A Priori Segmentation
(See also - Market Segmentation)
Market segmentation which is not empirically based.  It involves segmenting
markets on the basis of assumptions, custom or hunches.


ACNielsen Retail Index
Audit of household items, food, personal products etc., at the retail level.


AAU (attitude, awareness and usage) study
Tracking study monitoring changes in consumer attitudes, awareness and usage
levels for a product category or specific brand.


ACASI (audio computer-aided self-administered interviewing)
Self-administered surveying in which the respondent listens to the questions
over headphones. Responses are usually registered using a computer-based
questionnaire.  If responses are recorded on paper it is known as audio SAQ.


Accuracy
The degree of conformity of a sample statistic to the population.


ACORN (See SEGMENTATION)
A classification of residential neighbourhoods; a marketing segmentation
system that enables consumers to be classified according to the type of area in
which they live.


Action devices
Items and techniques used to encourage positive response, e.g. tokens, stickers.


Active buyer
Customer whose latest purchase was made within the last 12 months.


Active Server Pages (ASP)
A web technology used to create web pages on demand from data usually held in a database.


Ad concept testing
Testing used to determine the target audience reaction to alternative advertising
approaches or preliminary ad-concepts.


Ad hoc surveys
Questionnaires administered to the target audience with no prior contact by the
researcher.


Ad positioning statement tests
Testing to determine reactions of the target audience to positioning statements
that are being considered for use in advertisements.


Ad tracking research
Periodic measurements of the impact of advertisements over time.


Address coding guide (CG)
List of beginning and ending house numbers, ZIP codes and other geographic
codes for all city delivery service and streets served by 31,540 post offices
located in 6,601 ZIP codes.


ADI (Area of Dominant Influence)
A television market, as defined by Arbitron, a firm which measures TV
audiences. Each ADI is assigned Arbitron's three-digit numeric code.


Affective component of attitudes
An individual's emotional reactions about an object.


After-only with control group
True experimental design involving the random assignment of subjects to
experimental and control groups but no pre-measurement of the dependent
variable.


AID (automatic interaction detector)
A method of multivariate analysis often used in market segmentation studies.


Allowable sampling error
The amount of sampling error the researcher is willing to accept.


Alternative hypothesis
What is believed to be true if the null hypothesis is false. Also known as the
research hypothesis.


Analysis of variance (ANOVA)
A method of analysis for determining the level of statistical significance of
differences among the means of two or more variables.


Anthropomorphic
A research technique in which participants describe a product, service or brand
in terms of a human being with personality traits so that the participants'
feelings about the object/brand can be determined.


Application Service Provider (ASP)
Company providing
software which is operated
remotely across the internet
using a web browser without
the need to install any
software locally.


Applied research
Any research which is used to answer a specific question, determine why
something failed or succeeded, solve a specific, pragmatic problem, or to gain
better understanding.


Area samples
Samples which include geographic areas as part of the sample design.


ASCII (American standard code of information interchange)
Widely used code for transmission of data from one database to another. 
Usually ASCII text files, similar to MSDOS or other computer text files.


ASP
See: 
Application Service Provider
Active Server Pages

Asterisk bills
USA State laws which require telephone companies to advise subscribers that
they can have an asterisk placed in front of their names if they do not want to
receive telemarketing or telephone interviewing calls.


At-home testing
A product sample is provided for participants to use at home. The reaction to
the product is determined in a follow-up telephone survey, written survey or
in a group session.


Attitudinal scaling
A moderation technique in which participants are instructed to conceptualize
the product or service on a two-dimensional scale, such as price and quality. 
 The goal is to better understand the participants' feelings about the product
or service.


Audio SAQ
Self-administered surveying in which the respondent listens to the questions
over headphones. Responses are usually recorded on a paper questionnaire. 
When the respondent uses a computer-based questionnaire to record answers
it is known as ACASI (audio computer-aided self-administered interviewing).


Audit
The examination and verification of the sale of a product. A method for
measuring sales in a store by counting beginning inventory, adding new
shipments, and subtracting ending inventory.  Also used to determine inventory
lost to theft.


Autocorrelation
The problem of interdependence among successive values of the disturbance
term. The problem with autocorrelation concerns the variance of our estimator.


Automatic interaction detection
Program for segmenting a list from a heterogeneous to a homogeneous market.


Awareness
The proportion of people who are familiar with a product, brand name or
trademark.