New & Improved! Exciting updates to Vividata's data + functionality

Our Vividata Target Snapshots database has new data and new functionality -- just in time for the busy fall semester!  

I'm still exploring it and discovering all the changes, but thought I'd pause to list what I've learned so far: 

Data: Data from the 2016 Q4 survey wave has been added. The data was gathered during the period of Jan-Dec 2016. Sadly, it appears that the older data has been supplanted. That's a pity as it is often useful to compare data across time periods.

Functionality: 

• Sorting: There's now a Sorted By option in the left pane... very handy for times when you want to quickly sort your bar charts so that, for example, the brands with the most consumers who qualify as "heavy users" or the most consumers in a specific age range will rise to the top. You can also sort by index numbers, rather than just vertical percentages. (Power users will know why that's super valuable... others should check out the practice questions mentioned below!)
    
• Exporting: You can now add up to 10 different charts to an export list, then export them all at once. A definite timesaver when you need to see the data in Excel.
  
    
• Comparing: It's now easier to quickly compare your data to the population overall without always having to export and interpret an Excel spreadsheet.  The Demographics, Usage, and Consumption tabs each now provide a bar chart for all of your "base" consumers (e.g., Canadians M&F age 12+) above the bar charts for each of your target products. For example, you can now tell at a glance that consumers of Red Bull Regular tend to be much younger than our population overall in the following chart. (You're missing the chart legend in this case, but trust me...)
    
  
   
• Bookmarking: Have you ever spent an hour trying to dig up exactly the information you need from Vividata, then been frustrated later by having to go through the whole process again? No more!  You can now bookmark a particular search/view and come back to it anytime... as long as you log in with the same email address when you return. (Speaking as someone who gets distracted easily and often has the database time me out, this is a very welcome improvement!)
  

Never heard of Vividata?  This powerful resource offers brand-level data on the Canadian consumers of many products and readers of many magazines and newspapers. See my earlier blog posts for more about it, but the only way to really learn this complex database is to dive in and retrieve + interpret some information. Fortunately, we've also prepared a new (v4.0) set of practice questions (complete with answers) to help you explore-with-purpose.  Enjoy!

-- Mark
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Mark Bodnar
Business & Economics Librarian
mbodnar@sfu.ca