176 The Marketing Book
secondary data, i.e. attempting to establish
trends in market behaviour. Longitudinal
studies are unrealistic propositions for primary
research, engendering a reliance on published,
historical data. Much of these data concerning
market structures and performance comes
from censuses – a method which may provide
superior quality data to that gained by
sampling a population – the preferred method
used in most field studies. Secondary data may
also set the boundaries and establish the state
of the environment in which primary research
will be undertaken.
4 Acquisition studies; acquisition has been a
popular strategy for companies to follow in
recent years. Predator companies, who do not
wish to alert their ‘prey’, could hardly mount
large primary field studies without drawing
attention to themselves. Thus, secondary
research may be used to gain information on
other companies.
But before using secondary data, researchers
should ask themselves:
Are the secondary data relevant?
What is the cost to acquire these data?
What is the availability of these data?
To what extent may the data be biased?
How accurate are the data?
Are the data sufficient to meet the current
project’s research objectives?
Sources of secondary data
Luck and Rubin (1987) state that: ‘... a good
rule in all research is parsimony; using only
meaningful data’ – good advice with the
plethora of data which are currently available.
The first place to start a search for ‘mean-
ingful data’ is within the organization itself.
With the increasing use of Management Infor-
mation Systems, functional departments are
now much more likely to have collected and
stored data in a form readily accessible to
research personnel.
Internal sources of data may be divided as
follows: Accounts– contain information on customers’
names and addresses, types and quantities of
products purchased, costs of sales, advertising,
manufacture, salaries etc., discounts etc.
Sales records– contain information on markets,
products, distribution systems.
Other reports– contain information on trade
associations and trade fairs, exhibitions,
customers’ complaint letters, previous
marketing research reports, conferences.If internal sources prove inadequate for the
intended task, then external data sources have to
be consulted. Where, though, does one start to
make sense of the vast amounts of externally
published data? Start with the general and then
gradually focus on to the specific. Thus, in an
unfamiliar research setting, one should start
with those guides, either printed or held on
computer, which offer suggestions as to the
general direction in which to proceed. From
such ‘directory of directories’ publications, e.g.
ABI-Inform, Bookbank and Official Publications
of the UK, one may begin with, for example,
general industry data, and proceed through
specific industry data, via market/category
information (as given by Retail Intelligence
(Mintel)) down to specific company/product
data, as in Mintel Market Intelligence Reports.
Trained librarians offer an excellent way of
navigating a course through these huge data-
bases, and are especially useful when first
consulting computer databases, which can be
very complex – as mistakes in their operation
can be costly. Then there is the Internet, about
which Kumar et al. (1999) say: ‘The Internet’s
forte is probably its advantages in researching
secondary information’. In its favour, they add,
are its very wide scope, coverage and low
cost.
But, as Walters (2001) notes, marketing
research will only be truly international when
literature in languages other than English is
evaluated.