Page 201 - Marketing the Basics 2nd

Market research 193
you it was the day they left their camera at home the perfect shot presented itself.
Observational techniques are used heavily in conducting market research. Ratings agency Nielson attaches a box to participants’ television sets, tracking their channel preferences. In addition, many use tools to measure a subject’s pulse, eye-movement and even brain-scans to test their reaction to a product. Less invasive means of observing consumers is to use cameras to track buying patterns. Credit card companies track and analyse your purchasing habits each time you swipe your card. Most companies leave cookies on your computer to track which websites you visit.
expeRiMenTaL MeTHoDoLogies
Experimental methodologies attempt to create semi-isolated environments that are similar to the real world. The idea is that by creating a model world, many of the extraneous factors are eliminated thus giving the researcher a good idea of the real cause- and-effect relationship between variables. Test markets are a great example of this. In a test market setting, a new product is launched in a small sized city with a population that is representative for the whole market. In the United States, the city that best represents the demographics of the overall population is Albany, New York. Researchers modify each P at a time to determine the best mix.
Another new type of testing that is happening in the marketplace is the emergence of scenario testing using simulators. The rapidly declining cost of computing power along with the emergence of programmers who realize that technology is meant to make our lives easier, means that the creation of a virtual market using data collected from the field has become more prevalent. One of the neat advantages of using a computer is that it can crunch millions of bits of information quickly. As we mentioned earlier, to get a good sense of how consumers behave, you need to do lots of studies from a variety of perspectives. By using a computer, you can incorporate the findings into one place, and also incorporate market dynamics to simulate how changes in the business environment affect sales. Once you build the program, you can do virtually anything you please. Want to see how your product reacts in an inflationary