LEXIS-NEXIS upgrades Mac interface, adds market research reports
LEXIS-NEXIS has updated its research software for Macintosh to version 2.9. Fully compatible with Mac System 7.0 and higher, the software is now available via disk or can be downloaded from the LEXIS-NEXIS Communication Center on the World Wide Web at www.lexis-nexis.com. Improvements in the software include: a text input area that expands automatically while you type in a search request; a scrollable research session history window that allows you to repeat a complex search without rekeying it; improved, automatic document formatting that allows customization for user needs; dual column printing with Postscript printers; Interact access to LEXISNEXIS services; point and click LINK hypertext links to related documents.
In other LEXIS-NEXIS news, the service now features reports from more than a dozen market research firms, including Datamonitor, FIND/SVP and Nielsen. Customers can purchase report information on-line by subsection, eliminating the cost of buying an entire report. Users will also have the ability to preview more of a market research report than traditionally offered. Users may browse the entire table of contents and study the methodology of most reports, as well as view actual tables, minus the data, before purchasing. The initial providers include: A.C. Nielsen, BCC Reports, Business Trend Analysts, Collector Trends Analysts, Datamonitor, Euromonitor Market Journals and Reports, FIND/SVP, Freedonia Group, The Information Catalog, Leading Edge, MarketLine International, Packaged Facts and Specialists in Business Information (SBI). More providers will be added in the coming year.
Software eases recruiting for research firms
Marketing Decision Support Systems, Inc., Indianapolis, Ind., has introduced Research Tracker, a software program developed to improve productivity for field services. Research Tracker allows research firms to keep detailed information on respondents to aid recruiting efforts, analyze frequency distribution, track alerts for jobs and client information, do invoicing and perform a variety of reports.
Saporito establishes home page
Saporito & Associates, a New York research and consulting firm specializing in the insurance industry, has established a home page on the World Wide Web. In addition to information about its products and services, the home page has a list of new insurance research resources that the company selects from to include in its new database, INSCite. The site also includes a resource submission form that subscribers or publishers can use to forward recommendations for additions to the INSCite database. The address is: http://www.brainlink.com/Nsaporito.
New release of Customer Insight’s AnalytiX
Customer Insight Co., Orlando, Fla., has released AnalytiX 2.2, an enhanced version of its AnalytiX System for database marketing. The Windows-based software helps companies analyze marketing data by generating detailed, custom-designed reports compiled from transaction-level customer information. New features include faster write-back, distributed/remote processing capabilities, an incremental database module, an OnSite database build modnle, neural net modeling interface, and a three-level compression module.
SDR puts a dollar amount on brand equity
SDR, Inc., Atlanta, has released BrandValuator, a new tool for estimating the value of a brand name or trademark. The model is designed to benefit corporate financial officers and corporate planners. In 1992 SDR developed a conceptual framework for measuring brand value and brand equity from the buyers’ viewpoint. The goal was to develop a tool for brand managers to better understand brand value and brand equity and their various components. Using survey research techniques coupled with new information processing theory, the model was tested and refined in 1993 and 1994. From this effort, SDR researchers felt that similar techniques could be used to estimate the actual dollars and cents a brand name or trademark was worth to buyers and potential buyers of a product or service, at the unit level. Given accurate unit sales estimates, the model could then estimate the value of a brand or trademark in the total market or in major subsegments. SDR’s model is based on the assumption that only purchasers in a specific product or service category can determine the value of brand names in the category. The SDR BrandValuator is based on measuring such buyers’ choices in an experimental setting, using widely accepted marketing research methods. The buyer’s evaluation of overall product/service value is then parceled into values due to price, product/service features, and the intrinsic features of the brand name - the brand’s equity. The buyer’s evaluation of the brand name equity is them restated in dollars and cents.
Software gathers survey data through networks
GroupSystems Survey by Ventana Corp., Tucson, Ariz., is a software program that allows for rapid surveying of large numbers of people. The software is designed to: gather information through a network of PCs regardless of time or location; accumulate responses instantaneously; tabulate hundreds of surveys in minutes; distribute survey results rapidly. Participants respond online in four ways: using networked training rooms, over office networks, using stand-alone diskettes or via kiosks.
New toll-free survey program
Decision Analyst, Arlington, Texas, has launched a customer survey program that allows businesses to receive fast feedback via a 24-hour toll-free number. Called 800 Customer Opinion, the service provides businesses a way to receive continuous feedback relating to products, services, employees, dealers, retail stores, etc. Decision Analyst assigns businesses an 800-number for specific projects, then assists in questionnaire design. The company also recommends ways clients can encourage their customers to respond to the service. When customers call they hear a voice-activated, automated questionnaire. They answer questions bypressing numbers on the phone keypad and/or voicing their opinions after a prompt.