5. The Use of General Information in Marketing Decision Making
| Date | 01 May 1986 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb054889 |
| Published date | 01 May 1986 |
| Pages | 20-24 |
| Author | Mike Tibbetts |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
5. The Use of General
Information in Marketing
Decision Making
by Mike Tibbetts
This is a welcome opportunity to talk about a variety of subjects including, I hope, the
Domesday Project. I am now with BBC Television working on the Domesday Project.
Previously I was with BBC Data which is the in-house information service of the British
Broadcasting Corporation. I was its marketing manager — opening up the resources to
people outside the BBC on
a
variety of
bases,
including commercial reference publications,
an enquiry
service,
the Hulton Picture Library and so on. Before this my entire career
—
16
years — was with Procter & Gamble Ltd, which is one of the largest multinational
companies in the world, making washing powders, consumer products and industrial
goods. Thus I think I can claim a reasonable in-depth history in marketing and marketing
management, with some familiarity with the information world.
What
I
want to do is try to introduce a topic which may not be at the top of your priorities
when you think of the use of information in general marketing management decision
making.
I emphasise the world general because we are not talking about market research
or consumer studies. We
are
not talking about the specialist information
all
businesses need
these days to run their operations and which is often well
supplied.
There is no shortage of
specialist information in incredible depth for people who know precisely what they want.
But
I
would like to throw down
a
challenge to the information services. How many of them
would be able to tackle the following list of information requirements?
(1) The weight of a 10p piece to 3 decimal places.
(2) The minting history of gold sovereigns.
(3) Twenty-five achievements in the last quarter century which symbolise national
progress to the man in the street.
(4) How long it takes to develop a new species of rose.
(5) How to cook a ten-ton cake.
(6) How to price and find a supply source for a Winston Churchill painting.
(7) What the exact topography of a railway line is.
(8) How to book a large orchestra and arrange a concert at the Albert
Hall.
(9) What the original derivation of at least six nursery rhymes is.
These were actual information requirements which I had as a marketing manager, and it
cost me a lot of time, sweat and tears to find out. How many information services could
have helped me? It may help to explain the context so
I
would like to go through some case
histories to illustrate how these information needs came about.
The ten-ton cake was interesting because
I
nearly did cook it. This was for the Royal Jubilee
in 1977, and we had to come up with a celebratory promotion. I happened to have been
given the
Guinness
Book of
Records and I
found that the largest cake
in
the world had been
baked in Calgary, Canada, and it was just short of ten tons. So obviously the promotion
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