Produce consumers profiled
"Fresh Trends 1991: A Profile of the Fresh Produce Consumer," a series of three reports on today's fresh fruit and vegetable consumer, is now available from the Produce Division of Vance Publishing Corporation. Each report includes a narrative overview of results from the 1991 survey and demographic variation in responses, as well as comparisons of data from four previous surveys. Taken as a representative sampling of the American population, "Fresh Trends 1991" reveals a consumer interest in fresh produce that continues to build.
The survey results are based on a sampling of 1,390 U.S. households. The households, part of the roughly quarter-million in the panel of Chicago-based Market Facts Inc., completed the survey questionnaire by late October. Survey results were compiled and analyzed jointly by Market Facts and Vance Research Services.
The reports include computer tabulations that segment responses by gender, age, household income, respondent occupation and education, marital status, household size, geographic region and market size.
New X-Windows platform
The Washington Operations of Grumman Data Systems introduce an X Windows-based applications development platform, Decision Support X Windows (DSX), for geographic information and related data in marketing and sales operations.
DSX is nonhardware-specific, so it can run on any commercial, ruggedized, or military hardware product that supports X Windows version 11, C development language, a commercial relational database management system (RDBMS), a UNIX or VMS operating system, and TCP/IP or DECnet network protocol.
DSX is a family of five integrated software components that provides the graphic, geographic information management, and relational database capabilities common to most decision support systems. DSXBase serves as the backbone of the system by performing initialization, window management and pulldown menu duties. High-level commands of all components, as well as site-specific application commands, are selected from the same pulldown menu. DSXDraw is the interactive drawing capability for creation, manipulation, and retention of color graphic displays. DSXGeo is the integrated geographic information management and map display capability. DSXDatabase is for interactive graphic display and manipulation of relational database representations. The DSXToolkit manages user interface software tools (buttons, pop-up windows, etc.) with which custom color graphic man-machine interfaces can be developed.
DSX meets many requirements of decision support applications without additional software development. Administrative tools allow efficient tailoring of each DSX component for custom applications. For more information, contact Thomas Fagre, Grumman Data Systems, 6862 Elm St., McLean, VA, 22101.
MarketPlace: Households canceled
Lotus Development Corporation and Equifax Inc. announced the cancellation of Lotus MarketPlace: Households, a CD-ROM database product of names, addresses, and marketing information on 120 million U.S. consumers, originally scheduled for shipment this month. The companies said the decision to cancel the product came after an assessment of the public concerns and misunderstanding of the product, and the substantial, unexpected additional costs required to fully address consumer privacy issues.
C.B. (Jack) Rogers, Jr., Equifax president and CEO, said: "Equifax is a technology leader and, equally important, a pioneer in the area of consumer privacy protection in the information industry. While we remain committed to using the most sophisticated technology available, the delicate balance between legitimate information needs of business and consumers' privacy concerns."
"Unfortunately, Lotus Marketplace: Households is at the apex of an emotional firestorm of public concern about consumer privacy," said Jim Manzi, Lotus' president and CEO. "While we believe the actual data content and controls built into the product preserved consumer privacy, we couldn't ignore the high level of consumer concern. After examining all of the issues, we have decided that the cost and complexity of educating consumers about the issue is beyond the scope of Lotus as a software provider.
"Technology is radically changing the way we work, and, more importantly, how we use information. Balancing the advantages of easier access to information with the individual's right to privacy is only the first of many new issues our industry will grapple with in the coming years," Manzi said.
System offers computer access to data collection agencies
No one can dispute the significant impact that PC's have had on the data collection industry. Both CATI and CAPI interviewing are now quickly becoming the norm instead of the exception. In addition, research companies are using personal computers for such diverse applications as modeling and analysis to presentation preparation.
While personal computers have increased our productivity and quality, the power and utility of PC's utilizing electronic communications has not yet been fully exploited. The ability to connect PC's using telephone lines presents the opportunity to share information in new and exciting ways. Not only can data be exchanged between the multiple offices in large field agencies, but users of these agencies now have the ability to become part of the electronic networks.
The Sherlock System, developed by Equifax/Quick Test, is a dial-in bulletin board designed to allow users to access to information from a multi-location data collection agency. Users can dial into Sherlock using any PC and virtually any communications software. Once logged into the system, users have the following options:
Leave Specifications for a Bid
Users type in the specification for a bid which is then broadcast over the mall network. The bids are calculated in the local markets and the user is contacted by phone or fax with a complete bid within 1 hour.
Leave a note
Users type in messages such as postponements, specification changes etc. The messages are automatically routed to the appropriate field locations.
Retrieve Job Status
Users retrieve cumulative job status reports for any jobs currently in the field. The reports can be run by location or summarize for the entire job. Termination points to be tracked are defined by the user to duplicate the exact pencil and paper status form that they currently use. In addition, the computer calculates incidence by market as defined by the user.
Retrieve Data Files
Users can download files to their own PC. These files can either contain raw data or finished tables. Once the data is brought back to the user's PC it can be processed as usual. That is, the raw data can be passed through a tabulation system and the finished tables can be printed out.
Electronic Brochure
Users can find out about specific mall locations. The data include facility address, anchor stories, hotel recommendations, restaurant recommendations, directions from airport and demographics. If the user is connected to a printer, the information can be printed directly from the screen.
How It Works
The Sherlock System is made up of a multitude of custom business programs and communication systems. First, the system uses an electronic mail system that allows messages to be sent to any and all mall sites with the push of a button. In addition, job status is tracked using proprietary data base management programs that have been developed over the past 3 years. Finally, the system uses an unattended communications package which polls each location every night to retrieve data and job status reports.
Security
Data security is always a concern when users are allowed to dial in to a central computer. To eliminate the risk of unauthorized access to data, the Sherlock System use two levels of security. The first password users need to know gets them into the main system. In order to retrieve data on a specific study, users need to know a second password which is user-assigned and linked to the job number. Users can change the password assigned to their jobs as often as they would like.
The Future
Currently in development is an entire system that provides user specific capabilities. For example, one manager wanted to use Sherlock to keep track of two salespeople. Now the salespeople simply dial into Sherlock in the morning and report on the prior day's activities as well as outlining their current day's agenda. When the manager calls into Sherlock to retrieve his daily job status reports, he also checks the information entered by his salespeople. Of course, no other user is allowed access to this manager's data.
Association of Business Publishers studies advertising effectiveness
The Association of Business Publishers (ABP) has recently released business-to-business advertising study results. Included in the report is information on advertising effectiveness as it relates to frequency, continuity, concentration, color, and spreads. The purpose of the report is "to help both advertisers and agencies to analyze the advertising effectiveness of the specialized business press and to get the most out of their advertising investments."
The ABP report includes information on a number of studies which show that specialized business publication advertising reaches more people than any other promotional or sales effort-including one-on-one sales calls. One example used is a study conducted by a major U.S. manufacturer who found that product advertising reached 68% of the buying influences at plant of an important prospect while sales callsreached only 11%,direct mail reached 8%, and trade shows reached 0%.
Another study referred to by ABP conducted by Cahners Research of 9,200 prospects and 53 different manufacturers found that 60% of those who had requested product information as a result of advertising did not know that "this company" manufactured "the product advertised" before seeing the advertisement. A somewhat similar study conducted by Technical Publishing analyzed the responses to 37 ads run in eight publications over a two year period and found that 67% of the respondents had been unaware of the advertised products before seeing the ad.
A portion of the ABP report dealt with the importance of frequency in an advertising campaign. Citing another Cahners Research study which analyzed "Remember Seeing" scores for 3,117 advertisements from 696 companies, ABP reported that the scores increased in direct proportion to increased advertising frequency. Running less than three ads in a 12 month period resulted in an index of 81, while running 12 to 17 increased the index to 112. Running 24 or more increased that index again, to 143.
Increasing frequency, without changing advertising materials, can result in more product inquiries and sales. The ABP report provides two specific examples of product advertisements which did not change over a period of time and where inquiries continued throughout their lifetime. Another study reported that the higher the exposure rate to a single product advertisement the higher the sales. According to the ABP report advertisers and agencies, having seen their ad dozens of times in the process of producing and trafficking it, can get bored and believe it is necessary to produce an new advertisement. They have reached the saturation point but do not realize that their target audience has not.
The report also provides information regarding the effect of advertising continuity. Two studies showed that publication advertising recall dropped by more than 50% three weeks after exposure. Another study analyzed a company's advertising in a single publication over a seven-year period. The company ran a total of 36.5 pages of advertising during a three year period. Then it stopped advertising. At the end of those first three years, 68% of the magazine readers said they were familiar with the company. Four years later, without additional advertising support, only 44.9% recognized the company.