'90s Will See 'Great Leap Forward' in Sales Tracking

Given the near universal saturation of Universal Product Code (UPC) scanner penetration expected in the 1990s, further changes in the marketing measurement business are likely to take 4 major directions. The changes should stimulate an even more dramatic revolution in how packaged good companies analyze and evaluate marketing data. For astute marketers, the changes should represent a step forward in improved marketing productivity. The future will see: 1. a movement from sample- to census-based scanner market reporting systems, 2. much finer detail in reported time and market-level information from scanner-based sales tracking systems, 3. the development of automated/expert systems at both ends of the information stream, and 4. a broader expansion of the concept of single-source information systems.