A histogram is an approximate representation of the distribution of numerical data. The term was first introduced by Karl Pearson. To construct a histogram, the first step is to "bin" the range of values—that is, divide the entire range of values into a series of intervals—and then count how many values fall into each interval. The bins are usually specified as consecutive, non-overlapping intervals of a variable. The bins (intervals) must be adjacent and are often of equal size.
As a topic of economics, utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or happiness as part of the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The term has been adapted and reapplied within neoclassical economics, which dominates modern economic theory, as a utility function that represents a single consumer's preference ordering over a choice set but is not comparable across consumers. This concept of utility is personal and based on choice rather than on pleasure received, and so is specified more rigorously than the original concept but makes it less useful for ethical decisions.
Perceptual mapping or market mapping is a diagrammatic technique used by asset marketers that attempts to visually display the perceptions of customers or potential customers. The positioning of a brand is influenced by customer perceptions rather than by those of businesses. For example, a business may feel it sells upmarket products of high quality, but if customers view the products as low quality, it is their views which will influence sales. Typically the position of a company's product, product line, or brand is displayed relative to their competition. Perceptual maps, also known as market maps, usually have two dimensions but can be multi-dimensional or use multiple colours to add an extra variable. They can be used to identify gaps in the market and potential partners or merger targets as well as to clarify perceptual problems with a company's product. So, if a business wants to find out where its brand is positioned in the market, it might carry out market research. This will help them to find out how the customers sees their brand in relation to others in the market.
Logit analysis is a statistical technique used by marketers to assess the scope of customer acceptance of a product, particularly a new product. It attempts to determine the intensity or magnitude of customers' purchase intentions and translates that into a measure of actual buying behaviour. Logit analysis assumes that an unmet need in the marketplace has already been detected, and that the product has been designed to meet that need. The purpose of logit analysis is to quantify the potential sales of that product. It takes survey data on consumers' purchase intentions and converts it into actual purchase probabilities.
In the social sciences, scaling is the process of measuring or ordering entities with respect to quantitative attributes or traits. For example, a scaling technique might involve estimating individuals' levels of extraversion, or the perceived quality of products. Certain methods of scaling permit estimation of magnitudes on a continuum, while other methods provide only for relative ordering of the entities.
Questionnaire construction refers to the design of a questionnaire to gather statistically useful information about a given topic. When properly constructed and responsibly administered, questionnaires can provide valuable data about any given subject.
Quantitative marketing research is the application of quantitative research techniques to the field of marketing research. It has roots in both the positivist view of the world, and the modern marketing viewpoint that marketing is an interactive process in which both the buyer and seller reach a satisfying agreement on the "four Ps" of marketing: Product, Price, Place (location) and Promotion.
Preference-rank translation is a mathematical technique used by marketers to convert stated preferences into purchase probabilities, that is, into an estimate of actual buying behaviour. It takes survey data on consumers’ preferences and converts it into actual purchase probabilities.
Conjoint analysis is a survey-based statistical technique used in market research that helps determine how people value different attributes that make up an individual product or service.
Consumer behavior is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and all the activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services. Consumer behaviour consists of how the consumer's emotions, attitudes, and preferences affect buying behaviour. Consumer behaviour emerged in the 1940–1950s as a distinct sub-discipline of marketing, but has become an interdisciplinary social science that blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, marketing, and economics.
Quota sampling is a method for selecting survey participants that is a non-probabilistic version of stratified sampling.
Customer satisfaction is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of customers, or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with a firm, its products, or its services (ratings) exceeds specified satisfaction goals." Customers play an important role and are essential in keeping a product or service relevant; it is, therefore, in the best interest of the business to ensure customer satisfaction and build customer loyalty.
The Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM) is a market technique for determining consumer price preferences. It was introduced in 1976 by Dutch economist Peter van Westendorp. The technique has been used by a wide variety of researchers in the market research industry. The PSM approach has been a staple technique for addressing pricing issues for the past 20 years. It historically has been promoted by many professional market research associations in their training and professional development programs. The PSM approach continues to be used widely throughout the market research industry and descriptions can be easily found in many market research websites.
In research of human subjects, a survey is a list of questions aimed for extracting specific data from a particular group of people. Surveys may be conducted by phone, mail, via the internet, and also at street corners or in malls. Surveys are used to gather or gain knowledge in fields such as social research and demography.
The Gabor–Granger method is a method to determine the price for a new product or service. It was developed in the 1960s by Clive Granger and André Gabor. It is a variant of monadic price testing.
Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand under different conditions. Brand awareness is one of two dimensions from brand knowledge, an associative network memory model. Brand awareness is a key consideration in consumer behavior, advertising management, and brand management. The consumer's ability to recognize or recall a brand is central to purchasing decision-making. Purchasing cannot proceed unless a consumer is first aware of a product category and a brand within that category. Awareness does not necessarily mean that the consumer must be able to recall a specific brand name, but they must be able to recall enough distinguishing features for purchasing to proceed. Creating brand awareness is the main step in advertising a new product or bringing back the older brand in light.
Choice modelling attempts to model the decision process of an individual or segment via revealed preferences or stated preferences made in a particular context or contexts. Typically, it attempts to use discrete choices in order to infer positions of the items on some relevant latent scale. Indeed many alternative models exist in econometrics, marketing, sociometrics and other fields, including utility maximization, optimization applied to consumer theory, and a plethora of other identification strategies which may be more or less accurate depending on the data, sample, hypothesis and the particular decision being modelled. In addition, choice modelling is regarded as the most suitable method for estimating consumers' willingness to pay for quality improvements in multiple dimensions.
In statistics, ridit scoring is a statistical method used to analyze ordered qualitative measurements. The tools of ridit analysis were developed and first applied by Bross, who coined the term "ridit" by analogy with other statistical transformations such as probit and logit. A ridit describes how the distribution of the dependent variable in row i of a contingency table compares relative to an identified distribution.
With the application of probability sampling in the 1930s, surveys became a standard tool for empirical research in social sciences, marketing, and official statistics. The methods involved in survey data collection are any of a number of ways in which data can be collected for a statistical survey. These are methods that are used to collect information from a sample of individuals in a systematic way. First there was the change from traditional paper-and-pencil interviewing (PAPI) to computer-assisted interviewing (CAI). Now, face-to-face surveys (CAPI), telephone surveys (CATI), and mail surveys are increasingly replaced by web surveys.
The mere-measurement effect is a phenomenon used in behavioural psychology. It explains that merely measuring or questioning an individual's intentions or anticipated regret changes his or her subsequent behavior. The mere-measurement effect has been demonstrated in multiple behavioural contexts both general and specific. But it is most commonly used to explain consumer behaviour. In this context, the effect implies that simply questioning one’s intentions behind a purchase influences his or her decision making in the market.
