WK2_mketing_VALS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

WK2_mketing_VALS - Essay Example The survey results will show the main features of a customer: conservative or liberal, intellectual or a working man, prefer innovation or stick to old products. Translating marketing information into intelligence requires three related general functions: surveillance, assessment, and prediction. This activity consists of observing the reports of marketing occurrences, discerning patterns and deviations from standards, and trying to make sense out of them. Surveillance serves two ends: it indicates likely trends and changes in the marketplace and then suggests what must be known and done to meet the changes. Assessment attempts to evaluate more specific knowledge of particular opportunities, or competitors capabilities and vulnerabilities. Knowledge of strengths and weaknesses of specific competitors supplies the basis for developing ones own marketing strategies and programs. Predictions provide a dimension of futurity that makes intelligence relevant for planned decisions. The surv ey shows that the company has area intelligence, which is concerned more with localized details and shorter-run aspects of the marketing-activities programs. It is of particular value to marketing personnel in specialized or functional areas, since they deal directly with operations but lack policymaking responsibility. For example, area intelligence guides the actual recruitment, selection, training, and direction of salesmen; the determination of specific prices and advertising programs; and the specification of product qualities (Paley, 87). The survey results will show a need in new products and designs and ability of customers to perceive innovations. The survey will determine the character of a consumer and his life style. Both the quality of the raw data and the effectiveness of the primary analysis determine the kind of marketing information that will be derived. Data must be sorted, classified,