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SCMP Reporter

AS marketing strategists and new product developers begin to recognise the importance of fast, accurate market research, two of Hong Kong's agencies are turning to technology to keep ahead of the pack.

  For Survey Research Hong Kong (SRH), which conducts more than half the territory's research, computers offer increased speed, accuracy and flexibility for their media and retail data collection and interpretation services.

  Market Behaviour Ltd Hong Kong, which prefers the term customised consultancy to research, operates diferrently.

    Ian Stewart, a senior research manager with Market Behaviour, wants to use a system called Videomap to pioneer computerised creative product consultancy in Asia.

  Videomap creates an unlimited number of potential advertising and new product image designs, and enables the operator to subject each combination to extensive tests.

  The system can run with two MB of RAM on any PC with a 386SX or higher processor, a VGA board and colour monitor.

  A video library that can be used to test advertising campaigns can be added if the system has an additional four MB of RAM and 120 MB hard drive.

    An example of this would be an advertising campaign test for a designer beer.

  The beer program is loaded on to the computer and the beer tasters are sent in. The latter work in batches of 10 and give their responses to a number of computer-generated questions about the campaign. They earn about $150 each for the job.

  In this way, Videomap serves as an alternative to advertising campaign-related interviews.

     The system allows Market Behaviour's customers to test rival products against their own with different consumer groups.

  At US$5,000 per system, Videomap is not cheap. But Mr Stewart said the system had given Market Behaviour an edge over its competition on the data analysis front since the firm began using it in March.

  Analysing data is fine, but the data must be collated first. For Market Behaviour, technology plays an important role here, too. It has brought speed, accuracy and confidentiality to data collection.

  The results of telephone interviews can be input directly into data banks. The increasing use of touch-tone phones will mean this method of research will become smoother soon.

  Laptop computers have made street research easier and Market Behaviour plans to use palmtop computers in the future to make the process even smoother.

  SRH, on the other hand, is thinking on a larger scale. After being bought for US$85 million by A. C. Nielsen, earlier this year, the Survey Research Group is planning to pioneer a series of data collection methods in Hong Kong to add to the services it already offers.

  These include software packages such as Printscope, Radioscope, Tradescope and Adex, which are databases of print journalism readership figures, radio audience details, retail information and advertising expenditure data.

  With sophisticated cross-referencing capabilities, these packages, developed by SRG Management Information Services in Kuala Lumpur, offer clients increasing freedom to experiment with the data.

  If a firm wants to find out how many beer-drinking, car-owning expatriates with high incomes living in Kowloon are seeing its adverts, then SRH can help with these systems.

  SRH is also making major breakthroughs in data collection. Since 1989, SRH has been using handheld computers to carry out faster audits in shops. Staff would manually input data into these devices.

   But new barcode scanners from the United States are making this task faster.

  SRH believes these scanners will revolutionise data collection, both at the cashier stage - for which units cost between $50,000 and $100,000 - or in the homes of sample families.

  The latter scenario, still about three years down the road, will see family members scanning in the products they buy and inputting the name of the shop at which they made the purchase. SRH will get this data almost instantly via modem.

  This is where things get interesting.

   By combining this data with television people-meter readings - SRH already monitors the viewing habits of 300 Hong Kong families - researchers will be able to make accurate correlations on who bought what product after watching which advertisement.

  This will make advertising agencies far more - and instantly - accountable for campaigns, as one worried account manager said.

  The future holds more good news. Interactive television screens could bring electronic questionnaires, people-meters, home-shopping and home-banking to Hong Kong.

  ''SRH is looking into all of these hi-tech possibilities. Anything that increases productivity, speeds the process up or provides more actionable information is interesting to us,'' director of retail services Robert Li said.



Systems give sellers the edge