WO2009015439A1 - Method of performing market research - Google Patents
Method of performing market research Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- WO2009015439A1 WO2009015439A1 PCT/AU2008/001124 AU2008001124W WO2009015439A1 WO 2009015439 A1 WO2009015439 A1 WO 2009015439A1 AU 2008001124 W AU2008001124 W AU 2008001124W WO 2009015439 A1 WO2009015439 A1 WO 2009015439A1
- Authority
- WO
- WIPO (PCT)
- Prior art keywords
- category
- products
- consumer
- needs
- performance
- Prior art date
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Classifications
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- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
- G06Q30/00—Commerce
- G06Q30/02—Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
Definitions
- the invention relates to the field of commercial market research, where data is obtained by interrogation of consumers of products and the data is analysed to provide insights into the selection by consumers of competing products.
- the invention relates to a method by which objective analysis can be made of the performance of a category of goods in meeting different consumer needs or wants. Objective comparison can also be made between the performance of different goods categories in relation to consumer needs or wants.
- 'categories' of goods and services This refers to all of the offered products within a given market which are of a similar type or meet a similar need of the consumer.
- a broad category in commercial food products might be 'snack foods'.
- This category might be divided into individual categories, such as 'potato chips'.
- Each category is made up of all of the individual brand offering or SKU (stock-keeping unit).
- Categories may be arbitrarily chosen or composed, depending on the objective of the market researcher's study or analysis.
- the category and shopper agenda is also that of the retailer.
- An insight approach based on this will encourage greater collaboration and increase the likelihood of the adoption of the marketer's strategies by the retailer.
- a method of collecting and analysing market research data including the steps of: defining one or more categories of products (goods or services), wherein the individual products which make up each of said categories share substantially similar characteristics; defining a set of consumer wants and/or needs which the consumer may identify as being met to a greater or lesser extent by the products comprising said categories; identifying and interrogating a sample population of persons who are shoppers for products within said categories; obtaining from said persons a quantitative rating of the performance of said products comprising said categories in meeting said wants and/or needs; obtaining from said persons a quantitative rating of the relative importance of said defined wants and/or needs to their decision to purchase individual products comprising said category; and using the combined quantitative ratings provided above to calculate an importance-weighted index of the performance of each category in meeting each said consumer want and/or need.
- the above methodology is repeated for all known categories of products in a given market. This allows for objective comparison of performance between different categories.
- One particular advantage of the inventive method is that questions are asked in relation to a category as a whole, as opposed to individual products comprising the category. This allows category performance to be measured directly, rather than derived from assumptions made about responses to questions about individual brands or offerings.
- a key advantage of the inventive method is the incorporation of a rating of the relative importance of individual consumer wants/needs in driving purchase decisions. This provides the invaluable insight of which product attributes are more likely to lead to an improvement in relative brand offering or category performance, thereby warranting prioritised investment.
- the above method allows the assessment of the relative perceived performance of a given category as a whole when compared with different categories of products which also purports to meet the same or similar wants or needs. This may additionally provide a basis for answering an enquiry as to which aspects of an individual brand within that category might be improved or promoted to meet any perceived lack of performance in the category as a whole. Understanding consumer and shopper needs within the category is therefore important, but it is not enough to understand existing category needs alone - sometimes the insight lies in competing categories and needs that sit outside of the current category definition.
- a category-based analysis agenda is also more relevant to the retailer than simply a brand-based analysis agenda in isolation. By pursuing a category strategy and positioning their brands as the drivers of this, manufacturers find a common agenda with the retailer, increasing the likelihood of them adopting, accepting and supporting their brand strategies leading to better results with lower investment.
- the manufacturer By analysing their category in context of the total store (i.e. all categories), the manufacturer is able to drive the retailer agenda, recognising the role that their category plays in driving strategic retailer objectives.
- a numerical value is derived from the consumer response data which allows for a direct quantitative comparison between brand and category performance.
- said numerical value is defined as follows: said rating of the performance of said products is provided as a numerical value (A); said rating of the importance of said defined wants and/or needs is provided as a numerical value (B); and wherein said index is calculated as follows:
- an arbitrary weighting factor can be applied to the data to ensure the range of index outcomes for a given study are stretched as much as possible within a range of 0 - 200, around a mean of 100.
- W weighting factor
- the invention seeks to provide this.
- measures of category success are limited. Most are qualitative in methodology and those that are quantitative are restricted to a limited number of categories and/ or a limited number of measures of category success because the costs preclude a more in depth/ broad category analysis.
- the invention seeks to provide a shopper measure of all categories on all the critical success factors, for each retailer. As an objective 3 rd party benchmark, it is a cost effective option for companies to understand the shopper needs within each of their categories on the measures that define the success of those categories.
- said persons are also asked to provide a quantitative indication of their purchase rate of said products in said category, and this response may also be used in the calculation of the index.
- a number of individually defined consumer needs and/or wants are defined as macro-attributes, and the data obtained from consumers in relation to each of said consumer needs and/or wants are collectively analysed to determine the relative performance of said macro-attribute.
- each said macro-attribute is defined so as to be aligned with one of three 'category drivers', said category drivers being defined as:
- Category Role relates to the primary consumer desire which leads to the existence of the category of products
- Shopper Need Alignment is the level of success achieved by the products in the category in meeting the Category Role
- Application Effectiveness relates to success in delivering Category Role and Shopper Need Alignment at fixture in the retail store environment.
- each step of the method is repeated at regular time intervals, in order to provide an indication of the trend of relative category performance over time.
- the invention provides a methodology for collecting and analysing market data which facilitates the analysis of performance of a category of products (goods or services) against the collective requirements of the relevant target market.
- the basis of the methodology is: recruitment of members of the marketplace; interrogation of said members with regard to attributes or 'images' with regard to the category, as well as other profiling data; analysis of the data collected by interrogation; formulation of conclusions regarding perception of market categories from said analysis, which can be expressed as the Category Performance Index ( 1 CPI').
- Each category is preferably measured every 6-12 months, on a continuous rolling basis, to build a tracking programme over time.
- the model is preferably built from about 60 - 70 image statements that together represent the critical success factors for any category. Thos skilled in the art will readily be able to formulate a suitable list of image statements.
- the image statement will typically be a rhetorical proposition, to which the consumer will be able to express a degree of agreement or disagreement, based on their experience of shopping for goods in that category.
- Each image statement contributes to a defined set of macro-attributes
- Each macro-attribute contributes to one of three defined drivers of the Category: Category Role, Shopper Need
- An index is generated, via calculations exemplified below, that represents the effectiveness of the category in delivering on Shopper needs and expressed as the Category Performance IndexTM (CPI)
- the CPI measures category performance, with an inherent weighting toward those attributes that are accorded greater importance by consumers. This means marketing decisions based on the CPI tends to be a more accurate reflection of where to profitably apply marketing resources versus the prior art approach.
- the performance and importance factors that contribute to the CPI are made with reference to their difference from their regional averages (e.g. performance for an image statement versus performance of all image statements across all categories in that region).
- This difference as opposed to an absolute score, overcomes any research effects or bias by country or region as the technique removes the bias from the equation, thereby enabling meaningful CPI reporting and benchmark comparison across countries or region.
- the CPI can therefore accurately reflect how well the category delivers on the attributes that matter most to shoppers. This will be directly comparable to every category on every measure, in each retailer, in each region covered.
- the CPI may be weighted with financial sales data from the category. By re-working the weighting on the CPI to better reflect the correlation with financial metrics, a CPI can be built that is closely correlated with financial reality in the given market. The CPI can then be used to form a lead measure of category success, correlating to future financial performance in the category
- Shopper perceptions will therefore be correlated, through the CPI, with sales, margin and other metrics. This allows validation of opportunities centred on shopper needs with specific financial implications in specific time frames.
- Circuits which are baked sweet goods sold primarily via supermarkets.
- a number of purchasers/consumers of biscuits are recruited via methods well-known in the art.
- the recruited consumers are asked to respond to a number of category image statements with respect to the Biscuits category.
- the statements are:
- the response to the image statement may not be directly elicited, but may be derived from a correlation with overall satisfaction ratings. Nevertheless, the principles of building the index would be the same.
- the biscuit category clearly has a fixture that shoppers find easy to navigate (performance rating 8 out of 9), but prices and health associations perform poorly (performance rating 2 out of 9 for both). If this was all that was measured, the biscuit company seeking both to lure more customers to biscuits as a category, as well as looking to improve its market share, may well be inclined to invest equally in both improving prices and in improving the health image of its biscuits.
- the CPI is a function of these two key variables (category performance and image importance) and represents, in one number, where investment prioritisation should lie.
- the variables are put through the following formula, to give the CPI for each image:
- a score below 100 reflects a below average performance, a score above
- 100 reflects an above average performance. These are then weighted on importance: the higher the importance attributed to the statement, the more extreme the over- or under- performance.
- Every plot on the chart in figure 2 represents a CPI: the shape of which is reflected in the chart in figure 3.
- the benchmarks include, but are not limited to, the overall performance of competing categories (e.g. biscuits may compete with chocolate); the relevant macro-categories (e.g. biscuits' macro-category would be all the 'snacking' categories); or all categories for which data is available.
- the analysis enables lowest level comparison with benchmarks (i.e. each image statement) as well as an amalgamated measure for broader comparisons (e.g. comparing one category versus another, or a macro-category in retailer A versus that macro-category in retailer B), as illustrated in figure 4.
- One of the key advantages of the CPI methodology is that it allows the comparison of category performance across a number of different categories, sub-categories, macro-categories or other components of the market.
- the respondents may be interrogated on a number of personal or characteristics, in order to create a number of sub-profiles, against which the performance of the category can be measured.
- the respondents can be interrogated on their price sensitivity, allowing subdivision (provided there are sufficient numbers of respondents) of the respondents into two or more sub-groups.
- the ratings of the Biscuit category performance amongst members of each sub-group can then be compared.
- figure 5 shows the relative performance of the Biscuit category against other competing categories in the 'perception of premium' image.
- the category is underperforming most significantly amongst consumers termed 'Life's too short' and Time poor routine'. This may identify an opportunity to better market biscuits to consumers who are busy, rushed, time poor. This leads to a better allocation of resources to that opportunity than investment in across-the-board advertising. Shoppers may also be asked about the brands they shop in the particular category. This enables the examination of any link between category strength/ weakness and brand strength/ weakness - the contribution of each brand to category success is quantified. This enables an analysis of which brand should lead the category for each category strategy.
- Prior art methodologies have only enabled single category analysis and not sought, or been able, to benchmark in this way across perception based metrics.
- a preferred embodiment of the invention involves CPI studies being carried out across all categories and sub-categories in the retail channel, illustrated in part by the hierarchy shown in figure 6. This would provide a unique perspective for retailer strategy.
- Shoppers are preferably recruited on-line. On-line recruiting enables a greater depth of questioning about each category (e.g. it is practical to pose a 25 minute on-line questionnaire, versus a likely 5 to 10 minute maximum interview in-store). It also removes practical difficulties associated with particular retailers or channels (e.g. in-store methodologies require the permission of each retailer).
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- Game Theory and Decision Science (AREA)
- Entrepreneurship & Innovation (AREA)
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Abstract
Description
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Priority Applications (2)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
AU2008281331A AU2008281331A1 (en) | 2007-08-02 | 2008-08-01 | Method of performing market research |
GB0913976A GB2458859A (en) | 2007-08-02 | 2009-08-10 | Method of performing market research |
Applications Claiming Priority (2)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
AU2007904167A AU2007904167A0 (en) | 2007-08-02 | Method of analysing market research data | |
AU2007904167 | 2007-08-02 |
Publications (1)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
---|---|
WO2009015439A1 true WO2009015439A1 (en) | 2009-02-05 |
Family
ID=40303816
Family Applications (1)
Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
---|---|---|---|
PCT/AU2008/001124 WO2009015439A1 (en) | 2007-08-02 | 2008-08-01 | Method of performing market research |
Country Status (3)
Country | Link |
---|---|
AU (1) | AU2008281331A1 (en) |
GB (1) | GB2458859A (en) |
WO (1) | WO2009015439A1 (en) |
Cited By (2)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US8676628B2 (en) | 2009-09-11 | 2014-03-18 | Roil Results Pty Limited | Method and system for determining effectiveness of marketing |
CN104978665A (en) * | 2015-06-16 | 2015-10-14 | 北京畅游天下网络技术有限公司 | Brand evaluation method and brand evaluation device |
Citations (4)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US20020184083A1 (en) * | 2001-05-31 | 2002-12-05 | Takashi Nakano | Quality function development support method and storage medium |
US20050108094A1 (en) * | 2003-11-18 | 2005-05-19 | Philippe Hugron | Method for making a decision according to customer needs |
US20060095282A1 (en) * | 2004-10-29 | 2006-05-04 | International Business Machines Corporation | Method and system for displaying prioritization of metric values |
US20070124161A1 (en) * | 2005-11-09 | 2007-05-31 | Rockwell Electronic Commerce Technologies, Inc. | Method of evaluating contact center performance |
-
2008
- 2008-08-01 WO PCT/AU2008/001124 patent/WO2009015439A1/en active Application Filing
- 2008-08-01 AU AU2008281331A patent/AU2008281331A1/en not_active Abandoned
-
2009
- 2009-08-10 GB GB0913976A patent/GB2458859A/en not_active Withdrawn
Patent Citations (4)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US20020184083A1 (en) * | 2001-05-31 | 2002-12-05 | Takashi Nakano | Quality function development support method and storage medium |
US20050108094A1 (en) * | 2003-11-18 | 2005-05-19 | Philippe Hugron | Method for making a decision according to customer needs |
US20060095282A1 (en) * | 2004-10-29 | 2006-05-04 | International Business Machines Corporation | Method and system for displaying prioritization of metric values |
US20070124161A1 (en) * | 2005-11-09 | 2007-05-31 | Rockwell Electronic Commerce Technologies, Inc. | Method of evaluating contact center performance |
Non-Patent Citations (1)
Title |
---|
"HOQ tutorial", Retrieved from the Internet <URL:http://www.web.archive.org/web/20070224124601/http://www.gsm.mq.edu.au/cmit/qfd-hoq-tutorial.swf> * |
Cited By (2)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US8676628B2 (en) | 2009-09-11 | 2014-03-18 | Roil Results Pty Limited | Method and system for determining effectiveness of marketing |
CN104978665A (en) * | 2015-06-16 | 2015-10-14 | 北京畅游天下网络技术有限公司 | Brand evaluation method and brand evaluation device |
Also Published As
Publication number | Publication date |
---|---|
GB2458859A (en) | 2009-10-07 |
GB0913976D0 (en) | 2009-09-16 |
AU2008281331A1 (en) | 2009-02-05 |
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