David W. Lyon

Dave founded Aurora Market Modeling, LLC in 1996 as a vehicle for consulting on multivariate research design, implementation and interpretation, for both research companies and direct end-users of research.

He specializes in trade-off analyses, particularly discrete choice modeling and conjoint analysis, and segmentation analyses. His technical background is in both statistics and data processing. Much of his technical experience has focused on practical data analysis of survey data and includes extensive experience with descriptive and inferential statistics; survey research methods; sampling; non-sampling errors, measurement and data collection; statistical data management and data structures; and statistical programming.

Dave served for over six years each at Total Research Corporation (more recently) and at Opinion Research Corporation. At each of those firms, he consulted with clients and other staff on applications of multivariate techniques, which has been the main focus of his marketing research experience. Trade-off techniques, including discrete choice modeling, conjoint analysis and their variants, are of particular interest to him. Since 1989, he has completed hundreds of studies using discrete choice modeling and variations on it. He was one of the first practitioners of DCM at a commercial research company, and has written substantial software to aid in designing and analyzing DCM studies. In addition, he has significant experience with factor, cluster and discriminant analyses, perceptual and preference mapping, and particularly with complex and large-scale regression analyses, including path analyses, logistic regression and regression diagnostics.

Dave has worked with clients in a wide variety of industries, particularly pharmaceuticals, but also including telecommunications, packaged goods, small appliances, financial services, information services and others. He has worked in the areas of new product design and assessment, market sizing, pricing, market segmentation, market structure analysis, positioning, and performance measurement and corporate image evaluation. Earlier experience with financial modeling and capital markets, together with three years experience managing a DP department of 35 employees, contributes to his understanding of clients’ broader concerns.

Dave is a member of the American Marketing Association (AMA), the American Statistical Association, the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science. He is a regular presenter on the topic of survey-based pricing research at AMA Applied Research Methods conferences, and has presented related tutorials at seven other AMA conferences, including twice at the Advanced Research Techniques Forum, and at Sawtooth Software Conferences and the 2002 Professional Market Research Society (PMRS) conference. He has also presented at and chaired IIR conferences, and has presented at Fordham University. He is the author of the chapter on Pricing Research in Marketing Research: State of the Art Perspectives, a handbook of the AMA and the PMRS, and “The Price Is Right (Or Is It?)” in the Winter 2002 issue of Marketing Research magazine (for which he received the 2003 David K. Hardin Prize for best article of the year). In 2002, he chaired the 23rd Annual AMA Marketing Research Conference. He is an honors graduate of Princeton University, where he majored in Statistics.

Aurora Market Modeling, LLC
146 Bayberry Lane, Manchester NH 03104, USA
(603) 645-1518
dlyon@aurora2000.com