Research Guides: ADV 4399: Advertising Campaigns: Overview

Industry Overviews & Analysis

IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
Trends, statistics, & analysis of U.S. industries
View the Industry Research tutorial for more insights.
Passport This link opens in a new window
International business intelligence on industries, countries, & consumers
View the Market Research tutorial for more insights.
ABI/INFORM Collection This link opens in a new window
Business publications with a trade or industry focus
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Scholarly & original business research & company profiles
View the Company Research and Industry Research tutorials for more insights.

Consumer Demographics & Attitudes

Advertising-specific sources may address attitudes toward craft brews, sober curious lifestyle, etc.

High-level demographic tools like the U.S. Census can reliably answer "big picture" questions like, how many people in Texas are between ages 35-39, or are married, or have an advanced degree?

Insider Intelligence/eMarketer This link opens in a new window
Includes access to thousands of data points, forecasts, analysis, and benchmarks. Register with @smu.edu email.
Mintel Reports This link opens in a new window
U.S. business-to-consumer market research & psychographics.
Go to the Databook for any survey to see the underlying questions and the demographic differences in how people answered.
View the Market Research tutorial for more insights.
Simmons Catalyst This link opens in a new window
Demographic & psychographic data, brand & media consumption
View the Simmons Catalyst Training Research Guide for more insights. Simultaneous users permitted: 35
Statista This link opens in a new window
Statistics & studies gathered by market researchers, trade organizations, scientific publications, etc
View the Finding Data tutorial for more insights.

Census Data
A tool that lets you explore U.S. Census data, which includes information about the population, business and economy, and state and local governments.
Census Reporter
Easy visualizations of U.S. Census data.
If the chart as presented doesn't match what you want (e.g., it shows ages 20-29 instead of 21-25), select the link for Show Data and View Table to view the underlying full data table,

Competitor Products & Advertising Copy

Social media and general web searches can be great for this. However, recognize that Google (or Bing, etc.) changes what results you see, based on your past searches! So try to use an Incognito or Private browser, have multiple people do the same search, and see what results are different.

General news article searching is useful to see what competitor products are being mentioned. If you run into paywalls, use our subscription links below for access to multiple newspapers at once.

New York Times This link opens in a new window
NYTimes.com, podcasts, newsletters, multimedia, and live events. Archived articles between 1851-present
Access World News Research Collection This link opens in a new window
Global, national, & regional news
Wall Street Journal, The This link opens in a new window
Access the default edition of Wall Street Journal and WSJ.com articles.
AdAge & Datacenter This link opens in a new window
Advertising industry magazine & market data
To access Datacenter, you must click on it in the top ribbon. This database works best off-campus via the Google Chrome app provided in apps.smu.

AdWeek
An essential industry magazine. Browse by clicking on the dates on the right side or click "search this publication" in the upper left side to search by keyword.

Need More Help?

Naomi Schemm

Contact:

nschemm@smu.edu

214-768-6155

Subjects: Advertising, Applied Physiology and Sport Management, Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship, Corporate Communication & Public Affairs, Design and Innovation, Education, Writing & Reasoning

Class materials

In-class PPT from 1/29/2024

Advanced Google

Site limiting:

Site:.edu, Site:.org, Site:.nlm.nih.gov

Evaluate sources carefully:

Who are the authors? What is their authority or expertise on this subject, if any?
What are their claims?
If they are making claims about consumer attitudes, follow the poll or opinion link back to its original source. Verify claims actually are what they say they are!

How to's

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