnson, Ellen Garbarino and Eugene Sivadas
A persistent problem in customer satisfaction measurement is a tendency towards high or skewed measures of satisfaction. Consequently, there has been research interest in what makes customers either lenient or critical in their ratings. In this study, we investigate whether differences in loyalty, risk perceptions and category experience define customer groups that are relatively critical or lenient in their satisfaction ratings. Satisfaction ratings include overall satisfaction, satisfaction wi ...
The relationship between corporate websites and brand equity: a conceptual framework and research agenda
Evmorfia Argyriou, Philip J. Kitchen and T.C Melewar
The internet has been credited as an important advertising and direct marketing channel, which has the potential to revolutionise the branding of products and services. Yet, several studies have been forecasting the end of traditional brand management in today’s e-markets. At the same time, there is ongoing discussion about the move towards corporate branding and brand equity. Brand equity is a long-established construct, which refers to the tangible and intangible value of brands and emphasises ...
Application of projective techniques in an e-business research context: a response to ‘Projective techniques in market research - valueless subjectivity or insightful reality?’
Elaine Ramsey, Patrick Ibbotson and Patrick McCole
This paper is a response to Boddy's (2005) paper, published in the International Journal of Market Research, 47, 3, which called for more evidence on projective techniques applied to a research problem. Specifically this paper will present research-based analysis and understanding of an investigation of ownermanagers' perceptions of government support for e-business developments within knowledge-intensive business services in Ireland and New Zealand. It introduces the reader to the quasi-quantit ...
The prevalence and usefulness of market research: an empirical investigation into ‘background’ versus ‘decision’ research
Raguragavan Ganeshasundaram and Nadine Henley
Using information effectively has become a critical determinant for gaining competitive advantage and enhancing business performance. The type and extent to which market research information is used can play a significant role in a firm's level of performance. Surprisingly, little empirical research has been conducted on the usefulness of market research. This paper examines the prevalence of type ('background' and 'decision' research) and perceived usefulness of market research commissioned for ...
Looking for the emotional unconscious in advertising
David Penn
This paper proposes a new model of advertising research based on the new understanding of the mind provided by brain science. It hypothesises that much advertising nowadays works implicitly – either below, or at very low levels of, awareness – but that so-called affective (emotional) advertising does not work exclusively through implicit processes. It suggests that both recall and recognition may be effective means of measurement for emotional advertising, and argues that attempts to prejudge ad ...
Viewpoint - Response to ‘The trouble with marketing research is marketing researchers’ by Nigel F. Piercy
Rosie Campbell
In this response to Nigel Piercy's previously published critique of the market research industry, Rosie Campbell's Viewpoint seeks to balance the argument about contemporary market research and market researchers. In particular, she argues that the industry has transformed itself in the last 30 years, and has a creativity and dynamism which may be lacking in some academic approaches to undertaking research. ...
Viewpoint - Writing stuff - why bother?
Gill Ereaut
In this Viewpoint piece, IJMR Executive Editorial Board member Gill Ereaut addresses some of the benefits to market research practitioners of writing pieces concerning their work for publication in journals. She argues that publishing work can not only help to build up reputations and fuel practical insight, but can also encourage a greater degree of professionalism in the industry by enhancing the common stock of knowledge. ...
What the Audit Commission really thinks of consultation
John May
The Audit Commission is the most important regulator of local councils. As such, this body has considerable power to promote or discourage the use of public consultation in local government. This paper uses Audit Commission data to analyse and interpret the weight that the Commission gives to consultation when it assesses local councils’ overall performance. The findings may make uncomfortable reading for social and market researchers in the local government sector, and for consultation and part ...
Predictive segmentation in action - using CHAID to segment loyalty card holders
Laura Galguera, David Luna and M. Paz Méndez
This paper illustrates the use of a post hoc predictive segmentation procedure to segment the loyalty card market. The specific procedure used is CHAID, an algorithm that has been gaining in acceptance because it fits the needs of marketing researchers regarding segmentation: it provides non-binary classification trees; the resulting categories/segments are mutually exclusive; it permits prediction of whether certain segments are more likely to engage in the target behaviour, and it is relativel ...
Are we listening and learning? Understanding the nature of hemispherical lateralisation and its application to marketing
Anthony Grimes
With the advent of increasingly advanced and available brain-scanning technology and the reported emergence of ‘neuromarketing’, this paper seeks to critically examine the basis on which marketing research has sought to apply a specific area of neuropsychological understanding: the hemispheric lateralisation of brain function. To this end, the author provides a review of scientific research in this area and critically evaluates the application of this work to marketing. The paper highlights futu ...
Escaping the channel silo - researching the new consumer
Hester Stuart-Menteth, Dr Hugh Wilson and Susan Baker
It has been widely argued that the new consumer is active, knowledgeable, demanding, channel-hopping and, above all, experience-seeking. Yet market research often continues to survey consumers as if they were purely passive recipients of the messages, products and services we provide. Furthermore, research frequently treats marketing channels entirely separately. The exploratory survey of Lexus customers we report here demonstrates a more integrated approach, developing a measure of customer exp ...
Client-driven change - the impact of changes in client needs on the research industry
Simon Chadwick
Historically, changes in the market research industry have been driven by the needs and wants of clients. During the 1990s, a huge number of mergers and acquisitions led to vast changes on the supply-side, but more recently the dual developments of 'disruptive technology' and a client focus on consumer insight as the basis for decision-making have posed a great challenge to the industry. As consultancy and data-gathering roles have become more divided, research companies have been faced with the ...
Viewpoint - Response to ‘Commercialisation of childhood? The ethics of research with primary school children’ by Agnes Nairn
Barbie Clarke
In this response to a previous Viewpoint by Agnes Nairn, Barbie Clarke agrees that, as recent heavy criticism suggests, marketers looking to promote goods to children should consider their approach very carefully. While using SMS and websites may be effective ways of reaching a target audience, for example, it is argued that parental consent should always be sought when a child is involved in a market research survey, of whatever form. Neither should children be used to 'spy' on their friends as ...
Viewpoint - The splintered society
Winston Fletcher
The impact of fragmentation is a universal feature of the modern world, limited not only to the media, as some market researchers appear to believe, nor even to the range of goods and services available to consumers. Rather, this Viewpoint piece argues, we are living in an increasingly 'splintered' and heterogeneous society. This poses a real challenge to market research, as customers are increasingly varying their decisions and choices, and are thus making all brands and products 'minority bran ...
Measuring the impact of informational democracy on consumer power: a new application for an old tool
Jose M. Barrutia and Jon Charterina
Some authors are announcing the dawn of informational era marketing, where the consumer acquires real negotiating power based on access to information that is complete, up to the minute and unbiased. This theoretical affirmation, however, has not yet been put to the test. Some creative thinking by researchers
is needed here to resolve a challenging problem. After building a conceptual framework, we propose to proceed using a well-known research tool: the price–quality relationship of consumer p ...
Internet adoption as a two-stage transition: converting internet non-users to internet users and to online buyers
Subroto Roy and Sanjoy Ghose
Identifying the Internet Non-User (INU), Internet User (IU) and Online Buyer (OB) is important for marketers to enable appropriate target marketing, distribution, advertising and customer service. Such identification is also critical to public policy makers desirous of reducing the digital divide. Despite the criticality of identifying the INU, IU and OB, research in marketing on the internet has not focused on the associated problem of identifying the determinants of the three categories. This ...
Ladders, stars and triangles: old and new theory for the practice of public participation
John May
The practice of public participation has remarkably little theory it can call its own. This paper considers the best-known theory – the Ladder of Participation – and updates it to reflect changes in thinking since the original ladder was published. The paper then introduces a new theory, based on the perspective of the participants rather than the practitioners and applies the theory to the notorious problem of the ‘usual suspects’. ...
Do survey respondents and non-respondents differ? Ecological analyses of the 2005 British Election Study
Ron Johnston and Richard Harris
Little is known about the characteristics of respondents and non-respondents to electoral surveys, which is an issue of growing concern as survey response rates fall. Using a procedure that allows all of the addresses sampled in the 2005 British Election Study to be located within the small areas defined for data dissemination with the 2001 census, as well as relevant electoral areas, this study reports on ecological analyses of where those who responded and those who declined to be interviewed ...
How to use advertising to build brands: in search of the philosopher’s stone
Spike Cramphorn
In the past, it was presumed that behaviour was conscious, sequential and rational. The hierarchy-of-effects (HOE) models of advertising, like AIDA, reflect this ‘old world’ thinking, where ‘emotional’ responses were somehow inferior. However, in recent years we have learnt a lot about how the brain and how advertising works, mostly because of the advances made in the area of neuroscience. It is like starting afresh. So, with this new knowledge, are we any closer to the modern day philosopher’s ...
Viewpoint - The trouble with marketing research is marketing researchers
Nigel Piercy
Market research and researchers are faced with a number of different challenges and opportunities. Across all business sectors, the winners are those companies that know the most. Whilst market researchers can provide broad and accurate statistical information, they often place too much emphasis on technique and methodology. What is required is a new creativity and strategies that help decision-makers identify and exploit new business opportunities, and understand and react to change. ...
Competitive market analysis from a demand approach: An application of the Rotterdam demand model
Emilio Ruzo, José M. Barreiro and Fernando Losada
The design of successful marketing strategies requires knowledge of the competitive market structure as well as the competitive patterns that exist in the market. Only with this prior knowledge can we take the right decisions: by knowing which of our competitors would be most affected and which would have a greater influence on our results. In this paper, a demand model is presented as a useful means of performing competitive market analysis using store-level data. Using this model, we aim to de ...
Evaluating advertising effects on brand perceptions: incorporating prior knowledge
Jenni Romaniuk and Emma Nicholls
One of the key objectives of advertising is to influence the perceptions customers hold about a brand in their memory. Therefore, when assessing the effectiveness of an advertising campaign, researchers often look at changes in responses to brand-attribute linkage questions. Drawing on two cases in the fast-food and financial services markets, we show how using known patterns in perceptual data to create expected values can more clearly isolate the effect of advertising on brand perceptions. Thi ...
Context effects and context maps for positioning
Minhi Hahn, Hyunmo Kang, Yong J. Hyun and Eugene Won
Context effects refer to changes in consumer preference and choice responses when a new alternative is added to a choice set. This paper proposes a general scheme for classifying various context effects using newly defined share-ratio measures (SRM) and share-change measures (SCM). With these measures, we can also draw context maps and preference-substitutability maps that visualise the nature of context effects and positions of competing brands. These maps allow marketers to make positioning de ...
Attitude formation onlin - how the consumer’s need for cognition affects the relationship between attitude towards the website and attitude towards the brand
Maria Sicilia, Salvador Ruiz and Nina Reynolds
This paper applies traditional models of attitude formation, based on the elaboration likelihood model, to the internet. Specifically, the dual mediation hypothesis and the affect transfer hypothesis are tested on an interactive website. The paper also considers whether the consumer’s inherent need to think about things (need for cognition) impacts on which model applies. Findings suggest that the traditional model dominant offline (dual mediation hypothesis) is not dominant online, unless the c ...
Using investment-based techniques to prove the ‘bottom line’ value of research and give CEOs what they want
Vicki Tanner
CEOs and market researchers talk a different language. CEOs talk in terms of results – the bottom line, the share price, key financial ratios. Research or consumer insight managers typically use terms such as share of voice and brand awareness. When it comes to CEO communications, market researchers could be compared to package tourists in a foreign country. Many believe that if they speak loudly and slowly enough their CEO will eventually understand them. This difference in style is one of the ...
Viewpoint – Response to Don Schultz’s Viewpoint ‘We can do better’
Jorge Garcia-Gonzalez
This piece is a response to Don Schultz's Viewpoint, 'We can do better' (IJMR 47,5), which criticised the research industry for focusing on tactical issues and offered a new solution as to how the industry could become more strategic. Jorge Garcia-Gonzalez's reply argues that Schultz's solution is not new, but nonetheless is a useful contribution to an ongoing debate. ...
Viewpoint – Commercialisation of childhood? The ethics of research with primary school children
Agnes Nairn
This Viewpoint, from Dr Agnes Nairn of the University of Bath, raises her concerns about the ethics of conducting market research on commercial products among children. In particular, Nairn discusses some of the techniques being used by researchers, and the consequences she believes that they may have for relationships between children, their families and friends. ...
Audience experiences of media context and embedded advertising: a comparison of eight media
Fred Bronner and Peter Neijens
To make more effective and efficient media planning decisions, we need insight into media context variables that influence the effects of the advertisements embedded in these media. The research involved in achieving this insight has to fulfil three essential requirements: (i) inclusion of several media types (television, radio, print, etc.); (ii) inclusion of a variety of media context variables; and (iii) a real-life context instead of an experimental situation with forced exposure. We develop ...
Measuring consumer reactions to sponsoring partnerships based upon emotional and attitudinal responses
Sverre Riis Christensen
Consumers’ reactions to being exposed to sponsorships have primarily been measured and documented by applying cognitive information-processing models to the phenomenon. In this paper it is argued that such effects are probably better modelled by applying models of peripheral information processing to the measurements, and it is suggested that effects can be measured on the attitudestowards-the-sponsor and emotion-towards-the-sponsor levels. This type of modelling is known as ELAM modelling; howe ...
The century of Bayes
Joseph Retzer
While many in marketing research have probably heard something about ‘Bayesian analysis’, chances are they are not quite sure what it is or what, if anything, would make them want to use it. This paper answers the following three questions about Bayesian analysis. First, what is Bayesian analysis? After gaining an intuitive feel for Bayesian analysis, the reader will see that Bayesian analysis is surprisingly straightforward and instinctive. Secondly, why should one use Bayesian analysis? This s ...
Use of Monte Carlo simulation for the public sector: an evidence-based approach to scenario planning
Roberto Foa and Melanie Howard
This paper describes a statistical methodology that can be deployed in order to conduct evidence-based scenario planning. Scenario-planning techniques have
recently become widespread in strategic consultancy, market research and government planning, but methodological vagueness often results in scenarios
that are excessively arbitrary, implausible or non-specific in their outputs. By detailing the Monte Carlo process, via which a set of scenarios were constructed
for the Department for Enviro ...
Out with the new, in with the old
Wendy Gordon
This paper is born out of frustration at outdated models of thinking that are alive and well today instead of being dead and buried (and a source of amusement). The marketing community obstinately clings to false beliefs about how people and brands coexist in everyday life, in the face of irrefutable scientific proof to the contrary. Like those who insisted that the world was flat when it had been proven to be round, or those who, even today, refuse to believe in the evidence of evolution, many ...
Viewpoint – Checks and balances
David V.L. Smith
This opinion piece discusses the emergence of a new form of market research, in which researchers go beyond the provision of data alone to offer judgements and interpretations. Whilst the MR industry has many different established codes and procedures governing the mechanics and ethics of research, concern is expressed that little exists to ensure the reliable interpretation of research findings. The author argues for a review of existing guidelines and the creation of a MR industry 'Charter' to ...
Identifying the influence of product design and usage situation on consumer choice
María Jesús Yagüe Guillén and Jaime Romero de la Fuente
This paper analyses consumer perceptions with regard to the suitability of products to anticipated usage contexts, as well as their influence on purchase behaviour. Both elements are linked to managerial decisions through product design.
To achieve this task two studies are conducted. The first applies correspondence analysis to judgmental data. The second is based on the multinomial logit formulation. Results show that product design explains consumer perceptions about suitability. These per ...
‘Hidden’ opportunities and benefits in using web-based business-to-business surveys
Wolfgang Teller, Christoph Teller and David Grant
The use of surveys continues to be an important technique in business-to-business (B2B) market research, and internet or web-based surveys are fast becoming desirable alternatives to traditional survey methods. Web-based surveys have several technological and methodological advantages to help improve both internal survey and external validity. This paper presents the results of a webbased survey conducted in a typical B2B research setting to evaluate the ‘hidden’ opportunities and benefits of we ...
Comparing data from online and face-to-face surveys
Bobby Duffy, George Terhanian, John Bremer and Kate Smith
This paper explores some of the issues surrounding the use of internet-based methodologies, in particular the extent to which data from an online survey can be matched to data from a face-to-face survey. Some hypotheses about what causes differences in data from online panel surveys and nationally representative face-to-face surveys are discussed. These include: interviewer effect and social desirability bias in face-to-face methodologies; the mode effects of online and face-to-face survey metho ...
Global socio-economic levels: development of a global non-occupational classification system
Andrea Dinning, Martin van Staveren and Geoff Wicken
Over many years, and in most parts of the world, socio-economic classification schemes have been deployed in order to segment populations into discrete groups that define the status of the individuals within them. These are mostly set up on a national basis. However, global advertisers today are finding that there are more and more multi-country planning tasks that require the identification of similar groups of people in different markets all over the world. Regional systems have been proposed ...
Knowledgeable uncertainty: paradox or paradigm?
Roger Palmer
Changes in the business, firm and managerial environment are increasing the pressures on managers to make more and better decisions, yet such managers have less time and possibly less information available to assist them. This introduces the requirement for greater insight and understanding of customers as competition increases and the use of marketing techniques becomes more ubiquitous and professional. The nature of change and the implications for managers are discussed.
However, despite th ...
Viewpoint – In pursuit of lost causes
Michael Brown
Argues that to commence a debate on ‘a more detailed, rigorous and pan-national approach to guaranteeing data quality’ would be a waste of breath, for four reasons. These boil down to the overwhelming pressure for what is now a major, global industry to supply what the commissioning client wants – which is ‘insight’ rather than data. The client seldom has the knowledge or the inclination to ask the right questions to test data quality. In this context, ethical standards are hard to maintain, how ...
Viewpoint – We can do better
Prof Don E Schultz
Too much market research focuses on tactical studies. It is argued that MR should be ‘levered up’ to focus on strategy and financial business decisions. There has been wide agreement that this should and could be done, but ‘the problem is so big’ that it will take a long time. What seems to be lacking is not the diagnosis but the will to do something as an industry to solve this problem. ...
Viewpoint - Maintaining research standards
Adam Phillips
Adam Phillips appeals for increased transparency by the industry in the way that it polices itself, in order to protect its self-regulatory status. This is an increasingly important issue for an industry whose credibility and survival depend on maintaining the trust of key stakeholders: firstly, the general public as potential respondents; secondly, our clients who use the findings from research projects; and finally the legislators and regulators who are under increasing pressure to protect the ...
An empirical comparison of methods
to measure willingness to pay by
examining the hypothetical bias
Christina Sichtmann, Markus Voeth, Robert Wilken and Klaus Backhaus
In the literature, several methods to measure willingness to pay (WTP) have been proposed. However, there is still little knowledge about their reliability. We empirically test the appropriateness of two methods – open-ended contingent valuation (CV) and limit conjoint analysis (LCA) – for measuring willingness to pay, by examining their hypothetical bias. Significant differences of the WTP values were found between the two methods. Comparing the respective hypothetical biases, LCA performs bett ...
The mind versus market share guide
to brand equity
Colin Baker, Julie Tinson and Clive Nancarrow
The possibility of using a simple, single measure of brand potential across different markets that is both conceptually meaningful and of value to management is presented. Building on the Dick and Basu grid, the value of establishing whether a brand exhibits brand equity surplus, deficit or balance is described. The insights that can be gleaned from a single source study with the comparison of share of mind (attitude) with market share (behaviour) and the accompanying diagnostic analysis are exp ...
Cluster sampling: a false economy?
Andrew Zelin and Roger Stubbs
For convenience and to save on fieldwork costs, many random samples involve an element of clustering. This paper seeks to explain how clustering of a sample can have a detrimental effect on its statistical reliability, reducing effective sample size, and how precision can be improved more effectively by increasing the number of clusters rather than increasing the number of respondents per cluster. There is increased pressure among agencies to release results as quickly and inexpensively as possi ...
‘It’s as vital as the air that they
breathe …’
Fidelma Price, Chrissie Wells and Julie Hindmarch
With a relatively stagnant market, regulated to the point of no advertisements, SMA baby milk was hoping to increase its awareness of the sector. Through developing a segmentation approach to understanding the market, it used both qualitative and quantitative techniques. As a result it gained a better approach in relation to sales of the product and who it was targeting with a 1% increase in market share. ...
Measuring the hidden power of emotive advertising
Robert Heath and Pam Hyder
This paper is about advertising that works on our emotions without necessarily achieving high levels of attention or recall. We compare the most popular recallbased metric - claimed ad awareness - against an approach that deduces effectiveness from recognition, and find claimed ad awareness seriously underestimates the effectiveness of the advertising tested. ...
Viewpoint - Quality control
Ben Page
Argues that quality standard schemes such as IQCS and MRQSA, widely seen as final rubber stamps of quality, often conceal weaknesses in research practice which, if known to clients, would cast serious doubt on the results and on research in general. Areas of especial concern are sampling (response rates and representativeness), meeting of quotas, correcting for biases, and fieldwork procedures and back-checking. Clients are not given the information to check these things for themselves, and shou ...
Impact of personal orientation on luxury-brand purchase value: an international investigation
Shu-pei Tsai
As marketing-related literature shows, luxury-brand marketing to the segment of personally oriented consumers has not been investigated to a full extent, rendering it difficult to base marketing strategies on empirically verified principles to improve purchase value for this segment of consumers. The current study, incorporating relevant theoretical frameworks and empirical findings, establishes a model specifying the antecedents and consequence of personal orientation towards luxury-brand consu ...
Can we learn together?: co-creating with consumers
Deborah Roberts, Susan Baker and David Walker
The ability to innovate is a fundamental marketing activity, yet it remains a precarious one for many marketers. Market learning is frequently viewed as a precursor to successful innovation, but the traditional methods of market learning are increasingly coming under scrutiny. Advances that have been made in data collection and analysis techniques are being eroded by the effect of fragmenting markets, shortening product life cycles and the emergence of the marketing-literate consumer. An emergin ...
The influence of media on advertising effectiveness a comparison of internet, posters and radio
Einar Breivik and Herbjørn Nysveen
This study compares the effectiveness of internet advertisements (pop-ups), print advertisements (posters) and radio advertisements for an airline ticket and for a weekend stay at a hotel. The advertisement copies were developed specifically for this study by a professional agency. Advertisements were developed to utilise specific medium characteristics, and the control of advertisement content was attained through the brief. Furthermore, the relative quality of the advertisements was used as a ...
The effect of covering letter personalisation in mail surveys
Philip Gendall
It is generally assumed that personalising mail survey covering letters increases the response to mail surveys. However, most of the studies that support this assumption were conducted in the 1970s, when personalisation was novel and relatively difficult to achieve. This paper reviews the evidence for the effect of personalisation on mail survey response and reports the results of a study of personalisation in a mail survey of the general public. The study found little or no effect of personalis ...
Experimental methods in market research: from information to insight
Lynette Ryals and Dr Hugh Wilson
Experimental methods have a relatively low penetration into market research practice, despite their many inherent strengths. We review the strengths and weaknesses of four major experimental and quasi-experimental designs for market research applications. We then describe three case studies of the use of experimental logic in field-based research studies. Two examine the impact of customer profitability measurement on customer management strategies; the third studies the effect on customer satis ...
Organisational citizenship behaviour from the service customer’s perspective: a scale development and validation.
Sergio Román and Estela Fernández-Sabiote
Although an important avenue for customer value creation is the interaction between the service frontline employees and their customers, little attention has been paid to the consequences of frontline employees’ organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) for customer relationship outcomes. One possible reason for this is that there is no scale available to measure OCB from the customer’s perspective. Two separate data sets were collected in order to develop and validate a scale to measure OCB f ...
The role of geodemographic segmentation in retail location strategy
Óscar González-Benito and Javier Gonzalez-Benito
This paper studies the role of geodemographic segmentation as an analytic tool in retail location strategy. The most relevant factors that should determine retail location selection are revised, and the potential contribution of geodemographic segmentation to the assessment of such factors is examined. The empirical application provides evidence on the differences between store networks of leading Spanish supermarket chains in relation to the geodemographic profile of their market areas. This re ...
Determining the design of child-specific adoption advertisements: a conjoint analysis.
Anna Barkensjo and Roger Bennett
This empirical study sought to establish the views of a sample of 319 members of the British public concerning the practice of child-specific advertising. It also examined the sample members’ relative levels of interest in child-specific advertisements that featured youngsters of specific ages, ethnicities and possessing various forms of disability (physical, psychological or behavioural). Interviews were conducted with individuals of the type targeted by an inner- London local government social ...
An examination of the stability of operationalisations of multi-item marketing scales.
Khurram J. Sharif, Samuel Sarpong Jr and Stavros P. Kalafatis
Since the publication of Churchill’s (1979) paper in which he proposed a ‘paradigm’ for the construction of multi-item scales, scholars have developed a considerable number of such scales designed to measure a wide variety of marketing phenomena. Despite adherence to the principles set in Churchill’s paper and expanded by subsequent authors, experience indicates that the use, or ‘borrowing’, of existing scales has not been without problems. In this paper we report the findings of an investigatio ...
Projective techniques in market research: valueless subjectivity or insightful reality? A look at the evidence for the usefulness, reliability and validity of projective techniques in market research.
Clive Boddy
Projective techniques are often used in market research to help uncover findings in areas where those researched are thought to be reluctant or unable to expose their thoughts and feelings via more straightforward questioning techniques. However, how the findings from projective techniques are analysed and how valid and reliable they are is hardly touched on at all in the market research literature. This paper aims to open this subject up for further discussion and recommends further research i ...
Cases as configurations: using combinatorial and fuzzy logic to analyse marketing data
Raymond A. Kent
Traditional variable-centred analyses of marketing data are not well suited to the discovery of logical relationships between combinations of factors. This paper suggests that we may need to rethink what we mean by a ‘case’ and to view cases as configurations of characteristics rather than units of analysis. The processes of using combinatorial logic and fuzzy logic are explained. A new piece of software is introduced and applied to a dataset so that traditional analysis and fuzzy-set qualitativ ...
Sales promotions effects on consumer-based brand equity
Elena Delgado-Ballester and Mariola Palazón-Vidal
Research has traditionally posited that sales promotions erode brand equity. However, in current management practices, one may observe that companies design promotional programmes to differentiate and modernise their brand image and build brand awareness. This divergence between practice in the industry and the general academic view must inevitably lead to a rethink about the goals assigned to sales promotions. Consequently, the research question that concerns this study is whether sales promoti ...
Comparing response distributions of offline and online
data collection methods
Pascale Meulemeester and Niels Schillewaert
This study reports the findings of a comparison between traditional and online data collection methods. Respondents were recruited in four different ways, namely from an online opt-in panel, via website pop-ups, by postal mail and by telephone. The response patterns from different data collection methods relating to a variety of subjects (e.g. internet use, technology adoption, attitudes, interests and opinions, demographics) are compared. The results indicate that all sampling methods generate ...
Online focus groups: an in-depth comparison of computer-mediated and conventional focus group discussions
Fraser J.M. Reid and Donna J. Reid
This study compares face-to-face (FTF) focus groups with focus groups conducted via computer-mediated communication (CMC), using a range of outcome, process and subjective measures. Sixteen groups of three undergraduates participated in focus group discussions under FTF and CMC conditions on two different topics. Topics, communication condition and order of discussion were counterbalanced over groups. Among the results, it was found that, after controlling for the greater number of contributions ...
Analysing customer satisfaction data: a comparison of regression and artificial neural networks
Anne Martensen and Lars Gronholdt
The use of artificial neural networks (ANN) as an alternative approach to multiple regression has gained popularity in different fields, and some studies have demonstrated the superiority of ANN over multiple regression. The literature points to several limitations in multiple regression that are overcome by ANN. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of ANN in customer satisfaction analysis and compares ANN and regression, based on data from a Danish customer satisfaction survey. Based on the r ...
Commercial and philanthropic sponsorship: direct and interaction effects on company performance
Juan L. Nicolau-Gonzalbez, Francisco J. Mas-Ruiz and Aurora Calderon-Martinez
The objective of this study is to analyse the direct and interaction effects of both commercial and philanthropic sponsorship on company performance. The methodology is based on the event study technique to estimate the excess returns generated on shares trading on the stock market, using a sample of announcements of both commercial and philanthropic sponsorship. In addition, a regression analysis is carried out to examine the influence of the link between the event and the firm’s activity as we ...
The effect of introductions on telephone survey participation rates
Zane Kearns, Susan Benson and Mike Brennan
This paper reports the findings from an investigation into the effects of telephone survey introductions on survey participation rates. Four introduction elements were tested: an incentive (prize draw for a weekend holiday); an assurance that the survey was not a sales pitch; an assurance of confidentiality; and a short versus longer description of the survey topic. Overall, only the incentive significantly increased the participation rate. In combination, the best result, and the only one to ac ...
Response effects in a survey about consumer behaviour
Vidal Diaz de Rada
In this paper we examine the reasons why the non-use of mail surveys is so prevalent in research in Spain when so many researchers have stressed the low economic costs of this information-gathering method. The two main reasons held by some experts is the low rate of response attained by the mail survey and the poor quality of the results obtained. Here we are concerned with how to obtain quality responses from mail surveys. We establish the hypothesis that ‘the information gathered from mail sur ...
The business world will never be the same: the contribution of research to corporate governance post-Enron
Allan Hyde and Brian Gosschalk
Our paper considers, in the light of such corporate failures as Enron, the reputation of large businesses and those who run and advise them. Drawing on the results of surveys conducted across many territories, and among diverse stakeholder groups, our paper illustrates that an already sceptical public has become even less trusting of ‘big business.’ Meanwhile, the systems previously relied upon to help guide and monitor corporate performance were clearly in need of re-engineering. It is our asse ...
The influence of children on purchases: the development of measures for gender role orientation and shopping savvy
Clive Nancarrow and Julie Tinson
The changing composition of the family, changes in gender role orientation and individual differences in marketing or shopping ‘savvy’ seem likely to affect the degree of influence of different family members in various stages of a purchase. This paper describes the key planning and exploratory stages of a collaborative academic-practitioner project designed to identify the determinants of a child’s relative influence within a family in relation to purchase decisions. Specifically, the paper des ...
A review and critique of research using SERVQUAL
Lisa J. Morrison Coulthard
The impact of SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al. 1988) on the measurement of service quality is documented. Research highlighting conceptual, methodological and interpretative problems is critically reviewed in the light of recent advancements in service quality measurement and, specifically, research on the cognitive psychology of survey responding. Directions for future research are also discussed. ...
Ad and brand recognition in radio spots
Iris Vermeir, Patrick De Pelsmacker and Maggie Geuens
Spot length, brand penetration and media consistency are important explanatory factors of ad and brand recognition in 1482 Belgian radio spots. Frequency of exposure and campaign weight are important for ad recognition, but not for brand attribution. Allocating the budget in complementary media and radio channels – that is, focusing on reach rather than frequency of exposure – enhances ad and brand recognition. These conclusions hold to the same extent in samples of younger and older consumers. ...
Geographic price discrimination as a retail strategy
Javier Gonzalez-Benito and Oscar Gonzalez-Benito
This study provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the relevance of geodemographic segmentation as a support tool in the definition of an optimal geographic price discrimination strategy on the part of retail firms. A theoretical model is established in which decisions on price across the geographical markets depend on operative, competitive and market factors. The role of the geodemographic profile becomes directly apparent through its relationship with operative and market factors, an ...
Exploring phenomenological research
Alexandra J. Kenyon
This paper explores the characteristics and attractiveness of two focus group techniques. It positions the discussion within the context of how pre-testing different qualitative techniques enables the researcher to discover the most appropriate research technique to stimulate a hypothesis concerning experiential intertextuality. The paper considers the value of using focus group methodology that is considered to be an excellent method to encourage free-flowing discussion. Past research has sugge ...
Recruitment for online access panels
Anja Goritz
This paper describes a German study which compared eight ways of recruiting members for an online access panel. Two thousand respondents, divided into four groups of 500, were invited to sign up with the panel via email, fax, flier or letter. Half of each sample’s invitations offered a cash lottery, into which new panellists would be entered, whereas the other half of the invitations did not offer a lottery. Overall, email was the most successful means of solicitation, followed by flier and fax, ...
Insight as a strategic asset - the opportunity and the stark reality
Pauline Williams and Steve Wills
The market research industry is facing a major and exciting opportunity. If it doesn't respond imaginatively and constructively, market research risks being relegated to a bit-part role in the 'big picture' that is now represented by Customer Insight. This is one of our key conclusions following the completion of the second client-side project on Best Practice in the Management and Communication of Customer Insight. After reading this paper, if there are just three messages we need everyone in o ...
Conducting survey research among organisational populations in developing countries: can the drop and collect technique make a difference?
Jurgen Kai-Uwe Brock and Kevin I. N. Ibeh
This paper draws upon relevant empirical evidence to suggest the greater effectiveness of the drop and collect survey (DCS) method in enhancing response rates among sub-Saharan African (SSA) organisations. It proposes these improved response rates to be more likely among smaller organisations, and in situations where direct, face-to-face contact can be achieved with key informants, by appropriately trained/experienced field staff. The implications of these findings for improving the overall flow ...
A comparison of response characteristics from web and telephone surveys
Darin Klein, Catherine A. Roster, Gerald Albaum and Robert Rogers
Increasingly, web surveys are being used to supplement telephone survey data and some predict internet methods will one day replace telephone interviews as the primary method for surveying general populations. Despite these trends, few studies have systematically compared response differences between the two methods. This article describes a study in which both telephone and web surveys were used to collect data on the corporate reputation of an international firm. Findings reveal significant di ...
Comparison of the quality of qualitative data obtained through telephone, postal and email surveys
Natalie St-Laurent, Anne Mathieu and Francois Coderre
Many claims have been made about the advantages of conducting surveys on the web. However, some concerns have been raised about the quality of the information gathered through this medium. The purpose of this research was to compare the quality of qualitative information obtained using three data collection methods, in the context of the development of a scale for the measurement of corporate image. First, a study was carried out to generate a list of items that could be used to describe all ele ...
The impact of material incentives on response quantity, response quality, sample composition, survey outcome and cost in online access panels
Anja Goritz
Two incentive experiments were conducted in different online access panels. Experiment 1 was carried out in a commercial market research panel. It examined whether three different types of promised incentives (redeemable bonus points, money lottery, and gift lottery), four different amounts of bonus points or raffled money, and two different denominations of raffled money influenced response quantity, sample composition, response quality, and survey outcome. Type of incentive and number of bonus ...
Respondent non-cooperation in surveys and diaries: an analysis of item non-response and panel attrition
Rex S. Toh, Michael Y. Hu and Eunkyu Lee
This paper analyses the impact of questionnaire design and length of participation on item non-response and panel attrition. Based upon the results of previous studies, the authors propose a framework that involves the mediating variables of participation fatigue and level of difficulty. From this framework, they develop a set of hypotheses on item non-response and panel attrition, which then are tested using a large database collected by AT&T. The results show that difficult questions in survey ...
Information overload in conjoint experiments
Jon M. Denstadli and Rune Lines
This paper explores the relationship between individual level variables, stimulus variables and the experience of information overload in conjoint experiments. Drawing on theories of contingent information processing, it develops a set of hypotheses linking product class involvement and product class knowledge to the level of information overload experienced by individuals when performing a conjoint task. It also investigates the effects on overload of the total amount of information. The paper ...
An investigation of country-of-origin effect using correspondence analysis: a cross-national context
Ming-huei Hsieh
Although there are numerous studies related to country-of-origin (COO) effects, empirical findings are dispersed because of the limited coverage of the origins, brands and countries used for investigation. This paper uses an existing data set that consists of a survey conducted across 20 nations to evaluate 11 automobile origins with 53 brands. This data set facilitates the verification of COO effects previously addressed in the literature from a holistic viewpoint. It also provides insight into ...
Implementing neural networks for decision support in direct marketing
Man Leung Wong and Geng Cui
Innovative methods of artificial intelligence such as artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been increasingly adopted to predict consumer responses to direct marketing. However, appropriate learning algorithms, evaluation criteria, and validation procedures are necessary for effective implementation of neural networks to provide decision support to managers. This study compares the performance of Bayesian neural networks with that of logistic regression and the backpropagation method in modelli ...
A conceptual and measurement comparison of self-congruity and brand personality
James G Helgeson and Magne Supphellen
The symbolic effect of brands has often been studied via two constructs: selfcongruity and brand personality. Though both constructs have received much examination in the past, few, if any, comparisons of the concepts and their measures have been reported. The present study is an effort to fill this void by comparing these constructs conceptually and empirically. Based on a study of Swedish female consumers, it was found that self-congruity and brand personality are empirically discriminant and ...
A new approach for exploring multivariate data: self-organising maps
Timothy Bock
This paper introduces a form of neural network known as the self-organising map (SOM), which has been used extensively outside of marketing. The SOM clusters data in a manner similar to cluster analysis, but has the additional benefit of ordering the clusters, enabling the visualisation of large numbers of clusters. The technique is particularly well suited to the analysis of large datasets. ...
Blinded by science: the managerial consequences of inadequately validated cluster analysis solutions
Paul Bottomley and Agnes Nairn
Cluster analysis has been successfully used in market segmentation for several decades. However, alongside evidence for the value of the technique, a number of studies have highlighted the importance of testing the reliability and validity of cluster solutions. Yet, in a time-poor technologically sophisticated age when alluring output falls effortlessly from user-friendly statistical packages, managers may fail to appreciate the rigorous testing required to ensure robust solutions. The authors d ...
Social grading and the Census
Corrine Moy and Erhard Meier
Cluster analysis has been successfully used in market segmentation for several decades. However, alongside evidence for the value of the technique, a number of studies have highlighted the importance of testing the reliability and validity of cluster solutions. Yet, in a time-poor technologically sophisticated age when alluring output falls effortlessly from user-friendly statistical packages, managers may fail to appreciate the rigorous testing required to ensure robust solutions. The authors d ...
Methodological developments in the academic sector
Angela Dale
Angela Dale, of the Economic and Social Research Council, outlines the methodological developments in the academic sector, with specific exploration of the themes of the Research Methods Programme, that can have relevance to researchers in the non-academic research community. ...
Election survey freedom in the Philippines
Mahar Mangahas
This is a narrative of the recent triumph of freedom of expression over official attempts to ban publication and broadcast of exit polls and pre-election surveys, thanks to wise and timely actions by the Philippine Supreme Court, which demonstrated, in the words of a key Justice, ‘that the Court could meet head-on new paradigms of free expression brought about by the advances of science and technology’ (Panganiban 2001). ...
Investigator-based interviews
Babara Maughan
This paper examines a method of interviewing that combines elements of qualitative research with disciplined data recording and discusses its suitability for the more sensitive subject areas of social research. ...
How much can we predict?
Ben Page
This paper argues that in considering survey results, researchers need to be more sensitive to the impact of place and demography on responses. By looking at what one might expect for a given type of area, or a given type of respondent, we can reach more intelligent conclusions about our results. ...
Assessment of survey data quality: a pragmatic approach focused on interviewer tasks
Jack Billet, Ann Carton and Geert Loosveldt
Within the community of survey researchers there has been an increasing awareness that the total survey error approach has only partially realised its objective of setting up a model to estimate the total of all error components. Insufficient attention has been paid to non-sampling error. In the total quality management (TQM) approach the focus is on the production process. This is a comprehensive attempt to motivate everyone involved in the production of survey data to make permanent improvemen ...
Public attitudes to dependency and the welfare state
Emese Mayhew and Jonathan Bradshaw
This paper argues that for over 20 years there has been a disjunction between the dominant political discourse in the UK about the welfare state and public attitudes to the welfare state. Conservative politicians in the 1980s and 1990s sought (on the whole unsuccessfully) to reduce the size and scope of public social provision. New Labour’s politics has been dominated either by a fear of the electoral consequences of expanding public spending and taxation or by a repulsion from dependency. In c ...
Comment on Sparrow and Curtice and Kellner
John O'Brien
This paper looks at the arguments of Keller and Sparrow and Curtice and comments on the internet polling debate. ...
Measuring the attitudes of the general public via internet polls: an evaluation
Nick Sparrow and John Curtice
Internet polls based on volunteer panels have quickly captured a significant slice of the UK polling market, based in large part on success at predicting the outcome of recent elections. However, opinion research is most usually conducted on a wide range of issues that cannot be measured against an election outcome and are only loosely linked to voting behaviour. This paper compares the results obtained from a representative sample of people interviewed by telephone with the internet accessible ...
Can online polls produce accurate findings?
Peter Kellner
This paper examines the relationship between traditional polling methods and recently developed internet polling methods. The validity of exercises to compare the two methods is discussed, the conclusion being that it is better to test polling figures against real world events with measurable outcomes. The challenges facing online polling companies in constructing valid samples and analysing responses are also examined. ...
Determinants of internet advertising effectiveness: an empirical study
George Baltas
This paper considers the structure of advertising effectiveness on the internet. It investigates empirically the importance of creative and media factors for banner effectiveness. Econometric modelling of actual data on banner ads demonstrates that creative factors such as banner size, animation, message length and logos, as well as media factors such as campaign length, number of host web sites, use of off-line media, and campaign cost, may influence the direct response of the target audience a ...
Improving email response in a permission marketing context
Hege Brandal and Ray Kent
Obtaining a reasonable level of response from email surveys and direct marketing via email is usually seen as notoriously difficult. This paper argues that 'response' is a complex concept and reports the results of an email survey in Norway into the effects on a range of response characteristics of email use patterns, perceptions about technology, campaign elements and seeking different levels of permission from potential responders. The results challenge many of the assumptions about email resp ...
The effect of incentives in web surveys: application and ethical considerations
Nesrin Cobanoglu and Cihan Cobanoglu
Although researchers use internet-based surveys more often than ever in their research, there is little research on the effect of incentives on response rate, speed and cost. This study attempts to fill in some of the blanks by comparing the different incentives offered to respondents of web-based surveys. The results indicate that offering a luggage-tag to each respondent and including them in a draw for a bigger value prize (a personal digital assistant) yields the highest response rate. In te ...
Combining revealed and stated preferences to forecast customer behaviour: three case studies
Peter C. Verhoef and Philip Hans Franses
Many companies collect stated preference data (SP), such as intentions and satisfaction, as well as revealed preference data (RP), such as actual purchasing behaviour. It seems relevant to examine the predictive usefulness of this information for future revealed preferences, that is, customer behaviour. In this paper we address this issue by considering three case studies. Our results indicate that adding SP data to RP data for predicting future customer behaviour does not result in better forec ...
Response order effects - how do people read?
Bobby Duffy
This paper outlines the results from an experiment examining response order effects with visually presented lists. In particular it examines the implications of the practical response adopted by most market research agencies - to use normal and reversed show cards. The conclusion is that for most questions the effect is likely to be present, but relatively small, and dependent on the extent of context effects. That is, it appears more important to ensure that the most likely responses are not gr ...
Cognitive evaluation: prompts used to measure sponsorship awareness
David Bednall, Martin Hirons, John A. Tripodi and Max Sutherland
Marketing managers have the same accountability for their spending on sponsorship as they do for their general advertising spend. Since the direct impact on customer loyalty and profit is so hard to measure, surrogate measures like recall are often used. Key issues with recall measures are the nature and type of prompting given. This paper reports the results of an experiment on three different ways of measuring sponsorship recall based on brand, category and event prompts. Differences between t ...
The marketer researcher's manifesto
Peter Mouncey and Susan Baker
This paper advances the debate concerning the future of market research by presenting nine new rules to guide thought and action in a period of transition. These become the market researcher's manifesto for change. First, they describe the new marketplace emerging as we shift from a production-driven to a consumption-led economy. In response, marketers have shifted their focus of activity from completing transactions to building relationships. This context then provides the background for discus ...
The use of combined conjoint approaches to improve market share predictions
Beverley Henry, Gustavo Gurrieri and Allan Bowditch
Within the pharmaceutical prescription sector, just like many other markets, maintaining competitive advantage has become increasingly difficult. In the healthcare arena, the period of time that a new chemical entity has on the market before a key competitor emerges has been significantly reduced. If a company has already developed an important market franchise in a given sector or disease area, it is essential that that company understands the potential threats it is likely to face in the futur ...
Benefit segmentation
Rizal Ahmad
The UK currently has about 20 million people who are 50 years old or over. This number is expected to grow to 25 million by 2021. Older people offer new market opportunities, and companies that choose to ignore them will do so at their own peril. Literature indicates that marketers' existing understanding of older consumers revolves around their personal characteristics, in terms of socioeconomic, demographical and psychographical data. Marketers tend to use personal characteristics as independe ...
Oh no, the consultants are coming
Angela Lovejoy and Sid Simmons
Management consultants are perceived by some to be increasingly keen to conduct market research on behalf of their clients. As a result, many people suspect that consultants are deliberately trying to steal business from the research community. This paper argues the contrary case. It describes how and why clients use consultants to conduct research and also describes why consultants do not see research as an important revenue stream. The approach described provides a new template for the researc ...
Exploitation to engagement
Victoria Brooks
This paper uses a case study of an advertising campaign for a basketball brand to argue that applying a holistic involvement model to all participants in the marketing process produces the best results when targeting niche markets. This paper was winner of the Best Presentation award at the 2003 Market Research Society conference. ...
Advertising to the herd
Mark Earls
The dominant view of the consumer as an individual should be replaced with the more accurate model of the consumer as acting as part of the herd. Evidence for this is gathered from a variety of scientific fields. The paper concludes that moving to the herd model will allow researchers to provide more accurate and useful insights into consumer behaviour. This paper was joint winner of the Best New Thinking award at the 2003 Market Research Society Conference. ...