University of Georgia offers online research course
A new online certificate course, Web Survey Research and Data Delivery Methods, is now offered by the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education through its Principles of Marketing Research certificate program. The new course can be taken as a stand-alone module or as part of the certificate program. The course provides information about the techniques of quantitative and qualitative research, online reporting, approaches to online projects, and primary and secondary Intemet research. It concludes with a section on ethics, privacy and data protection.
Books profile American women, men, and U.S. ethnic makeup
New Strategist Publications, Inc., Ithaca, N.Y., is now offering three new books. American Men and its companion volume American Women use numbers from the 2000 census to let readers compare and contrast the changes between the sexes. Recently released economic census data on business ownership is an addition to these volumes, along with data from the 2000 General Social Survey. Each book is organized so readers can quickly locate the data they’re looking for, data which have been compiled into tables with timesaving calculations and descriptive text. The 10 chapters in each book are: attitudes and behavior, business, education, health, income, labor force, living arrangements, population, spending, and wealth.
The fourth edition of Racial and Ethnic Diversity profiles America at the millennium. Presenting 2000 census numbers on race, Racial and Ethnic Diversity includes new data that profile minority-owned businesses. It also provides detail on the Asian population, and it gives a look not only at American Indians, but also Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders who, in the past, were lumped in with Asians.
New Web survey software from Perseus
Perseus Development Corporation, Braintree, Mass., is now offering SurveySolutions XP, a family of Web survey software solutions for capturing information from customers, employees, and Web site visitors using Web surveys, e-mail surveys and Palm-powered surveys as well as traditional telephone, fax and paper surveys. Featuring enterprise-wide data storage, SurveySolutions XP offers support for open industry standards such as HTML, XML, and CSS. Additionally, Perseus’ newest product line provides DB2 and SPSS support.
Microsoft Office-compatible, SurveySolutions XP does not require Windows XP or Office XP. While SurveySolutions XP offers the look and feel of Windows XP, it also works with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME and Windows 2000. It is also equally compatible with Microsoft Office XP and Office 2000. SurveySolutions XP is available in a standard edition, professional edition, and three enterprise editions. SurveySolutions XP Standard is used for Web and e-mail surveys. It offers multi-page support, table questions, question renumbering, a Web tab for previewing of surveys, and other new features. SurveySolutions Professional offers Web, e-mall, kiosk and paper surveys, along with multisided table questions, advanced branching, answer piping, export to SPSS files, gap analysis and Section 508 compliance. SurveySolutions XP Enterprise is used for enterprise-wide survey management. Enterprise offers three editions - Workgroup, Department and Corporate - which vary by the number of users within an organization.
Telephone omnibus targets Hispanic consumers
Research Data Design, Inc. (RDD), Portland, Ore., has introduced Pulso Hispano, a monthly omnibus telephone survey targeting Hispanic respondents in 10 U.S. markets. Clients can select their markets and questions, and data is delivered in 10 business days. In addition to the client-requested data, RDD captures demographic and psychographic information from each respondent that can be used for further analysis. RDD fields Pulso Hispano on the first of every month, and completes 300 interviews per market with even male/female splits. Respondents are screened for Spanish-language speaking households, age, gender, and security.
Version 8 of The Survey System
Petaluma, Calif.-based Creative Research Systems has released version 8.0 of The Survey System, its survey analysis software package for PCs. The latest version comes in three editions - Basic, Professional, and Enterprise - and has optional modules that enable researchers to undertake many types of survey and perform multiple levels of data analysis. The Survey System allows users to create anything from paper questionnaires to computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) surveys. The optional Intemet Module lets users take conduct Web and e-mail surveys. The program also provides for data entry and tabulation, creation of reports and graphs, and it offers advanced statistical tools. New features include video in both Web and desktop surveys and tracking interviewer time in telephone surveys.
New online survey platform
Seattle-based NetReflector, Inc. is now offering InstantSurvey 4.0, its online survey platform. Based on open XML standards, InstantSurvey 4.0 combines functionality with an easy-to-use interface and enables distributed workgroups to collect information in a short period of time. InstantSurvey 4.0 is accessed through the user’s Intemet browser. Surveys utilizing survey features such as multiple languages, randomization, matrix tables, branching, piping and multiple response types can now be developed and distributed to an unlimited number of recipients.
Enterprise teams can now share themes and other reusable survey components to ensure a consistent look and feel in all their surveys, while creating and editing a survey concurrently and securely. And distributed analysis needs can now be satisfied with shared access to survey results so that multiple team members can create/run the reports that fit their particular needs.
In addition to a list of standard graphical reports, InstantSurvey 4.0 lets users build custom reports, create executive-level presentations, or perform interim data downloads to other applications such as spreadsheets and databases, for further analysis.
Polk offers e-mail survey enhancements
Southfield, Mich.-based R. L. Polk & Co. has launched Polk eSolutions, a suite of products designed to help direct marketers and researchers optimize their marketing campaigns and research studies by electronically communicating with millions of consumers who are pre-disposed to receiving offers and surveys through the Internet. Polk eSoludons enable businesses to select from a variety of automotive ownership, age, gender, income characteristics and modeled data to target their desired audience, create counts and deliver their message. These products enable marketers and researchers to deliver e-mail messages tailored to their audience. Marketers and researchers can track campaign effectiveness and make changes, if needed.
The eSolution product suite also offers e-mail appending and reverse email appending options. The e-mail appending option enables users to append millions of e-mail addresses to their customer databases. The reverse email appending option enables users to append address, demographic, lifestyle and automotive data so companies can fully understand their customers.
Weekly retail sales tracking product from ShopperTrak
ShopperTrak RCT, a Chicago retail intelligence firm has launched a weekly national sales tracking product for the retail industry, the National Retail Sales Estimate (NRSE), which provides a nationwide benchmark of retail sales, offering information on consumer trends. ShopperTrak RCT’s NRSE provides the retail industry with a Monday snapshot of the previous week’s sales, enabling retailers to see how they are performing against the market and act upon the data to impact future sales. It is published at the beginning of each week to reflect U.S. retail sales from the previous week. The NRSE sales statistic is the weekly counterpart of the U.S. Commerce Department’s broad-based monthly retail sales data for general merchandise, apparel, furniture and other related store sales (GAFO). It is derived from ShopperTrak RCT’s proprietary industry intelligence on shopper movement and sales statistics.
Summary File 3 (SF3) census data now available
Tetrad Computer Applications Inc., Bellingham, Wash., is now shipping first 12 states of the Summary File 3 (SF3) census data to PCensus users. The data is organized into 63 tables. The original census bureau tables are also included. Free data for the state and county level can be downloaded with a demo copy of PCensus for Maplnfo. Summary File 3 consists of approximately 5,300 Census 2000 variables covering social, economic and housing characteristics compiled from a sample of approximately 19 million housing units (about one in 6 households) that received the Census 2000 long-form questionnaire.
The census data is presented in a hierarchical sequence down to the block group level. Also included are Zip Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) which are approximate representations of United States Postal Service ZIP Code service areas.
Population items include basic population totals; urban and rural; households and families; marital status; grandparents as caregivers; language and ability to speak English; ancestry; place of birth, citizenship status, and year of entry; migration; place of work; journey to work (commuting); school enrollment and educational attainment; veteran status; disability; employment status; industry; occupation, and class of worker; income; and poverty status.
Housing items include basic housing totals; urban and rural; number of rooms; number of bedrooms; year moved into unit; household size and occupants per room; units in structure; year structure built; heating fuel; telephone service; plumbing and kitchen facilities; vehicles available; value of home; monthly rent, and shelter costs. Many tables are repeated for nine major race and Hispanic or Latino groups. With PCensus, SF3 data can be used at the block level. Having more census data points allows much greater resolution for calculating profiles of user defined areas (circles, polygons, drive times).
CPE satisfaction benchmarks from Sage
Sage Research, Inc., Natick, Mass., has introduced the Sage CPE Customer Satisfaction Benchmark Program. The program is a research initiative defining satisfaction benchmarks for the CPE industry (CPE, or customer premises equipment, includes communications and networking equipment that is physically located at customer sites). The CPE Customer Satisfaction Benchmark Program consists of three components: a free industry-wide benchmark report, detailed product category-specific reports, and custom reports (with which a company can compare its unique scores against the industry benchmarks).
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INgather research, Denver, is now offering 10 different focus group room configurations, allowing clients to tailor their research environment based on their respondent demographics. Rooms include youth-based designs for kids, tweens, and teens as well as a living room setting, a bar setting with pool table, courtroom for mock juries, and an auditorium loft seating 100 respondents classroom-style.
Montgomeryville, Pa.-based research firm JRA, J. Reckner Associates Inc., has opened a new office in Milwaukee offering market and sensory research. The facility includes a focus group suite and product testing center, which includes a commercial test kitchen, multipurpose room, eight fragrance/product evaluation rooms, and a kitchenette with client viewing capabilities.
Maritz Research, St. Louis, has launched a new international data collection division called Envoy, which will offer a range of quantitative fieldwork services and will be linked to Maritz Research. Envoy will initially operate in the U.S. and Europe, offering telephone, mail, Web, face-to-face (Europe only), mystery shopping, and interactive voice response surveys.
Doane Marketing Research, Inc., St. Louis, has established a new service venture offered in cooperation with Katie Thiemann and her company, Ag Advantage Consulting, Inc., St. Louis. Thiemann will be working with Doane’s agronomic project and service staff to offer a new supplemental service level to the support services already offered as a part of the annual subscription package to Doane’s AgroTrak, GolfTrak, and syndicated seed studies.
Star Data Systems, Chicago, is now providing telephone data collection services through its new call center. The center features virtual monitoring over the Interact, which enables clients to click on any interview within their project and see each screen as it appears to the interviewer and hear the conversation between the interviewer and the respondent.
New York publisher Kalorama Information has launched a new Web site providing access to market intelligence covering the life sciences. Built upon the same search applications as the publisher’s parent company MarketResearch.com, www.KaloramaInformation.com, provides details about each report in the Kalorama portfolio and the ability to view sections of reports prior to purchase.
Worldbridge Language Services, Los Angeles, has unveiled a new Web site for companies seeking more information about its survey translation services at www.worldbridgeservices.com.
Global Market Insite (GMI), Cunningham Research, and Field Facts Worldwide have expanded their global network of central location testing facilities. The expansion increases the number of U.S. mail locations to more than 125 sites across the U.S., and extends the network globally via Field Facts’ Worldwide offices and partner sites. Cunningham Research and Field Facts Worldwide have licensed GMI’s Net-MR suite of software tools for market research management.
Ford Consulting Group, Minneapolis, has introduced Ford Answers For Analysts, an information service that enables CPG manufacturers to extract insights and action initiatives from standard IRI/ACNielsen syndicated data. Through knowledge, definition, graph templates and support, Ford Answers For Analysts offers hints, tips and advice for analyzing store data.
Simmons Market Research Bureau will now provide the Cohorts household-based market segmentation system in its National Consumer Survey (NCS) for all existing and new clients.
Customer Perspectives, a Hooksett, N.H., mystery shopping firm, is now offering an electronic reporting option allowing clients to access both individual shopping reports and a variety of data summaries from a secure Web site. Clients can also specify triggers so they are automatically e-mailed if scores are above or below a specified level.
New York-based CMR has added Mediamark Research Inc. ratings data to its Stradegy2 oniine media intelligence system. The addition of MRI magazine ratings data provides demographic, lifestyle, product usage and exposure information.