Free information on how to conduct research
Financial Product Architects, Inc., Manchester, Conn., recently participated in the National Association of Inde pendent Insurers Executive Marketing Seminar. Software maker SPSS, Chicago, is also offering a free booklet, SPSS Survey Tips, designed to help readers design, conduct and analyze surveys.
City by city sports data available from NSGA
The National Sporting Goods Association has made available "Sports Participation in 1994: City-by-City," which projects sports participation for the total U.S. population as well as the 47 largest metropolitan statistical areas. The report covers sports with at least eight million participants in 1994, including aerobic exercising, baseball, bowling, calisthenics, camping, softball and others. The 26 sports are indexed for each city. The data is based in a sampling of 20,000 U.S. households.
Equifax launches new program for value added resellers
Equifax National Decision Systems, Atlanta, has launched a new program called Market Partners designed specifically for value added resellers. The program offers software developers, marketing consultants, strategic and business planning firms, direct mail list providers, magazine distributors and other businesses an opportunity to add value to their products or services through the use of National Decision Systems' geodemographic, market segmentation, site selection and other analytical applications.
Claritas debuts two new products
Claritas Inc., Arlington, Va., has released its 1995 UPDATE, which draws on information from more than 1,600 data sources, including the latest information from the U.S. Census Bureau, to provide neighborhood-level (census tract, block group) data on every county in the u.s. It also includes projections for the year 2000. It introduces enhancements to the product set, including a new set of procedures for estimating and projecting persons by race/ethnicity, sex, and detailed age; more residential ZIP codes, and improved ZIP code projections. UPDATE also offers an improved nonlinear methodology of computing population projections; small-area estimates of housing values nationwide using data from the National Association of Realtors; and incorporates the effects of major events like earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, and military base closings.
The company has also released Workplace PRIZM, a segmentation system that is designed to help marketers understand the potential for a company's products and services based on the demographics of the workplace population. The product gives the distribution of PRIZM lifestyle segmentation clusters carried into a neighborhood by its working population. It is based on tract-to-tract commuting data produced by the U.S. Census Bureau specifically for Claritas that provides the percentage of each residential tract's population commuting into each employment tract. All types of workers are covered, including the private sector, public sector and the growing sector of people who work at home. Users of Claritas' Compass marketing software can add Workplace PRIZM at the census tract level to their system. It can also be purchased as a separate database for use in GIS software, or Claritas' PRIZM project group can produce custom Workplace PRIZM profiles and maps of trade areas.
Updated directory tech information sources
Washington Researchers, Ltd., Washington, D.C., has released a new edition of "Technology Opportunities: Researching Emerging and Critical Technologies," a 500-page directory that provides direct access by phone, mail and the Internet to technology- related information resources in federal and state governments, university research centers, trade and professional associations and technology business councils. Many of the resources have public funding and are available free of charge to technology researchers and managers.
SPSS now available for Power Mac
The new Power Mac version of SPSS 6.1 for the Macintosh offers significant speed improvements. The company claims it runs some tasks nearly five times faster than the 680x0 version. For example, an analysis of variance with a data set of 10,000 cases used to take 23 seconds using a 680x0 Mac. On a Power Mac, the same analysis takes only five seconds. The base module for SPSS 6.1 for the Macintosh is available along with five optional modules. Two of the modules, SPSS Categories and SPSS Trends, are being offered for the first time with full Macintosh-style interface. SPSS Categories performs conjoint analysis and optimal scaling, including correspondence analysis. SPSS Trends can improve forecasting with complete time-series analyses techniques including multiple curve-fitting and smoothing models and methods for estimating autoregressive functions.
New ad tracking service from Research International
Research International, New York, has launched TRACE, its advertising tracking service, in the U.S. The service is already in use in 15 countries. Developed by Arthur Juchens, TRACE measures "active processing" evoked by an ad campaign. Active processing measures the depth and intensity of a campaign's effects on consumers.
Pine Co. installs ICR system
Pine Company, Santa Monica, Calif., has installed an image scanning system based on intelligent character recognition (ICR) that provides the capability to enter and process more than 40,000 forms a day. ICR eliminates the limitations on form design imposed by optical mark reading. The system recognizes check boxes and similar marks and can also read handprinted characters with near perfect accuracy. While a document ideally should have a few subtle registration marks, they aren't necessary any longer. Provided an individual follows a few basic guidelines, anyone can produce and print a scannable form using standard computer programs and equipment.
Software creates surveys for Windows-based pen computers
Pulse Train Technology, Guildford, England, now offers Bellview Pen, software designed to create and tabulate opinion surveys and market research questionnaires on Windows-based pen computers. The software runs on any pen computer that supports the Windows for Pen operating system. The questionnaires and forms created by the user can support questions requiring single or multiple responses, or even grids.
AmeriPoll is now on the Internet
Survey data from Maritz AmeriPoll, the national consumer opinion poll conducted by Maritz Marketing Research, Fenton, Mo., is now available on the Internet. By visiting the AmeriPoll home page at http://www.maritz.com/apoll researchers can get survey data on more than 65 consumer opinion topics, a complete selection of data summaries and press releases, graphic representations of findings, and more.
Survey on-line with the Opinionator
Opinionator, a new on-line market research system developed by New York-based CLT Research Associates, Inc., is a live, ongoing, interactive consumer dialogue and data gathering system, offering complete bulletin board and conferencing systems. The system is fully managed by CLT from beginning to end - the company designs an exclusive program for each client, targets and recruits a specific market, runs the program and interprets and delivers the results. Marketers can communicate directly with consumers and monitor their responses as often as they wish through formal on-line questionnaires, live group discussions moderated by CLT Associates or the client representative, private one-an-one discussions or bulletin boards. In addition, discussion topics and groups can be updated and modified as often as necessary throughout the process.
CRS opens DDS for Survey System users
Users of version 5.0 of The Survey System by Creative Research Systems, Petaluma, Calif., can now dial in to download the latest updates of files at no charge. The BBS is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Trans Union adds new services
Trans Union Corp., Chicago, has new custom modeling and analysis services that individually and collectively provide marketing and creditrelated information. The new services are built around TranSelect and Trans Union's Standard Characteristics. TranSelect consists of 59 credit characteristics that are used to develop customized response models for direct marketers, banks, credit grantors, retailers and insurance companies. The models rank consumers most likely to respond to an offer based on the client's own mail response data and the most predictive of the TranSelect characteristics. Trans Union's Standard Characteristics consists of more than 300 predefined credit characteristics available for model development, data analysis, evaluation of existing of prescreen selection criteria or to assist in creating prescreen selection criteria.
Marklntel nets more research sources
The Investext Group, Boston, has signed distribution agreements with ICC Information Group, Ltd. (ICC), Marketdata Enterprises, Inc., and Verdict Research Limited to redistribute their full-text market research reports on-line through its Marklntel service. Marklntel is available on-line via the Investext Group's business information service, I/PLUS Direct. Marklntel customers can now access information on every major U.S., U.K. and European consumer, retail, industrial and service industry. ICC supplies company and market analysis on more than 600 U.K. market sectors. Marketdata Enterprises reports on the services industry, covering topics such as child day care, temporary help services and niche health care markets. Verdict Research reports focus on the retailer and consumer and cover the retail industry in the U.K., Europe, and the U.S.
Measure satisfaction with The Opinionmeter
The Opinionmeter is a survey machine designed for placement on a stand adjacent to a customer queue or used as a desktop unit to allow respondents to provide customer satisfaction feedback in high traffic locations. Customers interact with the rechargeable-battery operated machine and self-administer their own surveys. Their responses go into the computer inside the machine. The Opinionmeter program screens the answers, tallies them and makes the results instantly available. The results can be delivered as a hard copy or downloaded via serial cable into a PC or Macintosh. Full crosstabs and time bracketing are available.