Dealing Effectively With Data
Section 4 Using Controlled Vocabulary for Searching
Using Controlled Vocabulary for Searching Databases
Can we use the database to answer marketing questions?
We set up our Jalapeño survey in section three of the text to try and answer some basic
consumer questions about who might buy jalapeño poppers and why. However, at this
point we need to take another look at our database design and decide if the responses
we’re getting to the different questions (our fields) are really going to allow us to
quantify this survey to any extent. In other words, what will happen when we actually try
to query (search) this database to figure out useful information for our marketing efforts
for jalapeño poppers.
Here’s another look at our database as it stands right now:
The responses we’re getting to the questions are all over the board. For example, we
want to know when the respondents tend to eat snack foods. Does it really matter that
they eat at 8:00pm versus 9:00pm? We really want to know the answer in a matter of
broad categories that will help our research. It might make sense in this case to have
response categories of morning, afternoon, and evening. Let’s look at the “where shop”
field as another example. We don’t really need to know that somebody shops at Sam’s
club, orWal-Mart, or K-Mart. As marketers we’re interested that they are making food
purchases at discount stores, instead of a grocery store or a convenience store. We don’t
need to know the specifics of the store name. For example, we might have different
marketing campaigns for our products at a discount store versus a convenience store.
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Section 4 Using Controlled Vocabulary for Searching
Establishing Controlled Vocabulary in our database
We need to do a little redesigning of the responses for our database to more accurately
group our customer’s preferences. Remember when the Library Catalog told you to USE
a particular subject heading instead of the one you originally typed?
This way all books about women in management have the subject heading women
executives. In other words, when you type in women executives as a subject search you
should retrieve all the books that have women executives in the subject field.
We can apply this same concept to our jalapeño survey database to make our fields more
searchable and not have to worry about distinctions that aren’t important to our survey
research. This convention of coming up with consistent names for a particular concept is
called using controlled vocabulary. In the library catalog we’re concerned that our
subject headings for a particular concept, such as women executives, is consistent
throughout the database. For our jalapeño database our controlled vocabulary will be our
consumer responses to our survey questions. We want their answers to be as consistent
as possible within certain parameters, such as they shop at 1)discount store, or 2)
convenience store, or 3) grocery store. Let’s take a look at the controlled vocabulary we
can use for our survey questions that aren’t already yes/no type answers. Here’s a copy of
our survey with the new controlled vocabulary added for responses to each question
(field).
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Section 4 Using Controlled Vocabulary for Searching
As you‘ll note, we’ve given controlled vocabulary to the “when eat”, “time prep”, and
“where shop” fields. For time prep we’ll assume that jalapeño poppers take 10 minutes
to cook. This consistent language will help us when we actually go to query (search) the
database by particular fields. So you’re aware, usually not all fields in a database are
searchable. For example, I haven’t done anything to make the TV snacking field very
consistent or searchable. In the library catalog the information about the book, how many
pages and illustrations, is a separate field. However, there would be no point in searching
this field. It would only answer the questions such as what books are there on women
executives that are over x number of pages. The fields that are searchable or can be used
for queries are called access points.
Database with Controlled Vocabulary
Here’s our revised database with the changes made to the controlled vocabulary:
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Section 4 Using Controlled Vocabulary for Searching
I’ve only inputted 21 records into this database, but if this were a real survey we’d
probably have at least 300. Imagine that we want to query or search this database to
isolate the responses in various fields.
Searching the database by fields (access points)
This is a search by the “when eat” field, also known as an access point. I’ve asked the
computer to only retrieve the records where the respondent said that they eat snack foods
in the evening.
Only evening shows up at the response in the
records selected
You can search by more than one field (access point) at a time to make your search more
precise. In this search we want to find the people who thought the jalapeño poppers were
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pretty good (rating of 3 or 4 or5) and were willing to spend at least 10 minutes in cooking
preparation time (numbers 2 or 3 or 4 or 5). We’ve isolated the fields “rate 1-5” and
“time prep” for this search.
Making a query in an MS Access database
So how exactly do you get MS Access to search the fields with the controlled vocabulary
that we set up in the database? Here’s the database query screen. We’ll pretend that we
only want to find records for survey customers that responded that “yes” they would
purchase the product and that they answered “where shop” as at a discount store.
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Section 4 Using Controlled Vocabulary for Searching
Here are the search results :
How does this translate to library databases?
Imagine you are an indexer that works for the companies that put together databases such
as IAC Searchbank, Business Abstracts, or FIS Online. It's your job to try and make
sense of all the articles and determine what they are really about. In other words, identify
the subjects, as well as things like the author, title, journal name, etc. Take a look at the
following short article from Business Week and identify the main points:
Source: Business Week, Sept 3, 2001 i3747 pEB6.
Title: Irksome--and Effective.(pop-under Internet advertising)(Brief
Article)
Raise your hand if you like junk mail. What, nobody? O.K., who enjoys
telemarketing calls? Still no takers? Fortunately for advertisers, it doesn't
much matter. Advertising isn't a popularity contest, and consumers often
dislike ad tactics that work. Direct mail. Inane TV jingles. Perfume-infused
magazines. Annoying, yes, but they get the job done. That's important to keep
in mind when evaluating the Web's latest ad phenomenon, the pop-under.
If you don't know already, a pop-under is a screen that launches beneath your
browser window while you visit a site such as MSN, Weather.com, or Yahoo! Most
surfers don't notice them until they close their browser and find the
pop-under ads lurking on their desktops, hawking a company or a product.
That's not to everybody's liking. Christine Mohan, a manager at New York Times
Digital, says reaction to the site's pop-under ads has been mixed. "In the
beginning, people were taken aback--they didn't know where it was coming
from," she says. That's an understatement. Everyone I've talked to about
pop-unders, which began cluttering desktops last year, had much stronger
words. "They're horrible," says my neighbor Joy. "Please tell me you're
writing about how they're going away soon."
Sorry, Joy. The Times and others will continue to offer pop-unders--and that's
smart. Assuming ads must be lovable is a myth the Internet community has to
get over, and soon. Dot-coms produced years of creative, cute--and ultimately
useless--television advertising.
Pop-unders, on the other hand, are a powerful marketing vehicle. Take X10,
easily the best-known user of the format. Since launching a pop-under campaign
this spring, the wireless camera maker has risen from obscurity to become the
fourth most visited site on the Web, outstripping even the likes of e-tailer
Amazon.com and auction site eBay. X10 won't talk about results, but it's hard
to ignore the brand-building boost it has gotten from pop-unders. Consumers
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may complain about those ads, but they've seen them.
Other businesses are testing the pop-under waters. They cost more than banner
ads--about $5 per 1,000 impressions, vs. $1 for banners. Early adopters say
they're worth it. Discount e-tailer Half.com Inc. says traffic is up 66% since
it began using pop-under ads on MyPoints.com and The New York Times's site.
Diet company Nutri/System Inc. has an even better claim: Not only are
pop-unders driving site traffic, the visitors are buying. "We are definitely
seeing sales," says Chris Dominello, vice-president of marketing. "It's a
format that works."
And it's on a lot of desktops. Online ad network Fastclick.com Inc. has seen
sales of pop-unders nearly double every month since November, says CEO David
Gross. In that time, the company has served more than 2 billion pop-unders for
20 advertisers on 4,000 sites. Why the surge? Pop-unders are larger than
either pop-up or banner ads, and can present more complex graphics. They
contain anything from discounts to mysterious teasers. "It's a richer ad with
more story to tell," Gross says.
Despite such enthusiasm, there are doubters. Analyst Marissa Gluck of Jupiter
Media Metrix says pop-unders are a mirage. The impressive 10% click-through
rate some have shown isn't as good as it seems: Most visitors leave within
seconds. Only about 4% of them really look at the site, she found in a study.
Still, 4% is better than the sub-1% most banner ads turn in today. More
importantly, 4% is better than less-than-popular--but ultimately effective--ad
strategies already in use. Only 1.2% of Sunday newspaper coupons get redeemed.
In direct mail, a 2% response is typical. Telemarketers know most folks will
just hang up. These tactics elicit consumer groans--yet respectable response
rates. That's why they're still around. If the early returns are any guide,
pop-under ads will be with us for a long while, no matter how much we hate
them.
Clearly some of the main points are items such as: pop-under ads, internet advertising,
effectiveness of pop-under ads, direct marketing, cost internet advertising, junk mail,
banner ads, X10 company, cost of pop-under ads, and statistics for pop-under ads.
In the end the indexer usually is limited to selecting two or three subject headings for
each article. In addition to identifying the main concepts, the indexer must also figure
out what is the controlled vocabulary for these main concepts. In other words, in our
jalapeño database we set the controlled vocabulary for the "where shop" field to be
"discount store" or "convenience store" or "grocery store". The indexer has a list of
controlled vocabulary to work from to describe the various concepts. For example, every
concept about pop-under advertising from effectiveness to cost might simply get the
subject heading: pop-up advertising. You don't have this list to work from when you're
doing your research. I suggest doing a keyword search to find one relevant article. Once
you've found this article take a close look at the official controlled vocabulary subject
headings and redo your search.
This is the record in Business Abstracts for the article that you just read. If I was
interested in pop-under advertising I would select the descriptor internet advertising-pop-up advertising.
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