Strategic marketing statistics

Anna Andersson Strategic Marketing BED 2011/12

Statistics gives us a perspective on the world we live in. Whether it is to enter a market as a brand, launch a new product or simply redefine coretarget groups within the domestic market, research is crucial. The most effective way to research a market is through statistics, meaning the collection of data that later is analyzed, organized,summarized and finally interpreted in order to reach to some valuable conclusions for the market research1 . The use of modern statistics and collection of data started around 1749 in Sweden with the socalled Tabellverket, the first systematical collection of statistics of birth, marriage and death2. When collecting statistics a common goal is to determine the causality, meaning the connection betweentwo different phenomenas and what provoked them. It is also crucial to examine the factors of impact, e.g. GDP and children per family. The methods used here would be either through experiment, wherea scenario is tested with certain factors then tested again to find differences and therefore reach a conclusion, or through observation, where data simply is collected and analyzed to reach an endresult. Another well used method is interval estimation, where a sample of a population is used to be examined and therefore determine the nature of the whole population3 . Societies and businesses donot function properly without a solid basis of reliable and objective statistics, which makes them unbearable for decision makers all over the world. In Europe, the most reliable source of statisticsfor countries within the European Union is Eurostat4 . Its key role is to supply statistics to the Commission and other European Institutions with data so they can define, implement and analyzecommunity policies. Not only politicians and governments rely on these statistics, but the public and media needs them to picture the society of today and build their strategic plans on the conclusions of...