Comparing the predictive performance of a neural network model with some traditional market response models

The study compares the performance of two statistical market response models (a logistic regression model and a discriminant analysis model) to that of a back propagation neural network model. The comparative performances of these models are evaluated with respect to their ability to identify consumer segments based upon their willingness to take financial risks and to purchase a non-traditional investment product. The empirical analysis is conducted using two different real-world individual level cross-sectional data sets related to the marketing of financial services. If the authors rank order the performance of these models, they find that the neural network model performs better than the other two models. However, the level of performance is not significantly higher than those of the other models. This is in contradiction to the findings in the financial industry applications in the literature, where neural network models have, in general, significantly outperformed traditional statistical response models. The authors believe that the present study is one of the first applications of neural network models using individual level cross-sectional survey data for predicting market response and that the findings have opened the doors to further research about the applicability of neural network modelling using individual level cross-sectional data, as opposed to using aggregate company level data.