Free report looks research industry trends

Atlanta marketing research firms DialTek and Pioneer Marketing Research are offering free access to results from their 2003 Research Industry study at www.dialtek.com/index.asp?res=1024. The study, which examines trends in data collection in 2003, also gathered information on other issues affecting the research industry. Respondents to the e-mailed questionnaire answered questions on topics such as outsourcing, criteria for selecting a data collection method, and the provider selection process.

New interface from MSG, CfMC

Fort Washington, Pa.-based Marketing Systems Group (MSG) and Computers for Marketing Corporation (CfMC), San Francisco, have released a new interface between CfMC’s WebCATI and the PRO-T-S researchPredictive Dialer. This interface allows interviewers, physically located away from the centralized interviewing facility, to operate as if they were in the facility itself. The interface uses a centralized Web-based interviewing system linked to a computerized dialing system.

Suitable for areas of the country where it is difficult to recruit interviewing staff to drive to a central location, this interface provides flexibility for both interviewers and call center managers. Interviewers can work for shorter and more varied periods of time, transforming "drivetime" to paid hours. For management, the pool of prospective qualified interviewers increases; expansion doesn’t mean new booth construction; and no-show problems due to weather difficulties could be almost eliminated.

All sample control and dialing is centralized. Interviewers can be monitored from anywhere. And, audio recording options range from voice capture of selected segments/ questions to full interview recording. The soon-to-be-released Digital Sound Management Plus (DSM+) module will allow for retrieval and playback of recordings for quality control, interviewer evaluation, and/or delivery to clients.

Operationally, an interviewer signs in at the WebCATI Web site, PRO-T-S then dials their phone - that connection is now just another telephone extension, just like any other station within the central facility, with the same PRO-T-S features and functionality. Not limited to just at-home interviewing, the solution can be implemented to service clusters of small call centers, or even a remote or "virtual" interviewing force.

Maplnfo updates Canadian products

MapInfo Corporation, Troy, N.Y., has announced an update to its demographic data for its core Canadian products, incorporating all available 2001 Census data from Statistics Canada. MapInfo’s 2003 Estimates and Projections, Daytime Population, Consumer Expenditure Potentials and PSYTE Neighborhood Segmentation System will give users the most recent data available for fueling market potential studies, customer acquisition and target marketing campaigns and site location analysis.

MapInfo’s Estimates and Projections Canada database incorporates Statistics Canada’s 2001 Census data and is available on the new census geography. The new data enables marketers to identify the demographic trends and estimated market characteristics for the current year as well as projections across hundreds of variables for three, five and 10 years ahead. Some of the new variables added for the 2003 data include: household income distributions, total population age categories (both male and female) and 2001 adjusted Census population counts.

MCAPI tool from Techneos, SPSS MR

An ongoing collaboration between Techneos Systems and SPSS MR has produced a solution for mobile collection of structured data. Techneos has released a new version of its Entryware Professional software that is integrated with the SPSS MR Dimensions Platform to create a scalable mobile computer-assisted personal interviewing (MCAPI) tool. It allows market researchers to utilize mobile data collection in situations where it is the most suitable method, and to include it in multimode interviewing systems.

Entryware Pro 4.0 has new features designed to make questionnaire design and data collection tasks easier for new users, and improve productivity for those with experience. Version 4 also works with the new Techneos Enterprise Server to provide Web-based questionnaire distribution, project management, and reporting of results for any number of handheld devices. Support for most double-byte character sets is now available, enhancing the software’s ability to run multilingual questionnaires.

BMRA offers free Researcher's Toolkit

The British Market Research Association is now offering its Researcher’s Toolkit CD-ROM. The toolkit is free and provides an array of statistics, information and opinions on a wide range of subjects. The areas covered in the toolkit include: macromarket data; information on the U.K. market research industry (includes BMRA-member company listings and profiles); useful information sources; market research techniques; BMRA members’ omnibus surveys; relevant business literature; industry codes of conduct; how to commission research (includes BMRA-member company listing and Selectline); education courses. All BMRA members will receive several copies of the CD and it is also available on the BMRA Web site at www.bmra.org.uk.

Arbitron enhances RADAR

New York-based Arbitron Inc. has made several enhancements to its RADAR network radio ratings service, including increased sample size, improved sample balancing techniques and new software reporting capabilities. RADAR (Radio’s All Dimension Audience Research) is a radio ratings service that measures national radio audiences and the audience size of network radio commercials and commercials within programs aired on 37 radio networks.

Beginning with RADAR 76, which was released on March 24, RADAR reports are now based on an annual sample of nearly 50,000 radio diaries. Arbitron began the transition from telephone to diary measurement in June 2002. The last release using all telephone (March 2002) had a sample base of 12,000 respondents. Arbitron is also introducing techniques that will improve sample balancing for Hispanic respondents and for Black Non-Hispanic, and ensure the proper weighting for a number of demographic and geographic characteristics.

The NRRC (Network Radio Research Council) agreed with the use of the new sample balancing methods, after reviewing a test that showed the new methods produced a balanced diary sample consistent with population projections. The methods use 16 discrete sex/age groups; four census region groups; five county size groups and three household size groups; as well as race and ethnicity.

Study documents power of newspaper ads

Results from a conversion study conducted by Millward Brown UK for the U.K.-based Newspaper Society demonstrate that local press advertising plays a vital role in pushing consumers along the buying process towards purchase. The study represents the largest piece of independentadvertising effectiveness research ever undertaken by the U.K. regional press. It tracked multimedia advertising campaigns for 26 brands in four regions of the U.K, and involved over 9,000 faceto- face interviews. The study has also been named Advertising Effectiveness Research of the Year by the World Association of Newsphpers.

Track Web audience data via daypart

New York-based Nielsen//NetRatings has launched Internet Pocketpiece, a syndicated online measurement product providing audience data and analysis across dayparts. About, Inc. and PRIMEDIA have signed on as charter clients and were instrumental in developing the product. Designed for the media community, the Internet Pocketpiece provides a topline view of the monthly traffic for the top 250 ad-supported Web sites as measured by Nielsen//NetRatings. This removes all non ad-supported sites from the data to specifically target the Web sites important to the competitive analysis regularly conducted by the media community. This tool will be focused on measuring dayparts for Web sites across various metrics including unique visitors, active reach, the percent of time spent, as well as demographic breakdowns. The Nielsen//NetRatings Internet Pocketpiece can be tailored to fit specific needs, allowing clients various customized product options, including: the ability to see daypart data on Web sites outside of the top 250 ad-supported sites; and the option for clients to create custom groupings of their content as well as competitors’ content.

Star package from SPSS

SPSS Inc., Chicago, is now offering SigmaStat 3.0, a statistical software package that enables users to perform statistical analysis and interpretation without being a statistics expert. SigmaStat guides users step-by-step through analysis, from picking the appropriate technique, to checking assumptions in the data, to reporting the results in plain English. Used together, SigmaStat and SigmaPlot offer a toolkit for statistics, curve-fitting and regression and publication-quality graphics and reports.

For current SigmaStat users, the latest release of SigmaStat provides a link to SigmaPlot, which enables: access to SigmaPlot files in SigmaStat; access to SigmaStat files in SigmaPlot (requires latest versions); access to SigmaPlot’s graph-editing features, including: SigmaPlot’s graph properties dialog, for modifying any object in the graph; new toolbar palettes, which allow users to selectively edit objects such as bars or lines or individual points in a scatterplot, or allow the editing of multiple items simultaneously; and a new text formatting toolbar, which enables onpage text editing.

SigmaStat 3.0 also includes new or upgraded features, such as:

  • Survival analysis using Kaplan-Meier (product limit) method to estimate the survival function of subjects followed over time. Survival curve options include error bars, confidence intervals, display censored or failure values, color schemes.
  • New report page with improved page and keyboard controls; ability to export reports to .HTML or .PDF formats.
  • New data worksheet with more flexibility to work with larger data sets.
  • Improvements in graphing data such as new data format options, automatic graph legends and more symbols.
  • Windows 2000/XP support and the ability to import MS Access and SPSS files.

Study analyzes effects of pharmacists’ OTC recommendations

Markitecture, a Norwalk, Conn., research firm, has launched a syndicated study to analyze the effect of pharmacists’ recommendations on OTC sales. The study will include several hundred pharmacists, ranging from small independents to large pharmacy chains across the U.S. Pharmacists will be asked to rate each brand within each product category for attributes and benefits. The study will measure how Often pharmacists recommend OTC products and how often those recommendations directly result in sales. Results can be tailored for individual clients subscribing to the syndicated study.

Qualitative television rating debuts

New York-based Scarborough Research and Nielsen Media Research have partnered to offer the NSI Profiler, a new qualitative television rating which combines Nielsen Station Index (NSI) ratings with Scarborough’s qualitative consumer indices. This combination of Scarborough’s qualitative information with the NSI rating enables users to take lifestyle, shopping preference and other consumer behaviors into account when determining the propensity of a viewer to tune in to certain television programs. The NSI Profiler is available through Scarborough’s PRIME NExT data analysis software to all clients who subscribe to bofh Scarborough Research and Nielsen’s local ratings service.

Update of Databeacon Collaboration Edition

Databeacon has released a new version of its Web reporting and data analysis software. Databeacon Collaboration Edition offers anyone with a browser and a connection to the Internet the ability to collaborate on Web reports without the need to install software or take training. Sending an e-mail from the Databeacon Insight viewer to people of your choice activates a self-defined workgroup. E-mail recipients click on an "Analyze Report" link and they can continue to interactively analyze Web report data within their own automatically loaded, free Databeacon Insight viewer, adding their own Web reports to share within the workgroup as needed.

The initial release of Databeacon Collaboration Edition is an Englishonly release, and will run on Microsoft operating systems, standard Web servers, and IE 5.0+ and Navigator 4.7+ browsers. Releases offering UNIX and Microsoft Analysis Services support, as well as multilingual support, will follow this summer.

Briefly...

A new research firm, Research Resolutions, has opened in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, with a satellite office in Tampa, Fla. The firm specializes in Internet surveys and IVR and has an online research panel of up to four million, with one million fully profiled, available.

The Caney Group, a Monroe, Conn., research firm, has developed Word for Word, a new service that utilizes observational research of consumers as they choose and use products to uncover their spoken and unspoken needs and desires. Word for Word also lets marketers incorporate video clips into their PowerPoint presentations.

Focus Pointe has opened a facility in Santa Monica, Calif., approximately 15 minutes from the Los Angeles airport.