Syndicated study examines NY Hispanic market, cable TVÂ
Lee Slurzberg Research Inc., has announced a syndicated study of the New York Hispanic market and cable television. The Fort Lee, NJ, company has been tracking the attitudes and behavior of Hispanics for the past 20 years. The study is offered to cable television programmers and operators. Bilingual interviewers will conduct 600 personal in-home interviews with a representative sample of Hispanics in the New York ADI. The interviewing will take place in June; results will be delivered in September.
Free booklet explains demographic forecasts
Claritas/NPDC has published Update: Precision Demographics, a 37-page booklet. The booklet explains how to create annual demographic updates and forecasts for small areas throughoutthe United States. It explains the methodology behind the firm's development of annual estimates and five-year projections for income, wealth, age, sex and race/ethnicity data as well as populationandhousehoIdfigures.The booklet is free.
TV ad testing system measures responses frame by frame
Consumer Outlook Inc. has introduced C-Scan, a new advertising research tool. The methodology is a computer-driven system for measuring effectiveness of TV commercials frame by frame by measuring viewer reaction to specific elements as they appear in a commercial. The system is administered via personal interviews, eliminating the distraction of group interviews. It can be tailored to any study design, sample screening criteria and sample size.The hardware is small, easily portable and simple to set up and use, allowing studies to be fielded on the same day test commercial tapes are provided. C-Scan storyboards and graphs are usually available two days after completion of interviewing.
Four new syndicated studies from Market Directions
Market Directions is offering four syndicated research studies to subscribers: the wholesale club shopper study, the in-home entertainment study, the life insurance agent profile study and the no-till/conservation study. The wholesale shopper club study examines retail channel selection and impact of new channels on old ones; the in-home entertainment study looks at how consumers spend their leisure time and their purchasing habits; the life insurance agent profile study profiles nearly 800 life insurance agents nationwide on current problems inhibiting sales, future problems they anticipate, currentagent compensation, contracts and sales trends in available life insurance policies; the no-till/conservation study provides detailed information about farmers' attitudes and opinions toward no-till/conservation tillage.
Tracking service measures awareness of ads, related programs
Market Facts Inc. has introduced Brand Vision, a continuous custom tracking service for use in advertising research. It is designed to provide marketers with ongoing feedback on consumer awareness of and response to brands, and the marketing andadvertisingprograms that support them. Its purpose is to aid marketers in media planning by allowing them to understand which advertising executions are working hardestfor their brands in relation to money spent.
Service offers info on 60,000 software products
Synergy Computer Consulting Ltd., has expandedits services to include SoftSearch, its new software information service. The service is a comprehensive source for software information in North America with details on more than 60,000 commercial computer software products for micro-, mini- and mainframe computer environments. Requests are telephoned on a toll-free number. A customized report on the software options is generated, usually within two hours and can be delivered by mail, fax or courier. A report costs $2.90 per program meeting the selection criteria, with a minimum charge of $50 per search. A yearly volume discount rate of $400 is available for up to 10 searches. SoftSearch can also provide an in-depth report on a particular software package. The report gives complete details on the program, including articles, reviews and demonstration copies of the program where available. A detailed report costs $125 and is usually completed within two business days. SoftSearch is offering an incentive program that allows people requesting searches can receive a 10% discount on purchase of software, to a maximum of the search's cost.
Enhancements to Paper Keyboard
Datacap Inc., a developer of PC-based computer aided data entry software, has added image enhancement, forms-image removal and bar code recognition to its Paper Keyboard ICR software. The new enhancements augment Paper Keyboard ICR's current hand print, machine print (OCR) and mark sense (OMR) recognition capabilities.
NewsNet offers business database
NewsNet is now offering access to Business America Online, American Business Information's database of more than 11 million U. S. and Canadian business listings and profiles. The service presents company data compiled from more than 5,000 Yellow Pages directories, business' 'white-page'' listings, annual reports, SEC filings and other sources. The menu-driven service can be used to conduct market primary research including business demographics. The information is available as business lists, company profiles, and total counts of particular business types based on demographics, geographical factors and other criteria including employee size and sales volume.
Cascade now offers transcriptions
Cascade Business Services now offers transcription service as part of its administrative sales and marketing support to businesses of all sizes. The Minneapolis-based firm specializes in focus group and multiple-voice transcription. All transcribed text is returned to clients via disk in either Macintosh or IBM format.
Version 2 of ESRI's ArcView now available
Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc. has introduced ArcView Version 2. The new version of ArcView software is a full-featured desktop mapping and geographic information system (GIS) program. Enhancements in power and functionality include an easy-to-program scripting language for flexibility in linking, extending and integrating ArcView's basic functions; support for multimedia, including access to the ARC/INFO multimedia database engine, with capability to display images and drawings, and integrate a wide variety of desktop database applications; integration with other desktop technology; database connections, with capability for relational joins and virtual tables, including logical and arithmetic manipulations; View of Views, a query and display feature to interlock multiple views form multiple databases distributed on a network; Dynaset, a set of tables that can join an unlimited number of data sets into a unique table of unlimited size, and can be linked to a view. ArcView Version 2 which will be available in late summer, also is faster and requires less memory.
In addition, ESRI has announced an interface between the ARC/INFO geographic information system software and the Oracle Highways integrated management information system. The new interface allows transportation professionals to display attribute data about transportation infrastructure, including such factors as pavement condition, bridge maintenance schedules, accidents.
Equifax introduces geographic information system
Equifax National Decision Systems has introduced Infomark-GIS, a fully integrated geographic information system. The system provides sophisticated analysis and mapping capabilities, including expanded internal data integration, high-definition and 3-D mapping, and automated problem solving, which enable marketers to easily integrate their internal data with information from more than 60 national marketing databases. The system also provides optional automated applications that are customized to solve specific marketing problems common within the retail, restaurant and financial services industries.
SPC software for Windows
SPSS Inc. has introduced QI Analyst SPC Windows, a new statistical process control software package for quality improvement in manufacturing, health care, government and other industries. It is one of the first SPC packages running under Microsoft Windows, and provides a set of 23 SPC charts, capability statistics, Shewhart control tests and reports. It lists for $695, with shipping scheduled for late July. A special introductory price of $395 is available until Sept. 30, including a bonus of a free gage R&R program.
1993,1998 demographic projections from CACI
CACI Marketing Systems has released its 1993 and 1998 demographic projections. The updated demographic data include population, age, household and income information for the entire United States; breakdowns are available for any census, postal or media geography. Other breakdowns available are demographic and income forecast, a 55+ forecast, a three-area forecast, and state population projection to 2010. The updated data is provided in print or electronic media for customized areas, zip codes, census block group, census tracts, places, cities, counties, metropolitan areas, states or the entire U.S.
Demographic changes from 1990 to 1993 include: a 9 million increase in the U.S. population, for a total population of 2. 57 million; and a current annual growth rate at 0.94%, with the western United States leading the rest of the country at 2.03%.
BASES-by-Mail allows for testing through mail panel
The BASES Group has introduced BASES-by-Mail, an alternative methodology to conduct its testing through the NFO mail panel. The service allows BASES clients up to a 30% price reduction without sacrificing accuracy or reliability of sales forecasts and analyses. Marketers testing line extensions, restaged brands or requiring low-incidence sufferers will realize the greatest benefits from the mail panel methodology.
Census-based scanner database from IRI
Chicago-based Information Resources Inc. (IRI) has introduced QScan, a census-based scanner database for consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers. The system is designed to evaluate product or category performance at the store level, to help target trade marketing money to high-performing stores and promotions, manage inventory levels and fulflll distribution voids. QScan (short for "quality scanning information") tracks all products in all retail stores (a "census") in chains representing more than 65% of U.S. chain ACV (all commodity volume). QScan uses data from all stores within a retail chain instead of a sample of stores, to eliminate sampling error and the need for statistical projections of data. IRI also is providing participating retailers with in-house access to IRI's proprietary neural network software to apply quality control and value-adding routines to scanner data for each retail store. QScan also enhances InfoScan, IRI's national and local market scanner tracking service.
New survey and analysis system for Mac
Senecio Software Inc., has introduced MaCATT, a political polling social survey and statistical analysis system for the Macintosh. The system provides computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATT), computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and disk-by-mail survey (DMS) capabilities. The software contains user interface for designing questionnaires and a statistical package compatible with industry standard mainframe packages for use on an Apple Macintosh. Features include: page-layout interface for entering and designing the questionnaire and permitting exact placement of multiple text, picture, response and sound blocks on each page; control of size, color and style of each character in any font; an interactive spelling checker, on-line dictionary and thesaurus; the ability to add pictures and make them selectable response items; and capacity to attach digitized sounds to any spot on the page. MaCATT also provides analog-rating scales, a point-and-click interface for more accurate information recording, and a mainframe-caliber statistical package that can generate fully labeled tabular results. The system operates over a local or wide area network relying on call management features to distribute and maintain the telephone sample, or as stand alone stations worldwide. The system, which is System 7 and A/UX compatible, can use standard Apple Talk or high-speed Ethernet networks. Applications include employee and customer satisfaction surveys, social science omnibus surveys, telefund drives and alumni information update studies, voter studies and election-day exit polls.
Axum update includes 2D, 3D and contour plotting advances
TriMetrix Inc., has released Axum 3.0, the newest version of its technical graphics and data analysis package for PCs. Axum is designed for users who want to produce publication-quality graphs and perform advanced data analysis on PCs. Axum 3.0 offers major advances in 2D, 3D and contour plotting including nonlinear curve fitting, area charts, vector plots, color-filled (flooded) contours and automatic error bars. The new version supports COM and SCODL, making it easier for users to create publication-quality slides from their graphs. New features include mouse support, a data editor which lets users write their own functions, if andgo to statements, while and for loops and nonlinear curve fitting, where Axum calculates a "best fit" curve for any user defined equation. Users can specify and graph arbitrary confidence bounds, do weighted fits, and have goodness-of-fit statistics calculated automatically.
GeoVALS gives local info about VALS 2+ segments
SRI International has developed GeoVALS for clients seeking local area information about the VALS 2+ segments. VALS is SRI's values and lifestyles program for psychographic market segmentation. GeoVALS estimates the percentage of each VALS segment in all zip codes in the United States. GeoVALS alsoprovides several indices of market attractiveness for market characteristics such as innovation, information seeking and brand loyalty. GeoVALS was developed with Market Statistics, afirm that specializes inlocal area information. Clients can purchase GeoVALS for specific states or the entire country. GeoVALS is delivered on diskette for IBM-compatible or Macintosh personal computers in ASCII format, and can be integrated into other mapping software. GeoVALS will be updated annually to reflect changes in census data andmodification in the algorithms.
Six reports detail geographic trends
Market Lab has released six reports de-tailing geographic trends. Each report com-bines demographic and retail data for all 3,141 U.S counties. The Hispanic Markets and African-American Markets reports include a look at the top counties in terms of greatest proportion of total population. Age Groups by Market breaks out each market into 1 Okey age ranges to reveal number and percentage of population within each range. Groups range from under 5 years old to 75 and over. Retail Density examines the ratio of potential customers to number of retail outlets, with nine retail classes. Convenience Store Market is an analysis of where outlets are located, including dominant markets, ratio to other retail stores, c-store saturation, store growth and demographic ratios. Demographic and Retail Population includes county-by-county breakdown including breakdown by age, race, sex, income and retail sales/units, plus top 100 market comparisons for selected criteria.
Version 7.0 of BMDP
BMDP Statistical Software Inc., has begun shipping Release 7.0 of its BMDP package for IBM PCs and compatibles. New features include an improved user interface, support for high-resolution graphics and data transfer capabilities. Also new is Mentor and the data imporfexport facility. Mentor is an interactive system with pop-up menus with information prompts, the utility automatically generates command language for several of the BMDP statistical modules. The data import/export facility cm import from spreadsheets and databases andean import and exports transportable files from SAS and SPSS.