The systematic gathering, recording, an analysis of information to help managers make marketing decisions.
The systematic gathering and analysis of information specifically to facilitate the development or evaluation of advertising strategies, ads and commercials, and media campaigns.
Advertising Strategy Research
Used to help define the product concept or to assist in the selection of target markets, advertising messages, or media vehicles.
The systematic gathering and analysis of information on the reach and effectiveness of media vehicles.
Testing the effectiveness of an advertisement for gaps or flaws in message content before recommending it to clients, often conducted through focus groups.
Testing the effectiveness of an advertisement after it has been run.
Marketing Information System (MIS)
A set of procedures for generating an orderly flow of pertinent information for use in making marketing decisions.
The second step in the research process, designed to explore a problem by reviewing secondary data and interviewing a few key people with the most information to share.
Research information gained directly from the marketplace.
Information that has previously been collected or published.
Collecing primary data directly from the marketplace using qualitative or quantitative methods.
Research that tries to determine market variables according to unquantifiable criteria such as attitudes, beliefs, and lifestyle.
Research that tries to determine market variables according to reliable, hard statistics about specific market conditions or situations.
In marketing research, asking indirect questions or otherwise involving consumers in a situation where they can express feelings about the problem or product. The purpose is to get an understanding of people's underlying or subconcious feelings, attitudes, opinions, needs, and motives.
Qualitative research aimed at probing the deepest feelings, attitudes, and beliefs of respondents through direct questioning. Typical methods include in-depth interviews and focus groups.
An intensive interview technique that uses carefully planned but loosely structured questions to probe respondents' deeper feelings.
A qualitative method of research in which four or more people, typical of the target market, are invited to a group session to discuss the product, the service, or the marketing situation.
Ethnographic Research (Ethnography)
An intensive research technique that has been gaining in popularity among advertisers. It involves trying to understand behavior and culture by going out and talking to people wherever they are, while they're doing whatever it is they do.
A method of research used when researchers actually monitor people's actions
Universal Product Code (UPC)
An identifying series of vertical bars with a 12-digit number that adorns every consumer packaged good.
A method of scientific investigation in which a researcher alters the stimulus received by a test group or groups and compares the results with those of a control group that did not receive the altered stimulus.
An isolated geographic area used to introduce and test the effectiveness of a product, ad campaign, or promotional campaign, prior to a national rollout.
A basic method of quantitative research. To get people's opinions, surveys may be conducted in person, by mail, on the telephone, or via the internet.
A method of pretesting designed to elicit a full range of responses to the advertising. It is especially effective for testing alternative advertisements in the early stages of development.
Central Location Tests
A type of pretest in which videotapes of test commercials are shown to respondents on a one-to-one basis, usually in shopping center locations.
Method of pretesting in which commercials are grouped with noncompetitive control commercials and shown to prospective customers to measure their effectiveness in gaining attention, increasing brand awareness and comprehension, and causing attitude shifts.
A type of posttest that usually seeks to measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign in creating a favorable image for a company, its brand, or its products.
Posttesting methods used to determine the extent to which an advertisement and its message have been noticed, read, or watched.
A form of test in which consumer responses to an ad for information or free samples are tabulated.
A useful measure of advertising effectiveness when advertising is the dominant element, or the only variable, in the company's marketing plan. Sales tests are more suited for gauging the effectiveness of campaigns than of individual ads or components of ads.
An important characteristic of a research test. For a test to be valid, it must reflect the true status of the market.
An important characteristic of research test results. For a test to be reliable, it must be repeatable, producing the same result each time it is administered.
An entire target population
A portion of the population selected by market researchers to represent the appropriate targeted population. Also, a free trial of a product.
A research sample in which all members of the target population have an equal and independent chance of being selected for the study.
Research samples that do not provide every unit in the population with an equal chance of being included. As a result, there is no guarantee that the sample will be representative.
The plan that directs the company's marketing effort
The traditional planning process with four main elements: situation analysis, marketing objectives, marketing strategy, and tactics for action programs.
A factual statement of the organization's current situation and how it got there.
After addressing a companies situation, the writer of a marketing plan prepares an analysis that identifies the brand's or product's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Goals of the company stated in terms of profit or return on investment.
Goals of the marketing effort that may be expressed in terms of the needs of specific target markets and specific sales objectives.
A marketing objective that shifts management's view of the organization from a producer of products or services to a satisfier of target market needs.
Marketing objectives that relate to a company's sales. They may be expressed in terms of total sales volume; sales by product, market segment, or customer type; market share, growth rate of sales volume, or gross profit.
The statement of how the company is going to accomplish its marketing objectives.
The association of a brand's features and benefits with a particular set of customer needs, clearly differentiating it from the competition in the mind of the customer.
The specified short-term actions that will be used to achieve marketing objectives.
The opposite of standard, top-down marketing planning, bottom-up marketing focuses on one specific tactic and develops it into an overall strategy.
Creating, maintaining, and enhancing long-term relationships with customers and other stakeholders that result in exchanges of information and other things of mutual value.
The ratio of perceived benefits to the price of the product.
In relationship marketing, customers, employees, centers of influence, stockholders, the financial community, and the press. Different stakeholders require different types of relationships.
Lifetime Customer Value
The toatl sales or profit value of a customer to a marketer over the course of that customer's lifetime.
An effect achieved when the sum of the parts is greater than the expected from simply adding together the individual components.
A merchandising method that uses special displays on shelving at the end of aisles in a store.
Integrated Marketing Communications
The process of building and reinforcing mutually profitable relationships with employees, customers, other stakeholders, and the general public by developing and coordinating a strategic communications program that enables them to make consecutive contact with the company/brand through a variety of media.
Traditional marketing communications messages, including advertising, sales, promotion, publicity, and personal selling. These messages have the least impact because they are seen as self-serving.
Messages communicated by a product, its packaging, price, or distribution elements.
Messages resulting from employee interactions with customers. These messages typically have greater impact than planned messages.
Messages that emanate from gossip, unsought news stories, rumors, or major disasters. Companies have little control over unplanned messages, but the messages can dramatically affect customers' attitudes.
The plan that directs the company's advertising effort. A natural outgrowth of the marketing plan, it analyzes the situation, sets advertising objectives, and lays out a specific strategy from which ads and campaigns are created.
The advertising objective declares what the advertiser wants to achieve with respect to consumer awareness, attitude, and preference. Advertising strategy describes how to get there. It consists of two substrategies: the creative strategy and the media strategy.
A written statement that serves as the creative team's guide for writing and protecting an ad.
A document that helps media planners determine how messages will be delivered to consumers. It defines the target audience, the communication objectives that must be achieved, and the characteristics of the media that will be used for delivery of the messages.
Percentage of Sales Method
A method of advertising budget allocation based on a percentage of the previous year's sales, the anticipated sales for the next year, or a combination of the two.
A method of allocating advertising funds based on determining the firm's goals for a certain share of the market and them applying a slightly higher percentage of industry advertising dollars to the firm's budget.
A method of determining advertising allocaitons, also referred to as the budget-buildup moethod, that defines objectives and how advertising is to be used to accomplish them. It has three steps: defining the objectives, determining the strategy, and estimating the cost.
The process that directs advertising messages to the right people in the right place at the right time.
Definitions of the specific types of people the advertiser wants to reach.
Particular media programs or publications
Where, when, and how advertising should appear.
A statistical measure of a print medium's audience; includes subscription and vendor sales and primary and secondary leadership.
Readers Per Copy
Variable used to determine the total reach of a given print medium. RPC is multiplied by the number of vendor and subscription sales to determine the total audience size.
The number of people who read a magazine without actually buying it.
The total size of the audience for a set of ads or an entire campaign.
Advertising Impression or Opportunity to See
A possible exposure of the advertising message to one audience member
The total of all the audiences delivered by a media plan.
The percentage of homes or individuals exposed to an advertising medium.
Television Households TVHH
Households with tv sets
Gross Rating Points GRPs
The total audience delivery or weight of a specific media schedule. One rating point equals 1 percent of a particular market's population.
The total number of different people or households exposed to an advertising schedule during a given time, usually four weeks. Reach measures the unduplicated extent of audience exposure to a media vehicle and may be expressed either as a percentage of the total market or as a raw number.
The number of times the same person or household is exposed to a vehicle in a specific time span. Across a total audience, frequency is calculated as the average number of times individuals or homes are exposed to the vehicle.
The duration of an advertising message or campaign over a given period of time.
The point at which an advertising message has been seen or heard so often that it starts to irritate consumers and therefore loses its effectiveness.
The elements of the media mix that include markets, money, media, mechanics, and methodology.
Groups of potential customers who share a common interest, need, or desire; who can use the offered good or service to some advantage; and who can afford or are willing to pay the purchase price.
In media planning, one of the five elements in the media mix.
A plural form of medium, referring to communications vehicles paid to present an advertisement to their target audience.
One of the five Ms of the media mix, dealing creatively with the available advertising media options.
The overall strategy of selecting and scheduling media vehicles to achieve the desired reach, frequency, and continuity objectives.
Brand Development Index
The percentage of a brand's total sales in an area divided by the total population in the area; it indicates the sales potential of a particular brand in a specific market area.
Category Development Index CDI
The percentage of a product category's total US sales in an area divided by the percentage of total US population in the area.
The total number of people exposed to a particular medium.
The value of a medium determined by how well it exposes an ad to the target audiences.
A consideration in selecting media based on the degree of attention paid to ads in particular media by those exposed to them.
A consideration in selecting media based on the medium's ability to motivate people to act. Positive factors include prestige, good quality, reproduction, timeliness, and editorial relevance.
Cost Per Thousand
A common term describing the cost of reaching 1,000 people in a medium's audience.
The cost of reaching the target audience through a particular medium as opposed to the cost of reaching the medium's total circulation.
The cost per thousand to expose a message to the target audience rather than to the total circulation.
Cost Per Point CPP
A simple compulation used by media buyers to determine which broadcast programs are the most efficient in relation to the target audience.
Mixed Media Approach
Using a combination of advertising media vehicles in a single advertising campaign.
A method of scheduling media in which advertising runs steadily with little variation.
An intermittent media scheduling pattern in which periods of advertising are alternated with periods of no advertising at all.
Mixing continuity and flighting strategies in media scheduling.
A media scheduling method for promoting high-ticket items that require careful consideration, such as running the same commercial every half-hour on the same network in prime time.
Buying simultaneous airtime on all four television networks.
A scheduling technique in which the advertiser floods the airwaves for one day on both cable and network channels to make it virtually impossible to miss the ads.
Person responsible for negotiating and contracting the purchase of advertisement space and time in various media.