IBR Market Research Projects

Advertising research

Suitability of advertising in the business press to alter key decision-makers’ perceptions:

The client was planning a major campaign to raise awareness of their products and to improve the image of the company in Germany. Research was undertaken through a number of focus groups in which key decision-makers participated. The findings enabled the client to make important modifications to his communications strategy, to improve the effectiveness of the campaign, by highlighting elements identified as critical to its success.

Attitudinal research

Attitudes to energy management in the UK retail sector:

Programme of 100 personal interviews among the top 300 retailers in the UK to investigate senior managers’ attitudes to energy management. The results showed a wide variation in the extent to which senior staff responsible for energy management made efforts to save on energy costs in their company.

Communications effectiveness

Attitudes to quality papers among designers and printers in Europe:

A detailed investigation into the attitudes of paper merchants and their printer and designer customers to the product portfolio offered by a major paper manufacturer. Focussing on brand awareness, brand equity and communication activities, the research comrised interviews with key paper merchants, 400 interviews with designers and 200 interviews with printers. The research was conducted in The UK, France, Germany and Spain.

Customer needs analysis

Opportunities in the UK market for domestic ladders:

A detailed analysis of attitudes to the client's range of ladders by 500 ladder installers. The analysis enabled the client to fine-tune its product and service offering to meet more closely the needs of its customers.

Customer satisfaction

Building and construction companies’ attitudes to the level of service provided by a major hire and sale company:

Seven individual business groups, all of which are involved in hiring and / or selling products to the building industry sponsored 630 interviews with key decision-makers. The final analysis pinpointed a number of specific areas where management initiated changes to improve the business units’ performance.

Customer satisfaction

Study of levels of satisfaction of paper merchants and their customers of the products and services of a leading office paper manufacturer:

Detailed face-to-face interviews with senior management among paper merchants followed by individual reports on each meeting. These reports were signed off by the merchants, and then sent to the client for review and action. 150 commercial stationers and printers were interviewed to assess levels of satisfaction their merchants' quality of service. As a result, a number of improvements were made, especially concerning delivery performance to the paper merchants.

Customer satisfaction

Performance of a major supplier of thermal paper used for fax and recording chart products:

Customers in over twenty countries in Europe, Africa, South East Asia and Australasia were sent an IBR-designed, self-completion questionnaire. The problem areas for customers were clearly identified from the returned questionnaires and key customers were contacted by telephone and discussions (in their own language) reviewed in depth the areas of product and service quality dissatisfaction. IBR produced a series of detailed recommendations that enabled the client to take remedial action.

Customer satisfaction

Quality of service provided by a leading supplier of cable saturants and fillers:

30 key technical and purchasing decision-makers among leading cable-manufacturing companies were interviewed in Europe, the USA, Australasia and South East Asia. The client then undertook a detailed appraisal of the quality of services offered by the company and implemented a number of changes to improve the company’s competitiveness.