Tobacco Documents Online

4& Mr R P Ferrls RPF/ela ~ ,'L G. - 4 F E g 1985 ',',: E ...... ~ ,~ .#. *~5 ......... ~b.. . Ist February 1985 ,Mrs C HcBride Imperial Tobacco Limited P.0. Box 6500 Montreal P.Q. CANADA H3C 3L6 Dear Cathy Many =hanks for your letter of January 28th, I have a clearer background on your current position as a result. Your credibility problems do not surprise me unduly since any product development activity tends to develop a heavy reliance on the particular style of information presented to the,, from the sensory testing function. Any divergence from this style requires thinking about and la therefore only really lustlflable if the information gives some edge over the old way of doing ~hin~s. I think the problem is one of convincing people (I include Marke=i.n~ personnel) that the extra conceptual effort involved in interpretlnd~ DELTA results is repaid in new and useful insights re. the cigarettes under test. Your strategy of parallel exercises is very appropriate. It may be interesting for you to share experiences with other DELTA developments. Panels are now operati~ in Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil for example (the latter, under Alvaro Vargas is particularly ~ell integrated into company activities) • I really llke the idea of an array of panel technlquea with strengths/weaknesses clearly ou~llned, this should .help counter the general tendency to expec~ any panel technique to provide all answers to all questions and move you closer to the desired "client oriented" approach. On your second point re. brand imagery I still caution that it is little use talking of "providing a base for extending into the marketplace" ~n ~he absence of clear enthusiasm or mandate for extending DELTA to larger scale cons,-.er based applications. U~ing panel-scale exercises in this respect is likely to provide considerable scope for criticism (sample size, familiarity effects etc) if such exercises are not understood as a stage in a c~itted cycle of development. Its tmrd work pushing a heavy panel up hill if you haven't got something pulling it from above[ r .~ Regarding Projects Sonar and Nariners, my "intuitive feel" for the projects is CZ) satlsfactlon with achievements in terms of coublned Psychology/Behavloural data %J~ collection in the field, and optimistic perplexity regarding the optimum strategy "-- LI~ ..I.. C~ BATCo document for Legal Services • Health Canada 21 May 1999

Hrs C McBrlde~ ITL~ Canada Ist February 1985 for analysing the data. However, I think we have the base for some exciting findings here. So far as briefing you on these projects is concerned, I should point out that Wllmat Tennyson Is currently in contact with Alan Beard to invite my presence at a 3-4 day meeting with marketing personnel to discuss 'marketing futures'. This should mean that I will be in Montreal February Z6th - March Ist (Viking Inn). If you still require briefing it would make sense to do it as a short add-on to that trip, pending the approval of Pat and/or Stuart. I have pre-warned marketing of this possibility. Best regards R P Ferris CID CD BATCo document for Legal Services " Health Canada 21 May 1999