Best Bets for IMC 605/606 - IMC 605 & 606 - Creative Message Strategy & Media Strategy - Research Guides at Eastern Michigan University

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IMC 605 students -

This page lists sources that are most likely to be helpful for your assignment. Additional sources can be found behind the green tabs at left.

Some of these are easy to use, and some are a little tricky. The videos and tips on the How to Find Articles page may help with article research. If you run into trouble, see the Research Help page for ways to get advice.

Best Bets for Market Research/Customer Demographics

Mintel Market Research Reports This link opens in a new window
Detailed market research reports on consumer products include hard-to-find info on consumers.
Advantage: Great info for products/markets covered.
Disadvantage: Unusual site navigation means you can easily miss important content. See tips below. Doesn’t cover all products. Doesn’t cover emerging market countries.
Access Tips: Academic use only.
Standard & Poors NetAdvantage This link opens in a new window
Industry Surveys have current statistics and trends for large industries covered by S&P. Be sure to carefully read this report, as the information is often in the text of the report. Although industry categories are broad, reports often includes information on smaller segments.
Advantage: Covers industries not in Mintel.
Disadvantage: Less info on customers.
Use the Industries tab to browse industries or search for a company profile and find the Industry Survey links to the left.
Statista This link opens in a new window
Search for statistics, demographics, opinions, data series and studies on many topics and industries. Useful for all subject areas.

How to Find the Info in Mintel Reports

The Mintel interface has recently been "improved" and the new interface is pretty awkward. If you aren't careful, it is easy to miss the "meat" of the reports. Students often don't find the full report info - these tips will help:

1. The downloads section does not contain the full report.

2. Look in the sections under Report Content (in purple).
The pages are organized in 5 sections:
Overview
Market
Consumer
Brand/Company
Data
Click on a section to see page titles; click on a title for page text.

3. The pages often include statistical tables. The tables often are shortened and can be expanded.
Look at the table bottom for the link Click here to show full table

4. From a page, you can use the purple Content Map button in the title box at top to view the 5 sections.
Or use the purple arrow buttons near the Content Map button to page through the report.

Best Bets for Issues Research

American Attitudes (ebook)
American Attitudes: Who Thinks What About the Issues That Shape Our Lives provides results from the General Social Survey by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC). Survey topics include numerous questions related to government, work, health, global warming, personal outlook, etc.
Harris Polls
Use keyword searches to find reports or browse by date. Many polls are useful for marketers, even though most are on political topics.

Google Scholar with EMU Full Text This link opens in a new window
Articles will also be useful for issues research and Google Scholar may be a very good source for scholarly articles on issue topics.
Tip: Always access Google Scholar from EMU Library web pages to get links to full text in Library subscriptions.

See Also: Attitudes & Opinions
See also resources listed under the Attitudes & Opinions page.

Best Bets for Researching Local Markets

DemographicsNow This link opens in a new window
Create demographic or consumer expenditure reports, graphs, and maps. Look-up individuals & businesses, or create lists.
Subjects: U.S. demographics & projections, consumer expenditure, market segmentation, retail sales potential, companies, consumer lifestyles & attitudes
Info type: census & consumer expenditure statistics, directory info, Mosaic market segmentation, Simmons consumer data
Search Instruction: Use the TUTORIALS link within the database.
Notes: Most company sales figures are computer-modeled estimates (not actual).
Access Tips: Also available via mel.org

Census Data
The U.S. Census Bureau offers so much information that this site can be a bit overwhelming. You can find statistics on population, housing, businesses, and local governments broken down by state, city, county, or zip code.
My Best Segments Claritas
Offers three types of brief lifestyles reports for specific zip codes. Brief zip-code based lifestyle reports are free: Median age, median income, household composition, and household consumer spending. Other information is subscription based. Check Zip Code Look-up section for reports.
See Also: Population Demographics
For more sources see links under Demographics tab.
See Also: Lifestyles
For more sources, see links under Lifestyles tab.

Best Bets for Ad Expenditure Research

Advertising Red Books - now Winmo This link opens in a new window
Search for advertisers and agencies using the search box at the top of the page.
EMU's subscription does not include: upload a prospect list, Adbeat, WinmoTalk, or alerts.

EDGAR - company search
All companies traded on U.S. stock exchanges must file various reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC makes these reports available via EDGAR. This includes the 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, proxy, registration, and other forms (but often not the Annual Report to Shareholders).

Standard Rate and Data Service - SRDS

Each section of SRDS works differently. The Learn About links have short instructional videos. These will save you time in figuring these out!

SRDS - Standard Rate and Data Service This link opens in a new window
The advertising industry relies on SRDS for details on advertising outlets. Numerous SRDS sources cover various forms of print, broadcast, & digital media, as well as sources of direct marketing lists.
Due to high cost, the library subscribes to 3 SRDS titles:
-Digital > Websites
-Magazines > Consumer Magazines
-Broadcast > TV & Cable.
DemographicsNow This link opens in a new window
Create demographic or consumer expenditure reports, graphs, and maps. Look-up individuals & businesses, or create lists.
Subjects: U.S. demographics & projections, consumer expenditure, market segmentation, retail sales potential, companies, consumer lifestyles & attitudes
Info type: census & consumer expenditure statistics, directory info, Mosaic market segmentation, Simmons consumer data
Search Instruction: Use the TUTORIALS link within the database.
Notes: Most company sales figures are computer-modeled estimates (not actual).
Access Tips: Also available via mel.org

Best Bets for Article Research

Articles can be used to find info on brands, consumer trends, international markets, and new products, and legislation.

ProQuest One Business This link opens in a new window
This database includes business periodicals and scholarly business journals.
Tips: 1.) Try keyword searches, then look for useful terms in the Subject line.
2.) If the article isn’t fulltext in ABI/INFORM, use the Findtext+ link.

Advantages: Indexes most important business journals and periodicals. +Lots of full text. +Displays most recent articles first. +Able to do precise searches.
Factiva This link opens in a new window
Less scholarly articles than ABI/INFORM, but many trade periodicals & newspapers in full text.
Tips: 1.) Set date for period you want. Use AND and OR in searches.
2.) Because Factiva searches full text of article, results can include articles that aren’t highly relevant. A solution is to change ranking of results: change “Sort by” from “publication date” to “relevance”.
Only 6 users at a time. If asked for password, you are 7th--try again later

See Also: Business Research
This guide provides more sources of Business articles, books, reports, etc.

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