Syracuse University Library

Who Bought the Butter?A crash course in

consumer research using Experian Simmons

CHOICES 3

Original presentation date: August 26, 2010

Communications Librarian – Michael Pasqualoni mjpasqua@syr.edu

Strawberry Black Pepper Butter on Muffin – June 23, 2008Source: AP Images – SU Library Subscription Database

What is CHOICES 3?

A tool for understanding consumer attitudes and behavior.

Cross tabulates hundreds of consumer product categories and usage data for over 8000 brands.

Cross tabulates data against specific lifestyle demographics and/or media usage preferences.

What is CHOICES 3?

Data is highly competitive & expensive.

Choices data sold to universities is a bit more outdated than what a researcher at an advertising agency or broadcast network might access.

Choices 3 data now @ E.S. Bird Library is a 2007 data release, as well as some 2009 data.

What is CHOICES 3?

data at E.S. Bird Library consists of 2 major survey categories:

Integrated National Consumer Study/Hispanic Consumer Study (adults) – year 2007 and 2009 data

National Consumer Study, Teens (age 12-17) – year 2007 data only

Accessing CHOICES 3 Data Data is not available online.

Access via PCs #1 & #2 and Workstation A, 3rd Floor –

E.S. Bird Library, GSIC (“Geographic and Statistical

Information Center”)

Reports also downloadable to Excel (Bring a flash drive with

you! – if using Workstation A - not hooked to the Internet). PCs

support NETID login, allowing you to save result to the folder SU

provides all students.

Printing is available in the GSIC lab.

Accessing CHOICES 3 Data PC #1 3rd Floor – E.S. Bird Library, GSIC lab (preferred

terminal – contains years 2007 and 2009 data; can login to

terminal using your SU NETID).

PC #2 3rd Floor – E.S. Bird Library, GSIC lab

(contains year 2007 data; can login to terminal using your

SU NETID)

Workstation A – E.S. Bird Library, GSIC Lab

(least preferred terminal – contains year 2007 data; does not

support SU NETID login; to save work must download to

your flash drive; free printing)

What is CHOICES 3? Screenshots that follow represent general

orientation to initial interfaces one encounters.

To become expert students should carefully review available user guides, prior to and during their use of CHOICES 3.

CHOICES 3 User Guides Com Librarian recommends these guides:

• A Guide to Choices 3 Software (available at E.S. Bird Library’s GSIC Lab)

• University of Mississippi - Using Simmons Choices 3

• University of Pennsylvania - Simmons Choices III: Basic 101

• University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire - Video Overviews of CHOICES 3

Ignore sections of the non SU guides that refer only to the

libraries, collections and policies at those universities. All these guides are available at:

http://researchguides.library.syr.edu/advertising

click on the link for “industry and market research.”

CHOICES 3

Features and Functionality at a Glance

Once inside CHOICES 3 - use the change survey window to select a desired survey (Researchers have a choice between analyzing results based on the U.S. population or U.S. households).

Choices 3 Coding Screen: Consists of 3 columns and a bottom screen coding box for advanced searching.

Choices 3 Coding Screen – 3 primary columns: 1) Left column is called “Dictionary Box.” Use that to select product and media types, lifestyle and demographic categories; 2) Center column is called “Answer Box.” Choices made in dictionary box appear here; 3) Right column is a filter box for further manipulation of how results are tabulated and displayed.

Choices 3 Coding Screen – 3 primary columns: In this example, We’ve highlighted a category as to whether someone does or does not drink diet or sugar free cola beverages.

Choices 3 Coding Screen – 3 primary columns: We can add this question to a “column” by selecting “yes,” “no” and “don’t know” and clicking on the “add to columns” button. Alternatively, you can ‘drag and drop’ each item into boxes for columns and rows and (if desired) into the “filter” box

Add to columns button || Add to rows button || columns/rows tab

Choices 3 Coding Screen: A different example. Here we’ve selected “gender” from the dictionary box and added “male” and “female” to the answer box. Next, we’ve clicked the add to rows button to add those gender categories to the rows in our analysis.

A common CHOICES 3 method is to put products or brands into the columns and demographic categories into the rows (e.g., lifestyle demographics, age, gender, psychographic attitudes, etc.)

Choices 3 Coding Screen: Yet another example. Here we’ve added information about drinking diet or sugar free colas into the columns and added information about the age 19 to 24 demographic into our rows. The three bullet points in columns represent, “yes,” “no” and “no answer/don’t know.” The four bullet points in rows represent, respectively, age 19, age 20, age 21 and age 22-24. If we ran this analysis the resulting cross-tabulated table would help us determine which age group is most likely to consume diet colas, in comparison to average diet cola consumption for all adults in the U.S.

Choices 3 Coding Screen: In this new example, we’ve added information about drinking regular (non diet) colas (a product category) to our columns and added information about the late night TV shows a person “viewed yesterday” (a media viewing habit) to our rows.

Choices 3 Coding Screen: To run a cross tabulated analysis that will build a data table you can print out or download to Excel, click on the “run analysis” button. If asked if you’d like to add a filter to your search, you will have the option to continue your analysis or, alternatively – add a filter (e.g., such as filters for gender – male vs. female)

Choices 3 Crosstab View Screen: This is an example of what your results will look like. Columns indicate whether or not a person drinks non-diet cola beverages or did not answer/doesn’t know. Rows indicate late night TV shows viewed yesterday (e.g., Jimmy Kimmel Live, Charlie Rose, etc.)

Choices 3 – What do the results mean?: Sample: Number of survey respondents meeting both row and column criteria.(000): Projected number of US adults who meet both row and column criteria, expressed in thousands.(Vert %): Percent of the column reached by the row.(Horz%): Percent of the row making up the column. Index: Likelihood of the column to “use, consume, read, etc” the row in comparison to the filter. An index of 100 is average. An index of 120 means 20% more likely. An index of 90 means 10% less likely.

Choices 3 – What do the results mean?: Interpreting the Index number: For instance, in this example, adults who watched Jimmy Kimmel Live the previous evening have an index of 119, thus are 19% more likely than average to be consumers of regular (non diet) cola beverages. Adults who watched Charlie Rose the previous evening have an index of 87, thus are 13% less likely than average to be consumers of regular (non diet) cola beverages.

CHOICES 3 (Experian Consumer Research)/

aka: “Simmons Choices 3”

Is a “learn by doing” research tool.

Is a complex consumer research data analysis system likely to impress those who see it listed on your professional resume.

MRI+, Mediamark Reporter, is an SU Library database offering similar data, available online, but less flexible if one wishes to cross-tabulate multiple variables.

CHOICES 3 (Experian Consumer Research)/

aka: “Simmons Choices 3”

Having difficulty? Contact the Com Librarian, Michael

Pasqualoni, at mjpasqua@syr.edu; 443-3715.

GSIC Lab, 3rd Floor – E.S. Bird Library – typical hours

(excluding holidays/break periods):

Mon-Thurs, 10am-10pm

Fri, 10am-6pm

Sat, 10am-6pm

Sun, 10am-6pm