Yeah, I watch Mad Men too. The cigarette smoking going on is not dramatic hyperbole. My dad smoked 3-4 packs a day back then. The Mad Men have mini-bars in office and drink freely all times of day. This was considered the golden age of sex – after the curative effects of penicillin had been discovered, and with a wide-ranging comfort and confidence in present and future outlooks. It was before religious revival in the 70s and there seemed to be a lack of concern about consequence.
The show also brings to mind “The Lonely Crowd,” I read in high school in the mid-sixties. The various characters in the show are tradition-directed, inner-directed or other-directed but regardless of type all of them seem to be breaking apart before our eyes, to me the picture of an unhealthy society. Change was inevitable and that is the real curative to potentially deadly defects. “My station will change after while.”
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Social Capital and Channel Loyalty
An important aspect of strong channel loyalty is social captial. Social capital is existing, defined relationships that make transactions easy to accomplish (see Buchanan, 2002, 201-204). Microsoft, takes care to understand how to market to each information technology segment. The intent of such understanding is to help Microsoft establish more powerful social capital than its competitors.
They especially focus on “Strategic Buyers.” Las Vegas calls them whales. These are customers who follow the 80/20 power rule - the 10% of customers who buy 90% of the goods. Microsoft sales teams visit “strategic buyers” periodically and promptly answer phone calls. Microsoft is very good at relationship marketing. Every sales team has an architectural engineer assigned to it with the mission of understanding the information technology plan of assigned corporations, their enterprise architecture and how to advantageously apply Microsoft technology to affect solutions.
Social Capital is an important advantage for Microsoft when competing with Google or Open Source. It's easier to do business with Microsoft because Microsoft has made an effort to make it so. There is someone a strategic buyer can call at any time. There are agreements and understandings from repeated meetings. Microsoft has researched and understands each customer. They know how to do business with them, they have done business with them, and have set up a repeatable process for doing business.
People may say that IBM had this social capital when Microsoft started out. The difference between Microsoft and Google is that Microsoft partnered with IBM for a decade while it learned the ropes. That's why I think Microsoft will survive Google and Open Source.
References
Buchanan, Mark (2002). Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks. Norton.
They especially focus on “Strategic Buyers.” Las Vegas calls them whales. These are customers who follow the 80/20 power rule - the 10% of customers who buy 90% of the goods. Microsoft sales teams visit “strategic buyers” periodically and promptly answer phone calls. Microsoft is very good at relationship marketing. Every sales team has an architectural engineer assigned to it with the mission of understanding the information technology plan of assigned corporations, their enterprise architecture and how to advantageously apply Microsoft technology to affect solutions.
Social Capital is an important advantage for Microsoft when competing with Google or Open Source. It's easier to do business with Microsoft because Microsoft has made an effort to make it so. There is someone a strategic buyer can call at any time. There are agreements and understandings from repeated meetings. Microsoft has researched and understands each customer. They know how to do business with them, they have done business with them, and have set up a repeatable process for doing business.
People may say that IBM had this social capital when Microsoft started out. The difference between Microsoft and Google is that Microsoft partnered with IBM for a decade while it learned the ropes. That's why I think Microsoft will survive Google and Open Source.
References
Buchanan, Mark (2002). Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks. Norton.
Personalized URL's - PURLS
A personal landing page fashioned around a specific customer is a great integration of a customer database with online technology. Offers of interest and meaningful incentives can be presented rather than the "one size fits all" approach. According to Andrus (2008, p1), a PURL "creates a one-to-one dialogue with consumers...." She goes on to say that activity tracking can be used to "contiually refine the content or offer to that specific individual."
Andrus quotes David Rosenthal that over 30% of direct mail recipients prefer to respond online. I know that's true for me. One concern that people have about PURL is the publication of PII, personally indentifiable information. Rosenthal recommends using pass codes to protect the Web page in such cases.
References
Andrus, A (09/01/2008). Personalized URLS. Marketing News. Retrieved on August 26, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Andrus quotes David Rosenthal that over 30% of direct mail recipients prefer to respond online. I know that's true for me. One concern that people have about PURL is the publication of PII, personally indentifiable information. Rosenthal recommends using pass codes to protect the Web page in such cases.
References
Andrus, A (09/01/2008). Personalized URLS. Marketing News. Retrieved on August 26, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Differences between B-to-C and B-to-B
The character of the product is different. Industrial goods are used as raw materials or other types of input to further production. Spiller and Baier (2005, p 318) inform us that B2B is marketing and sales to “industrial market intermediaries.” Such sales usually involve the sales teams of the seller visiting the buyer, whereas with B2C sales the customer visits the seller (p 319).
Furthermore, the buyer is different. Unlike with B2C, the buyer is really the buyer team. It’s more than the purchase agent. As Spiller and Baier observe (p. 331), it is more likely that “engineers, chemists, architects,” and other specialists will make the decision. The purchase agent is the liaison between the real buyers and procurement.
Another difference is the nature of the market. Industrial markets are much smaller in number (see Spiller and Baier, p. 326). In addition, there is a greater diversity of activities in each market so market segmentation is more important in B2B than B2C. This naturally brings us to the customer database. Cluster analysis (p. 330) using statistical techniques such as correlation and regression, are an essential part of the B2B marketing effort.
References
Spiller, Lisa and Martin Baier (2005). Contemporary Direct Marketing. Pearson/Prentice-Hall
Furthermore, the buyer is different. Unlike with B2C, the buyer is really the buyer team. It’s more than the purchase agent. As Spiller and Baier observe (p. 331), it is more likely that “engineers, chemists, architects,” and other specialists will make the decision. The purchase agent is the liaison between the real buyers and procurement.
Another difference is the nature of the market. Industrial markets are much smaller in number (see Spiller and Baier, p. 326). In addition, there is a greater diversity of activities in each market so market segmentation is more important in B2B than B2C. This naturally brings us to the customer database. Cluster analysis (p. 330) using statistical techniques such as correlation and regression, are an essential part of the B2B marketing effort.
References
Spiller, Lisa and Martin Baier (2005). Contemporary Direct Marketing. Pearson/Prentice-Hall
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Studying Schaeffer in the field of Humanities Enriches our Understanding of Consumer Behavior
Religion is a study in communication, but more than that, it is a study in human behavior. This article is an analysis by one of the most powerful minds of 20th century Christian apologetics. Dr. Schaeffer presents a clear justification for the Christian faith and explains the demise of its nemesis during the past few centuries, Rationalism. He is considered a founder of the Christian right (see Wikipedia, 2009, p. 1) and is often compared to C.S. Lewis or Michael Polanyi (see Burson, 1996, p. 1). Studying Schaeffer enhances our understanding of Consumer Behavior in three ways.
First it is a fundamental characteristic of a significant group of consumers in the United States and gives us understanding of that group’s behavior. According to Hawkins, et al (2007, p. 181), 79% of Americans believe in God, more than 50% say religion is an important part of their lives and 36% say they regularly attend services. Secondly, religion provides insight about human behavior. Finally, marketing is itself a religion with a commercial ratio that parallels traditional religion.
First it is a fundamental characteristic of a significant group of consumers in the United States and gives us understanding of that group’s behavior. According to Hawkins, et al (2007, p. 181), 79% of Americans believe in God, more than 50% say religion is an important part of their lives and 36% say they regularly attend services. Secondly, religion provides insight about human behavior. Finally, marketing is itself a religion with a commercial ratio that parallels traditional religion.
Marketing is a religion in that it is a meaning making process. Marketing creates an identity and negotiates its meaning and therefore its image with a target audience (see Drewniany and Jewler, 2008, pp 36-45). Marketing breathes life into the image in the imagination of the audience through communications based on a model of self-concept and perception for the audience (see Hawkins, 2007, pp 434). Redemption for those of us who worship the marketing image is through consumption rather than faith.
Schaeffer’s article analyzes the essence of the meaning making process: self-concept and perception. He tells us that the failure of Rationalism and its attendant secular humanism should not be a concern for Christians, or by extrapolation to marketers, because the presuppositions, the fundamental assumptions, of Rationalism were flawed. He argues that we can know each other, or in other words, we can know an audience. He further, convincingly, asserts that meaningful communication is possible.
Christians formed early science with the perspective that a reasonable God created the universe so therefore our communication and interaction to understand it is reasonable as well. Do we find the same perspective in early marketing, advertising and consumer behavior? According to Twitchell (1996, p. 36), there is what he calls a preponderance of “evangelical con artists” in the formation of modern marketing. He lists a dozen of the leading apostles of the then new science 
who were Christian preachers or sons and daughters of preachers, some founding agencies that continue to dominate today. One luminary is Helen Lansdowne.
who were Christian preachers or sons and daughters of preachers, some founding agencies that continue to dominate today. One luminary is Helen Lansdowne. She was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and she studied three years at Princeton Theological before devoting herself to advertising (Twitchell, 1996, p. 33). Wikipedia (2009a, p. 1) notes that while Stanley Resor was the executive during the rise to prominence of J. Walter Thompson, Helen Lansdowne was “the creative genius behind JWT's ad campaigns.”
Pope (2003, p. 8) relates that Lansdowne’s first innovation was to advertise to the consumer’s concerns rather than about a product’s qualities. Based on her consumer findings, (p. 9) she developed the catch phrase “A Skin You Love to Touch” that she added to “gauzily romantic paintings of elegant young ladies, happily receiving the admiring attention of dashing young gentlemen.” This was not the life situation for most of the audience but she had found it to be their aspiration.
She was also the first to use sex appeal in advertising.
Schaeffer’s argument is important, postmodern despair is not any more correct than failed Rationalism. Reason can be applied to our endeavors, rather than resigning ourselves to the overwhelming effect of randomness. The consumer behavior model initiated by bible thumpers has worked and is still in use, much enhanced today by the application of reason from both academia and practice.
The self-concept of an audience can be discovered sufficiently. Meaningful communications can be made. This requires research but there should be optimism it will succeed. Hawkins, et al (2007, p. 434), like Schaeffer, divide self-concept into inner and outer spheres, they designate as the private self and the social self. They further categorize self-concept and establish relationships with it and life-styles (p. 441). This implicitly reaffirms Schaeffer’s point that although Rationalism failed as a basis to explain such actions, Christian epistemology does support the concepts of categories, self-concept, and associations between subject and the world that can be communicated.
Another area of consumer behavior that Schaeffer’s article can illuminate is an understanding of the 79% of the American public that is Christian (see Hawkins, 2007, p. 181). Hawkins, et al go on to say (p. 183) that Catholics and Protestants represent a significant subculture in the United States. They also note (p. 84) that Christians tend to be more conservative in beliefs and are active in action against non-Christian proposals such as liquor, gambling, pornography and other marketing activities. This is consistent with the activism promoted by Schaeffer, especially his later work A Christian Manifesto.
This has resulted in actions by some Christians such as boycotts. One such boycott (see Hawkins, 2007, p. 184) is against Disney. This was not only because of Disney’s support for gay and lesbian life-styles but also for a continuing practice of sexual messaging. In addition to Hawkins, et al, see Vitigliano (1997, pp 1-2), Tucker (2008, p. 1), and Anomalies Unlimited (2005, p. 1). Representative is the penis subliminal messaging in the Little Mermaid.
This caused concern, as did Disney’s misrepresentations about the relationship with the artist who admitted doing this in other work for Disney as well. It illustrates the extent some Christians pursue a company once it becomes part of their activated consciousness.
Implications for Consumer Behavior of Schaeffer’s Work
Schaeffer emphasizes the vital importance of imagination in the experience of human beings. The advertising consultant Roy Williams (2001, pp 20-1) suggests that reality begins with imagination, quoting the master philosopher Henri Poincare. Here Williams suggests that imagination becomes reality when we put energy behind it. He goes on (p. 68) to say that powerful marketing communications with the consumer begin by first engaging their imagination, “and take it where you will.” When reviewing the work of Dr. Jorge Martin de Oliveria, Williams (p. 18) extends Oliveria’s findings to marketing communications by asserting that the central aspect of all efforts in human persuasion is “the fact that people can only do what they have first imagined.”
WALLACE SAYS THAT CREATIVITY IS MOTIVATED BY THE NEED TO REDUCE THE DISONACE BETWEEN IMAGINATION AND REALITY.
A prominent example of imagination in marketing and consumer influence was by one of the most extraordinary persons of the 20th century, Greta Garbo. She captured the imagination of women in the 20s and 30s and is now considered the first new woman by feminists (see Fischer, 2001, p. 90). Both the style of her screen persona and the facts of her personal life inflamed the imaginations of her audience, primarily women. I have seen most of her movies and there is a theme in them all, a triangle – she is married to an older, overbearing man and having an affair with a younger man (see for example Vieira, 2005, p. 8). When discovered in the act, she is neither embarrassed nor repentant but instead is contemptuous, weary or angry with her older man. Conveniently for her character and to the relief of the audience, he is killed or dies off, leaving her to her virile suitor. She played her characters as women with mastery over their own image.
In her personal life, after her first films proved extremely popular and profitable, she challenged the MGM power structure. She ignored studio dictates, refused to participate in staged publicity and premiers, did not wear traditional foundational garments beneath her clothes, and was in general insubordinate, all of which created a growing tension. It reached the tipping point when she demanded seven times her salary to become the highest paid professional in the business and refused to do the film Women Love Diamonds because she thought it foolish (see Paris, 1994, pp127-8).
MGM finally detonated, finding her in breach of contract, and issued her a cease and desist letter. She went over their heads to Loews Inc., the parent company, and focused on the factual errors in the letter (see Vieira, 2005, pp 45-8). It was also observed that had MGM listened to her they would not have lost $30,000 with Women Love Diamonds (MGM went on with it using a different actress). Loews agreed, and MGM was forced to capitulate to the 21-year-old girl. The humiliation of the best brains in a place like MGM rocked Hollywood (see Paris, 1994, pp 129-30). She was given the salary and creative license and for the next decade produced a series of extremely profitable films.
In addition to her mastery of the moviegoers’ imagination, her own imagination played an important role in her success. Paris (1993, p. 9) quotes her reflecting back on her life alone, “Even as a tiny girl I preferred being alone….I could give my imagination free rein and live in a world of lovely dreams.” He also reports (p. 19) that she received intense religious training from her Lutheran church when young and later in life worked at converting to Catholicism.
Not one of my textbooks in the WVU IMC program has an index topic of imagination. Of course, I did find some by practioners such as Williams cited above. This seems to be an oversight in current academic thinking about consumer behavior. Imagination is a critical aspect of people. People of Garbo’s stature have used the imagination of their audience to create a world that could be but isn’t. Imagination is fertile ground for an aspiration that people may not have thought of or considered. Marketing that creates an imaginary world that engages the imagination of the consumer can also have the towering success that someone like Garbo achieved.
Another implication is Schaeffer’s reference to Chomsky’s Basic Grammar categories to make a point. After an exhaustive literature search on it, I found only one article not imbued with extensive mathematical symbolism, Talmy’s The Cognitive Culture System.
Talmy (1995, p 4) says there may be a correlation between Chomsky’s linguistic categories and the universals of cultural structure that Murdock reported in 1966. Murdock found the following seventy-three cultural categories in every culture:
age-grading, athletic sports, bodily adornment, calendar, cleanliness training, community organization, cooking, cooperative labor, cosmology, courtship, dancing, decorative art, divination, division of labor, dream interpretation, education, eschatology, ethics, ethnobotany, etiquette, faith healing, family, feasting, fire-making, folklore, food taboos, funeral rites, games, gestures, gift-giving, government, greetings, hair-styles, hospitality, housing, hygiene, incest taboos, inheritance rules, joking, kin groups, kinship nomenclature, language, law, luck superstitions, magic, marriage, meal times, medicine, modesty concerning natural functions, mourning, music, mythology, numerals, obstetrics, penal sanctions, personal names, population policy, postnatal care, pregnancy usages, property rights, propitiation of supernatural beings, puberty customs, religious ritual, residence rules, sexual restrictions, soul concepts, status differentiation, surgery, tool making, trade visiting, weaning, weather control.
I think this is the start of a useful taxonomy to organize our understanding of a culture, especially differences. I am not suggesting that cultures are the same in these categories as far as marketing communications is concerned. I do suggest that these seventy-three common categories would be a way of organizing culturally relevant information.
A less mathematic, more up-to-date and more actionable study in this area could benefit consumer behavior. One area that comes to mind is avoiding embarrassing cross-cultural marketing mistakes. As examples, three of the cultural cognitive categories are mourning, numerals, and athletics. The category mourning would store the aspects of mourning in different cultures, aspects such as symbolic colors, white is Asia, black in the west, and brown in India; also numerals - 13 bad luck in the U.S., and 4 is bad luck in Japan; as well as athletics - use local sports stars - Nike wasted years pushing American sports stars in Europe to no effect.
List of Figures
Figure 1 Francis Schaeffer, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://www.rationalpi.com/theshelter/
Figure 2 L’Abri Retreat, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://www.labri.org/swiss/photo.html
Figure 3 Jose Ortega y Gasset, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ortega_y_Gasset
Figure 4 Resor and Lansdowne, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://adage.com/century/people014.html
Figure 5 Woodbury Soap ad by Lansdowne, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://www.paperboynews.com/links.asp?catagory=4&sub_id=528
Figure 6 Disconcerting Disney Artwork, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Disney/Mermaid.html
Figure 7 Greta Garbo in Mysterious Lady, digital rights owned by George Ray
(these images are incorporated according to the Fair Use provisions of the copyright laws for educational purpose)
References
Anomolies Unlimited (2005). Well, it does look like one. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Disney/Mermaid.html
Burson, Scott R. (Summer 1996). A Comparative Analysis of C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer-The Most Influential Apologists of Our Time. Lamp-Post of the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society 1996 Summer; 20 (2): 4-29. Retrieved on April 5, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Clarkson, Frederick (1994). "Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence". The Public Eye Magazine VIII (1 & 2). Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre2.html
Cochrane, Matthew (April 24, 2007). Book Review: A Christian Manifesto. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.notconformedthoughts.com/displayone.cfm?docid=2857
Drewniany, B and J Jewler (2008). Creative Strategy in Advertising. Wadsworth.
Elliott, Hannah (November 20, 2006 ) Baylor prof says Francis Schaeffer returned to fundamentalist views. Associated Baptist Press. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1628&Itemid=119
Gelles, John (Oct 12, 2007). Ann Coulter's Ridiculous Claim that Jews Are Christians! Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.amazon.com/tag/politics/forum?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1S3QSZRUL93V8&cdPage=6&cdThread=Tx2MR9D14ZDZGZA&cdShowEdit=Mx300RQENP9YDC7
Hamilton, Gregory W. (2007). A Review of “A Christian Manifesto” in the Light of Scriptural Revelation. Liberty Express journal. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.nrla.com/article.php?id=29
Hawkins, Del, David Mothersbaugh and Roger Best (2007). Consumer Behavior. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Kaplan, Robert (2001). The Coming Anarchy. Vintage.
Olasky, Marvin (March 03, 2005). Francis Schaeffer's political legacy. TownHall.Com. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://townhall.com/columnists/MarvinOlasky/2005/03/03/francis_schaeffers_political_legacy
Parkhurst, L.G. (2008). Francis and Edith Schaeffer. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://labri.net/FAS/content/view/27/27/
Pope, Daniel (6/13/2003). Making Sense of Advertisements. George Mason University.
Retrieved on April 8, 2009 from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/ads/ads.pdf )
Schaefer, Francis (January 1972). He is There and He is not Silent. Bibliotheca Sacra. Retrieved on April 2, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Spanos, William (4/22/2003 ). The Detective and The Boundary: Some Notes on PostModern Literary Imagination. State University of New York at Binghamton. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Taleb, Nassim Nickolas (2007). The Black Swan. Random House.
Talmy, Leonard (Jan 95). The cognitive culture system. Monist; Jan95, Vol. 78 Issue 1, p80, 35p. Retrieved on April 8, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Tucker, Maryanne (2008). Subliminal Messaging and The Disney Corporation. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~jporter/maryanne_web/index_files/Page766.htm
Twitchell, James (1996). AdCult USA. Columbia Press.
Vitagliano, Ed (1997). Why Boycott Disney? AFA Journal. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.solargeneral.com/ja/disney/why_boycott_disney.htm
Wallace, AFC (1963). Culture and Personality. Random House.
Wikipedia (2009). Francis Schaeffer. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Schaeffer
Wikipedia (2009a). Stanley Resor. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_B._Resor
Whitehead, John W. (3/8/2007). Is the Christian Right a Fascist Movement? The Rutherford Institute. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=462
Williams, Roy (2001). Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads. Bard Press.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Critque of Francis Schaefer’s Article "He is There and He is not Silent" from Bibliotheca Sacra
Primary Strengths
Dr. Schaeffer looks beyond the failure of Rationalism, because its failure does not require us to abandon the hope it failed to justify. It masqueraded as a foundation for the hope of improving the human condition but has been exposed by philosophy as groundless. In contrast, the nemesis to despair is an ancient epistemology that Rationalism rose up to challenge some three hundred years ago. Schaeffer argues convincingly that this framework for knowledge and reason is true; it has withstood the test of free inquiry by skeptics.
This is important in all realms of human life and Schaeffer uses early science as an illustration. Early science, that of Galileo, Copernicus, Newton and the others was based on the ancient epistemology, while modern science is based on Rationalism. The fall of Rationalism has taken modern science down with it.
The implications for the failure of modern science are profound. Schaeffer says science will die, becoming only technology. By this he means that it is no longer a process for discovery but merely a mechanism to record evidence. He further asserts that science has become a game of splintering its body of findings into ever more finite categories. Science is disappearing.
Kaplan (2001, pp 172-3, 183) notes that this splintering produces “grave deformities” and “vicious forms of human existence.” He recounts the 1929 work of Jose Ortega y Gasset in The Revolt of the Masses.
Mass man knows expertly his small island but is ignorant of the rest of the world and has no bridge to reach it. So it is with the splinters of modern science. There has supposedly been a rapid expansion of knowledge but how much is useful, how much is even usable? Gasset finds an inverse relation between wisdom and specialization. Schaeffer’s anticipation of this is impressive.
The failure of Rationalism has infected other realms with its despair. Spanos (2003, p. 148) informs us that the underlying motif in Postmodern literature, dread, has its source in the rejection of Logical Positivism, an ineffectual last stand of Rationalism. Dread is defined as anxiety with no specific object, distinct from fear that does have a specific object. This manifests itself in Postmodern literature as a rejection of the ending as a solution to the narrative (p. 152), and a refusal to “fulfill causally oriented expectations” (p. 148). In other words, it is a rejection (p. 154) of the “detective story,” which has a rational solution “generated by the scientific analysis of the man-in-the-world.” Consumer behavior and marketing communications form a detective story in an ad campaign. Postmodern literature rejects this format.
Worse comes. Schaeffer effectively argues that a failure of Rationalism was its inability to establish reasonable principles or universals, something that has always been possible from the Judeo-Christian position. This inability may lead to the disappearance of principle-based policy in the postmodern world. Consensus, the compromise of principles (that we are unsure of anyway) becomes the guiding principle. Kaplan (2001, pp 169-185) sees a danger in peace as a primary goal because this “implies that you will [compromise] any principle for the sake of it.”
Why did Rationalism fail? Taleb (2007, pp 52-3,55,65,69,101,220) recounts numerous points of failure such as round-trip fallacies, domain specificity, naïve empiricism, post hoc rationalization, the narrative fallacy, silent evidence and others. While he uses sound reasoning, Taleb is hesitant to generalize to find a root cause.
On the other hand, Schaeffer is willing to propose the root cause that explains all the others. The presupposition of Rationalism did not explain mankind or our world; it is impossible to derive a uniformity of natural causes in a closed system. Today it’s more intellectual to say there are no answers – Schaeffer says that is exactly the point of Christ. Man starting from himself is lost. Schaeffer finds the worst failure of Rationalism is its inability to understand mankind – our self-concept, our communications, and our free will. We are not a machine to be manipulated in a closed system. Nor are we entirely subject to the whims of randomness.
Problems with the Article “He is There and He is not Silent”
As noted above, the political activism of the Christian Right, especially with George W. Bush, has accelerated an increasing polarization. Schaeffer was conciliatory in reaching out to people but introduced a strident and defensive attitude to the Rationalistic and Humanistic attacks on Christianity. He researched and counter-attacked these viewpoints, and his stridence is evident in this article. The modern Christian Right has not been conciliatory in its dealings with people. Ann Coulter is a prime example. She has been outspoken in her attack on Humanism and its stepchild, liberalism. Gelles (2007, p1) quotes her
"I'm a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it."
“Christianity fuels everything I write. Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy - you know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism."
She is attractive and eloquent but I would fear being in a casual conversation with her.
Another problem with Schaeffer’s article is it presumes knowledge of theological and philosophical terms and concepts. It starts with the knowledge that Rationalism is dead, but many are not so aware of its demise, even scientists. In addition to its philosophic death, leading intellects such as Einstein attacked it as biased and false, such as in his article “Physics and Reality” in the March 1936 edition of the Journal of the Franklin Institute. The eminent scientist Michael Polanyi demolished Rationalism and the positivism of the scientific method in his epic work Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (1958). A bibliography of articles on the failure of Rationalism that led to postmodernism, linguistic analysis and other replacement epistemologies would be helpful. It is presumed the reader already has such knowledge.
How to Improve He is There and He is not Silent
This article attempted to cover substantial ground in a short 19 pages. A major improvement is to provide more canvas to fully develop the ideas in this article. This is what happened after the 1972 lecture at Dallas Theological Seminary and the Bibliotheca Sacra article. Schaeffer authored a book by the same name, which was published after the article.
Was the Study Biased
Yes. Schaeffer was an evangelical Christian and that is clear throughout all his writings. The article itself was published in a theological journal. Not all critics of Rationalism share Schaeffer’s optimism. Most notably to my knowledge, Nassim Taleb who is not a Christian and I will review his Book, The Black Swan next week. While the Schaeffer article is biased, it is transparent. He does not try to persuade the reader of the correctness of the Christian position while hiding the fact that he is a Christian.
References
Anomolies Unlimited (2005). Well, it does look like one. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Disney/Mermaid.html
Burson, Scott R. (Summer 1996). A Comparative Analysis of C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer-The Most Influential Apologists of Our Time. Lamp-Post of the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society 1996 Summer; 20 (2): 4-29. Retrieved on April 5, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Clarkson, Frederick (1994). "Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence". The Public Eye Magazine VIII (1 & 2). Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre2.html
Cochrane, Matthew (April 24, 2007). Book Review: A Christian Manifesto. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.notconformedthoughts.com/displayone.cfm?docid=2857
Drewniany, B and J Jewler (2008). Creative Strategy in Advertising. Wadsworth.
Elliott, Hannah (November 20, 2006 ) Baylor prof says Francis Schaeffer returned to fundamentalist views. Associated Baptist Press. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1628&Itemid=119
Gelles, John (Oct 12, 2007). Ann Coulter's Ridiculous Claim that Jews Are Christians! Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.amazon.com/tag/politics/forum?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1S3QSZRUL93V8&cdPage=6&cdThread=Tx2MR9D14ZDZGZA&cdShowEdit=Mx300RQENP9YDC7
Hamilton, Gregory W. (2007). A Review of “A Christian Manifesto” in the Light of Scriptural Revelation. Liberty Express journal. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.nrla.com/article.php?id=29
Hawkins, Del, David Mothersbaugh and Roger Best (2007). Consumer Behavior. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Kaplan, Robert (2001). The Coming Anarchy. Vintage.
Olasky, Marvin (March 03, 2005). Francis Schaeffer's political legacy. TownHall.Com. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://townhall.com/columnists/MarvinOlasky/2005/03/03/francis_schaeffers_political_legacy
Parkhurst, L.G. (2008). Francis and Edith Schaeffer. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://labri.net/FAS/content/view/27/27/
Pope, Daniel (6/13/2003). Making Sense of Advertisements. George Mason University.
Retrieved on April 8, 2009 from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/ads/ads.pdf )
Schaefer, Francis (January 1972). He is There and He is not Silent. Bibliotheca Sacra. Retrieved on April 2, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Spanos, William (4/22/2003 ). The Detective and The Boundary: Some Notes on PostModern Literary Imagination. State University of New York at Binghamton. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Taleb, Nassim Nickolas (2007). The Black Swan. Random House.
Talmy, Leonard (Jan 95). The cognitive culture system. Monist; Jan95, Vol. 78 Issue 1, p80, 35p. Retrieved on April 8, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Tucker, Maryanne (2008). Subliminal Messaging and The Disney Corporation. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~jporter/maryanne_web/index_files/Page766.htm
Twitchell, James (1996). AdCult USA. Columbia Press.
Vitagliano, Ed (1997). Why Boycott Disney? AFA Journal. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.solargeneral.com/ja/disney/why_boycott_disney.htm
Wallace, AFC (1963). Culture and Personality. Random House.
Wikipedia (2009). Francis Schaeffer. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Schaeffer
Wikipedia (2009a). Stanley Resor. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_B._Resor
Whitehead, John W. (3/8/2007). Is the Christian Right a Fascist Movement? The Rutherford Institute. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=462
Williams, Roy (2001). Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads. Bard Press.
Dr. Schaeffer looks beyond the failure of Rationalism, because its failure does not require us to abandon the hope it failed to justify. It masqueraded as a foundation for the hope of improving the human condition but has been exposed by philosophy as groundless. In contrast, the nemesis to despair is an ancient epistemology that Rationalism rose up to challenge some three hundred years ago. Schaeffer argues convincingly that this framework for knowledge and reason is true; it has withstood the test of free inquiry by skeptics.
This is important in all realms of human life and Schaeffer uses early science as an illustration. Early science, that of Galileo, Copernicus, Newton and the others was based on the ancient epistemology, while modern science is based on Rationalism. The fall of Rationalism has taken modern science down with it.
The implications for the failure of modern science are profound. Schaeffer says science will die, becoming only technology. By this he means that it is no longer a process for discovery but merely a mechanism to record evidence. He further asserts that science has become a game of splintering its body of findings into ever more finite categories. Science is disappearing.
Kaplan (2001, pp 172-3, 183) notes that this splintering produces “grave deformities” and “vicious forms of human existence.” He recounts the 1929 work of Jose Ortega y Gasset in The Revolt of the Masses.
Mass man knows expertly his small island but is ignorant of the rest of the world and has no bridge to reach it. So it is with the splinters of modern science. There has supposedly been a rapid expansion of knowledge but how much is useful, how much is even usable? Gasset finds an inverse relation between wisdom and specialization. Schaeffer’s anticipation of this is impressive.
The failure of Rationalism has infected other realms with its despair. Spanos (2003, p. 148) informs us that the underlying motif in Postmodern literature, dread, has its source in the rejection of Logical Positivism, an ineffectual last stand of Rationalism. Dread is defined as anxiety with no specific object, distinct from fear that does have a specific object. This manifests itself in Postmodern literature as a rejection of the ending as a solution to the narrative (p. 152), and a refusal to “fulfill causally oriented expectations” (p. 148). In other words, it is a rejection (p. 154) of the “detective story,” which has a rational solution “generated by the scientific analysis of the man-in-the-world.” Consumer behavior and marketing communications form a detective story in an ad campaign. Postmodern literature rejects this format.
Worse comes. Schaeffer effectively argues that a failure of Rationalism was its inability to establish reasonable principles or universals, something that has always been possible from the Judeo-Christian position. This inability may lead to the disappearance of principle-based policy in the postmodern world. Consensus, the compromise of principles (that we are unsure of anyway) becomes the guiding principle. Kaplan (2001, pp 169-185) sees a danger in peace as a primary goal because this “implies that you will [compromise] any principle for the sake of it.”
Why did Rationalism fail? Taleb (2007, pp 52-3,55,65,69,101,220) recounts numerous points of failure such as round-trip fallacies, domain specificity, naïve empiricism, post hoc rationalization, the narrative fallacy, silent evidence and others. While he uses sound reasoning, Taleb is hesitant to generalize to find a root cause.
On the other hand, Schaeffer is willing to propose the root cause that explains all the others. The presupposition of Rationalism did not explain mankind or our world; it is impossible to derive a uniformity of natural causes in a closed system. Today it’s more intellectual to say there are no answers – Schaeffer says that is exactly the point of Christ. Man starting from himself is lost. Schaeffer finds the worst failure of Rationalism is its inability to understand mankind – our self-concept, our communications, and our free will. We are not a machine to be manipulated in a closed system. Nor are we entirely subject to the whims of randomness.
Problems with the Article “He is There and He is not Silent”
As noted above, the political activism of the Christian Right, especially with George W. Bush, has accelerated an increasing polarization. Schaeffer was conciliatory in reaching out to people but introduced a strident and defensive attitude to the Rationalistic and Humanistic attacks on Christianity. He researched and counter-attacked these viewpoints, and his stridence is evident in this article. The modern Christian Right has not been conciliatory in its dealings with people. Ann Coulter is a prime example. She has been outspoken in her attack on Humanism and its stepchild, liberalism. Gelles (2007, p1) quotes her
"I'm a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it."
“Christianity fuels everything I write. Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy - you know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism."
She is attractive and eloquent but I would fear being in a casual conversation with her.
Another problem with Schaeffer’s article is it presumes knowledge of theological and philosophical terms and concepts. It starts with the knowledge that Rationalism is dead, but many are not so aware of its demise, even scientists. In addition to its philosophic death, leading intellects such as Einstein attacked it as biased and false, such as in his article “Physics and Reality” in the March 1936 edition of the Journal of the Franklin Institute. The eminent scientist Michael Polanyi demolished Rationalism and the positivism of the scientific method in his epic work Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (1958). A bibliography of articles on the failure of Rationalism that led to postmodernism, linguistic analysis and other replacement epistemologies would be helpful. It is presumed the reader already has such knowledge.
How to Improve He is There and He is not Silent
This article attempted to cover substantial ground in a short 19 pages. A major improvement is to provide more canvas to fully develop the ideas in this article. This is what happened after the 1972 lecture at Dallas Theological Seminary and the Bibliotheca Sacra article. Schaeffer authored a book by the same name, which was published after the article.
Was the Study Biased
Yes. Schaeffer was an evangelical Christian and that is clear throughout all his writings. The article itself was published in a theological journal. Not all critics of Rationalism share Schaeffer’s optimism. Most notably to my knowledge, Nassim Taleb who is not a Christian and I will review his Book, The Black Swan next week. While the Schaeffer article is biased, it is transparent. He does not try to persuade the reader of the correctness of the Christian position while hiding the fact that he is a Christian.
References
Anomolies Unlimited (2005). Well, it does look like one. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Disney/Mermaid.html
Burson, Scott R. (Summer 1996). A Comparative Analysis of C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer-The Most Influential Apologists of Our Time. Lamp-Post of the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society 1996 Summer; 20 (2): 4-29. Retrieved on April 5, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Clarkson, Frederick (1994). "Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence". The Public Eye Magazine VIII (1 & 2). Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre2.html
Cochrane, Matthew (April 24, 2007). Book Review: A Christian Manifesto. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.notconformedthoughts.com/displayone.cfm?docid=2857
Drewniany, B and J Jewler (2008). Creative Strategy in Advertising. Wadsworth.
Elliott, Hannah (November 20, 2006 ) Baylor prof says Francis Schaeffer returned to fundamentalist views. Associated Baptist Press. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1628&Itemid=119
Gelles, John (Oct 12, 2007). Ann Coulter's Ridiculous Claim that Jews Are Christians! Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.amazon.com/tag/politics/forum?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1S3QSZRUL93V8&cdPage=6&cdThread=Tx2MR9D14ZDZGZA&cdShowEdit=Mx300RQENP9YDC7
Hamilton, Gregory W. (2007). A Review of “A Christian Manifesto” in the Light of Scriptural Revelation. Liberty Express journal. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.nrla.com/article.php?id=29
Hawkins, Del, David Mothersbaugh and Roger Best (2007). Consumer Behavior. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Kaplan, Robert (2001). The Coming Anarchy. Vintage.
Olasky, Marvin (March 03, 2005). Francis Schaeffer's political legacy. TownHall.Com. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://townhall.com/columnists/MarvinOlasky/2005/03/03/francis_schaeffers_political_legacy
Parkhurst, L.G. (2008). Francis and Edith Schaeffer. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://labri.net/FAS/content/view/27/27/
Pope, Daniel (6/13/2003). Making Sense of Advertisements. George Mason University.
Retrieved on April 8, 2009 from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/ads/ads.pdf )
Schaefer, Francis (January 1972). He is There and He is not Silent. Bibliotheca Sacra. Retrieved on April 2, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Spanos, William (4/22/2003 ). The Detective and The Boundary: Some Notes on PostModern Literary Imagination. State University of New York at Binghamton. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Taleb, Nassim Nickolas (2007). The Black Swan. Random House.
Talmy, Leonard (Jan 95). The cognitive culture system. Monist; Jan95, Vol. 78 Issue 1, p80, 35p. Retrieved on April 8, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Tucker, Maryanne (2008). Subliminal Messaging and The Disney Corporation. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~jporter/maryanne_web/index_files/Page766.htm
Twitchell, James (1996). AdCult USA. Columbia Press.
Vitagliano, Ed (1997). Why Boycott Disney? AFA Journal. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.solargeneral.com/ja/disney/why_boycott_disney.htm
Wallace, AFC (1963). Culture and Personality. Random House.
Wikipedia (2009). Francis Schaeffer. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Schaeffer
Wikipedia (2009a). Stanley Resor. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_B._Resor
Whitehead, John W. (3/8/2007). Is the Christian Right a Fascist Movement? The Rutherford Institute. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=462
Williams, Roy (2001). Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads. Bard Press.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Summary of Francis Schaefer’s Article "He is There and He is not Silent" from Bibliotheca Sacra
Introduction
Although relatively unknown in the general population, the theologian and philosopher Francis Schaeffer has had a tremendous impact on both Christian thought and American politics in the second half of the 20th century. Schaeffer was an early proponent of Christian activism and his works, including this one, formed the philosophic foundation for the Christian Right (see Clarkson, 1994, p. 2; Elliot, 2006, p. 1; and Olasky, 2005, p. 1). Elliot and Olasky credit Schaeffer for the presidency of George W. Bush.
Although relatively unknown in the general population, the theologian and philosopher Francis Schaeffer has had a tremendous impact on both Christian thought and American politics in the second half of the 20th century. Schaeffer was an early proponent of Christian activism and his works, including this one, formed the philosophic foundation for the Christian Right (see Clarkson, 1994, p. 2; Elliot, 2006, p. 1; and Olasky, 2005, p. 1). Elliot and Olasky credit Schaeffer for the presidency of George W. Bush.
Parkhurst (2008, p. 2) quotes Ronald Reagan and Billy Graham in eulogies for Schaeffer, who died on May 15, 1984. Reagan said, “He will long be remembered as one of the great Christian thinkers of our century.” Billy Graham said, “[Schaeffer is] truly one of the great evangelical statesmen of our generation.” Other prominent theologians who were profoundly influenced by Schaeffer’s works include Tim LaHaye, Hal Lindsay, and Jerry Falwell.
Ann Coulter, a spokeswoman for the Christian Right has popularized his later work on the conflict between the humanist and Christian worldviews (see Cochrane, 2007, p. 1; and Whitehead, 2007, p. 1). She is more strident than Schaeffer, who was more passive in his argumentation. Whitehead is opposed to both Coulter and Schaeffer. Billy Graham also expressed concern, despite respect for Schaeffer (see Hamilton, 2007, p. 3),
“It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. [They have] no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”
This article, He is There and He is not Silent, is a summary of Schaeffer’s views on Rationalism and not humanism. Originally delivered as a lecture at the Dallas Theological Seminary it was then published as an article in the journal Bibliotheca Sacra and later expanded into a book.
Summary
The journal article was published in 1972, and in it Schaeffer analyzes the failure of Rationalism that became manifest in the 20th century and that is metastasizing in western culture today. The hope of societies based on Rationalism was the advancement of the human condition through the application of reason in a closed system of natural causes (See Schaffer, 1972, p. 5).
Rationalism has two parts, the induction of universals through rational analysis and their application to particular circumstances. This duality remerged in the humanistic renaissance (p. 4) with separate methodologies for deriving the universal truths and then applying them. Derivation proved problematic for the enlightened thinkers descended from the renaissance but as Schaeffer notes, not for the Christian thinkers descended from the reformation.
Application of universal truths to obtain conclusions has proved problematic also. Early monotonic logics produced optimism because they assumed the addition of another assumption to an argument with an already validated conclusion would not invalidate the conclusion. Or in other words, learning a new piece of knowledge cannot reduce the set of what is known. With more modern non-monotonic systems of logic this is not true. A new assumption may reverse a conclusion, which was validated under the original set of assumptions.
To Schaeffer, the difference between Christian revelation thinking and that of failed Rationalism, so admitted by modern philosophy, is that the fundamental Christian presupposition is the uniformity of natural causes in an open system. Schaeffer condemns modern intellectual thinking for its insistence on the closed system despite the evidence that its conclusions are “opposed to man’s knowledge of himself,” and ultimately dehumanize us (p. 4).
Christian epistemology allows for universals to come from outside the system, from One who does have true knowledge of the universals. It also explains the provision of sufficient but not exhaustive knowledge for applications of the universals, including communications between ourselves. On the other hand, Rationalism failed. Modern intellectualism sees the failure but does not change, preferring instead to live inside the failure.
Schaeffer observes a fundamental inconsistency in modern Rationalism. Language is the distinction between man and non-man and so says secular anthropology. Mankind uses structured and propositional communications. This is not possible for man trapped in the uniformity of causes in a closed system. Structured and propositional scrutiny is admittedly not possible in this framework, much less communication. Schaeffer’s point (p. 5) is that Rationalism, modern philosophy, and modern intellectualism fails to explain man, fails to explain the universe and fails to “stand up in the area of epistemology.”
In contrast, Christian presuppositions do form a basis for optimism on mankind’s ability for structured and propositional analysis. Furthermore, we have assurance of our ability to meaningfully communicate with each other, and for God to communicate with us (p. 6). He references the argument of Oppenheimer and Whitehead that modern science could only have been initially formed in the Christian setting (p. 7). The founders of modern science believed, as Whitehead so delightfully said “that because God is a reasonable God, man could discover the truth of the universe by reason.”
This framework enables a meaningful association to be established between a subject and object (p. 8). Furthermore, real values can be established regarding these associations that go beyond mere sociological averages. He goes on to say that this is how mankind acts in the world. There is a correlation between a subject and some object that is there. If we are in a room with an angry grizzly bear, we are not confused about the associated danger. The Christian view is in line with the way we all act in the world (p. 9). This extends into our interpersonal relations. We don’t have the sociopathic view of other people as machines to be manipulated.
Of communications, he says there are three possible views. The first is that meaning is so integrated with our personal background that no communication at all is possible. The second is that the meaning is entirely in the words or symbols and we are instantly assured of understanding. These two extremes are not how the world works. The third and proper view is that we all bring our own backgrounds to languages but there is enough overlap to “have a sufficient meaning for communication.”
He concludes this section of the article with the observation that we do not require an exhaustive knowledge of an object to have a meaningful association with it. We can truly know something without knowing it exhaustively. There only needs to be sufficient correlation (p. 10).
Schaeffer then discusses the reasonableness of categories. He argues that a reasonable God created the universe and therefore we should not be surprised that He created mental categories to organize our understanding of that world. The categories in the human mind fit with the categories of the external world (p. 11). He cites the work of Chomsky and Levi Strauss that investigated the uniform categories in the human mind.
The Bible not only gives us a propositional revelation about the world but more importantly shows how God works in the world (p. 12). This operation is in stark contrast to the “tremendous rushing wall of modern thinking.” The transcendent God operates with the understanding He revealed in the Bible. He only operates outside the world He created to prove a communication and these are the miracles, the proof of a prophecy.
What He tells us in the Bible is not exhaustive because our finiteness would not comprehend it. He gives us sufficient revelation to understand its nature. This gives us an epistemological certainty about the world of objects (p. 13). Science today is at risk of dying (p. 8). It has become a game in two ways (p. 13). First it has lost its basis for objective discovery. It has become only a method to record evidence. He compares scientists to ski bums who focus on one thing, and think of nothing outside of that one thing, no attempt to relate it to other knowledge. Secondly, as a game, scientists are manipulating their work according to their desires rather than being consistent with objective conduct and findings (p. 14).
The Christian precept of knowing without knowing exhaustively can also be applied to have true knowledge of someone else, knowing the inward person as distinct from his or her outward façade. Dr. Schaeffer as founder and director of the L’Abri foundation worked with young people from around the world and one of their primary concerns is the ability to know someone else and not just the outward persona. Schaeffer argues that again we do not need to know each other exhaustively so we don’t need to know another person perfectly to relate to them. He says (p. 15) that the “inward areas of knowing and meaning are bound by God as much as the outward world.”
We were made in the image of God so there is a basis from working with the outside façade to understand the inner person. Schaeffer also notes that the last commandment is not to covet. This is the internal world of a person. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. It tells us something about the internal person.
He continues, that people want to have communication but find themselves in an inhuman mechanical world. The boy and the girl want to be open with each other yet the long married man and woman are completely alienated (p. 17). The solution is to bring the inner world of meaning, values and morals under God’s norms.
Finally, Schaeffer discusses what is real as distinct from what is fanciful supposition so we can have a proper foundation for decision-making. Created in the image of God, our imaginations are not confined to the real world. We can change things in our imagination and this is the moving force behind art, poetry, engineering and other human activity. This final point is fundamental and he eloquently expresses it.
“The Christian should be the person who is alive, whose imagination absolutely boils, who dares to produce something a little different than God’s world because God made man to be creative.”
List of Figures
Figure 1 Francis Schaeffer, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://www.rationalpi.com/theshelter/
Figure 2 L’Abri Retreat, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://www.labri.org/swiss/photo.html
Figure 3 Jose Ortega y Gasset, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Ortega_y_Gasset
Figure 4 Resor and Lansdowne, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://adage.com/century/people014.html
Figure 5 Woodbury Soap ad by Lansdowne, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://www.paperboynews.com/links.asp?catagory=4&sub_id=528
Figure 6 Disconcerting Disney Artwork, retrieved on April 11, 2009 from http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Disney/Mermaid.html
Figure 7 Greta Garbo in Mysterious Lady, digital rights owned by George Ray
(these images are incorporated according to the Fair Use provisions of the copyright laws for educational purpose)
References
Anomolies Unlimited (2005). Well, it does look like one. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Disney/Mermaid.html
Burson, Scott R. (Summer 1996). A Comparative Analysis of C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer-The Most Influential Apologists of Our Time. Lamp-Post of the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society 1996 Summer; 20 (2): 4-29. Retrieved on April 5, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Clarkson, Frederick (1994). "Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence". The Public Eye Magazine VIII (1 & 2). Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre2.html
Cochrane, Matthew (April 24, 2007). Book Review: A Christian Manifesto. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.notconformedthoughts.com/displayone.cfm?docid=2857
Drewniany, B and J Jewler (2008). Creative Strategy in Advertising. Wadsworth.
Elliott, Hannah (November 20, 2006 ) Baylor prof says Francis Schaeffer returned to fundamentalist views. Associated Baptist Press. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1628&Itemid=119
Gelles, John (Oct 12, 2007). Ann Coulter's Ridiculous Claim that Jews Are Christians! Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.amazon.com/tag/politics/forum?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1S3QSZRUL93V8&cdPage=6&cdThread=Tx2MR9D14ZDZGZA&cdShowEdit=Mx300RQENP9YDC7
Hamilton, Gregory W. (2007). A Review of “A Christian Manifesto” in the Light of Scriptural Revelation. Liberty Express journal. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.nrla.com/article.php?id=29
Hawkins, Del, David Mothersbaugh and Roger Best (2007). Consumer Behavior. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Kaplan, Robert (2001). The Coming Anarchy. Vintage.
Olasky, Marvin (March 03, 2005). Francis Schaeffer's political legacy. TownHall.Com. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://townhall.com/columnists/MarvinOlasky/2005/03/03/francis_schaeffers_political_legacy
Parkhurst, L.G. (2008). Francis and Edith Schaeffer. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://labri.net/FAS/content/view/27/27/
Pope, Daniel (6/13/2003). Making Sense of Advertisements. George Mason University.
Retrieved on April 8, 2009 from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/ads/ads.pdf )
Schaefer, Francis (January 1972). He is There and He is not Silent. Bibliotheca Sacra. Retrieved on April 2, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Spanos, William (4/22/2003 ). The Detective and The Boundary: Some Notes on PostModern Literary Imagination. State University of New York at Binghamton. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Taleb, Nassim Nickolas (2007). The Black Swan. Random House.
Talmy, Leonard (Jan 95). The cognitive culture system. Monist; Jan95, Vol. 78 Issue 1, p80, 35p. Retrieved on April 8, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Tucker, Maryanne (2008). Subliminal Messaging and The Disney Corporation. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~jporter/maryanne_web/index_files/Page766.htm
Twitchell, James (1996). AdCult USA. Columbia Press.
Vitagliano, Ed (1997). Why Boycott Disney? AFA Journal. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 from http://www.solargeneral.com/ja/disney/why_boycott_disney.htm
Wallace, AFC (1963). Culture and Personality. Random House.
Wikipedia (2009). Francis Schaeffer. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Schaeffer
Wikipedia (2009a). Stanley Resor. Retrieved on April 7, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Schaeffer
Whitehead, John W. (3/8/2007). Is the Christian Right a Fascist Movement? The Rutherford Institute. Retrieved on April 9, 2009 from http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=462
Williams, Roy (2001). Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads. Bard Press.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Declining Ad Revenues at Regional Recreation Magazine
Exploratory research
Our company in this case study is a regional print magazine that has suffered steadily declining revenues. McDaniel and Gates (2008, p 41) recommend that research analysts perform situation analysis and exploratory research to correctly define the problem. Such preliminary work yields the essential context to better understand the problem, including industry and market trends, economic influences, and competitors.
Our company in this case study is a regional print magazine that has suffered steadily declining revenues. McDaniel and Gates (2008, p 41) recommend that research analysts perform situation analysis and exploratory research to correctly define the problem. Such preliminary work yields the essential context to better understand the problem, including industry and market trends, economic influences, and competitors.
In my exploratory research, I found a sound model for declining magazine revenues provided by Evans and Wurster (2000, p 42). The Internet has “disintermediated” print newspapers and magazines. Online media are imposing a new, more severe revenue structure on the venerable world of print journalism. In the past, magazines acted as intermediaries between journalists and readers because of the economics of the printing press. That has changed with the electronic media on the Internet.
Advertisers have taken note, and increasingly their business is allocated to online media. The situation is so dire that Ives (2008, p 1) asks whether print magazines will survive another five years. Maddox (2008, p 1) reports that magazine ad revenue across the board declined 2% in 2007.
Duncan gives us some insight on the advantages enjoyed by Internet (2005, p. 443) and they include better target selectivity compared with local print magazines, better geographic reach and shorter lead-time. Fine (2008, p. 1) reports on the declining prospects of mid-sized magazines for several reasons including online competition, but also a defection of advertisers who question the mid-term viability of print media because of the shift online.
Implications of Exploratory Research
Based on this exploratory research, declining ad revenues seems to be a symptom of an even worse problem. McDaniel and Gates (p. 45) inform us that a symptom is a result that is caused by something else and they recommend to continue asking, “what caused this” until you can’t go any further. This also helps to narrow the focus from the broader management problem to a more specific marketing research problem (p. 46).
Wyner (2001, p 1) says that the extent of our marketing research, as well as the tradeoffs we make in that research, depend on the risk to the business. Our exploratory research revealed a paradigm shift happening in print media. The situation for our regional recreation magazine is potentially dire.
This is a risk that management cannot ignore. From the exploratory research, we have information that our symptom of declining ad revenue might be caused by online ad competition, and concerns over our mid-term viability. Our audience is advertising spenders. We need to research the implications that our print magazine is undermined by online competition.
Problem Statement
Our magazine is encountering competition from online alternatives so that our advertising revenues are declining. To handle this problem, we need to understand the share of ad spending our clients plan to allocate to online and to print over the next five years. Additionally, what ad pricing is available to our clients from online competition? And finally will an online version of our magazine cause our clients to think us more viable?
Wyner (2001, p 1) says that the extent of our marketing research, as well as the tradeoffs we make in that research, depend on the risk to the business. Our exploratory research revealed a paradigm shift happening in print media. The situation for our regional recreation magazine is potentially dire.
This is a risk that management cannot ignore. From the exploratory research, we have information that our symptom of declining ad revenue might be caused by online ad competition, and concerns over our mid-term viability. Our audience is advertising spenders. We need to research the implications that our print magazine is undermined by online competition.
Problem Statement
Our magazine is encountering competition from online alternatives so that our advertising revenues are declining. To handle this problem, we need to understand the share of ad spending our clients plan to allocate to online and to print over the next five years. Additionally, what ad pricing is available to our clients from online competition? And finally will an online version of our magazine cause our clients to think us more viable?
Objectives for Primary Research
- Forecast the transfer of our current print revenue to online competition based on client spending plans
- Understand the new revenue structure of an online magazine in our product mix based on online ad rates
- Discover our readership attitude to an online version of our magazine
- Know our advertiser attitudes and beliefs about us if we stay strictly in print versus introducing an online product.
Recommended research design
Descriptive design is appropriate because we understand the underlying relationship between declining revenue at print magazines and online advertising. As McDaniel and Gates note (p. 49) "implicit in descriptive research is the fact that management already knows or understands the underlying relationship among variables in the problem." From our exploratory research we do have that understanding. We do not seek to understand what causes a shift in advertising revenue from us to our online competition since our exploratory research provides strong argument for that. We want to estimate the magnitude based on our client advertising plans.
On the other hand, we will be testing a new service with respect to reader and advertiser attitudes and beliefs. This is a causal study: what effect will a Web version have on readership and advertiser attitudes. Deploying a Web version is our independent variable while the attitudes and beliefs are dependent variables.
Incorporating both descriptive study and causal study will result in a more expensive design but as noted above this particular management problem could be calamitous. It will impact the ongoing concern assumption of our firm so we need the answers from marketing research in crosscutting areas. This may then result in more than one research method as well – is this reasonable? Wyner (2001, p 2) assures us it is: “Increasingly, however, marketing applications have combined elements of all three methods to get the benefits of each.”
Recommended methods
We recommend a causal design for finding the impact of a Web version of the magazine on reader and advertiser attitudes and beliefs. The method for causal can be survey or experiment (see McDaniel and Gates, 2008, p. 50). Wyner (2001, p 1) observes that experiment enables us to test a service that does not currently exist while at the same time controlling “nuance variables to show the true effect of the product [for us, service] itself.” While we could survey for a causal relationship, according to McDaniel and Gates, experiment is the better choice in our case.
Descriptive study would be appropriate for client spending plans and online ad rates. A survey for client spending plans is an orderly and structured approach to discover facts and opinions such as those underlying spending budgets (see McDaniel and Gates, 2008, p 50). An observational field study does not seem necessary for discovery of online ad rates. Instead, a phone survey seems a sufficient method.
Conclusion
This regional print magazine faces a risk with catastrophic consequences. Following the research design and using the research methods in this report will provide the marketing research data to more completely understand the nature of the problem. It will also provide insight into client spending plans, and client and reader attitudes towards a brand extension, adding an online version of the magazine.
References
Duncan, Tom (2005). Principles of Advertising and IMC. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Evans, Phillip and Thomas Wurster (2000). Blown to Bits. The Boston Consulting Group. Harvard Business School Press.
Fine, Jon (2/18/2008). Sweating Bullets in Magazineland. BusinessWeek. Retrieved on May 31, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Ives, Nat (11/3/2008). Will print survive the next five years? (cover story)
Advertising Age. Retrieved on May 31, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Maddox, Kate (May 5, 2008). Q1 ad sales reflect the slow economy. BtoB Magazine. Retrieved on May 31, 2009 from http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080505/FREE/733276802&SearchID=73317453989427%23seenit
McDaniels, C and R Gates (2008). Marketing Research Essentials. John Wiley.
Wyner, Gordon (2001). Representation, Randomization, and Realism. Marketing Research. Retrieved on May 31, 2009 from http://www.imc.wvu.edu/
Saturday, July 25, 2009
E-Tailing at a Children's Toy Company
Search Strategy
A regional toy company is considering the Internet as a selling channel and commissioned a background research report to decide if this retailing channel warrants further investigation. I used the Internet to do background research on toy retailing on the Internet. McDaniel and Gates (2008, p 86) recommend listing the distinctive words that might identify articles as a first step for an Internet search. I chose the following words: buy educational toys online. For my first search I did not try to enclose phrases or clichés in quotes because I wanted to see a wider range of results to get other ideas for searching. This starting gambit hit a rich vein of useful material. In addition to educational toy company Web sites, I found this blog that reviews educational toy companies: Suite 101.
The companies reviewed in the blog such as The Discovery Channel provided useful information. Moreover, I followed the McDaniel and Gates guidance (p. 87) to “vary your approach with what you learn,” and picked up some words and other ideas in the review of these companies. E-tailing was a new word and eToys was a high profile failure that merited investigation. I decided to also improve the quality of my source material (see McDaniel and Gates, 2008, p. 87) and started searching with my new terms and information in EBSCOHOST. The following is my report to the toy retailer, call them KidzBiz.
The Market Reality for Online Educational Toy Sales
There is no mistake that revenue growth for online educational toy sales is front-running its brick and mortar relation by a significant margin. Online sales now form a significant share of sales for educational toy companies with the vision to participate in this channel. On example is Fat Brain (see Davis, 2008, p. 1), which has most of its sales online. It also takes advantage of the infrastructure services provided by Amazon to reduce the risk and cost of selling online by sharing Amazon server capacity, technical services and expertise.
Carson (2009, p 1) reports that Fat Brain is now on the Internet Retailer’s Hot 100 List. Furthermore, Inc. Magazine (2008, p 1) reports the astonishing growth in Fat Brain sales of 428% from 2002-2008. It also reports that the company is ranked number 40 in the Top 100 Consumer Product Companies. Not bad for a small family owned business that started in a garage selling educational toys through local stores.
What about established players? According to Internet Retailer (2006, p. 1), Toys-R-Us online sales jumped 20% with increasing strength in both number of orders and average order size. Although they do not specialize in only educational toys, they do sell them and experienced a 33% growth in sales of toys for toddlers. Hughes (p 32) reports that Disney has experienced phenomenal success in selling educational toys by “redefining babies solely as learners whose potential to learn can be released by consuming these products.” The combined message is a powerful indicator that online sales of educational toys for toddlers yield rich returns.
Are there other examples? Consider Leapfrog, an educational toy vendor who sells in brick and mortar retail stores, through its own online store and through online channels like Yahoo Shopping. In its quarterly filing with the SEC (see SEC, 2009, p. 15), Leapfrog reports that it plans to increase its online presence. This is in spite of, or perhaps because of the beating retailers are getting from the economic downturn (see SEC, 2009, p. 14).
The Discovery Channel (2008, p. 12) reported in its 10-Q news conference review that it closed all brick and mortar stores on May 17, 2007 and now will sell its educational products solely through catalog and their online store. They further inform us (p. 3) that they are aggressively investing in their online properties. Web traffic to their Web sites almost tripled from March 2007 to March 2008 from 13 million unique visitors per month to 33 million. Please note that the report does not break out visits to their online store from visits to their informational sites.
What about the high profile failures
The most high profile failure for an online toy company was eToys. Sliwa (2001, p 1) reports that eToys faced strong Internet competition from Amazon. As noted above, Amazon is now willing to partner with toy sellers. Moreover, Gomolski (2001, p. 72) goes into more depth about why eToys withered before Amazon. She reports that the eToys business model was based on competitive pricing but they had neglected to build awareness about their pricing. In addition, they failed to use the Internet to build customer relations of any kind. This resulted not only in inadequate brand awareness but also a failure to connect with children.
Moreover, eToys did not have the critical mass to reach profitability quickly and at the same time did not have cash flow from conventional business operations to sustain itself. The result is that eToys was not able to initially compete online with Amazon and could not sustain itself until it could.
How Can We Trust the Data
Can we trust the information used in this report? The sources are well respected. Inc. magazine, InternetRetailer, ComputerWorld, and InfoWorld are news magazines of note. They follow standard journalistic practice, which is designed to ensure reliable reporting. The Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood is a professional journal. Articles are peer reviewed to again ensure information reliability.
McDaniels and Gates is an academic textbook. It has been reviewed by the editorial board of John Wiley, one of the most trusted publishers. Finally, audited 10-Q statements are filed with the federal government. Heavy penalties under the administrative law are assessed for publishing false information on these statements.
Recommendation
KidzBiz has a lucrative opportunity to expand its sales and establish a presence in a new and growing sales and distribution system, the Internet. That system is placing relentless pressure on traditional brick and mortar operations. Today, KidzBiz is solely dependent on that old tired soldier. The next step should be to review Kidz Biz internal customer, product and sales data.
Johnson (2009, p. 3) says that, “secondary data can be greatly enhanced when merged with internally-generated data.” Kuchinskas (2003, p. 2) reports that in 2000 Dell experienced declining growth in the educational market because of tightening education budgets. They responded with a database-marketing program to the education sector. Database marketing on the Internet should enhance KidzBiz sales.
References
Carson, Mark (January 8, 2009). Fat Brain Toys Named To Internet Retailer’s 2009 Hot 100 List. Fat Brain Press Release. Retrieved on May 26, 2009 from http://www.fatbraintoys.com/about_us/press.cfm?pr_id=62
Davis, Don (September 2008). Advantage Amazon. Internet Retailer. Retrieved on May 26, 2009 from http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=27583
Discovery Holding (May 8, 2008). Discovery Holding Company First Quarter Earnings Release. Retrieved on May 27, 2009 from http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-08-2008/0004809260&EDATE
Gomolski, Barb (02/05/2001). Going global: Some lessons from eToys and Yahoo that might help you. InfoWorld. Retrieved on May 29, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Hughes, P (March 2005). Baby, It's You: international capital discovers the under threes. Comtemporary issues in early childhood. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. Retrieved on May 26, 2009 from
EBSCOHOST and http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/viewpdf.asp?j=ciec&vol=6&issue=1&year=2005&article=4_Hughes_CIEC_6_1_web&id=74.6.25.186.
Inc. Magazine (2008). Company Profile: Fat Brain Toys. Retrieved on May 27, 2009 from http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2008/company-profile.html?id=200808330
Internet Retailer (June 21, 2006). Toysrus.com swings into the black in first quarter. Retrieved on May 26, 2009 from http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=18996
Johnson, E. (2009). Using Secondary Data & Databases. Retrieved on May 30, 2009 from WVU www.imc.wvu.edu.
Kuchinskas, Susan (Sep 2003). Data-based Dell. Adweek Magazines' Technology Marketing. Rertieved on June 5, 2009 from WVU IMC 611 week 3 readings.
McDaniels, C and R Gates (2008). Marketing Research Essentials. John Wiley.
SEC (March 31, 2009). Form 10-Q for Leapfrog Enterprises. Retrieved on May 27, 2009 from http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/displayfilinginfo.aspx?FilingID=6580220-812-158026&type=sect&TabIndex=2&companyid=108193&ppu=%252fdefault.aspx%253fcik%253d1138951
Sliwa, Carol (1/8/2001). Facing Tough Rivals, eToys Nears Oblivion. Computerworld. Retrieved on May 29, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
A regional toy company is considering the Internet as a selling channel and commissioned a background research report to decide if this retailing channel warrants further investigation. I used the Internet to do background research on toy retailing on the Internet. McDaniel and Gates (2008, p 86) recommend listing the distinctive words that might identify articles as a first step for an Internet search. I chose the following words: buy educational toys online. For my first search I did not try to enclose phrases or clichés in quotes because I wanted to see a wider range of results to get other ideas for searching. This starting gambit hit a rich vein of useful material. In addition to educational toy company Web sites, I found this blog that reviews educational toy companies: Suite 101.
The companies reviewed in the blog such as The Discovery Channel provided useful information. Moreover, I followed the McDaniel and Gates guidance (p. 87) to “vary your approach with what you learn,” and picked up some words and other ideas in the review of these companies. E-tailing was a new word and eToys was a high profile failure that merited investigation. I decided to also improve the quality of my source material (see McDaniel and Gates, 2008, p. 87) and started searching with my new terms and information in EBSCOHOST. The following is my report to the toy retailer, call them KidzBiz.
The Market Reality for Online Educational Toy Sales
There is no mistake that revenue growth for online educational toy sales is front-running its brick and mortar relation by a significant margin. Online sales now form a significant share of sales for educational toy companies with the vision to participate in this channel. On example is Fat Brain (see Davis, 2008, p. 1), which has most of its sales online. It also takes advantage of the infrastructure services provided by Amazon to reduce the risk and cost of selling online by sharing Amazon server capacity, technical services and expertise.
Carson (2009, p 1) reports that Fat Brain is now on the Internet Retailer’s Hot 100 List. Furthermore, Inc. Magazine (2008, p 1) reports the astonishing growth in Fat Brain sales of 428% from 2002-2008. It also reports that the company is ranked number 40 in the Top 100 Consumer Product Companies. Not bad for a small family owned business that started in a garage selling educational toys through local stores.
What about established players? According to Internet Retailer (2006, p. 1), Toys-R-Us online sales jumped 20% with increasing strength in both number of orders and average order size. Although they do not specialize in only educational toys, they do sell them and experienced a 33% growth in sales of toys for toddlers. Hughes (p 32) reports that Disney has experienced phenomenal success in selling educational toys by “redefining babies solely as learners whose potential to learn can be released by consuming these products.” The combined message is a powerful indicator that online sales of educational toys for toddlers yield rich returns.
Are there other examples? Consider Leapfrog, an educational toy vendor who sells in brick and mortar retail stores, through its own online store and through online channels like Yahoo Shopping. In its quarterly filing with the SEC (see SEC, 2009, p. 15), Leapfrog reports that it plans to increase its online presence. This is in spite of, or perhaps because of the beating retailers are getting from the economic downturn (see SEC, 2009, p. 14).
The Discovery Channel (2008, p. 12) reported in its 10-Q news conference review that it closed all brick and mortar stores on May 17, 2007 and now will sell its educational products solely through catalog and their online store. They further inform us (p. 3) that they are aggressively investing in their online properties. Web traffic to their Web sites almost tripled from March 2007 to March 2008 from 13 million unique visitors per month to 33 million. Please note that the report does not break out visits to their online store from visits to their informational sites.
What about the high profile failures
The most high profile failure for an online toy company was eToys. Sliwa (2001, p 1) reports that eToys faced strong Internet competition from Amazon. As noted above, Amazon is now willing to partner with toy sellers. Moreover, Gomolski (2001, p. 72) goes into more depth about why eToys withered before Amazon. She reports that the eToys business model was based on competitive pricing but they had neglected to build awareness about their pricing. In addition, they failed to use the Internet to build customer relations of any kind. This resulted not only in inadequate brand awareness but also a failure to connect with children.
Moreover, eToys did not have the critical mass to reach profitability quickly and at the same time did not have cash flow from conventional business operations to sustain itself. The result is that eToys was not able to initially compete online with Amazon and could not sustain itself until it could.
How Can We Trust the Data
Can we trust the information used in this report? The sources are well respected. Inc. magazine, InternetRetailer, ComputerWorld, and InfoWorld are news magazines of note. They follow standard journalistic practice, which is designed to ensure reliable reporting. The Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood is a professional journal. Articles are peer reviewed to again ensure information reliability.
McDaniels and Gates is an academic textbook. It has been reviewed by the editorial board of John Wiley, one of the most trusted publishers. Finally, audited 10-Q statements are filed with the federal government. Heavy penalties under the administrative law are assessed for publishing false information on these statements.
Recommendation
KidzBiz has a lucrative opportunity to expand its sales and establish a presence in a new and growing sales and distribution system, the Internet. That system is placing relentless pressure on traditional brick and mortar operations. Today, KidzBiz is solely dependent on that old tired soldier. The next step should be to review Kidz Biz internal customer, product and sales data.
Johnson (2009, p. 3) says that, “secondary data can be greatly enhanced when merged with internally-generated data.” Kuchinskas (2003, p. 2) reports that in 2000 Dell experienced declining growth in the educational market because of tightening education budgets. They responded with a database-marketing program to the education sector. Database marketing on the Internet should enhance KidzBiz sales.
References
Carson, Mark (January 8, 2009). Fat Brain Toys Named To Internet Retailer’s 2009 Hot 100 List. Fat Brain Press Release. Retrieved on May 26, 2009 from http://www.fatbraintoys.com/about_us/press.cfm?pr_id=62
Davis, Don (September 2008). Advantage Amazon. Internet Retailer. Retrieved on May 26, 2009 from http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=27583
Discovery Holding (May 8, 2008). Discovery Holding Company First Quarter Earnings Release. Retrieved on May 27, 2009 from http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-08-2008/0004809260&EDATE
Gomolski, Barb (02/05/2001). Going global: Some lessons from eToys and Yahoo that might help you. InfoWorld. Retrieved on May 29, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Hughes, P (March 2005). Baby, It's You: international capital discovers the under threes. Comtemporary issues in early childhood. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. Retrieved on May 26, 2009 from
EBSCOHOST and http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/viewpdf.asp?j=ciec&vol=6&issue=1&year=2005&article=4_Hughes_CIEC_6_1_web&id=74.6.25.186.
Inc. Magazine (2008). Company Profile: Fat Brain Toys. Retrieved on May 27, 2009 from http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2008/company-profile.html?id=200808330
Internet Retailer (June 21, 2006). Toysrus.com swings into the black in first quarter. Retrieved on May 26, 2009 from http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=18996
Johnson, E. (2009). Using Secondary Data & Databases. Retrieved on May 30, 2009 from WVU www.imc.wvu.edu.
Kuchinskas, Susan (Sep 2003). Data-based Dell. Adweek Magazines' Technology Marketing. Rertieved on June 5, 2009 from WVU IMC 611 week 3 readings.
McDaniels, C and R Gates (2008). Marketing Research Essentials. John Wiley.
SEC (March 31, 2009). Form 10-Q for Leapfrog Enterprises. Retrieved on May 27, 2009 from http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/displayfilinginfo.aspx?FilingID=6580220-812-158026&type=sect&TabIndex=2&companyid=108193&ppu=%252fdefault.aspx%253fcik%253d1138951
Sliwa, Carol (1/8/2001). Facing Tough Rivals, eToys Nears Oblivion. Computerworld. Retrieved on May 29, 2009 from EBSCOHOST.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Using ColdFusion to add XML data to a SQL database
Using the ColdFusion XML document object can present some unexpected challenges when updating databases. Variable references to elements in this structure do not return values as one might expect but instead return new structures. Useful ColdFusion functions such as <cfoutput> resolve these new structures into values behind the scene, which can mislead you when trying to debug wrong values being placed into the database.
As an example, consider the following. An xml file has a field named ICN, among others. We will read the file and update a SQL database. First, we get a file handle.
< cffile variable="gmrXML" file=" “wits.xml" action="read">
Then a ColdFusion XML Document Object datatype, using our file handle and the ColdFusion xmlParse() function:
< cfset myxml=" xmlParse(gmrXML)">
When we use cfoutput to see what we have, all is well:
<cfoutput>
<cfloop to="#arrayLen(myXML.incidentList.Incident)#" from="1" index="i">
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].ICN#
…
The output on our Web page shows the ICN value we expect:
200458431
Good enough. We now add it to our database with the following code:
<cfquery datasource="SMC" name="loadSMC">
Insert into aIncident(ICN)
values(#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].ICN#
< /cfquery>
and when we look, the value in the ICN column in the database is not 200458431 but instead is
<?xml version="1.0"?>
This disappointing result is because in the cfquery above, we were treating the ICN reference as a value. cfouput helped in this deception because we could treat it as a value with this sophisticated function. A look at cfdump shows what happened.
Here is a dump of the reference:
As an example, consider the following. An xml file has a field named ICN, among others. We will read the file and update a SQL database. First, we get a file handle.
< cffile variable="gmrXML" file=" “wits.xml" action="read">
Then a ColdFusion XML Document Object datatype, using our file handle and the ColdFusion xmlParse() function:
< cfset myxml=" xmlParse(gmrXML)">
When we use cfoutput to see what we have, all is well:
<cfoutput>
<cfloop to="#arrayLen(myXML.incidentList.Incident)#" from="1" index="i">
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].ICN#
…
The output on our Web page shows the ICN value we expect:
200458431
Good enough. We now add it to our database with the following code:
<cfquery datasource="SMC" name="loadSMC">
Insert into aIncident(ICN)
values(#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].ICN#
< /cfquery>
and when we look, the value in the ICN column in the database is not 200458431 but instead is
<?xml version="1.0"?>
This disappointing result is because in the cfquery above, we were treating the ICN reference as a value. cfouput helped in this deception because we could treat it as a value with this sophisticated function. A look at cfdump shows what happened.
Here is a dump of the reference:
It is not a value but a structure. To get to the value we want, we need to add .xmlText to the end of the reference we used so that the query now looks like:
<cfquery datasource="SMC" name="loadSMC">
Insert into aIncident(ICN)
values(#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].ICN.xmlText#
</cfquery>
This works as expected.
Monday, July 20, 2009
ColdFusion Program to Read XML File
Markup encodes and transfers metadata about information such as its structure and format. XML is a markup language, derived from the much earlier SGML, which uses strings of short words to surround the data it is describing. These strings of short words are known as tags. An example would be <name>George</name> <phone>555-1212</phone>.
With XML, a structural model of the data in a file can be encoded along with the data. The structure can be as simple as name and phone or much more complex, with fields like name and phone embedded in other fields like employee. A style sheet, an XSL, can be used to transform the tagged data in an XML file into a Web page. Likewise, a schema file, an XSD, can communicate database information in database operations.
ColdFusion provides a subset of functions that enable a programmer to operate on XML files. A typical operation would be to read an XML file, work on it and write it, perhaps to a database. A datatype in ColdFusion has been created for XML and is known as the XML document object. By doing this, Adobe extends the reach of its already existing ColdFusion structure functions to encompass XML data as well.
Structures consist of objects, properties, and objects embedded in other objects. Name and phone embedded in employee is an example. The dot operator is used to delimit what object in a structure you want to access. The general syntax is <object>.<object>, <object>.<property>. These can be combined to get for instance <object>.<child object>.<property>, so to access my phone number, we would use the dot operator: <employee>.<phone>
The following ColdFusion code uses some of the XML functions to read an XML file. It starts by validating the XML data file to ensure that it is consistent with its schema.
<cfset myResults= XMLValidate ("wits.xml", "wits.xsd")>
<cfoutput> Is Valid? #myResults.status#!
</cfoutput>
Next, a file handle is obtained.
<cffile variable="gmrXML" file=" “wits.xml" action="read">
Then we get a ColdFusion XML Document Object datatype using our file handle and the xmlParse() function:
<cfset myxml=" xmlParse(gmrXML)">
Now we are ready to loop through the data, and display different field values. This test file consists of a series of incidents embedded in an incident list. In addition to its own properties, an incident will have an embedded list, or object, of one or more incident types. In addition to this, it will have, an embedded facilities list, of zero or more facilities involved in the incident. These embedded lists correspond to embedded objects or to child tables in a database.
<cfoutput>
<cfloop index="i" from="1" to="#arrayLen(myXML.incidentList.Incident)#">
Incident<br>
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].ICN#<br>
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].Subject#<br>
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].Summary#<br>
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].IncidentDate#<br>
Event Type<br>
<!---Here is an inner loop to get all Event Types for the Incident--->
<cfloop index="j" from="1" to=
"#arrayLen(myXML.incidentList.Incident[i]. EventTypeList.EventType)#">
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].EventTypeList.EventType[j]#<br>
</cfloop>
<br>Facilities<br>
<cfif StructKeyExists(myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].FacilityList,"Facility")>
<!---Here is an inner loop to get all Facilities for the Incident--->
<cfloop index="j" from="1" to
"#arrayLen(myXML.incidentList.Incident[i]. FacilityList.Facility)#">
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].FacilityList.Facility[j].FacilityType#<br>
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].FacilityList.Facility[j].Indicator#<br>
</cfloop>
<cfelse>
No facility for this one
</cfif>
</cfloop>
</cfoutput>
The ColdFusion arraylen is used in the “To” parameter of our loop to return the number of Incidents in this incidentlist. There is one incidentlist per file. Our dot operator starts with the file handle, then refers to the incidentlist we know to be in file (because we validated), and the particular incident is referenced with our index variable [i]:
myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].ICN
The incident number property, ICN, is accessed from the record just read from the file. For EventType, it is very similar. Since we know we will have at least one Event Type in every incident (one or more), the following code is sufficient:
myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].EventTypeList.EventType[j]
On the other hand, we may not have a facility (zero or more) and will get a null pointer exception if we try to dereference a facility in an empty facilitylist. We need to use the ColdFusion StructKeyExists function to test if a facility object is embedded in the facilitylist for the current record.
<cfif StructKeyExists(myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].FacilityList,"Facility")>
If so, then we loop through the facilities involved in the incident, else we indicate no facility.
With XML, a structural model of the data in a file can be encoded along with the data. The structure can be as simple as name and phone or much more complex, with fields like name and phone embedded in other fields like employee. A style sheet, an XSL, can be used to transform the tagged data in an XML file into a Web page. Likewise, a schema file, an XSD, can communicate database information in database operations.
ColdFusion provides a subset of functions that enable a programmer to operate on XML files. A typical operation would be to read an XML file, work on it and write it, perhaps to a database. A datatype in ColdFusion has been created for XML and is known as the XML document object. By doing this, Adobe extends the reach of its already existing ColdFusion structure functions to encompass XML data as well.
Structures consist of objects, properties, and objects embedded in other objects. Name and phone embedded in employee is an example. The dot operator is used to delimit what object in a structure you want to access. The general syntax is <object>.<object>, <object>.<property>. These can be combined to get for instance <object>.<child object>.<property>, so to access my phone number, we would use the dot operator: <employee>.<phone>
The following ColdFusion code uses some of the XML functions to read an XML file. It starts by validating the XML data file to ensure that it is consistent with its schema.
<cfset myResults= XMLValidate ("wits.xml", "wits.xsd")>
<cfoutput> Is Valid? #myResults.status#!
</cfoutput>
Next, a file handle is obtained.
<cffile variable="gmrXML" file=" “wits.xml" action="read">
Then we get a ColdFusion XML Document Object datatype using our file handle and the xmlParse() function:
<cfset myxml=" xmlParse(gmrXML)">
Now we are ready to loop through the data, and display different field values. This test file consists of a series of incidents embedded in an incident list. In addition to its own properties, an incident will have an embedded list, or object, of one or more incident types. In addition to this, it will have, an embedded facilities list, of zero or more facilities involved in the incident. These embedded lists correspond to embedded objects or to child tables in a database.
<cfoutput>
<cfloop index="i" from="1" to="#arrayLen(myXML.incidentList.Incident)#">
Incident<br>
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].ICN#<br>
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].Subject#<br>
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].Summary#<br>
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].IncidentDate#<br>
Event Type<br>
<!---Here is an inner loop to get all Event Types for the Incident--->
<cfloop index="j" from="1" to=
"#arrayLen(myXML.incidentList.Incident[i]. EventTypeList.EventType)#">
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].EventTypeList.EventType[j]#<br>
</cfloop>
<br>Facilities<br>
<cfif StructKeyExists(myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].FacilityList,"Facility")>
<!---Here is an inner loop to get all Facilities for the Incident--->
<cfloop index="j" from="1" to
"#arrayLen(myXML.incidentList.Incident[i]. FacilityList.Facility)#">
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].FacilityList.Facility[j].FacilityType#<br>
#myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].FacilityList.Facility[j].Indicator#<br>
</cfloop>
<cfelse>
No facility for this one
</cfif>
</cfloop>
</cfoutput>
The ColdFusion arraylen is used in the “To” parameter of our loop to return the number of Incidents in this incidentlist. There is one incidentlist per file. Our dot operator starts with the file handle, then refers to the incidentlist we know to be in file (because we validated), and the particular incident is referenced with our index variable [i]:
myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].ICN
The incident number property, ICN, is accessed from the record just read from the file. For EventType, it is very similar. Since we know we will have at least one Event Type in every incident (one or more), the following code is sufficient:
myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].EventTypeList.EventType[j]
On the other hand, we may not have a facility (zero or more) and will get a null pointer exception if we try to dereference a facility in an empty facilitylist. We need to use the ColdFusion StructKeyExists function to test if a facility object is embedded in the facilitylist for the current record.
<cfif StructKeyExists(myXml.incidentlist.incident[i].FacilityList,"Facility")>
If so, then we loop through the facilities involved in the incident, else we indicate no facility.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The Marketing Research Report: Now and in 1964
The information obtained from marketing research is useful for analysis and decision-making. McDaniel and Gates (2008, pp 5-7) state that research is a fundamental means of understanding the environment, and how organizations and individuals exist, work, compete and make decisions. They go on to say that research provides data on the effectiveness of organizational actions, and insights into organizational changes needed to change the outcomes in the environment.
Furthermore, research is the basis for exploring new opportunities in the environment. Research helps segment the environment, and match segments with the characteristics or the product or action. Reporting research findings is an essential part of making it actionable. Johnson (2009, p. 1) advises us “the research report, the final step in the research process, requires thoughtful preparation and presentation.”
What are the key components to a research report?
With one interesting exception, the key components of a research report have not changed much since Boyd and Westphal published their Marketing Research text in 1964. Some forty years on, McDaniel and Gates (2008, p. 468-9) still have the following elements:
Furthermore, research is the basis for exploring new opportunities in the environment. Research helps segment the environment, and match segments with the characteristics or the product or action. Reporting research findings is an essential part of making it actionable. Johnson (2009, p. 1) advises us “the research report, the final step in the research process, requires thoughtful preparation and presentation.”
What are the key components to a research report?
With one interesting exception, the key components of a research report have not changed much since Boyd and Westphal published their Marketing Research text in 1964. Some forty years on, McDaniel and Gates (2008, p. 468-9) still have the following elements:
- Title Page: The name of project.
- Table of contents: A list of major sections.
- Executive summary: Key findings and recommendations.
- Background: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
- Methodology: although Boyd, et al organize this with three major subsections, the research design, collections methods, and sampling.
- Findings: A summary of results for every question in the survey.
- Appendices
Boyd and Westphal have these same sections but also include a major section on Limitations. They note (1964, p. 575) that “A good report sells the results of the study, but it should not oversell. Every project has limitations.”
McDaniel and Gates (p. 470) tell us that the report interprets findings to arrive at conclusions using induction and then deduces recommendations from the conclusions. Induction starts (pp 470-2) by examining one-dimensional tables and then it cross tabulates to see how characteristics both independently and in tandem affect the dependent variable. A recommendation explains how a differential advantage can be obtained (p. 472). Finally, contrary to popular belief, the report does use pictures and graphs.
How would you incorporate those components into an effective research presentation?
Rubin and Babbie (2005, p. 661) admonish us to know our audience. They emphasize that the report writer must distinguish between professional colleagues and business readers. It is critical to not make assumptions about the existing knowledge of business readers. They go on to say that with business readers it is best to keep terminology simple and clear.
Furthermore, summaries and visuals appeal to business readers as does expressing the implications for their area of operations. Neal (1998, p. 23) recommends that we take time to explain complex analysis and data to our business audience. Doing so will build confidence in the research.
Boyd and Westfall (1964, p. 570) say that to make the report effective, start at the beginning. The report writer must keep the study objectives in mind when writing the report. The writer should be selective of what is included in the report, making sure it is related to the objectives. McDaniel and Gates (2008, p. 468) likewise suggest keeping the report strictly oriented to the objectives. They say, “The genesis of the report and the researcher’s thinking are the objectives provided by the client….”
McDaniel and Gates further tell us to be storytellers (p. 468). With mountains of information, the challenge to the report writer is how to package it into a coherent message. Story telling helps. They finally inform us that Microsoft PowerPoint is not only used for the oral presentation but often for the written report (p. 470). This has been my experience at work. Vendors, including prestigious firms like Booz Allen, submit final reports as PowerPoints. It is fitting with our over burdening workloads.
How does the written report differ from the presentation in terms of its function and format?
Boyd and Westphal (1964, p. 579) say the oral presentation demands “greater use of dramatics”, in other words more use of visual aids. They also suggest that transparencies, what we now call PowerPoint slides, make greater use of “headline style” writing. McDaniel and Gates (2008, p. 473) note that the presentation is an assembly of stakeholders who need to get “reacquainted with the research objectives and methodology.” They say that a copy of the full report along with the visual presentation should be handed to the participants.
The presentation must succinctly express the following (p. 475) as part of the persuasion process. First, interpret what the data mean and the impact on the organization. Next, we have learned something and does this new knowledge reveal new opportunities? Finally, what could be done better? This last point goes to the Boyd and Westphal inclusion of a Limitations section in the report itself.
McDaniel and Gates (2008, p. 476) offer the possibility of using Web technology to publish the presentation. We have done that at work. It is easy to publish a PowerPoint as a self-contained Web page or as an attachment to a blog. The blog allows for community feedback and commentary. We deal with an organization of lawyers, so we still need the face-to-face and the cross-examination in person, even if we post on a Web page
References
Boyd, Harper and Ralph Westfall (1964). Marketing Research Text and Cases. Richard Irwin.
Johnson, E. (2009). Communicating Research Results & Managing Marketing Research. Retrieved on July 11, 2009 from www.imc.wvu.edu.
McDaniels, C and R Gates (2008). Marketing Research Essentials. John Wiley.
Neal, William D (Spring 1998). The Marketing Research Methodologist. Marketing Research.
Rubin, Allen and Earl Babbie (2005). Research Methods for Social Work. Thompson/Brooks/Cole.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
The HERI College Senior Survey
The Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA executes a national survey every year to better understand the college experience so that higher education can be improved. They use a meticulously laid out questionnaire and this year’s version is available at: GSEIS. Christian and Dillman (2004, p. 78) found that the amount of space and how it is apportioned can affect response. The HERI questionnaire has evenly apportioned and pleasing spaced formatting.
They exclusively use close-ended questions with a mix of dichotomous, multiple choice, and mostly scaled response. While their questionnaire is highly organized, it does not always reflect the principles of questionnaire design espoused by marketing research. Applying these principles would improve their instrument.
They exclusively use close-ended questions with a mix of dichotomous, multiple choice, and mostly scaled response. While their questionnaire is highly organized, it does not always reflect the principles of questionnaire design espoused by marketing research. Applying these principles would improve their instrument.McDaniel and Gates (2008, p. 298) note that dichotomous questions are often subject to measurement error because they offer only black and white choices when many times shades of gray are needed. This is not the case with the HERI questionnaire. Question 6 is the only set of dichotomous choices and they are truly yes/no.
The first three pages of the HERI instrument are mostly scaled response questions. They not only allow seniors to express an opinion about a subject but also calibrate the intensity of that feeling (p. 299). A potential problem with scaled response, remembering category options, is avoided in this questionnaire by its careful design.
The fourth page introduces multiple choice questions. McDaniel and Gates (p. 299) warn that the choices may not cover all alternatives but this may be mitigated by offering an ‘other’ choice. HERI does not do this. They should to improve the questionnaire over time. In addition, Question 27 may have positioning bias. The two positive answers about colleges are positioned where they are most easily seen.
The next question reveals another common problem in the questionnaire. McDaniel and Gates (p. 301) say that words should have the same meaning to all respondents and that, additionally, words used in questions should have a precise meaning. In Question 28 both flaming liberals and draconian conservatives could indicate themselves as moderate. This same issue occurs in Question 13 about drinking frequently or occasionally. What I consider occasional, someone else may consider frequent. Finally, in Question 5, what does the word regularly mean in “regularly communicated with professors?” Specific guidance about how many for frequent, occasional and regular is needed.
Sensitive or embarrassing questions are handled by HERI in a robotic manner. In Question 13 students are directly asked about mental depression, the need for professional counseling, and alcoholic drinking habits.
Question 19 asks about marijuana, same sex marriage, denial of services to undocumented immigrants, and affirmative action. Many may be sensitive to these issues and McDaniel and Gates (p. 327) recommend using one of two techniques in such cases: 1.) Counterbiasing; or 2.) 3rd person voice. HERI does not. This is not an anonymous survey.
McDaniel and Gates (p. 301) also admonish us not to ask questions the respondents could not answer correctly. In Question 14, HERI asks students to guess what quintile they are in for various aptitudes or domain knowledges. Ambrose and Anstey (2007, p. 28) state that an important topic category in a survey is measuring the knowledge of the population. By this they mean discovering the levels of understanding. However, in the HERI survey, the students would have no frame of reference for knowing the answers to the various parts of Question 14 and so McDaniel and Gates apply with full force.
McDaniel and Gates (p. 302) also recommend that time periods be kept recent. They highlight a question as poorly worded because its time period is a year. In Question 9 of the HERI instrument, the time period of a year is used in twenty parts to that question. As McDaniel and Gates ask, unless the students kept an accurate diary of each of the twenty activities, how would they know? A better approach is to ask how much the respondent has done in the past two weeks and then if that is more or less than average (p. 302).
All in all, I found the HERI questionnaire to be well done but a few questions could be fine tuned to get more complete and more accurate results.
References
Ambrose, David and John Anstey (March 2007). Better Suvey Design is Stick for an Answer. ABA Bank Marketing. Retieved from http://www.imc.wvu.edu/ on July 4, 2009.
Christian, L and D DIllman (Spring 2004). THE INFLUENCE OF GRAPHICAL AND SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE MANIPULATIONS ON RESPONSES. Retieved from http://www.imc.wvu.edu/ on July 4, 2009.
McDaniels, C and R Gates (2008). Marketing Research Essentials. John Wiley.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Assessing the Impact of a Sexual Harassment Lawsuit at a Metropolitan Restuarant
A popular metropolitan restaurant recently suffered the negative publicity of a sexual harassment lawsuit. The courts settled the suit in favor of the restaurant, but an interesting question is how would we measure the damage to the restaurants brand equity. Since I had our mandatory Fair Employment Practices training this week, it's an apropos topic.
Exploratory Research
Harris and Smith (2002, p. C1) define a crisis as any newsworthy event that has happened or will happen in the near future that has the potential for adverse publicity. The sexual harassment event associated with the Restaurant X satisfies their definition of a crisis. In his section on public relations, Duncan (2005, p. 563) says that this type of incident should be treated as a crisis because of the extreme impact it poses to Restaurant X’s “reputation and brand relationships.”
Lichtenstein, et al (2004, p. 29) reinforce Duncan’s premise by noting that corporate social responsibility strengthens brand equity and say its impact goes beyond sales. This means that a consumer perception of Restaurant X as an environment that condones sexual harassment will have a negative effect not only on sales. A reduction of brand equity will also result and with it there will be a consequent loss of owner equity. It is vitally important for Restaurant X to verify through marketing research the attitudes its publics harbor about the incident.
What type of survey research should be initiated
Management should already understand that negative publicity in general affects customer retention. They will want to know if their specific sexual harassment publicity is reducing their customer retention and sales. The goal of this marketing research should be to “shed light on [this specific] association or relationship,” which is how McDaniel and Gates (2008, p. 49) characterize a descriptive research design.
The basic method of research should be survey. McDaniel and Gates (p. 50) inform us that experiments are typically used only for causal research designs. Observation would be an inefficient approach to determine opinions and attitudes on the restaurant’s sexual harassment case because there is no direct interaction with the customer. Surveys are “an orderly and structured approach” to understand “opinions and attitudes.”
This research should be quantitative. Qualitative research is “not necessarily representative of the population of interest,” (see McDaniel and Gates, 2008, p. 110). Surveys are a good tool to find out what factors influence consumers (p. 142); in this case, did the publicity influence customer retention and sales. Of the various types of surveys, I recommend Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI).
Why CATI?
In this situation there is a tradeoff between turnaround speed, measurement error, and cost. CATI is the optimal strategy, with Internet Panels a close second. Johnson (2009, p. 2) notes that non-response bias is a significant source of measurement error. He also informs us that both telephone and mail surveys are subject to increasing non-response rates.
Thee (2007, p. 1) reports another problem with telephone surveys for the restaurant: because of the substantial use of cell phones, telephone sampling frames are no longer geographically based. On the other hand, the restaurant public is geographically bound. Thee goes on to say that households with only a cell phone numbered 16% in 2007 (p. 1) and this could grow to 25% by the end of 2008.
CATI can help here. McDaniel and Gates (p. 152) inform us that the computer can customize each questionnaire according to how the respondent answers previous questions. We could ask if they are currently in the metro area. If not and they have no intention of visiting the metro area, then we could close the interview.
McDaniel and Gates (p. 365) also report on a method for determining the extent of nonresponse bias. They cite two studies that suggest nonrespondents are not a clearly distinct subgroup from the general population. To find out for certain in this case, only a very small follow-up survey using nonrespondents as the sampling frame need be conducted.
Johnson (2009, p. 1) informs us that restaurants make frequent use of self-administered surveys. The reason they are not the best solution in this case, is that customers already lost to Restaurant X because of the lawsuit won’t be patronizing the restaurant anymore. In addition, a self-administered survey approach will not have the same quick turnaround as online techniques (see Johnson, 2009, p. 2).
Interviews such as door-to-door and executive would have little traction with the immediate needs of the restaurant. Mall intercept interviews would be too expensive, and in addition, McDaniel and Gates (2008, p. 172) say to avoid such an approach when the incidence rate is low because it will be too expensive. The number of patrons of Restaurant X is low compared to the total population in the metropolitan area.
Internet Panels have been used in other crisis management situations. Duncan (2005, p. 564) reports that McDonald’s setup a panel to protect its reputation from the fallout over a fraud perpetrated in its promotional games. McDaniel and Gates (p. 156) also discuss the advantages of panels. Johnson (p. 2) informs us that “companies like Survey Sampling” provide consulting expertise to “construct a sample to match the target population” and then rent a panel from their large database. Still, as Johnson (p. 2) observes “The internet population is not representative of the population as a whole,” and “Internet users are concerned with privacy and, thus, may refuse the survey.”
What topics should the survey cover?
First up is demographics such as gender, age, and race. The next topic would investigate level of awareness. It would be used to discover the news sources that informed the respondent about the lawsuit, as well as their knowledge about the particulars of the case, and knowledge about Restaurant X policies and training to prevent sexual harassment.
The third topic would be to determine their opinion about how Restaurant X handled the sexual harassment accusation. Duncan (2005, p. 563) says that for such a crisis it is a good idea to survey opinion about the company’s level of honesty, helpfulness, speed of response, clarity, and consistency of message.
The fourth topic would be to find out from patrons about their experience with the restaurant. Have they ever witnessed sexually harassing behavior at the restaurant? Has the staff been professional and courteous? The fifth topic would be to establish the factors that influence Restaurant X patron decisions to frequent a restaurant. An important aspect here is how did the sexual harassment lawsuit affect their opinion about Restaurant X and their willingness to be a customer? The sixth topic would be open-ended questions to find out their opinions about what further steps Restaurant X should take.
The survey population
The population is the existing, lost and potential customers of Restaurant X in the metropolitan area. With no further information from the restuarant advertising or news stories, I will assume that the entire metropolitan area should be viewed as potential customers. To focus only on existing customers would not discover the opinions of lost customers. Additionally it would exclude the only source of growth, new customers.
The sampling units and sampling frame
The sampling unit would be households because people tend to go to restaurants as a family or as a couple and not alone. The sampling frame should not be the telephone directory for the metropolitan area. McDaniel and Gates (pp 333-4) list the problems with the telephone directory including problems with unlisted numbers and their prevalence among non-whites and younger people. Instead random-digit dialing from phone exchanges in the metropolitan area will form our sampling frame.
Simple random sampling will be used to create our random-digit dialing frame. Johnson (2009, p. 3) notes that probability sampling, like simple random, gives the researcher a representative sample of the population. Specifically for simple random sampling, a computer can randomly select the sample and this is consistent with the CATI approach I recommend.
The sample size
The main difference between qualitative and quantitative research is sample size (see McDaniel and Gates, 2009, p.108). Managers are more “comfortable with marketing research based on large samples and high levels of statistical significance” (p. 109). Another factor that will affect our sample size is the required confidence level. Wilson and Ogden (2004, p. 56) say that
(The calculator is at Creative Research Systems).
Given the gravity of sexual harassment allegations and the damage to brand equity, owner equity and ongoing sales, I recommend a sample size of 384.
References
Creative Research Systems (2009). Sample Size Calculator. Retrieved on June 17, 2009 from http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm
Duncan, Tom (2005). Principles of Advertising and IMC. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Harris and Smith Public Affairs (July 3, 2002). Public Relations Handbook. Retrieved on June 10, 2009 from http://www.awphd.org/PRhandbook/PRhandbook.pdf.
Johnson, E. (2009). Quantitative Research: Surveys & Sampling. Retrieved on June 11, 2009 from http://www.imc.wvu.edu/.
Lichtenstein, Donald R., Drumwright, Minette E. & Bridgette M. Braig (October 2004). The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on Customer Donations to Corporate-Supported Nonprofits. Retrieved on June 9, 2009 from http://www.imc.wvu.edu/.
McDaniels, C and R Gates (2008). Marketing Research Essentials. John Wiley.
Thee, Megan (December 7, 2007). Cellphones Challenge Poll Sampling. NY Times. Retrieved on June 10, 2009 from www.imc.wvu.edu.
Wilson, Laurie and Ogden, Joseph (2004). Strategic Communications Planning, 4th Ed. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
Exploratory Research
Harris and Smith (2002, p. C1) define a crisis as any newsworthy event that has happened or will happen in the near future that has the potential for adverse publicity. The sexual harassment event associated with the Restaurant X satisfies their definition of a crisis. In his section on public relations, Duncan (2005, p. 563) says that this type of incident should be treated as a crisis because of the extreme impact it poses to Restaurant X’s “reputation and brand relationships.”
Lichtenstein, et al (2004, p. 29) reinforce Duncan’s premise by noting that corporate social responsibility strengthens brand equity and say its impact goes beyond sales. This means that a consumer perception of Restaurant X as an environment that condones sexual harassment will have a negative effect not only on sales. A reduction of brand equity will also result and with it there will be a consequent loss of owner equity. It is vitally important for Restaurant X to verify through marketing research the attitudes its publics harbor about the incident.
What type of survey research should be initiated
Management should already understand that negative publicity in general affects customer retention. They will want to know if their specific sexual harassment publicity is reducing their customer retention and sales. The goal of this marketing research should be to “shed light on [this specific] association or relationship,” which is how McDaniel and Gates (2008, p. 49) characterize a descriptive research design.
The basic method of research should be survey. McDaniel and Gates (p. 50) inform us that experiments are typically used only for causal research designs. Observation would be an inefficient approach to determine opinions and attitudes on the restaurant’s sexual harassment case because there is no direct interaction with the customer. Surveys are “an orderly and structured approach” to understand “opinions and attitudes.”
This research should be quantitative. Qualitative research is “not necessarily representative of the population of interest,” (see McDaniel and Gates, 2008, p. 110). Surveys are a good tool to find out what factors influence consumers (p. 142); in this case, did the publicity influence customer retention and sales. Of the various types of surveys, I recommend Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI).
Why CATI?
In this situation there is a tradeoff between turnaround speed, measurement error, and cost. CATI is the optimal strategy, with Internet Panels a close second. Johnson (2009, p. 2) notes that non-response bias is a significant source of measurement error. He also informs us that both telephone and mail surveys are subject to increasing non-response rates.
Thee (2007, p. 1) reports another problem with telephone surveys for the restaurant: because of the substantial use of cell phones, telephone sampling frames are no longer geographically based. On the other hand, the restaurant public is geographically bound. Thee goes on to say that households with only a cell phone numbered 16% in 2007 (p. 1) and this could grow to 25% by the end of 2008.
CATI can help here. McDaniel and Gates (p. 152) inform us that the computer can customize each questionnaire according to how the respondent answers previous questions. We could ask if they are currently in the metro area. If not and they have no intention of visiting the metro area, then we could close the interview.
McDaniel and Gates (p. 365) also report on a method for determining the extent of nonresponse bias. They cite two studies that suggest nonrespondents are not a clearly distinct subgroup from the general population. To find out for certain in this case, only a very small follow-up survey using nonrespondents as the sampling frame need be conducted.
Johnson (2009, p. 1) informs us that restaurants make frequent use of self-administered surveys. The reason they are not the best solution in this case, is that customers already lost to Restaurant X because of the lawsuit won’t be patronizing the restaurant anymore. In addition, a self-administered survey approach will not have the same quick turnaround as online techniques (see Johnson, 2009, p. 2).
Interviews such as door-to-door and executive would have little traction with the immediate needs of the restaurant. Mall intercept interviews would be too expensive, and in addition, McDaniel and Gates (2008, p. 172) say to avoid such an approach when the incidence rate is low because it will be too expensive. The number of patrons of Restaurant X is low compared to the total population in the metropolitan area.
Internet Panels have been used in other crisis management situations. Duncan (2005, p. 564) reports that McDonald’s setup a panel to protect its reputation from the fallout over a fraud perpetrated in its promotional games. McDaniel and Gates (p. 156) also discuss the advantages of panels. Johnson (p. 2) informs us that “companies like Survey Sampling” provide consulting expertise to “construct a sample to match the target population” and then rent a panel from their large database. Still, as Johnson (p. 2) observes “The internet population is not representative of the population as a whole,” and “Internet users are concerned with privacy and, thus, may refuse the survey.”
What topics should the survey cover?
First up is demographics such as gender, age, and race. The next topic would investigate level of awareness. It would be used to discover the news sources that informed the respondent about the lawsuit, as well as their knowledge about the particulars of the case, and knowledge about Restaurant X policies and training to prevent sexual harassment.
The third topic would be to determine their opinion about how Restaurant X handled the sexual harassment accusation. Duncan (2005, p. 563) says that for such a crisis it is a good idea to survey opinion about the company’s level of honesty, helpfulness, speed of response, clarity, and consistency of message.
The fourth topic would be to find out from patrons about their experience with the restaurant. Have they ever witnessed sexually harassing behavior at the restaurant? Has the staff been professional and courteous? The fifth topic would be to establish the factors that influence Restaurant X patron decisions to frequent a restaurant. An important aspect here is how did the sexual harassment lawsuit affect their opinion about Restaurant X and their willingness to be a customer? The sixth topic would be open-ended questions to find out their opinions about what further steps Restaurant X should take.
The survey population
The population is the existing, lost and potential customers of Restaurant X in the metropolitan area. With no further information from the restuarant advertising or news stories, I will assume that the entire metropolitan area should be viewed as potential customers. To focus only on existing customers would not discover the opinions of lost customers. Additionally it would exclude the only source of growth, new customers.
The sampling units and sampling frame
The sampling unit would be households because people tend to go to restaurants as a family or as a couple and not alone. The sampling frame should not be the telephone directory for the metropolitan area. McDaniel and Gates (pp 333-4) list the problems with the telephone directory including problems with unlisted numbers and their prevalence among non-whites and younger people. Instead random-digit dialing from phone exchanges in the metropolitan area will form our sampling frame.
Simple random sampling will be used to create our random-digit dialing frame. Johnson (2009, p. 3) notes that probability sampling, like simple random, gives the researcher a representative sample of the population. Specifically for simple random sampling, a computer can randomly select the sample and this is consistent with the CATI approach I recommend.
The sample size
The main difference between qualitative and quantitative research is sample size (see McDaniel and Gates, 2009, p.108). Managers are more “comfortable with marketing research based on large samples and high levels of statistical significance” (p. 109). Another factor that will affect our sample size is the required confidence level. Wilson and Ogden (2004, p. 56) say that
"Survey research requires at least a 95% confidence level and a margin of error of less than 5% to be actionable.”Do we need to know the exact population size for the metropolitan area? Using a sample size calculator it quickly becomes apparent that after a certain point increasing population size by an order of magnitude does not increase sample size requirements by more than a single person or two. Creative Research Systems (2009, p. 1) provides a Sample Size Online Calculator that I used to calculate the following sample sizes:
(The calculator is at Creative Research Systems).Given the gravity of sexual harassment allegations and the damage to brand equity, owner equity and ongoing sales, I recommend a sample size of 384.
References
Creative Research Systems (2009). Sample Size Calculator. Retrieved on June 17, 2009 from http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm
Duncan, Tom (2005). Principles of Advertising and IMC. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Harris and Smith Public Affairs (July 3, 2002). Public Relations Handbook. Retrieved on June 10, 2009 from http://www.awphd.org/PRhandbook/PRhandbook.pdf.
Johnson, E. (2009). Quantitative Research: Surveys & Sampling. Retrieved on June 11, 2009 from http://www.imc.wvu.edu/.
Lichtenstein, Donald R., Drumwright, Minette E. & Bridgette M. Braig (October 2004). The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on Customer Donations to Corporate-Supported Nonprofits. Retrieved on June 9, 2009 from http://www.imc.wvu.edu/.
McDaniels, C and R Gates (2008). Marketing Research Essentials. John Wiley.
Thee, Megan (December 7, 2007). Cellphones Challenge Poll Sampling. NY Times. Retrieved on June 10, 2009 from www.imc.wvu.edu.
Wilson, Laurie and Ogden, Joseph (2004). Strategic Communications Planning, 4th Ed. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
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