The Future of Media Planning in the USA

 As market researchers we spend a lot of time on questionnaire design, and a whole chapter is devoted to it in this book. However, working out who should be interviewed and making sure that the right person is interviewed is sometimes overlooked or at least not given enough attention. In a consumer market research survey this task can be sorted out by screening 

questions in an online questionnaire. The choice of the panel company will also have a very strong bearing on whether the right people are available for interview. There are still a large number surveys that require lists of respondents to be prepared. A customer survey is usually dependent on a list of customers provided by the sponsor of the research. In many business

to-business surveys it is necessary to find target respondents by using directories or specialist list suppliers. Spending time on making sure that the list is a good one will speed the survey up, keep the cost down and ensure that the right person is interviewed. A market researcher therefore needs to be fully familiar with all potential sources of lists. Directories are the staple 

Diet of market researchers

They provide details of companies that either supply or consume goods and they are the usual source for preparing sample frames (lists of companies or people to be interviewed). The directories may also provide a profile of a company, detailing its size by giving the number of employees, or whether it is an agent or producerMaterial such as abstracts, statistics and large directories are increasingly available on websites, though for anything 

useful you will probably have to pay a fee (for example information on the chemical and rubber industry can be obtained from RAPRA – the Rubber and Plastics Research Association – on a subscription basis). Mintel provides reports on a range of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), financial services, media, retail, leisure and education. The 

company publishes hundreds of report titles covering the UK, Europe, United States and international consumer markets. he press The general, business and trade press are key sources for the desk researcher. As well as ‘news’ these sources include much background material, including special supplements on industries and markets. In the past, researchers 

Relied on the clippings services 

of libraries and archive agencies but today’s work is made easier by online search facilities on some newspaper sites. One of our favourites is the Financial Times, which has an archive facility available to everybody for simple searches and power searches of a wider archive for a fee. Company data Researchers need company data for competitor benchmarking, 

sourcing suppliers or building profiles of customers and potential customers. Only a few years ago company literature was a mainstay of product searches. Today company websites are brimming with useful information. They contain pictures of products, lists of distributors, data sheets, company histories, press releases and sometimes financial background. The information is nearly always more extensive and current than printed brochures and it is 

available in an instant. A request for information about a competitor could be put together in couple of hours and contain an impressive amount of material. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires all US public companies (except foreign companies and companies with less than $10 million in assets and 500 shareholders) to file registration statements, periodic reports and other forms electronically, and anyone can access and download this information for free from its Edgar database on he range of information 

Available from desk research 

Sources such as those outlined above can be used to obtain data on a large majority of the subjects likely to be covered in a market research project. These include those mentioned below. he marketing environment Markets do not exist in isolation and are shaped by environmental factors such as the state of the general economy, demographic trends, the legislative framework and various social factors. An understanding of these external factors is 

likely to be part of any full analysis of a market. The marketing environment is generally well documented, and desk research (rather than primary research) is the only practical source available. The economy, demographics and key social variables are all well covered by governments’ statistical services and the many publications they produce. Other sources in this area include special reports (government and private) and press commentaryThe 

structure of most business and industrial markets can be fully analysed through desk research. Sources include the general and trade press, directories, company financial data, published reports, trade association output and government statistics. We have already pointed to the rich sources in the government statistical sites of the United States (Department of Commerce) and Europe (for example Eurostat, UK National Statistics, 

Conclusion

DeStatis for Germany). Government statistics sites provide time series of data that are a basis for historical and future trend analysis. These sources may not provide market-size estimates of the specific category of interest but, with ingenuity, approximations can usually be derived from top-down analysis (making estimates from a wider classification that includes the one of interest) or bottom-up estimates (aggregating sub-classifications). The skill in this sort of work 

includes bringing together disparate pieces of data from separate sources. For example, if a researcher has a reasonable idea of a market size in one country, it may be possible to make estimates for other countries by relating the known market size to readily available statistics on population, gross domestic product (GDP) or some other proxy that indicates the relative 

size of the market, such as electricity production. This type of data is widely available for nearly every nation state in the world. uppliers and brands Data on suppliers and brands can be thought of as an extension of the sort of market structure analysis considered above, and may include profiles of major suppliers and their brands, marketing methods and advertising tactics, and factors making for success. Company websites are an obvious first source to be 

examined when researching suppliers and their brands. So too is the press (including trade journals), directories, company accounts and published reports. Advertising and trade literature (especially in technical markets) can usually be collected free and could add to the information obtained from websites. One important area of information that is usually outside the scope of desk research is consumers’ attitudes to and satisfaction with suppliers