Observers of the supermarket industry see no letup in the use of checkout-counter-based target marketing. Sav-More supermarkets have installed an electronic marketing system in their stores. The system allows the stores to do more direct mail promotions by combining the current Sav-More's check cashing cards with the new Sav-More's Bonus Club frequent-shopper cards. The new system uses bar-code

scanners and magnetic cards issued to shoppers to track all purchases. As with most customer databases, demographic information is gathered for subsequent offers to frequent-shopper club members, and psychographic information is tracked whenever customers use the magnetic strip cards to make purchases. Generally, marketing to these consumers achieves better results than free- standing insert (FSI) coupons. The creation of a large computerized file of customers' demographic and psychographic characteristics through the new Sav-More system is called:
a. survey research
b. situation analysis
c. database marketing
d. observation research
e. secondary data

C
Database marketing is the creation of a large computerized file of customers' and potential customers' profiles and purchase patterns.