JMAR Service

A needs survey is to find consumers' needs that are not fulfilled by conventional products. It is essential in the survey to look in on potential needs that are not recognized by consumers themselves as well as visible consumer needs. It is conducted to obtain clues for creating the concept of a new product mainly at the initial stage of product development.

Consumers are categorized into several segments (groups) to identify the target segments of your product. The points here are whether the target segments can be found where your product is suitable and a certain level of the sales volume is expected. The points aimed at are psychographic attributes such as "shopping attitudes" and "health awareness" as well as basic attributes such as gender, age and place of residence.

Consumers evaluate the acceptance (level) of a new product based on the concept such as functions and appeal points described in texts and illustrations. Various aspects such as attractiveness, purchase intention and appropriate price range are checked. It reduces a risk to develop a new product that will be less accepted by consumers. It also enables to select a most preferable concept by narrowing down multiple candidates.

It is to evaluate that a newly developed product realizes an expected concept appropriately. It is also called as prototype test. The experience is important in this test; thus, the verification is conducted after respondents use or taste a product. Analyzing obtained results makes the points clear to improve a product, which leads to an attractive product with an intended concept.

The suitability of a product package and name is verified for conveying adequately the strength, concept and differentiation points of a product to consumers. The evaluation by consumers in the core target segments of a product is the key. To determine an attractive package and name, multiple candidates for each are required.

Price has a direct impact to the sales volume of a product/service. Inadequate price setting incurs different unfavorable perceptions to consumers: too high price results in hesitation to purchase and too low price results in concerns about the quality. Price testing survey reveals an optimal price range accepted by consumers based on the signaling effect for pricing stated above.

The effectiveness of various advertising activities is measured including TV commercial, newspaper advertisement, internet advertisement and transportation advertising. It reveals the recognition rate of a brand, the brand image and purchase intention that are appealed in an advertisement as well as the awareness of an advertisement itself.

It reveals what kind of images consumers have on brands of your company and competing companies. In addition to the attractiveness of each brand, a brand positioning map can be obtained based on the similarity of respective brand images. This enables to study the proper positioning of your brand in a market and find attractive brand positions where an existing brand does not cover.

It is a study to reveal what type of renewal is required to stimulate the demand of your existing product. It is conducted by formulating hypotheses about revisions of various elements such as concept/appeal points, target customers and methods to communicate with customers. The point here is to find a direction of renewal to stimulate new demand without losing the loyalty of existing customers.

It is to reveal the actual situations of an individual company such as a competing company and a partner company. In the competitive global market, the study on the business strategies of competing companies active in a market are crucial.

Researches on transaction practices and regulations in overseas markets are available. They are unimaginable and operations are unclear from outside; thus, they have to be confirmed before business development.

When entering into an overseas market, it is essential to research partner companies (production outsourcing vendors/sales agencies). On the other hand, if you completely rely on your partners to understand the reality of relevant target market situations, it may jeopardize the judgment of a strategy. The headquarters should directly grasp adequate information.

The point of overseas expansion is to fit your business model to a target local market. After understanding the structure of distribution/sales channel, you have to build up a business scheme for success.

Partner companies such as sales agency is essential for overseas expansion; though, the total reliance on the information from partner companies misleads you about the understanding of real customer situations in a market. The headquarters should directly grasp adequate information.

Price competition may be inevitable in a severe overseas market. You have to restructure a supplier strategy including selection of suppliers and reduction of material purchasing costs after confirming the cost structures of products and services of your competitors.

JMAR supports commercialization/marketization for your new industry creation by multidisciplinary researches based on marketing technology/framework. We evaluate the marketability such as preliminary research for entering into a Japan market via bids, etc.

There are cases that appeal the advantage of a product/service using a phrase like "Number One", "The First Ranked", and "The Top in the World" in advertising. However, using these phrases without objective evidences are prohibited as one of misleading phase types under the Japanese law, Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations JMAR certifies your "Number One" by our highly objective and fair research for verifying/proofing Number One.