Marketing Information Systems

In looking at the different marketing information systems, one can only marvel at the thoroughness of companies and the information it collects. Marketing information systems are people, equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing decision makers (Armstrong & Kotler, 2007). This can optimize your sales, and if done right, can help monitor changes, patterns, and wants of consumers.

Information is king, in the land of marketing. Information can help even the smallest problem, by monitoring habits of buyers and looking at patterns in consumer buying. One company who stands out over all the others is AC Nielsen. If you talk about marketing information systems, you can't discuss this without mentioning AC Nielsen. The AC Nielsen corporation provides supermarket scanner data on sales, market share, and retail prices; data on household purchasing; and data on television audiences (Armstrong & Kotler, 2007). This means they are basically the CIA of marketing. AC Nielsen retains information on, us, the consumer, from a wide arrange of sources. They employ people to fill out surveys, mail letters with questionnaires, and other forms of information retention. Lets say The Hershey's Corporation is having a bad year and they need to re-energize sales, they would go to AC Nielsen. The Nielsen Corporation would provide key information about sales pertaining to the Hershey's Corporation. The Nielsen group will then turn the information over to their analysts. The analyst's will then look at the Hershey Corporation itself to see if there is a correlation between slumping sales, and consumer purchases. The Nielsen group will then make adjustments to make the Hershey Corporation more profitable.

AC Nielsen is an old company that started in 1923. Since then, they have grown into a global power and have data in over 100 countries.