Comquest Research Group is the custom research division of BBM Bureau of Measurement.
Although ComQuest specializes in custom research, it also manages the Radio Product Measurement study, which is conducted on an on-going basis in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal on behalf of participating radio stations.
It contains data on all major media and their consumption and profiles of customers of major chain retail stores and the frequency of their use of these stores.
Importantly, the data allows ComQuest to ‘locate’ respondents by postal code.
Concentrations of specific customer groups can be located using this technique.
In respect to the case study proposed, let us suppose the Home Store chain was interested in the Montreal market.
What kind of customer base do these stores have now? Who shops there? Where do they live? Is there a concentration of customers in certain demographics and certain areas of the Montreal cma?
What radio stations do these customers listen to? How big are their families? What age group do they fall into? How much is their income? Are they homeowners or renters?
And so on. The data available are an exhaustive list of various consumer attitudes.
In order to illustrate the potential of the rpm system, we will look at a typical example from the database.
We have picked a customer group that in our most recent survey in Montreal said they intended to add space to their homes. They represent the ‘high end’ of the renovations market.
First, how big is the market? Our data show that about 4% of the Montreal market intend to ‘add living space’ in the upcoming year. This equates to about 100,000 households.
Where are they located?
The data show that significantly higher proportions in households outside the Montreal market proper are inclined to take on such sizeable renovations.
For example, whereas 24% of the population live on the South Shore, they represent more than 30% of the do-it-yourself renovations market.
By contrast, the Montreal market, with 35% of the population, represent about 26% of the total market. Obviously, the suburban market presents a more promising alternative than the city proper, with a much higher proportion of renovators within the population.
Our data do not stop at general geographical definitions.
In fact, it is possible to locate by postal code every respondent who answered this question, along with all the other respondents who were intending some kind of renovation in the next year.
For example, the survey asks, for the next 12 months, whether the homeowner intended to undertake the following renovations:
Interior painting/staining
Exterior painting/staining
Landscaping and yard improvements
Bathroom remodelling
Kitchen remodelling
Other remodelling
Roofing
Installation of curtains
Installation of flooring
Installation of wood panelling
Installation of carpet
Respondents who answer they intend to undertake such renovations can be mapped using their full postal code down to a city block.
Obviously, if their patterns of residence are systematic, and their intention to undertake certain renovations is related to where they live, the Home Store planners can determine whether potential store locations are in the most appropriate parts of the Montreal market to take advantage of purchase intentions.
Further to this, respondents are also asked which of 15 chain and local retail outlets which specialize in building materials they shopped at in the last year, and how many times.
ComQuest can then locate these outlets and the location of the shoppers and determine whether physical locations exist which could better exploit the existing demand for a certain type of retail services.
Finally, and this is most important to the do-it-yourself building supply chains, the questionnaire asks whether the respondent intends to do the work him/herself, or hire a contractor.
After all the analysis is completed, the Home Store group can even design a media strategy, using the multimedia diary section from the rpm database to determine which combination of radio and other alternatives best reaches their customers.
The Montreal database is extremely versatile because of the large sample size (in this case 4,132), and the fact there is a proportional representation from all areas of the Montreal cma, and from both language groups.
Various software suppliers, including bbm, have programs to analyze the data, and reports can be obtained from the participating radio stations.
For more information, contact Duncan McKie at ComQuest Research Group, 1500 Don Mills Rd., Suite 305, Toronto, Ont., M3B 3L7. Tel: (416) 445-9800, fax (416) 445-8644.
