Three types of marketing/advertising research exist: 1) developmental, which discovers product concepts and positioning and advertising strategies; 2) confirmatory, which evaluates the soundness of various options; and 3) evaluative, which determines the effectiveness of an advertising strategy. Companies should spend the most time and money on developmental research, although few do, and confine evaluative research to finding out whether the advertising enlightened customers about the product and improved their attitudes toward it. Companies should maintain an in-house reseach function as well as using outside researchers.

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