Views from the Hills by R. E. Stevens, GENESIS II (The Second Beginning) E-Mail views@aol.com

Difference or Preference - Follow-up

The Views of July 1, 1997, "Should it be a difference or preference based decision?" stimulated a considerable amount of feedback. The feedback ranged from my being accused of selling out, (the respondent expected that I would recommend a brand identified single product study), to a very good and complete outline of a company's decision model, based on the type of cost saving.

First, I do advocate a brand identified single product study to assess the potential of a cost savings initiative, and almost any initiative that calls for a new or different market addition. However, I do not think that any one research project should be used to determine a product's potential. Basically for any project I would at a minimum want to assess the product technically and perceptually which means at least two consumer research projects.

I will try to convince the writer of the "complete outline of a company's model" to give me permission to publish his response. I think it is a well thought out paper. I do, however, have some reservations about one of the methods utilized in their standard procedures.

It's one person's opinion

A person recently called about my Views. She stated she enjoyed reading them but as she said "I'm now in sales and I have no need for research." I was surprised at this comment especially since it was coming from an MMR person. From my perspective there are few areas in business where research is not appropriate and necessary.

Within the past week I had a good friend who happens to be in market research but designs research for the sales department, tell me about some research he did that was used to convince the trade to carry his new brands. He actually conducted the research in the specific super market chains to show each chain how their customers responded to the new products. As he said, the approach was very effective.


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