FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BURKE,
INC. CONTACT:
Carrie
Krysanick, Dan Pinger Public
Relations, 513/564-0700
SPRINT
HONORED FOR ONLINE STUDY UTILIZING BURKE’S CHOICES™
RESEARCH APPROACH
Cincinnati,
OH (July 25, 2001) ¾
An online study conducted using the Burke, Inc., CHOICES™ discrete-choice
approach has garnered Sprint an honorable mention in the 2001 EXPLOR
awards.
The
EXPLOR awards are designed to salute “Exemplary Performance and Leadership in
Online Research” and are administered by the University of Wisconsin’s A.C.
Nielsen Center for Marketing Research and the American Marketing
Association.
Primary
research for the Sprint study honored was fielded by Burke, a marketing research
and business consulting firm, last September. Burke also designed and programmed
the Web survey instrument and performed the complex data analysis the study
required. Ralph Hubbard of Breakthru-Strategies, an industry management
consultant, designed the overall study architecture and created a five5--year forecasting model from the
research results.
“This
research helped Sprint with its year 2000 forecasting, and the model developed
from it shows promise to be an adaptable and invaluable business tool for the
future,” said Stan Frear, group manager of Sprint’s consumer marketing research
division.
Frear
will discuss the study at the 2001 EXPLOR Forum, to be held November 15-17 at
the Hotel Intercontinental in Chicago. Burke senior vice president Jeff Miller
will also present an overview of online research at the event. In addition,
other companies honored this year – including Hershey Foods USA, IBM, and CBS
News – will present the projects that won them their
recognition.
The Sprint
study addressed the increasing convergence of telecommunications and
entertainment services. About 1,500 technically savvy U.S. consumers were asked
to select preferences from sets of individual and “bundled” services offered by
a variety of national and regional providers of local, long-distance, and
wireless telephone service, Internet access, and cable television and other
entertainment content. The service choices in each set were randomized within a
complex set of constraints, resulting in data on 9,000 unique choice
sets.
“It
is doubtful that this research could have been completed except by leveraging
the flexibility of online interviewing,” said Burke vice president Todd
Jacobson, Ph.D., who served as account executive for the study.
Because
Burke’s CHOICES™ approach
was used, a simulator developed from the research allows Sprint to analyze
consumer preferences at an individual level. This information helps Sprint
predict what kinds of services consumers are interested in purchasing – and what
competitive conditions make it likely that they will.
“The nature
of the model makes it possible for Sprint to customize it for specific
communities with different demographic profiles,” said Burke senior analytical
consultant John Seal. “It also can be adapted as national demographic and
technology-usage patterns change over the next several years.”
For more
information on the Sprint research, please see Case History -
Sprint’s Award-Winning Discrete Choice Research.
Editor’s
Note: Founded in 1931 and based in Cincinnati, Burke, Inc. (http://www.burke.com/) is an international
leader in custom marketing research and business consulting, offering services
that link an organization’s key stakeholders – customers, employees,
shareholders – to its financial performance. The firm has offices and affiliates
in 40 countries, offering business solutions through Burke Customer Satisfaction
Associates, Burke Marketing Research, Burke Strategic Consulting Group, Burke
Interactive, Qualitative Services, and The Training & Development
Center.
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